The Interpersonal Effects of Emotions in Money versus Candy Games

Emotional expressions significantly influence perceivers’ behavior in economic games and negotiations. The current research examined the interpersonal effects of emotions when such information cannot be used to guide behavior for increasing personal gain and when monetary rewards are made salient. For this, a one-shot Public Goods Game (Studies 1, 2, and 3) and Dictator Game (Studies 4 and 5) were employed, in which the dominant strategy to maximize personal payoff is independent from the counterplayers’ intention signaled through their facial expressions (happiness, sadness, and anger). To elicit a monetary mindset, we used money (vs. candy) as the mode of exchange in the games with (Studies 1 and 2) or without (Studies 3, 4, and 5) additional contextual framing (i.e. Wall Street Game vs. Community Game). Across five studies (N = 1211), participants were found to be more generous towards happy and sad targets compared to angry ones. Such behavioral response based on emotional information was accounted for by the trait impressions (i.e. likability, trustworthiness) formed of the counterplayer. This effect was significantly reduced when money acted as the mode of exchange, thereby making participants focus more on their selfgain. Together, the findings extend previous work by highlighting the social functional role of emotions in human exchange and its moderation by money as a transaction medium

Money and flexible generosity

Previous research on money and prosociality has described a monotonic pattern, showing that money reduces generosity. The present research aimed to examine whether money differently impairs generosity when arising from altruistic versus egoistic motives. To this end, we employed economic games designed to study generosity (e.g., the Dictator game) and varied experimental currency (i.e., money vs. candy/food). The results (N = 850) showed that although money made people ignore others when others were not crucial for their future gain, generosity was not impacted when egoistic motives (Study 1: avoiding sanctions; Studies 2 and 3: building reputation) were present. In other words, although people in general showed flexible prosociality by adjusting their generosity level according to game type, this was much more strongly the case when money rather than candy/food was the currency. In addition, we demonstrate a boundary condition of money on flexible generosity, namely imbuing money with prosocial meaning (Study 3). Some implications are discussed

Measuring change in health status of older adults at the population level: The transition probability model

BACKGROUND: The current demographic transition will lead to increasing demands on health services. However, debate exists as to the role age plays relative to co-morbidity in terms of health services utilization. While age has been identified as a critical factor in health services utilization, health services utilization is not simply an outcome of ill health, nor is it an inevitable outcome of aging. Most data on health service utilization studies assess utilization at one point in time, and does not examine transitions in health service utilization. We sought to measure health services utilization and to investigate patterns in the transition of levels of utilization and outcomes associated with different levels of utilization. METHODS: We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study of all Ontario residents aged 65+ eligible for public healthcare coverage from January 1998-December 2006. The main outcome measure was total number of utilization events. The total is computed by summing, on a per annum basis, the number of family physician visits, specialist visits, Emergency Department visits, drug claims, lab claims, X-rays, CT scans, MRI scans, and inpatient admissions. Three categories of utilization were created: low, moderate, and high. RESULTS: There is heterogeneity in health services utilization across the late lifespan. Utilization increased consistently in the 9-year study period. The probability of remaining at the high utilization category when the person was in the high category the previous year was more than 0.70 for both males and females and for all age groups. Overall healthcare utilization increases more rapidly among the high users compared to the low users. There was negligible probability for moving from high to low utilization category. Probability of death increased exponentially as age increased. Older adults in the low utilization category had the lowest probability of death. The number of male nonagenarians increased more rapidly than female nonagenarians. CONCLUSION: There are measurable and identifiable differences in the patterns of health services utilization among older adults. This data will permit clinicians and policy makers to tailor interventions appropriate to the risk class of patients

Thermodynamical Consistent Modeling and Analysis of Nematic Liquid Crystal Flows

The general Ericksen-Leslie system for the flow of nematic liquid crystals is reconsidered in the non-isothermal case aiming for thermodynamically consistent models. The non-isothermal model is then investigated analytically. A fairly complete dynamic theory is developed by analyzing these systems as quasilinear parabolic evolution equations in an $L^p-L^q$-setting. First, the existence of a unique, local strong solution is proved. It is then shown that this solution extends to a global strong solution provided the initial data are close to an equilibrium or the solution is eventually bounded in the natural norm of the underlying state space. In these cases, the solution converges exponentially to an equilibrium in the natural state manifold

