Fine-Tuning Games: Bargaining and Adaptation for General-Purpose Models

Major advances in Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) increasingly take the form of developing and releasing general-purpose models. These models are designed to be adapted by other businesses and agencies to perform a particular, domain-specific function. This process has become known as adaptation or fine-tuning. This paper offers a model of the fine-tuning process where a Generalist brings the technological product (here an ML model) to a certain level of performance, and one or more Domain-specialist(s) adapts it for use in a particular domain. Both entities are profit-seeking and incur costs when they invest in the technology, and they must reach a bargaining agreement on how to share the revenue for the technology to reach the market. For a relatively general class of cost and revenue functions, we characterize the conditions under which the fine-tuning game yields a profit-sharing solution. We observe that any potential domain-specialization will either contribute, free-ride, or abstain in their uptake of the technology, and we provide conditions yielding these different strategies. We show how methods based on bargaining solutions and sub-game perfect equilibria provide insights into the strategic behavior of firms in these types of interactions, and we find that profit-sharing can still arise even when one firm has significantly higher costs than another. We also provide methods for identifying Pareto-optimal bargaining arrangements for a general set of utility functions.Comment: 36 pages, 8 figure

Claudin 4 Is Differentially Expressed between Ovarian Cancer Subtypes and Plays a Role in Spheroid Formation

Claudin 4 is a cellular adhesion molecule that is frequently overexpressed in ovarian cancer and other epithelial cancers. In this study, we sought to determine whether the expression of claudin 4 is associated with outcome in ovarian cancer patients and may be involved in tumor progression. We examined claudin 4 expression in ovarian cancer tissues and cell lines, as well as by immunohistochemical staining of tissue microarrays (TMAs; n = 500), spheroids present in patients’ ascites, and spheroids formed in vitro. Claudin 4 was expressed in nearly 70% of the ovarian cancer tissues examined and was differentially expressed across ovarian cancer subtypes, with the lowest expression in clear cell subtype. No association was found between claudin 4 expression and disease-specific survival in any subtype. Claudin 4 expression was also observed in multicellular spheroids obtained from patients’ ascites. Using an in vitro spheroid formation assay, we found that NIH:OVCAR5 cells treated with shRNA against claudin 4 required a longer time to form compact spheroids compared to control NIH:OVCAR5 cells that expressed high levels of claudin 4. The inability of the NIH:OVCAR5 cells treated with claudin 4 shRNA to form compact spheroids was verified by FITC-dextran exclusion. These results demonstrate a role for claudin 4 and tight junctions in spheroid formation and integrity

A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N=10,535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β=0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β=0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates

A Many-analysts Approach to the Relation Between Religiosity and Well-being

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N = 10, 535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β = 0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β = 0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates

Don't Know Much about Foreign Policy: Assessing the Impact of "Don't Know" and "No Opinion" Responses on Inferences about Foreign Policy Attitudes

Public opinion surveys on American foreign policy often elicit many "don't know" or "no opinion" responses. Researchers have paid surprisingly little attention to these responses, typically dropping them from their analyses or suppressing them in the survey design. We argue that these practices lead to potentially misleading conclusions about both the level of support for particular foreign policies and the determinants of individual attitudes. We demonstrate these problems using an original survey experiment testing the effect of including a DKNO option on three common questions about international trade, the use of force, and isolationism. Our findings also suggest that taking DKNO responses more seriously in our analyses provides a richer sense of the process through which important covariates actually influence attitudes

