Short-term social memory in the laboratory rat: its susceptibility to disturbance.

Short-term social memory in the laboratory rat: its susceptibility to disturbance

Face processing limitation to own species in primates: a comparative study in brown capuchins, Tonkean macaques and humans

Most primates live in social groups which survival and stability depend on individuals' abilities to create strong social relationships with other group members. The existence of those groups requires to identify individuals and to assign to each of them a social status. Individual recognition can be achieved through vocalizations but also through faces. In humans, an efficient system for the processing of own species faces exists. This specialization is achieved through experience with faces of conspecifics during development and leads to the loss of ability to process faces from other primate species. We hypothesize that a similar mechanism exists in social primates. We investigated face processing in one Old World species (genus Macaca) and in one New World species (genus Cebus). Our results show the same advantage for own species face recognition for all tested subjects. This work suggests in all species tested the existence of a common trait inherited from the primate ancestor: an efficient system to identify individual faces of own species only

Open Source Intelligence Training in Hacking-Lab (BA)

In cyber security the topic of Open-source intelligence (OSINT) plays a major role. With OSINT security defender and researcher may find valuable information about cyber crime and attackers. OSINT helps to understand the effects of sharing public information. OSINT is not yet part of the curriculum at OST. An e-learning platform called Hacking-Lab already exists and is used at OST. In Hacking-Lab, students can apply what they have learned in the lecture in a controlled environment in the form of practical hands-on exercises. The goal of this thesis was to create ten OSINT challenges in the Hacking-Lab for students to solve and practice. In every OSINT challenge, students are given a set of tasks and summative assessment questions. The students are guided through the proposed steps in order to answer the posed questions in form of a write-up. Each OSINT challenge is framed by a story to make them more engaging. These stories were chosen in a way that many different OSINT techniques are applicable and can be practiced by the students. In OSINT there is not only one way to find the correct answer hence the students are also encouraged to find their own way to reach the expected solution. To guarantee a high quality of the challenges, multiple quality assurance tests were conducted with students and colleagues working in IT. The results of these quality tests are an indicator whether the goal was reached. As a result of this work, the goal of creating ten OSINT challenges in Hacking-Lab was achieved. These challenges provide some insight into the topic of OSINT without getting lost in details and technicalities. This project provides a foundation which a lecturer can build upon by creating a lecture on OSINT. This lecture could be integrated in a course on cyber security. Social media was purposely neglected in this project because social media is difficult to maintain and make future-proof, which makes it incompatible with the project's requirements. Therefore, it could also be a future project to expand upon these challenges with a focus on social media as it is an indispensable part of OSINT

Regard sur la discrimination salariale gendorielle dans le marché de l’emploi au Maroc : une analyse micro-économétrique

