Numbers, not value, motivate cooperation in humans and orangutans

Cooperation among competitors-whether sharing the burden of wind resistance in the Tour de France, forming price-fixing cartels in economic markets, or adhering to arms-control agreements in international treaties-seldom spreads in proportion to the potential benefits. To gain insight into the minds of uncooperative agents, economists and social psychologists have used the prisoner's dilemma task to examine factors leading to cooperation among competitors. Two types of factors have emerged in these studies: the relative rewards of defecting versus cooperating and breakdowns in trust, forgiveness and communication. The generalizability of economic and social psychological factors, however, relies on the assumption that agents' comparisons of gains and losses (whether for themselves, others, or both) preserves ratio information over arbitrary units, such as dollars and cents, and real rewards, such as food. This assumption is inconsistent with psychophysical studies on how the brain represents quantitative information, which suggests that mental magnitudes increase logarithmically with actual value. Thus, discrimination of two numerical magnitudes improves as the numerical distance between them increases and decreases as the magnitudes increase. Here we show an important consequence of this representational system for economic decision making: in the prisoner's dilemma game, purely nominal increases in the numerical magnitude of payoffs (such as, converting dollar values to cents or whole grapes into grape-parts) has a large effect on cooperative behaviour. Moreover, a logarithmic scaling of the ratio of rewards for cooperation versus defection predicted 97% of variability in observed cooperation, whereas the objective ratio predicted 0% of variability. By linking the brain's system of representing the magnitude of rewards to motivations for cooperative behaviour, these findings suggest that the nature of numerical representations may also account for the subjective value function described by Bernoulli, in which the apparent value of monetary incentives increases logarithmically with actual value

A concept design for an ultra-long-range survey class AUV

Gliders and flight-style Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are used to perform perform autonomous surveys of large areas of open ocean. Glider missions are characterized by their profiling flight pattern, slow speed, long range (1000s of km) and many month mission duration. Flight-style AUV missions are faster, of shorter range (100s of km) and multi day duration. An AUV combining many aspects of both vehicle classes would be of considerable value.This paper investigates the factors that affect the range of a traditional flight-style AUVs. A generic range model is outlined which factors in the effects of buoyancy on the range. The model shows that to create a very long range AUV it is necessary to reduce the hotel load on the AUV to the order of 1W and to add wings to overcome the vehicle’s positive buoyancy whilst travelling at the reduced speed required for long range.Using this model a concept long range AUV is outlined that is capable of travelling up to 5000km. The practical issues associated with achieving this range are also discussed

The Occurrence and Phylogenetic Status of Merycodus from the Mohave Desert Tertiary

The collections of the University of California Museum of Paleontology contain a fairly representative assemblage of Merycodus skeletal elements from the Great Basin province. During the collecting seasons of 1925 and 1926, Miss Annie M. Alexander and Miss Louise Kellogg discovered in the Barstow and the Ricardo deposits of the Mohave Desert unusually complete series of limb bones associated with Merycodus skulls. The associated skeletal remains, with the numerous dissociated limb bones, cranial bones, and teeth from these and other localities, afford opportunity to observe the constancy of osteological characters within this group as well as a sound basis for morphological comparison with other genera of the Antilocapridae and Cervidae

The geology of the Farmington quadrangle, Maine

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityThe Farmington Quadrangle is located in west central Maine within the New England Physiographic Province. Meta-sedimentary rocks of the Mid-Paleozoic age comprise approximately two thirds of this area. The remaining one third reveals phanerocrystalline granite rocks, divided into magmatic and granitized zones. The oldest recognized stratigraphic unit in the Farmington Quadrangle is the Smalls Falls (Parmachenee) Formation. This unit is characterized by dark, maroon stained, thinly bedded, highly sulfidic argillaceous rock with minor intercalated arenaceous and calcareous units. This formation was deposited under anaerobic conditions in closed basins. The Madrid Formation lies above the Smalls Falls Formation and is characterized by intercalated calcerous arenaceous units with some argillaceous and calcareous horizons. Near the top of the Madrid Formation lies the Dyer Hill Member which is a dark argillaceous rock. The stratigraphic units have been subjected to regional metamorphism. The metamorphism increases from low grade, chlorite intensities in the northern sector of the quadrangle to high grade, sillimanite intensities in the southern region of the quadrangle. Contact thermal metamorphic effects are superimposed on the regional metamorphism in the Clearwater Pluton area. The phanerocrystalline rock bodies are ascribed to extensive transformations of sediments in localized deeper areas of the geosyncline which produced magmatic core areas bordered by granitized and metamorphic zones. Some of the granitic magmatic material has been intruded into the overlying rocks while some has remained essentially in situ. The attitude of the rocks in the quadrangle reflect intense structural deformation. The regional strike of the bes is N.N.E and dips are usually very steep to the N.W. Shear zones both transverse and longitudinal are ubiquitous; there are many drag folds of diverse orientation associated with the shear zones. Pleated folding is suggested as the explanation for the regional structure. Isoclinal folding is held untenable due to the absence of: converging strikes of bes; lack of crests and troughs; and readily identifiable repetition of beds. The late mature topography reflects pre-glacial conditions which were modified by Pleistocene glacial erosion and deposition. The method used to map the less accessable areas of the Farmington Quadrangle was th pace and compass method. Extensive field notes were recorded and evaluated. One hundred and sixty three thin sections were prepared and studied. A geological map and the geological history of the Farmington Quadrangle was developed from these data

