Honesty mediates the relationship between serotonin and reaction to unfairness

How does one deal with unfair behaviors? This subject has long been investigated by various disciplines including philosophy, psychology, economics, and biology. However, our reactions to unfairness differ from one individual to another. Experimental economics studies using the ultimatum game (UG), in which players must decide whether to accept or reject fair or unfair offers, have also shown that there are substantial individual differences in reaction to unfairness. However, little is known about psychological as well as neurobiological mechanisms of this observation. We combined a molecular imaging technique, an economics game, and a personality inventory to elucidate the neurobiological mechanism of heterogeneous reactions to unfairness. Contrary to the common belief that aggressive personalities (impulsivity or hostility) are related to the high rejection rate of unfair offers in UG, we found that individuals with apparently peaceful personalities (straightforwardness and trust) rejected more often and were engaged in personally costly forms of retaliation. Furthermore, individuals with a low level of serotonin transporters in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) are honest and trustful, and thus cannot tolerate unfairness, being candid in expressing their frustrations. In other words, higher central serotonin transmission might allow us to behave adroitly and opportunistically, being good at playing games while pursuing self-interest. We provide unique neurobiological evidence to account for individual differences of reaction to unfairness

Ellipsis, economy, and the (non)uniformity of traces

A number of works have attempted to account for the interaction between movement and ellipsis in terms of an economy condition Max- Elide. We show that the elimination of MaxElide leads to an empirically superior account of these interactions. We show that a number of the core effects attributed to MaxElide can be accounted for with a parallelism condition on ellipsis. The remaining cases are then treated with a generalized economy condition that favors shorter derivations over longer ones. The resulting analysis has no need for the ellipsisspecific economy constraint MaxElide

History and Options Regarding the Unfunded Liabilities of Alaska’s Public Employees’ and Teachers’ Retirement Systems

In early 2003, financial analysts working for the State of Alaska announced that the two largest public employee retirement systems in Alaska had become significantly underfunded.3 From fiscal year 2006 (July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006) to date, the state has paid $6.951 billion— (an average of$534.7 million annually)—to pay down these obligations, which will be called “unfunded liabilities” in this paper.4 The State of Alaska has substantial unfunded liabilities remaining to pay off for these two systems, the Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) and the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS). There is uncertainty about the size of these unfunded liabilities, and there are also different ways of calculating them. For example, the State of Alaska’s snapshot balance-sheet approach, subtracting the accrued liabilities from the assets, based on their actuarial value, produces an estimate of $6.609 billion for the combined unfunded liabilities of PERS and TRS.5 That figure is an estimate of the unfunded liabilities discounted to the present day. Estimates of the size of the unfunded liabilities particularly vary based on the use of different critical assumptions, such as the rate of future returns on investment. As an example, using an estimated rate of return of 2.142 percent instead of the State of Alaska’s assumption of 8 percent produces an estimate of$33.9 billion for the state’s unfunded liabilities. 6 The State of Alaska has committed to paying off the unfunded liabilities under a 25-year amortization schedule that started in 2014, so another highly relevant measurement of those liabilities appears to be the amount actuaries for the state currently project will be needed under that pay-off plan, which runs through fiscal year 2039. The state’s actuaries project that from fiscal year 2019 through fiscal year 2039 the state will pay a total of $10.815 billion in extra contributions—called “state assistance” or “additional state contributions” in this paper—to pay off the unfunded liabilities. 7 In contrast to the state’s snapshot estimate of$6.609 billion, this estimate of $10.815 billion in state assistance represents a flow of annual cash payments. That is, the$10.815 billion is an estimate of the total amount needed to eliminate the unfunded liabilities of PERS and TRS under the 25-year amortization schedule the state adopted in 2014. 4 Note that this state assistance is above and beyond the amount the state is projected to owe in its role as employer in the normal course of funding the two systems.8 Employers other than the state—primarily local governments and school districts—also participate in PERS and TRS, and the figure for state assistance covers not only unfunded liabilities attributed to the state but also a portion of the unfunded liabilities attributed to non-state employers. As explained more later, the state has assumed, by statute, the responsibility to pay for a share of the unfunded liability of these other employers. 9 This paper: • Describes the structure of the Alaska public employee retirement systems in the context of some unusual features of public employment on the Last Frontier • Reviews how the problem of unfunded liabilities came about • Examines how concerns over unfunded liabilities produced both changes and proposed changes in the retirement systems over the past dozen years, including proposals for changes in the allocation of burdens between the state and local governments in paying for retirement benefits • Describes current projections of future amounts needed to pay off the unfunded liabilities • Discusses how future estimates of the unfunded liabilities might change in response to economic and demographic factors • Discusses legal provisions protecting the rights of beneficiaries of the retirement systems • Lays out options for policymakers—other than the current policy of paying down the unfunded liabilities over time—including buyout, bailout, and bankruptcyNorthrim Bank University of Alaska Foundatio

Automatic Verification of Transactions on an Object-Oriented Database

In the context of the object-oriented data model, a compiletime approach is given that provides for a significant reduction of the amount of run-time transaction overhead due to integrity constraint checking. The higher-order logic Isabelle theorem prover is used to automatically prove which constraints might, or might not be violated by a given transaction in a manner analogous to the one used by Sheard and Stemple (1989) for the relational data model. A prototype transaction verification tool has been implemented, which automates the semantic mappings and generates proof goals for Isabelle. Test results are discussed to illustrate the effectiveness of our approach

Relationship of Alexithymia Ratings to Dopamine D2-type Receptors in Anterior Cingulate and Insula of Healthy Control Subjects but Not Methamphetamine-Dependent Individuals.