Salivary nitrate – An ecological factor in reducing oral acidity

Human oral cavities represent a novel environment with a constant supply of concentrated nitrate. For humans, over 80% of dietary nitrate originates from fruit and vegetables. With a healthy, balanced diet, rich in fruit and vegetables, the concentration of nitrate in saliva can reach up to more than three times the European drinking water standard. The physiological function of the active excretion of salivary nitrate is unknown. Furthermore, little is known of the ecological function of oral nitrate and the effect on the oral environment during its subsequent oral microbial conversions. The objectives of the research were to investigate the effect on salivary pH coupled with oral microbial nitrate and/or nitrite reduction. Human saliva samples were incubated anaerobically in the presence of 111.0 mmol glucose (2%), with and without 1.5 mmol nitrate/nitrite, and pH and nitrate/nitrite consumption were measured during the time-course of the incubations. We found that anaerobic incubation of saliva containing a mixture of oral bacteria in the presence of nitrate/nitrite substrates and glucose resulted in a higher pH than was found in controls in the absence of nitrate/nitrite. These results suggest that the presence of these electron acceptors repressed acid fermentation, or increased alkali production, or consumed acid produced, thus reducing salivary acidity. This finding identifies salivary nitrate as a possible ecological factor in reducing oral acidity. The possibility that a symbiotic relationship between host nitrate excretion and nitrate-reducing microorganisms might help to protect against tooth decay should be explored further

The Domestic Politics of Trade and Conflict

Liberal international relations theory suggests that mutual gains from trade prevent conflict between states. Previous research has focused predominately on international outcomes, especially the occurrence of militarized conflict between pairs of states. How concerns about welfare gains from trade help produce the policy choices leading to these outcomes is less well understood. This paper examines the influence of economic interests arising from international trade on the policy-making process at the domestic level. If the benefits of trade increase the opportunity cost of conflict, then support for a harmonious foreign policy should be strongest among trade's domestic beneficiaries. Those whose income is diminished by trade have no reason to favor a friendly foreign policy and might even prefer a hostile alternative. We test whether the domestic distributional effects of trade affect support for hostile foreign policies toward China among representatives in the US Congress. An analysis of cosponsorship and roll-call voting suggests that the export orientation and import sensitivity of their districts influences members’ positions on measures that criticize Chinese policies or treat the country as a security threat

Trade and Foreign Policy Attitudes

Does trade influence whether individuals view other states as friendly or threatening? Liberal theory implies that it should, but the individual-level implications of the liberal argument are rarely tested. Trade should influence individual attitudes more strongly where trade is more economically important. International trade also creates both winners and losers within the trading states, and the foreign policy attitudes of these winners and losers should differ. The authors test hypotheses drawn from this line of argument using a forty-seven-country survey conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes project. They find some evidence that exports but not imports reduce hostile foreign policy attitudes. They find little support for the claim that the trade interests indicated by factor ownership influence attitudes toward trading partners in this broad cross-national sample. On the other hand, attitudes toward trade and foreign direct investment are correlated with broader foreign policy attitudes in the way liberal theory suggests. The authors conclude that there is reason to believe that trade influences individual foreign policy attitudes but that factor ownership does not provide an adequate account of individual interests in international trade in most cases.trade and conflict; public opinion; liberalism

Four Years of FAccT: A Reflexive, Mixed-Methods Analysis of Research Contributions, Shortcomings, and Future Prospects

Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT) for socio-technical systems has been a thriving area of research in recent years. An ACM conference bearing the same name has been the central venue for scholars in this area to come together, provide peer feedback to one another, and publish their work. This reflexive study aims to shed light on FAccT's activities to date and identify major gaps and opportunities for translating contributions into broader positive impact. To this end, we utilize a mixed-methods research design. On the qualitative front, we develop a protocol for reviewing and coding prior FAccT papers, tracing their distribution of topics, methods, datasets, and disciplinary roots. We also design and administer a questionnaire to reflect the voices of FAccT community members and affiliates on a wide range of topics. On the quantitative front, we use the full text and citation network associated with prior FAccT publications to provide further evidence about topics and values represented in FAccT. We organize the findings from our analysis into four main dimensions: the themes present in FAccT scholarship, the values that underpin the work, the impact of the contributions both within academic circles and beyond, and the practices and informal norms of the community that has formed around FAccT. Finally, our work identifies several suggestions on directions for change, as voiced by community members.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, to be published in 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparenc