Efficiency in a forced contribution threshold public good game

We contrast and compare three ways of predicting efficiency in a forced contribution threshold public good game. The three alternatives are based on ordinal potential, quantal response and impulse balance theory. We report an experiment designed to test the respective predictions and find that impulse balance gives the best predictions. A simple expression detailing when enforced contributions result in high or low efficiency is provided

Full Agreement and the Provision of Threshold Public Goods

The experimental evidence suggests that groups are inefficient at providing threshold public goods. This inefficiency appears to reflect an inability to coordinate over how to distribute the cost of providing the good. So, why do groups not just split the cost equally? We offer an answer to this question by demonstrating that in a standard threshold public good game there is no collectively rational recommendation. We also demonstrate that if full agreement is required in order to provide the public good then there is a collectively rational recommendation, namely, to split the cost equally. Requiring full agreement may, therefore, increase efficiency in providing threshold public goods. We test this hypothesis experimentally and find support for it

Body Pedagogics: Embodiment, Cognition and Cultural Transmission

This paper contributes to the growing sociological concern with body pedagogics; an embodied approach to the transmission and acquisition of occupational, sporting, religious and other culturally structured practices. Focused upon the relationship between those social, technological and material means through which institutionalized cultures are transmitted, the experiences of those involved in this learning, and the embodied outcomes of this process, existing research highlights the significance of body work, practical techniques, and the senses to these pedagogic processes. What has yet to be explicated adequately, however, is the embodied importance of cognition to this incorporation of culture. In what follows, I address this lacuna by building on John Dewey’s writings in proposing an approach to body pedagogics sympathetic to the prioritization of physical experience but that recognizes the distinctive properties and capacities of thought and reflexivity in these processes

Effect of powder properties on the physicochemical and rheological characteristics of gelation inulin–water systems

peer reviewedThis study investigates the influence of physical properties of powder on the potential functionality of inulin as a polymeric gelator. Inulin powder was characterized using high-performance anion exchange chromatography, wide-angle X-ray, and particle size. Moreover, the inulin–water system was described using rheological properties, optical microscopy, and textural analysis. Four commercial inulins (LC, Instant, Fib97, and HP) were characterized and dissolved in distilled water at three different concentrations (15, 20, and 25%, w/w) at 25 °C. Inulin LC (degree of polymerization, 18.80; semi-crystalline state) and HP (degree of polymerization, 23.74; amorphous state) formed a gel from a concentration of 15% (w/w) and 20%, respectively. Inulin Fib97 (degree of polymerization, 6; amorphous state) and Instant (degree of polymerization, 8; amorphous state) were not able to develop a gel structure. This indicates the significant effect of polymer chain length to form a gel. Textural properties as well as wide-angle X-ray scattering and optical microscopy ascertained a difference in inulin HP– and LC–water system properties. This dissimilarity is related to the different physical properties of powders such as crystallinity and particle size. Indeed, new inulin powders were produced, having the same chemical composition but different physical states (amorphous or crystalline) or particle sizes. The results showed that an amorphous powder with a bigger particle size gave a greater gelation of inulin–water systems. However, beyond a certain size of particles, the systems lose their gelation properties. © 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature