Consumption experience, choice experience and the endowment effect

We report experiments investigating how experience influences the endowment effect. Our experiments feature endowments which are bundles of unfamiliar consumption goods. We examine how a subject’s willingness to swap items from their endowment is influenced by prior experiences of tasting the goods in question and by prior experiences of choosing between them. We do not find a statistically significant endowment effect in our baseline treatment and, because of this, we are unable to test for an effect of consumption experience. We do find an endowment effect when the endowment is acquired in two instalments and, in this setting, we find some evidence that choice experience increases trading. In a follow up experiment, we find evidence that the absence of an endowment effect in our baseline treatment is due to subjects being more willing to swap when they do not have to give up the last unit of their endowment

Bioinformatics challenges and potentialities in studying extreme environments

Cold environments are populated by organisms able to contravene deleterious effects of low temperature by diverse adaptive strategies, including the production of ice binding proteins (IBPs) that inhibit the growth of ice crystals inside and outside cells. We describe the properties of such a protein (EfcIBP) identified in the metagenome of an Antarctic biological consortium composed of the ciliate Euplotes focardii and psychrophilic non-cultured bacteria. Recombinant EfcIBP can resist freezing without any conformational damage and is moderately heat stable, with a midpoint temperature of 66.4 degrees C. Tested for its effects on ice, EfcIBP shows an unusual combination of properties not reported in other bacterial IBPs. First, it is one of the best-performing IBPs described to date in the inhibition of ice recrystallization, with effective concentrations in the nanomolar range. Moreover, EfcIBP has thermal hysteresis activity (0.53 degrees C at 50 mu M) and it can stop a crystal from growing when held at a constant temperature within the thermal hysteresis gap. EfcIBP protects purified proteins and bacterial cells from freezing damage when exposed to challenging temperatures. EfcIBP also possesses a potential N-terminal signal sequence for protein transport and a DUF3494 domain that is common to secreted IBPs. These features lead us to hypothesize that the protein is either anchored at the outer cell surface or concentrated around cells to provide survival advantage to the whole cell consortium

Extraction and sensitive detection of toxins A and B from the human pathogen Clostridium difficile in 40 seconds using microwave-accelerated metal-enhanced fluorescence.

Clostridium difficile is the primary cause of antibiotic associated diarrhea in humans and is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. Thus the rapid and accurate identification of this pathogen in clinical samples, such as feces, is a key step in reducing the devastating impact of this disease. The bacterium produces two toxins, A and B, which are thought to be responsible for the majority of the pathology associated with the disease, although the relative contribution of each is currently a subject of debate. For this reason we have developed a rapid detection assay based on microwave-accelerated metal-enhanced fluorescence which is capable of detecting the presence of 10 bacteria in unprocessed human feces within 40 seconds. These promising results suggest that this prototype biosensor has the potential to be developed into a rapid, point of care, real time diagnostic assay for C. difficile

Interpreting whole genome sequencing for investigating tuberculosis transmission: a systematic review

BACKGROUND: Whole genome sequencing (WGS) is becoming an important part of epidemiological investigations of infectious diseases due to greater resolution and cost reductions compared to traditional typing approaches. Many public health and clinical teams will increasingly use WGS to investigate clusters of potential pathogen transmission, making it crucial to understand the benefits and assumptions of the analytical methods for investigating the data. We aimed to understand how different approaches affect inferences of transmission dynamics and outline limitations of the methods. METHODS: We comprehensively searched electronic databases for studies that presented methods used to interpret WGS data for investigating tuberculosis (TB) transmission. Two authors independently selected studies for inclusion and extracted data. Due to considerable methodological heterogeneity between studies, we present summary data with accompanying narrative synthesis rather than pooled analyses. RESULTS: Twenty-five studies met our inclusion criteria. Despite the range of interpretation tools, the usefulness of WGS data in understanding TB transmission often depends on the amount of genetic diversity in the setting. Where diversity is small, distinguishing re-infections from relapses may be impossible; interpretation may be aided by the use of epidemiological data, examining minor variants and deep sequencing. Conversely, when within-host diversity is large, due to genetic hitchhiking or co-infection of two dissimilar strains, it is critical to understand how it arose. Greater understanding of microevolution and mixed infection will enhance interpretation of WGS data. CONCLUSIONS: As sequencing studies have sampled more intensely and integrated multiple sources of information, the understanding of TB transmission and diversity has grown, but there is still much to be learnt about the origins of diversity that will affect inferences from these data. Public health teams and researchers should combine epidemiological, clinical and WGS data to strengthen investigations of transmission

EuPRAXIA - A Compact, Cost-Efficient Particle and Radiation Source

Plasma accelerators present one of the most suitable candidates for the development of more compact particle acceleration technologies, yet they still lag behind radiofrequency (RF)-based devices when it comes to beam quality, control, stability and power efficiency. The Horizon 2020-funded project EuPRAXIA (“European Plasma Research Accelerator with eXcellence In Applications”) aims to overcome the first three of these hurdles by developing a conceptual design for a first international user facility based on plasma acceleration. In this paper we report on the main features, simulation studies and potential applications of this future research infrastructure

Values of Gains and Losses: Reference States and Choice of Measure

Reference dependence, Value disparity, Welfare measures,

Endowment effect

A vast body of experimental studies in psychology and economics finds that individuals tend to value goods more and demand higher prices when they own the goods than they would be willing to pay for the good when they do not already own it. Although research on the endowment effect has been done for more than three decades, it’s theory, empirical methodology, results, and implications continue to be topics of intense discussion among economists, lawyers and psychologists. In this entry, we review the theoretical framework and empirical evidence on the endowment effect and highlight some implications for law and economics research