Cost-(in)effective public good provision: an experimental exploration

This paper investigates the determinants of cost-(in)effective giving to public goods. We conduct a pre-registered experiment to elucidate how factors at the institutional and individual levels shape individual contributions and the cost-effectiveness of those contributions in a novel public good game. In particular, we examine the role of consequential uncertainty over the value of public good contributions (institutional level) as well as individual characteristics like risk and ambiguity attitudes, giving type, and demographics (individual level). We find cost-ineffective contributions in all institutions, but total contribution levels and the degree of cost-ineffectiveness are similar across institutions. Meanwhile, cost-effectiveness varies by giving type—which is a novel result that is consistent with hypotheses we generate from theory—but other individual characteristics have little influence on the cost-effectiveness of contributions. Our work has important positive and normative implications for charitable giving and public good provision in the real world, and it is particularly germane to emerging online crowdfunding and patronage platforms that confront users with a multitude of competing opportunities for giving

Cost-(in)effective public good provision: An experimental exploration

This paper investigates the determinants of cost-(in)effective giving to public goods. We conduct a pre-registered experiment to elucidate how factors at the institutional and individual levels shape individual contributions and the cost-effectiveness of those contributions in a novel public good game. In particular, we examine the role of consequential uncertainty over the value of public good contributions (institutional level) as well as individual characteristics like risk and ambiguity attitudes, giving type, and demographics (individual level). We nd that consequential uncertainty tends to reduce overall contributions, but not the cost-effectiveness of those contributions. Meanwhile, cost-effectiveness varies by giving type-which is a novel result that is consistent with hypotheses we generate from theory-but other individual characteristics have little influence on contributions or cost-effectiveness. Our work has important positive and normative implications for charitable giving and public good provision in the real world, and it is particularly germane to emerging online crowdfunding and patronage platforms that confront users with a multitude of competing opportunities for giving

Quantifying HIV-1 Viral Load with Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy

The DVD team is working to develop a cost-effective technique for measuring HIV load in resource-restricted regions. Our client is Dr Phil Thuma and the Macha Research Centre in Zambia. Our design utilizes a fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) approach, including a protein-engineered probe, custom optics, a field programmable gate array (FPGA), and a graphical display to assess viral load in a patient blood sample. In this talk we will present on the design and testing of our optical FCS system, the method of processing and analyzing the signal, and creation of the user interface display. Our team is currently finalizing the design of each device component and looking towards device integration and prototyping in the Fall of 2020.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2020/1015/thumbnail.jp

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) is a four telescope array designed to characterize relic primordial gravitational waves from inflation and the optical depth to reionization through a measurement of the polarized cosmic microwave background (CMB) on the largest angular scales. The frequencies of the four CLASS telescopes, one at 38 GHz, two at 93 GHz, and one dichroic system at 145/217 GHz, are chosen to avoid spectral regions of high atmospheric emission and span the minimum of the polarized Galactic foregrounds: synchrotron emission at lower frequencies and dust emission at higher frequencies. Low-noise transition edge sensor detectors and a rapid front-end polarization modulator provide a unique combination of high sensitivity, stability, and control of systematics. The CLASS site, at 5200 m in the Chilean Atacama desert, allows for daily mapping of up to 70\% of the sky and enables the characterization of CMB polarization at the largest angular scales. Using this combination of a broad frequency range, large sky coverage, control over systematics, and high sensitivity, CLASS will observe the reionization and recombination peaks of the CMB E- and B-mode power spectra. CLASS will make a cosmic variance limited measurement of the optical depth to reionization and will measure or place upper limits on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$, down to a level of 0.01 (95\% C.L.)

Anti-HIV-1 activity of cellulose acetate phthalate: Synergy with soluble CD4 and induction of "dead-end" gp41 six-helix bundles

BACKGROUND: Cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP), a promising candidate microbicide for prevention of sexual transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and other sexually transmitted disease (STD) pathogens, was shown to inactivate HIV-1 and to block the coreceptor binding site on the virus envelope glycoprotein gp120. It did not interfere with virus binding to CD4. Since CD4 is the primary cellular receptor for HIV-1, it was of interest to study CAP binding to HIV-1 complexes with soluble CD4 (sCD4) and its consequences, including changes in the conformation of the envelope glycoprotein gp41 within virus particles. METHODS: Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) were used to study CAP binding to HIV-1-sCD4 complexes and to detect gp41 six-helix bundles accessible on virus particles using antibodies specific for the α-helical core domain of gp41. RESULTS: 1) Pretreatment of HIV-1 with sCD4 augments subsequent binding of CAP; 2) there is synergism between CAP and sCD4 for inhibition of HIV-1 infection; 3) treatment of HIV-1 with CAP induced the formation of gp41 six-helix bundles. CONCLUSIONS: CAP and sCD4 bind to distinct sites on HIV-1 IIIB and BaL virions and their simultaneous binding has profound effects on virus structure and infectivity. The formation of gp41 six-helical bundles, induced by CAP, is known to render the virus incompetent for fusion with target cells thus preventing infection

Semiclassical analysis of the quantum interference corrections to the conductance of mesoscopic systems

The Kubo formula for the conductance of a mesoscopic system is analyzed semiclassically, yielding simple expressions for both weak localization and universal conductance fluctuations. In contrast to earlier work which dealt with times shorter than $O(\log \hbar^{-1})$, here longer times are taken to give the dominant contributions. For such long times, many distinct classical orbits may obey essentially the same initial and final conditions on positions and momenta, and the interference between pairs of such orbits is analyzed. Application to a chain of $k$ classically ergodic scatterers connected in series gives the following results: $-{1 \over 3} [ 1 - (k+1)^{-2} ]$ for the weak localization correction to the zero--temperature dimensionless conductance, and ${2 \over 15} [ 1 - (k+1)^{-4} ]$ for the variance of its fluctuations. These results interpolate between the well known ones of random scattering matrices for $k=1$, and those of the one--dimensional diffusive wire for $k \rightarrow \infty$.Comment: 53 pages, using RevTeX, plus 3 postscript figures mailed separately. A short version of this work is available as cond-mat/950207