Improving the Accuracy of Publicly Reported PSI Rates through Enhanced Internal Documentation Review

Patient Safety Indicators, or PSIs, are used by several healthcare related federal agencies and third-party payers to determine the quality of care being delivered by a healthcare provider. A composite PSI, PSI-90, includes a group of PSIs that are publicly reported as quality indicators for a provider, and that are used as part of the Value Based Purchasing calculation. Poor PSI-90 rates directly influence healthcare services reimbursement rates by CMS and may be considered an indication of a quality of care problem by potential patients and third party payers. This research is a case study on the effectiveness of a program implemented by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUHA) to improve the accuracy of their reported PSI-90 composite score

Structure-Function Analysis of UDP-Sugar: Polyisoprenyl Phosphate Sugar-1-Phosphate Transferases

The synthesis of lipid-linked glycans is a conserved process in eukaryotes and prokaryotes that is initiated by two major enzyme families: the polyisoprenyl-phosphate hexose-1-phosphate transferases (PHPTs) and the polyisoprenyl-phosphate N-acetylaminosugar-1-phosphate transferases (PNPTs). These enzymes contain multiple membrane domains and transfer a sugar-1-phosphate from a nucleotide sugar precursor to a lipid carrier. The prototypic PNPT member used in this study is the E. coli WecA, which initiates the synthesis of O antigen and enterobacterial common antigen in Enterobacteriaceae by transferring N-acetylglucosamine-1-P to undecaprenyl phosphate (Und-P). We investigated the topology and function of the highly conserved VFMGD motif. Our results revealed that this motif faces the cytosol and defines a region in PNPTs that contributes to the active site, likely involved in the binding and/or recognition of the nucleotide moiety of the nucleoside phosphate precursor. The PHPT family member used in this study is the E. coli WcaJ, which transfers glucose-1-P to Und-P to initiate colanic acid synthesis. We provide the first detailed topological analysis of a PHPT member, which is inverted compared to the in silico topological predictions; the N-terminus, C-terminal tail and the large soluble loop all reside in the cytoplasm. We also found that the last membrane domain does not fully span the membrane and is likely ‘pinched in’. We further investigated the role of the N-terminal domain of WcaJ and our data suggest that it likely contributes to the protein folding and/or stability of PHPT family members. Together this work sheds light on the topological and mechanistic differences between these two major enzyme families and will guide further structural studies

Experimental Verification of a Depth Controller using Model Predictive Control with Constraints onboard a Thruster Actuated AUV

In this work a depth and pitch controller for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is developed. This controller uses the model predictive control method to manoeuvre the vehicle whilst operating within the defined constraints of the AUV actuators. Experimental results are given for the AUV performing a step change in depth whilst maintaining zero pitch

Tautomeric Equilibria Studies by Mass Spectrometry

Tautomerism in organic chemistry has been extensively studied in condensed phase by spectrometric methods, mainly by IR and NMR techniques. Mass spectrometry studies start 40 years ago but just recently it has been recognized the importance of the mass spectral data for the study of tautomerism in the gas phase.
Mass spectrometry can provide valuable information in regard to tautomeric equilibria when studying mass spectra among the members of different families of organic compounds.
The relevance of the mass spectral data resides on several facts but there are two that are of key importance:
1-	Mass spectral fragmentation assignments should be tautomer specific since the corresponding abundances ratios are supposed to be correlated to the keto/enol contents.
2-	Ionization in the ion source is supposed to have no effect on the position of the equilibrium so that the results reflect the tautomers content in the gas phase previous to ionization.
Some of the carbonylic compounds do not exhibit noticeable tautomerism so the fragment abundances assigned to the enol form is very low or not measurable. Since enolization is more noticeable in the case of thio-derivatives (which correlates adequately with the oxygenated analogues), the study of their mass spectra is an interesting choice to reach some degree of generalization. 
In addition, experimental findings are supported by semiempirical theoretical calculations, which probed to be adequate not only for supporting tendency correlations among the members of a compound family but also to calculate heats of tautomerization in gas phase.
Reports using mass spectrometry for tautomerism are becoming less common. One of the reasons is that now it would appear that the interpretation of MS results is not as straightforward as it was once believed, even though in a recent review it was written that: “Mass spectrometry is the most informative and practical method for studying and identifying tautomers in the gas phase” [1]. 
In fact, mass spectrometry seems to be very informative for studying and identifying tautomers, because in this case external factors like solvents, intermolecular interactions, etc., can be excluded by transferring the tautomeric system into gas phase, where the process becomes truly unimolecular [1].
This review covers the study of Tautomerism by Mass Spectrometry in the last four decades. 
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