I Cannot Tell a Lie: Emotional Intelligence as a Predictor of Deceptive Behavior

Research has identified that perceived acceptability and likelihood of lying depend on the type of lie and personality characteristics such as honesty, kindness, assertiveness, and Machiavellianism. However, this research has focused on individuals’ experiences of their own emotions and neglected to consider how an individual’s understanding of others and their emotions influences deceptive behavior. I expanded upon this research during the summer of 2018 by investigating the relationship between emotional intelligence, personal intelligence, and perceived acceptability and likelihood of telling four types of lies, which are distinguished from one another based on their motivation (altruistic, conflict avoidance, social acceptance, or self‐gain). Participants were 80 University of New Hampshire undergraduate students who completed an online survey consisting of both self‐report and ability‐based measures. Results suggest that scores on ability‐based tests of personal intelligence may be useful in predicting an individual’s likelihood of telling lies for the purpose of social acceptance. Results also indicate a significant negative correlation between self‐reported likelihood of telling social‐acceptance lies and levels of personal intelligence, indicating that those with higher personal intelligence are less likely to tell social‐acceptance lies

Development of spatial coarse-to-fine processing in the visual pathway

The sequential analysis of information in a coarse-to-fine manner is a fundamental mode of processing in the visual pathway. Spatial frequency (SF) tuning, arguably the most fundamental feature of spatial vision, provides particular intuition within the coarse-to-fine framework: low spatial frequencies convey global information about an image (e.g., general orientation), while high spatial frequencies carry more detailed information (e.g., edges). In this paper, we study the development of cortical spatial frequency tuning. As feedforward input from the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) has been shown to have significant influence on cortical coarse-to-fine processing, we present a firing-rate based thalamocortical model which includes both feedforward and feedback components. We analyze the relationship between various model parameters (including cortical feedback strength) and responses. We confirm the importance of the antagonistic relationship between the center and surround responses in thalamic relay cell receptive fields (RFs), and further characterize how specific structural LGN RF parameters affect cortical coarse-to-fine processing. Our results also indicate that the effect of cortical feedback on spatial frequency tuning is age-dependent: in particular, cortical feedback more strongly affects coarse-to-fine processing in kittens than in adults. We use our results to propose an experimentally testable hypothesis for the function of the extensive feedback in the corticothalamic circuit.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures; substantial restructuring from previous versio

Decentralized control with input saturation: a first step toward design

This article summarizes important observations about control of decentralized systems with input saturation and provides a few examples that give insight into the structure of such systems

The Understanding of the Other in Orientalist and Primitivst Art

In 1978, Edward Said published Orientalism, a seminal book that shed light on one of the “leftovers” of European colonialism. In it, he describes the West’s attempts to exotify and romanticize the non-Western world. While the Near East, the Far East, and East/Southeast Asia are geographic terms that correspond to specific countries and cultures, the “Orient” is a Euro-American fantasy that only exists to contradict the West. The term is intentionally vague in order to satisfy any and all exotic desires that a consumer may have. A great deal of European and American artists found inspiration in the exotic during the late 19th century. The artworks they created, however, rarely celebrate or appreciate non-Western culture. They emphasize “otherness,” and turn dynamic societies into mere playgrounds for their own artistic expression. The beginning of the 20th century saw a rise in artistic Primitivism, or the influence of so-called “savage” cultures on modern art. Both of these movements represent a justification for ethnocentrism. Since the publication of Said’s book, art historians, anthropologists, and historians have been taking an inquisitive look at how (and why) cultures outside of Europe and America have been generalized and exoticized. In response, many artists, curators, designers, and art collectors have asked themselves if they are representing non-European cultures as a mysterious “other”, or as diverse histories hosting a myriad of different cultures, languages, and histories. In my paper, I will be evaluating the scope of Orientalism in the 19th century and Primitivism in the 20th century. I will also discuss the value of authenticity and what causes “the West” to crave exotic art

The Limiting Speed of the Bacterial Flagellar Motor

Recent experiments on the bacterial flagellar motor have shown that the structure of this nanomachine, which drives locomotion in a wide range of bacterial species, is more dynamic than previously believed. Specifically, the number of active torque-generating units (stators) was shown to vary across applied loads. This finding invalidates the experimental evidence reporting that limiting (zero-torque) speed is independent of the number of active stators. Here, we propose that, contrary to previous assumptions, the maximum speed of the motor is not universal, but rather increases as additional torque-generators are recruited. This result arises from our assumption that stators disengage from the motor for a significant portion of their mechanochemical cycles at low loads. We show that this assumption is consistent with current experimental evidence and consolidate our predictions with arguments that a processive motor must have a high duty ratio at high loads.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures (main text); 7 pages, 3 figures (supplementary

