Quantum Experimental Data in Psychology and Economics

We prove a theorem which shows that a collection of experimental data of probabilistic weights related to decisions with respect to situations and their disjunction cannot be modeled within a classical probabilistic weight structure in case the experimental data contain the effect referred to as the 'disjunction effect' in psychology. We identify different experimental situations in psychology, more specifically in concept theory and in decision theory, and in economics (namely situations where Savage's Sure-Thing Principle is violated) where the disjunction effect appears and we point out the common nature of the effect. We analyze how our theorem constitutes a no-go theorem for classical probabilistic weight structures for common experimental data when the disjunction effect is affecting the values of these data. We put forward a simple geometric criterion that reveals the non classicality of the considered probabilistic weights and we illustrate our geometrical criterion by means of experimentally measured membership weights of items with respect to pairs of concepts and their disjunctions. The violation of the classical probabilistic weight structure is very analogous to the violation of the well-known Bell inequalities studied in quantum mechanics. The no-go theorem we prove in the present article with respect to the collection of experimental data we consider has a status analogous to the well known no-go theorems for hidden variable theories in quantum mechanics with respect to experimental data obtained in quantum laboratories. For this reason our analysis puts forward a strong argument in favor of the validity of using a quantum formalism for modeling the considered psychological experimental data as considered in this paper.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Heterostructures for High Performance Devices

Contains table of contents for Part I, table of contents for Section 1, an introduction, reports on eighteen research projects and a list of publications.Charles S. Draper Laboratories Contract DL-H-418483DARPA/NCIPTJoint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-89-C-0001Joint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-92-C-0001IBM Corporation FellowshipNational Science Foundation FellowshipVitesse SemiconductorGTE LaboratoriesCharles S. Draper LaboratoriesElectronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) FellowshipNational Science Foundation/Northeastern UniversityTRW SystemsU.S. Army Research OfficeNational Science FoundationAT&T Bell Laboratories FellowshipNational Science Foundation Grant ECS 90-0774

Dual-Level Regulation of ACC Synthase Activity by MPK3/MPK6 Cascade and Its Downstream WRKY Transcription Factor during Ethylene Induction in Arabidopsis

Plants under pathogen attack produce high levels of ethylene, which plays important roles in plant immunity. Previously, we reported the involvement of ACS2 and ACS6, two Type I ACS isoforms, in Botrytis cinerea–induced ethylene biosynthesis and their regulation at the protein stability level by MPK3 and MPK6, two Arabidopsis pathogen-responsive mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs). The residual ethylene induction in the acs2/acs6 double mutant suggests the involvement of additional ACS isoforms. It is also known that a subset of ACS genes, including ACS6, is transcriptionally induced in plants under stress or pathogen attack. However, the importance of ACS gene activation and the regulatory mechanism(s) are not clear. In this report, we demonstrate using genetic analysis that ACS7 and ACS11, two Type III ACS isoforms, and ACS8, a Type II ACS isoform, also contribute to the B. cinerea–induced ethylene production. In addition to post-translational regulation, transcriptional activation of the ACS genes also plays a critical role in sustaining high levels of ethylene induction. Interestingly, MPK3 and MPK6 not only control the stability of ACS2 and ACS6 proteins via direct protein phosphorylation but also regulate the expression of ACS2 and ACS6 genes. WRKY33, another MPK3/MPK6 substrate, is involved in the MPK3/MPK6-induced ACS2/ACS6 gene expression based on genetic analyses. Furthermore, chromatin-immunoprecipitation assay reveals the direct binding of WRKY33 to the W-boxes in the promoters of ACS2 and ACS6 genes in vivo, suggesting that WRKY33 is directly involved in the activation of ACS2 and ACS6 expression downstream of MPK3/MPK6 cascade in response to pathogen invasion. Regulation of ACS activity by MPK3/MPK6 at both transcriptional and protein stability levels plays a key role in determining the kinetics and magnitude of ethylene induction

Cross activity of orthologous WRKY transcription factors in wheat and Arabidopsis

WRKY proteins are transcription factors involved in many plant processes including plant responses to pathogens. Here, the cross activity of TaWRKY78 from the monocot wheat and AtWRKY20 from the dicot Arabidopsis on the cognate promoters of the orthologous PR4-type genes wPR4e and AtHEL of wheat and Arabidopsis, respectively, was investigated. In vitro analysis showed the ability of TaWRKY78 to bind a –17/+80 region of the wPR4e promoter, containing one cis-acting W-box. Moreover, transient expression analysis performed on both TaWRKY78 and AtWRKY20 showed their ability to recognize the cognate cis-acting elements present in the wPR4e and AtHEL promoters, respectively. Finally, this paper provides evidence that both transcription factors are able to cross-regulate the orthologous PR4 genes with an efficiency slightly lower than that exerted on the cognate promoters. The observation that orthologous genes are subjected to similar transcriptional control by orthologous transcription factors demonstrates that the terminal stages of signal transduction pathways leading to defence are conserved and suggests a fundamental role of PR4 genes in plant defence. Moreover, these results corroborate the hypothesis that gene orthology imply similar gene function and that diversification between monocot and dicot has most likely occurred after the specialization of WRKY function

Heterostructures for High Performance Devices

Contains an introduction, reports on thirteen research projects and a list of publications.Charles S. Draper Laboratory Contract DL-H-418483DARPA/NCIPT Subcontract 542383Joint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-89-C-0001IBM Corporation FellowshipNational Science Foundation FellowshipVitesse SemiconductorAT&T Bell LaboratoriesHertz Foundation FellowshipNational Science FoundationTRWBelgian American Education Foundation (BAEF) FellowshipNational Science Foundation Grant ECS 90-08485Harvard University. Division of Applied PhysicsAT&T Bell Laboratories FellowshipNational Science Foundation Grant ECS 90-0774