A memetic algorithm with adaptive hill climbing strategy for dynamic optimization problems

Copyright @ Springer-Verlag 2008Dynamic optimization problems challenge traditional evolutionary algorithms seriously since they, once converged, cannot adapt quickly to environmental changes. This paper investigates the application of memetic algorithms, a class of hybrid evolutionary algorithms, for dynamic optimization problems. An adaptive hill climbing method is proposed as the local search technique in the framework of memetic algorithms, which combines the features of greedy crossover-based hill climbing and steepest mutation-based hill climbing. In order to address the convergence problem, two diversity maintaining methods, called adaptive dual mapping and triggered random immigrants, respectively, are also introduced into the proposed memetic algorithm for dynamic optimization problems. Based on a series of dynamic problems generated from several stationary benchmark problems, experiments are carried out to investigate the performance of the proposed memetic algorithm in comparison with some peer evolutionary algorithms. The experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed memetic algorithm in dynamic environments.This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant Nos. 70431003 and 70671020, the National Innovation Research Community Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 60521003, and the National Support Plan of China under Grant No. 2006BAH02A09 and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of UK under Grant EP/E060722/01

Gamma-ray lines and neutrons from solar flares

The energy spectrum of accelerated protons and nuclei at the site of a limb flare was derived by a technique, using observations of the time dependent flux of high energy neutrons at the Earth. This energy spectrum is very similar to the energy spectra of 7 disk flares for which the accelerated particle spectra was previously derived using observations of 4 to 7 MeV to 2.223 MeV fluence ratios. The implied spectra for all of these flares are too steep to produce any significant amount of radiation from pi meson decay. It is suggested that the observed 10 MeV gamma rays from the flare are bremsstrahlung of relativistic electrons

Dynamic Limits on Planar Libration-Orbit Coupling Around an Oblate Primary

This paper explores the dynamic properties of the planar system of an ellipsoidal satellite in an equatorial orbit about an oblate primary. In particular, we investigate the conditions for which the satellite is bound in librational motion or when the satellite will circulate with respect to the primary. We find the existence of stable equilibrium points about which the satellite can librate, and explore both the linearized and non-linear dynamics around these points. Absolute bounds are placed on the phase space of the libration-orbit coupling through the use of zero-velocity curves that exist in the system. These zero-velocity curves are used to derive a sufficient condition for when the satellite's libration is bound to less than 90 degrees. When this condition is not satisfied so that circulation of the satellite is possible, the initial conditions at zero libration angle are determined which lead to circulation of the satellite. Exact analytical conditions for circulation and the maximum libration angle are derived for the case of a small satellite in orbits of any eccentricity.Comment: Submitted to Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronom

Shape-based peak identification for ChIP-Seq

We present a new algorithm for the identification of bound regions from ChIP-seq experiments. Our method for identifying statistically significant peaks from read coverage is inspired by the notion of persistence in topological data analysis and provides a non-parametric approach that is robust to noise in experiments. Specifically, our method reduces the peak calling problem to the study of tree-based statistics derived from the data. We demonstrate the accuracy of our method on existing datasets, and we show that it can discover previously missed regions and can more clearly discriminate between multiple binding events. The software T-PIC (Tree shape Peak Identification for ChIP-Seq) is available at http://math.berkeley.edu/~vhower/tpic.htmlComment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Normal levels of p27Xic1 are necessary for somite segmentation and determining pronephric organ size

The Xenopus laevis cyclin dependent kinase inhibitor p27Xic1 has been shown to be involved in exit from the cell cycle and differentiation of cells into a quiescent state in the nervous system, muscle tissue, heart and retina. We show that p27Xic1 is expressed in the developing kidney in the nephrostomal regions. Using over-expression and morpholino oligonucleotide (MO) knock-down approaches we show normal levels of p27Xic1 regulate pronephros organ size by regulating cell cycle exit. Knock-down of p27Xic1 expression using a MO prevented myogenesis, as previously reported; an effect that subsequently inhibits pronephrogenesis. Furthermore, we show that normal levels of p27Xic1 are required for somite segmentation also through its cell cycle control function. Finally, we provide evidence to suggest correct paraxial mesoderm segmentation is not necessary for pronephric induction in the intermediate mesoderm. These results indicate novel developmental roles for p27Xic1, and reveal its differentiation function is not universally utilised in all developing tissues