The issue of wage levels (disparity in wage earnings) among individuals lies in differences in the amount of human capital, including education and experience, which is at least as important in the modern economy as physical capital in the form of buildings and machinery. Individuals incorporate very different amounts of human capital. So differences in human capital generate substantial differences in wages. And by an asymmetry of information from job seekers to job providers, which creates wage discrimination between men and women, something that penalizes the labor market in Morocco. This paper provides an estimate of wage discrimination in the Moroccan labour market based on different decompositions of the gender wage gap, using a sample of 21,368 employees between the ages of 20 and 59 from the Detailed National Employment Survey realized by the Haut-Commissariat au Plan in 2011. It appears that, on average, in Morocco, of the employed population, a man receives 18.3% more than a woman, and that about 33.52% of this gap can be attributed to wage discrimination. This wage discrimination is mainly due to the "female disadvantage" which constitutes 99.98%, although the explained part, i.e. the difference in the characteristics of men and women, is in favour of women with a rate of -15.17%. Then, the discrimination in question explains a proportion of the wage gap between men and women which is greater in rural areas (36.75 %) than in urban areas (24.35%). By sector of activity, the estimated wage gap in the public sector (2.87%) is lower than in the private sector (25.74%) with a higher wage discrimination (28.98%) in the private sector than in the public sector (16.73%).   Keywords : wage discrimination by sex, gender wage gap decompositions, Morocco. Classification JEL : C01, J71 Paper type : Empirical research.La question du niveau de salaire (disparité en termes de gain salariaux), entre les individus réside dans les différences de quantité de capital humain incluant l’éducation et l’expérience est au moins aussi importante dans l’économie moderne que le capital physique sous forme de bâtiments et de machines. Les individus incorporent des quantités de capital humain très différentes. De sorte que les différences de capital humain génèrent des différences de salaires substantielles. Et par une asymétrie de l’information des demandeurs envers des offreurs d’emploi, qui crée une discrimination salariale entre les hommes et les femmes, chose qui pénalise le marché de l’emploi au Maroc. Ce travail propose une estimation de la discrimination salariale sur le marché du travail marocain à partir de différentes décompositions de l’écart de salaires hommes-femmes, sur la base d’un échantillon de 21 368 employés âgés de 20 ans à 59 ans tirés de l’Enquête nationale détaillée sur l’emploi réalisée par le Haut-Commissariat au Plan en 2011. Il apparaît qu’en moyenne, au Maroc, sur la population salariée, un homme touche 18.3% de plus qu’une femme, et qu’environ 33.52% de cet écart peut être attribué à la discrimination salariale. Cette dernière est due essentiellement au "désavantage féminin" qui en constitue 99.98%. Et ce, malgré que la part expliquée par les différences de capital humain soit en faveur des femmes avec un taux de -15.17%. Par ailleurs, la discrimination salariale explique une proportion de l’écart des salaires, entre hommes et femmes, plus grande dans le milieu rural (36.75 %) que dans le milieu urbain (24.35%). De même, l’analyse par secteur d’activité a montré que l'écart salarial estimé dans le secteur public (2,87%) est inférieur à celui estimé dans le secteur privé (25,74%). Avec une discrimination salariale beaucoup plus élevée dans le secteur privé puisqu’elle explique 28,98% de l’écart salarial.   Mots-clés : discrimination salariale selon le sexe, décomposition du différentiel de salaire hommes-femmes, Maroc. Classification JEL : C01, J71 Type de l’article : article empirique

Contrôle et régulation du marché boursier : un problème de risque moral

In most of cases, the insider trading is a behavior transgression of law, it is a practice deemed illegal by law. This practice is unfair and opaque; it distorts the confidence and equality of investors to make trading in the market. An insider acting or allows other intermediaries to act in the total absence of hazards, and thus achieve a profitable operations with the abnormal returns. The insider trading is given by using the inside (i.e., the privileged) information, not yet released or revealed publicly. In this paper we deal with the issue of ethical behavior of insider trading in the Moroccan regulated markets. Initially, we review some elements at the base of ethics of financial markets. In a second point, we highlight the legal arsenal to fight against the illegal insider trading. In fact, we shall present its administrative, civil and criminal components, we then show its usefulness and we finally formulate against it some critiques. Based on these elements and by referring to the theory of Principal/Agent in the asymmetric information, we try to model the insider behavior by extending the model to two Agents and one Principal

Contrôle et régulation du marché boursier : un problème de risque moral

In most of cases, the insider trading is a behavior transgression of law, it is a practice deemed illegal by law. This practice is unfair and opaque; it distorts the confidence and equality of investors to make trading in the market. An insider acting or allows other intermediaries to act in the total absence of hazards, and thus achieve a profitable operations with the abnormal returns. The insider trading is given by using the inside (i.e., the privileged) information, not yet released or revealed publicly. In this paper we deal with the issue of ethical behavior of insider trading in the Moroccan regulated markets. Initially, we review some elements at the base of ethics of financial markets. In a second point, we highlight the legal arsenal to fight against the illegal insider trading. In fact, we shall present its administrative, civil and criminal components, we then show its usefulness and we finally formulate against it some critiques. Based on these elements and by referring to the theory of Principal/Agent in the asymmetric information, we try to model the insider behavior by extending the model to two Agents and one Principal

Contrôle et régulation du marché boursier : un problème de risque moral

In most of case, the insider trading is a behavior transgression of law, it is a practice deemed illegal by law. This practice is unfair and opaque; it distorts the confidence and equality of investors to make trading in the market. An insider acting or allows other intermediaries to act in the total absence of hazards, and thus achieve a profitable operations with the abnormal returns. The insider trading is given by using the inside (i.e., the privileged) information, not yet released or revealed publicly. In this paper we deal with the issue of ethical behavior of insider trading in the Moroccan regulated markets. Initially, we review some elements at the base of ethics of financial markets. In a second point, we highlight the legal arsenal to fight against the illegal insider trading. In fact, we shall present its administrative, civil and criminal components, we then show its usefulness and we finally formulate against it some critiques. Based on these elements and by referring to the theory of Principal/Agent in the asymmetric information, we try to model the insider behavior by extending the model to two Agents and one Principal

