6,118 research outputs found
How to make experimental economics research more reproducible: lessons from other disciplines and a new proposal
Efforts in the spirit of this special issue aim at improving the reproducibility of experimental economics, in response to the recent discussions regarding the “research reproducibility crisis.” We put this endeavour in perspective by summarizing the main ways (to our knowledge) that have been proposed – by researchers from several disciplines – to alleviate the problem. We discuss the scope for economic theory to contribute to evaluating the proposals. We argue that a potential key impediment to replication is the expectation of negative reactions by the authors of the individual study, and suggest that incentives for having one’s work replicated should increase
Measurement of Dielectric Suppression of Bremsstrahlung
In 1953, Ter-Mikaelian predicted that the bremsstrahlung of low energy
photons in a medium is suppressed because of interactions between the produced
photon and the electrons in the medium. This suppression occurs because the
emission takes place over on a long distance scale, allowing for destructive
interference between different instantaneous photon emission amplitudes. We
present here measurements of bremsstrahlung cross sections of 200 keV to 20 MeV
photons produced by 8 and 25 GeV electrons in carbon and gold targets. Our data
shows that dielectric suppression occurs at the predicted level, reducing the
cross section up to 75 percent in our data.Comment: 11 pages, format is postscript file, gzip-ed, uuencode-e
In-depth analysis of the Naming Game dynamics: the homogeneous mixing case
Language emergence and evolution has recently gained growing attention
through multi-agent models and mathematical frameworks to study their behavior.
Here we investigate further the Naming Game, a model able to account for the
emergence of a shared vocabulary of form-meaning associations through
social/cultural learning. Due to the simplicity of both the structure of the
agents and their interaction rules, the dynamics of this model can be analyzed
in great detail using numerical simulations and analytical arguments. This
paper first reviews some existing results and then presents a new overall
understanding.Comment: 30 pages, 19 figures (few in reduced definition). In press in IJMP
Signaling about norms: socialization under strategic uncertainty
We consider a signaling model where adults possess information about the dominant social norm. Children want to conform to whatever norm is dominant but, lacking accurate information, take the observed behavior of their parent as representative. We show that this causes a signaling distortion in adult behavior, even in the absence of conflicts of interest. Parents adopt attitudes that encourage their children to behave in a socially safe way, i.e. the way that would be optimal under maximum uncertainty about the prevailing social norm. We discuss applications to sexual attitudes, collective reputation, and trust
Large Deviations of the Maximum Eigenvalue for Wishart and Gaussian Random Matrices
We present a simple Coulomb gas method to calculate analytically the
probability of rare events where the maximum eigenvalue of a random matrix is
much larger than its typical value. The large deviation function that
characterizes this probability is computed explicitly for Wishart and Gaussian
ensembles. The method is quite general and applies to other related problems,
e.g. the joint large deviation function for large fluctuations of top
eigenvalues. Our results are relevant to widely employed data compression
techniques, namely the principal components analysis. Analytical predictions
are verified by extensive numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 .eps figures include
Statistical properties of genealogical trees
We analyse the statistical properties of genealogical trees in a neutral
model of a closed population with sexual reproduction and non-overlapping
generations. By reconstructing the genealogy of an individual from the
population evolution, we measure the distribution of ancestors appearing more
than once in a given tree. After a transient time, the probability of
repetition follows, up to a rescaling, a stationary distribution which we
calculate both numerically and analytically. This distribution exhibits a
universal shape with a non-trivial power law which can be understood by an
exact, though simple, renormalization calculation. Some real data on human
genealogy illustrate the problem, which is relevant to the study of the real
degree of diversity in closed interbreeding communities.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let
Bremsstrahlung Suppression due to the LPM and Dielectric Effects in a Variety of Materials
The cross section for bremsstrahlung from highly relativistic particles is
suppressed due to interference caused by multiple scattering in dense media,
and due to photon interactions with the electrons in all materials. We present
here a detailed study of bremsstrahlung production of 200 keV to 500 MeV
photons from 8 and 25 GeV electrons traversing a variety of target materials.
For most targets, we observe the expected suppressions to a good accuracy. We
observe that finite thickness effects are important for thin targets.Comment: 52 pages, 13 figures (incorporated in the revtex LaTeX file
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