BackgroundIndividuals with substance-use disorders exhibit emotional problems, including deficits in emotion recognition and processing, and this class of disorders also has been linked to deficits in dopaminergic markers in the brain. Because associations between these phenomena have not been explored, we compared a group of recently abstinent methamphetamine-dependent individuals (n=23) with a healthy-control group (n=17) on dopamine D2-type receptor availability, measured using positron emission tomography with [(18)F]fallypride.MethodsThe anterior cingulate and anterior insular cortices were selected as the brain regions of interest, because they receive dopaminergic innervation and are thought to be involved in emotion awareness and processing. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale, which includes items that assess difficulty in identifying and describing feelings as well as externally oriented thinking, was administered, and the scores were tested for association with D2-type receptor availability.ResultsRelative to controls, methamphetamine-dependent individuals showed higher alexithymia scores, reporting difficulty in identifying feelings. The groups did not differ in D2-type receptor availability in the anterior cingulate or anterior insular cortices, but a significant interaction between group and D2-type receptor availability in both regions, on self-report score, reflected significant positive correlations in the control group (higher receptor availability linked to higher alexithymia) but nonsignificant, negative correlations (lower receptor availability linked to higher alexithymia) in methamphetamine-dependent subjects.ConclusionsThe results suggest that neurotransmission through D2-type receptors in the anterior cingulate and anterior insular cortices influences capacity of emotion processing in healthy people but that this association is absent in individuals with methamphetamine dependence

Reflections On Contributing To “Big Discoveries” About The Fly Clock: Our Fortunate Paths As Post-Docs With 2017 Nobel Laureates Jeff Hall, Michael Rosbash, And Mike Young

In the early 1980s Jeff Hall and Michael Rosbash at Brandeis University and Mike Young at Rockefeller University set out to isolate the period (per) gene, which was recovered in a revolutionary genetic screen by Ron Konopka and Seymour Benzer for mutants that altered circadian behavioral rhythms. Over the next 15 years the Hall, Rosbash and Young labs made a series of groundbreaking discoveries that defined the molecular timekeeping mechanism and formed the basis for them being awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Here the authors recount their experiences as post-docs in the Hall, Rosbash and Young labs from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, and provide a perspective of how basic research conducted on a simple model system during that era profoundly influenced the direction of the clocks field and established novel approaches that are now standard operating procedure for studying complex behavior

The Self-Regulated Growth of Supermassive Black Holes

We present a series of simulations of the self--regulated growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galaxies via three different fueling mechanisms: major mergers, minor mergers, and disk instabilities. The SMBHs in all three scenarios follow the same black hole fundamental plane (BHFP) and correlation with bulge binding energy seen in simulations of major mergers, and observed locally. Furthermore, provided that the total gas supply is significantly larger than the mass of the SMBH, its limiting mass is not influenced by the amount of gas available or the efficiency of black hole growth. This supports the assertion that SMBHs accrete until they reach a critical mass at which feedback is sufficient to unbind the gas locally, terminating the inflow and stalling further growth. At the same time, while minor and major mergers follow the same projected correlations (e.g., the $M_{BH}-\sigma$ and Magorrian relations), SMBHs grown via disk instabilities do not, owing to structural differences between the host bulges. This finding is supported by recent observations of SMBHs in pseudobulges and bulges in barred systems, as compared to those hosted by classical bulges. Taken together, this provides support for the BHFP and binding energy correlations as being more "fundamental" than other proposed correlations in that they reflect the physical mechanism driving the co-evolution of SMBHs and spheroids.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Circulating Tumour Necrosis Factor is highly correlated with brainstem serotonin transporter availability in humans

Preclinical studies demonstrate that pro-inflammatory cytokines increase serotonin transporter availability and function, leading to depressive symptoms in rodent models. Herein we investigate associations between circulating inflammatory markers and brainstem serotonin transporter (5-HTT) availability in humans. We hypothesised that higher circulating inflammatory cytokine concentrations, particularly of tumour necrosis factor (TNF-α), would be associated with greater 5-HTT availability, and that TNF-α inhibition with etanercept (sTNFR:Fc) would in turn reduce 5-HTT availability. In 13 neurologically healthy adult women, plasma TNF-α correlated significantly with 5-HTT availability (rho=0.6; p=0.03) determined by [123I] -beta-CIT SPECT scanning. This association was replicated in an independent sample of 12 patients with psoriasis/psoriatic arthritis (rho=0.76; p=0.003). Indirect effects analysis, showed that there was a significant overlap in the variance explained by 5-HTT availability and TNF-α concentrations on BDI scores. Treatment with etanercept for 6-8 weeks was associated with a significant reduction in 5-HTT availability (Z= 2.09; p=0.03; r=0.6) consistent with a functional link. Our findings confirm an association between TNF-α and 5-HTT in both the basal physiological and pathological condition. Modulation of both TNF-α and 5-HTT by etanercept indicate the presence of a mechanistic pathway whereby circulating inflammatory cytokines are related to central nervous system substrates underlying major depression