Pictorial gaze cues do not enhance long tailed macaques’ performance on a computerised object location task

The perception of pictorial gaze cues was examined in long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis). A computerised object location task was used to explore whether the monkeys would show faster response time to locate a target when its appearance was preceded with congruent as opposed to incongruent gaze cues. Despite existing evidence that macaques preferentially attend to the eyes in facial images and also visually orient with depicted gaze cues, the monkeys did not show faster response times on congruent trials either in response to schematic or photographic stimuli. These findings coincide with those reported for baboons tested with a similar paradigm in which gaze cues preceded a target identification task (Fagot and Deruelle 2002). When tested with either pictorial stimuli or interactants, non human primates readily follow gaze but do not seem to use this mechanism to identify a target object; there seems to be some mismatch in performance between attentional changes and manual responses to gaze cues on ostensibly similar tasks

Individual Recognition in Domestic Cattle (Bos taurus): Evidence from 2D-Images of Heads from Different Breeds

BACKGROUND: In order to maintain cohesion of groups, social animals need to process social information efficiently. Visual individual recognition, which is distinguished from mere visual discrimination, has been studied in only few mammalian species. In addition, most previous studies used either a small number of subjects or a few various views as test stimuli. Dairy cattle, as a domestic species allow the testing of a good sample size and provide a large variety of test stimuli due to the morphological diversity of breeds. Hence cattle are a suitable model for studying individual visual recognition. This study demonstrates that cattle display visual individual recognition and shows the effect of both familiarity and coat diversity in discrimination. [br/]METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We tested whether 8 Prim'Holstein heifers could recognize 2D-images of heads of one cow (face, profiles, (3/4) views) from those of other cows. Experiments were based on a simultaneous discrimination paradigm through instrumental conditioning using food rewards. In Experiment 1, all images represented familiar cows (belonging to the same social group) from the Prim'Holstein breed. In Experiments 2, 3 and 4, images were from unfamiliar (unknown) individuals either from the same breed or other breeds. All heifers displayed individual recognition of familiar and unfamiliar individuals from their own breed. Subjects reached criterion sooner when recognizing a familiar individual than when recognizing an unfamiliar one (Exp 1: 3.1+/-0.7 vs. Exp 2: 5.2+/-1.2 sessions; Z = 1.99, N = 8, P = 0.046). In addition almost all subjects recognized unknown individuals from different breeds, however with greater difficulty. [br/] CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results demonstrated that cattle have efficient individual recognition based on categorization capacities. Social familiarity improved their performance. The recognition of individuals with very different coat characteristics from the subjects was the most difficult task. These results call for studies exploring the mechanisms involved in face recognition allowing interspecies comparisons, including humans

Rhesus Monkeys See Who They Hear: Spontaneous Cross-Modal Memory for Familiar Conspecifics

Rhesus monkeys gather much of their knowledge of the social world through visual input and may preferentially represent this knowledge in the visual modality. Recognition of familiar faces is clearly advantageous, and the flexibility and utility of primate social memory would be greatly enhanced if visual memories could be accessed cross-modally either by visual or auditory stimulation. Such cross-modal access to visual memory would facilitate flexible retrieval of the knowledge necessary for adaptive social behavior. We tested whether rhesus monkeys have cross-modal access to visual memory for familiar conspecifics using a delayed matching-to-sample procedure. Monkeys learned visual matching of video clips of familiar individuals to photographs of those individuals, and generalized performance to novel videos. In crossmodal probe trials, coo-calls were played during the memory interval. The calls were either from the monkey just seen in the sample video clip or from a different familiar monkey. Even though the monkeys were trained exclusively in visual matching, the calls influenced choice by causing an increase in the proportion of errors to the picture of the monkey whose voice was heard on incongruent trials. This result demonstrates spontaneous cross-modal recognition. It also shows that viewing videos of familiar monkeys activates naturally formed memories of real monkeys, validating the use of video stimuli in studies of social cognition in monkeys