The Relationship between Bicycles and Traffic Safety for All Road Users

Over the past twenty years bicycle use as a mode of transportation has grown considerably in the United States. Other studies have examined the individual bicyclist’s risk in proportion to the growth in cycling across cities, a phenomenon referred to as ‘safety in numbers.’ This study expands from that research and examines the effect of cyclists on road safety for all road users. The study examines the roles of bicycle modal split, a city wide analysis, and bicycle infrastructure, a site based analysis, in road safety outcomes. For the city based analysis, twenty years of crash data in 12 California cities were analyzed over a 20 year period. This study primarily used census data and State wide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) data. This study concludes that as bicycle modal split increases in a city, the traffic fatalities tend to decrease and the relationship is an exponential function. The site based analysis focuses on the effects of installing a bicycle lane on a street and examined its effect on injury crashes. 20 sites in San Francisco, CA that had bike lanes installed on them were compared to 25 control group sites, also in San Francisco, that did not have any bike lanes or other significant changes. An Empirical Bayes method of analysis was done to test its effects and determined that the effects were statistically significant

Investor Protection, Corporate Governance, Firm Value: Research on the Companies in Asia

This study examines the effect of investor protection on the firm value, either directly or through the implementation of corporate governance as an intervening variable in 10 countries in Asia. Investor protection as independent variable was measured by the score of investor protection consisting of legal tradition, corporate law and enforcement, and securities law. Firm value as the dependent variable was measured with Tobin’s q. The research hypotheses were tested using partial least square model. This study found that investor protection had no significant impact on firm value, but it did have a significant impact on corporate governance, which further had a significant impact on firm value; hence, investor protection had significant impact on firm value with the implementation of corporate governance as mediating variable.     Keywords: investor protection, corporate governance, firm value, corporate governance scor

Association between HIV/AIDS Education and Reduced Risky Sexual Behaviors amongst African American Adolescents living in the United States in 2013

ABSTRACT Association between HIV/AIDS Education and Reduced Risky Sexual Behaviors amongst African American Adolescents living in the United States in 2013 By Jasmine A. Rockwell November 30, 2016 Purpose: Adolescent contraction of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) is a major public health problem in the United States. Sex education is usually regarded as effective in increasing HIV/AIDS knowledge and helps to lead to a reduction in risky sexual behaviors. Yet, there are still concerns whether sex education will actually increase sexual behavior in adolescents According to the CDC, in 2010, adolescents aged 13-24 accounted for an estimated 26% of all new HIV infections in the United States with African American adolescents accounting for an estimated 57% (7,000) of all new HIV infections among youth. There is a critical need to understand if sex education in schools can help adolescents reduce risky sexual behaviors. The objective of this study is to explore the association between HIV/AIDS education and reduced risky sexual behaviors amongst African American adolescents living in the United States in 2013 using the 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using data from the YRBS. The participants include 9th through 12th grade public or private high school students in the United States who have taken 2013 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) in school. The YRBS is a national school-based survey held by CDC and state, territorial, tribal, and local surveys conducted by state, territorial, and local education and health agencies and tribal governments. A total of 2880 African American adolescents and 5382 White American adolescents were included in the study. Results: A total of five outcomes were assessed: had sex before 13, had sex with 4 or more people in life, used alcohol/drugs last time had sex, used condom last time had sex, and risky sexual behavior which combined the other 4 outcomes. The primary exposure variable was whether participants received HIV/AIDS education at School. When looking at the multivariable model for the association between engaging in risky sexual behavior and other participant characteristics for African American adolescents and White American Adolescents, having 5 or more drinks within the last 30 days (AOR = 2.52, 95% CI: 1.91, 3.33) and using marijuana one or more times in the last 30 days (AOR = 3.58, 95% CI: 2.68, 4.77) were significantly associated with risky sexual behavior, after adjusting for all covariates in the model. Also, adolescent females (AOR = 0.62, 95% CI: 0.48, 0.79) were more likely than males and African American adolescents (AOR = 1.63, 95% CI: 1.28, 2.18) were more likely than White adolescents to engage in risky sexual behaviors after adjusting for all variables in the model. Age and ever taught about HIV/AIDS at school were not significantly associated with risky sexual behavior, after adjusting for all covariates. Conclusions: There was not an association found between receiving HIV/AIDS education in school and reduced risky sexual behaviors. Although this study did not find evidence that HIV/AIDS education in school can reduce risky sexual behavior in African American adolescents when compared amongst each other or when compared to White American Adolescents, the literature has shown numerous examples that HIV/AIDS education is effective in reducing risky sexual behaviors. There needs to be further studies that exam how in depth educators are going when describing HIV/AIDS risk factors in sex education classes. Improved school-based HIV/AIDS education classes will yield better results in future studies