A New Model for Crowdsourcing Innovation

On paper, crowdsourced innovation makes a lot of sense: If two heads are better than one, why not 20,000? Surely, some of those outsiders will have fresh solutions to your problem. But in practice, such programs have often not worked out as well as hoped. More often than not, even the best crowdsourced ideas disappear in a Bermuda Triangle of logistical difficulties, internal politics, and professional insecurity. The International Committee of the Red Cross has developed a new collaborative approach to crowdsourcing ideas that limits the competition to teams. It designed its Enable Makeathon project not only to generate good ideas of products to help people with disabilities but also to make sure those ideas reach the market

The cutaneous 'rabbit' illusion affects human primary sensory cortex somatopically

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study neural correlates of a robust somatosensory illusion that can dissociate tactile perception from physical stimulation. Repeated rapid stimulation at the wrist, then near the elbow, can create the illusion of touches at intervening locations along the arm, as if a rabbit hopped along it. We examined brain activity in humans using fMRI, with improved spatial resolution, during this version of the classic cutaneous rabbit illusion. As compared with control stimulation at the same skin sites (but in a different order that did not induce the illusion), illusory sequences activated contralateral primary somatosensory cortex, at a somatotopic location corresponding to the filled-in illusory perception on the forearm. Moreover, the amplitude of this somatosensory activation was comparable to that for veridical stimulation including the intervening position on the arm. The illusion additionally activated areas of premotor and prefrontal cortex. These results provide direct evidence that illusory somatosensory percepts can affect primary somatosensory cortex in a manner that corresponds somatotopically to the illusory percept

Heirs of Pietism in World Christianity: The 19th to the 21st Centuries

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/academicbooks/1050/thumbnail.jp

Determinants of City Growth in Brazil

In this paper, we examine the determinants of Brazilian city growth between 1970 and 2000. We consider a model of a city, which combines aspects of standard urban economics and the new economic geography literatures. For the empirical analysis, we constructed a dataset of 123 Brazilian agglomerations, and estimate aspects of the demand and supply side as well as a reduced form specification that describes city sizes and their growth. Our main findings are that increases in rural population supply, improvements in inter-regional transport connectivity and education attainment of the labor force have strong impacts on city growth. We also find that local crime and violence, measured by homicide rates impinge on growth. In contrast, a higher share of private sector industrial capital in the local economy stimulates growth. Using the residuals from the growth estimation, we also find that cities who better administer local land use and zoning laws have higher growth. Finally, our policy simulations show that diverting transport investments from large cities towards secondary cities do not provide significant gains in terms of national urban performance.

Determinants of city growth in Brazil

The authors examine the determinants of Brazilian city growth between 1970 and 2000. They consider a model of a city that combines aspects of standard urban economics and the new economic geography literatures. For the empirical analysis, the authors construct a dataset of 123 Brazilian agglomerations and estimate aspects of the demand and supply side, as well as a reduced form specification that describes city sizes and their growth. Their main findings are that increases in rural population supply, improvements in interregional transport connectivity, and education attainment of the labor force have strong impacts on city growth. They also find that local crime and violence, measured by homicide rates, impinge on growth. In contrast, a higher share of private sector industrial capital in the local economy stimulates growth. Using the residuals from the growth estimation, the authors also find that cities that better administer local land use and zoning laws have higher growth. Finally, their policy simulations show that diverting transport investments from large cities toward secondary cities does not provide significant gains in terms of national urban performance.Economic Theory&Research,City Development Strategies,Municipal Financial Management,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Growth

Examining the growth patterns of Brazilian cities

The share of urban population in Brazil increased from 58 to 80 percent between 1970 and 2000 and all net population growth over the next 30 years is predicted to be in cities. This paper explores population growth and its implications for economic dynamics and income generation among 123 urban agglomerations. Incomes are higher in larger agglomerations and in the South, but there is some indication of regional convergence with higher rates of income growth in poorer areas. In particular, agglomerations in the North and Central-West are growing faster than the more established urban centers in the South. Economic dynamics point to a process of increased diversification among larger cities, and greater specialization among medium-sized agglomerations. In bigger centers there is a trend toward deconcentration toward the periphery. The paper provides a simple analysis of correlates of labor supply, as measured by population growth and economic productivity, which is proxied by changes in per capita income.

Abnormal connectional fingerprint in schizophrenia: a novel network analysis of diffusion tensor imaging data

The graph theoretical analysis of structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data has received a great deal of interest in recent years to characterize the organizational principles of brain networks and their alterations in psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia. However, the characterization of networks in clinical populations can be challenging, since the comparison of connectivity between groups is influenced by several factors, such as the overall number of connections and the structural abnormalities of the seed regions. To overcome these limitations, the current study employed the whole-brain analysis of connectional fingerprints in diffusion tensor imaging data obtained at 3 T of chronic schizophrenia patients (n = 16) and healthy, age-matched control participants (n = 17). Probabilistic tractography was performed to quantify the connectivity of 110 brain areas. The connectional fingerprint of a brain area represents the set of relative connection probabilities to all its target areas and is, hence, less affected by overall white and gray matter changes than absolute connectivity measures. After detecting brain regions with abnormal connectional fingerprints through similarity measures, we tested each of its relative connection probability between groups. We found altered connectional fingerprints in schizophrenia patients consistent with a dysconnectivity syndrome. While the medial frontal gyrus showed only reduced connectivity, the connectional fingerprints of the inferior frontal gyrus and the putamen mainly contained relatively increased connection probabilities to areas in the frontal, limbic, and subcortical areas. These findings are in line with previous studies that reported abnormalities in striatal–frontal circuits in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, highlighting the potential utility of connectional fingerprints for the analysis of anatomical networks in the disorder

Great successes and great failures: The impact of project leader status on project performance and performance extremeness

Research supporting the Matthew Effect demonstrates that high-status actors experience performance benefits due to increased recognition of their work and greater opportunities and resources, but recent research also indicates that high-status actors face a greater risk of negative performance evaluations. In this paper, we seek to contribute to the status literature by reconciling these findings and ask: To what extent does status influence heterogeneity in performance evaluations? We explore how project leader status affects the performance of innovation projects in the video game industry. We hypothesize that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between project leader status and project performance, and a positive relationship between project leader status and performance extremeness (i.e., performance variation). In order to test our hypotheses, we analyzed the performance of video game projects and computed the status of project leaders by applying a project affiliation social network analysis. We find that an intermediate level of status—neither too much nor too little—is positively associated with average project performance. We also reveal more extreme performance effects for high-status leaders: While some achieve superior project performance, others experience significant project failures. We therefore provide important theoretical and practical insights regarding how status affects the implementation of innovations. We also discuss the implications of these findings for the literature on middle-status conformity

Exploring break-points and interaction effects among predictors of the international digital divide

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The deepening of the digital divide between countries has prompted international organizations and governments to work together toward reducing the problem over the next 15 years. However, such efforts will likely succeed only if they are based on a firm grasp of the divide's underlying causes. In this paper we report the results of a comprehensive analysis of the determinants of the international digital divide. Our results confirm many findings of past research, but also extend existing knowledge in important ways. By employing Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS), we discover non-linearities and interaction effects among the predictors. We then articulate significant policy implications based upon these findings