Measuring Rank-Based Utility in Contests: The Effect of Disclosure Schemes

This paper studies how the incentive structures and disclosing schemes of a contest affect the contestants’ intrinsic motivations. Specifically, we measure the effects of these design decisions on two types of non-monetary rank-based utility: self-generated and peer-induced. We run a set of laboratory experiments involving contests under various reward spreads and disclosure schemes. We find that virtually all commonly adopted disclosure schemes generate positive peer-induced rank-based utility. However, the relative performances of alternative disclosure schemes can depend on the spread of contest rewards and the number of contestants. Second, being recognized as a winner confers positive peer-induced rank-based utility; moreover, being recognized as the sole first-place winner or as one among multiple winners does not produce significantly different peer-induced utility. Third, ‘shaming’ by disclosing the identity of contestants ranked at the bottom leads to negative peer-induced rank-based utility, but the effect is marginally insignificant. Finally, a smaller spread of contest rewards consistently results in higher levels of self-generated rank-based utility. These results underscore the importance of jointly choosing incentive structures and disclosure schemes

Embedded gateway services for Internet of Things applications in ubiquitous healthcare

The continuous advancement in computer and communication technologies has made personalized healthcare monitoring a rapidly growing area of interest. New features and services are envisaged, raising users' expectations in healthcare services. The emergence of Internet of Things brings people closer to connect the physical world to the Internet. In this paper, we present embedded services that are part of a ubiquitous healthcare system that allows automated and intelligent monitoring. The system uses IP connectivity and the Internet for end-to-end communication, from each 6LoWPAN sensor nodes to the web user interface on the Internet. The proposed algorithm in the Gateway performs multithreaded processing on the gathered medical signals for conversion to real data, feature extraction and wireless display. The user interface at the server allows users to access and view the medical data from mobile and portable devices. The ubiquitous system is exploring possibilities in connecting Internet with things and people for health services

A global spectral library to characterize the world's soil

Soil provides ecosystem services, supports human health and habitation, stores carbon and regulates emissions of greenhouse gases. Unprecedented pressures on soil from degradation and urbanization are threatening agro-ecological balances and food security. It is important that we learn more about soil to sustainably manage and preserve it for future generations. To this end, we developed and analyzed a global soil visible-near infrared (vis-NIR) spectral library. It is currently the largest and most diverse database of its kind. We show that the information encoded in the spectra can describe soil composition and be associated to land cover and its global geographic distribution, which acts as a surrogate for global climate variability. We also show the usefulness of the global spectra for predicting soil attributes such as soil organic and inorganic carbon, clay, silt, sand and iron contents, cation exchange capacity, and pH. Using wavelets to treat the spectra, which were recorded in different laboratories using different spectrometers and methods, helped to improve the spectroscopic modelling. We found that modelling a diverse set of spectra with a machine learning algorithm can find the local relationships in the data to produce accurate predictions of soil properties. The spectroscopic models that we derived are parsimonious and robust, and using them we derived a harmonized global soil attribute dataset, which might serve to facilitate research on soil at the global scale. This spectroscopic approach should help to deal with the shortage of data on soil to better understand it and to meet the growing demand for information to assess and monitor soil at scales ranging from regional to global. New contributions to the library are encouraged so that this work and our collaboration might progress to develop a dynamic and easily updatable database with better global coverage. We hope that this work will reinvigorate our community's discussion towards larger, more coordinated collaborations. We also hope that use of the database will deepen our understanding of soil so that we might sustainably manage it and extend the research outcomes of the soil, earth and environmental sciences towards applications that we have not yet dreamed of

Nature’s nations: the shared conservation history of Canada and the USA

Historians often study the history of conservation within the confines of national borders, concentrating on the bureaucratic and political manifestations of policy within individual governments. Even studies of the popular expression of conservationist ideas are generally limited to the national or sub-national (province, state, etc.) scale. This paper suggests that conservationist discourse, policy and practice in Canada and the USA were the products of a significant cross-border movement of ideas and initiatives derived from common European sources. In addition, the historical development of common approaches to conservation in North America suggests, contrary to common assumptions, that Canada did not always lag behind the USA in terms of policy innovation. The basic tenets of conservation (i.e. state control over resource, class-based disdain for subsistence hunters and utilitarian approaches to resource management) have instead developed at similar time periods and along parallel ideological paths in Canada and the USA

Uniform Commission Contract and Sales Agent Identification

It is commonly observed in many industries that firms often offer the same commission rate to their salespeople, even though these salespeople have different levels of productivity. This observation is puzzling because the standard principleagency model would prescribe that a firm should customize the commission rate according to the salespeople’s productivity (Basu et al, Marketing Science, 1985). This paper provides a theoretical explanation for the offering of uniform commission rate in a heterogeneous salesforce. The model consists of two stages: an probational sales period and a selling stage. In the perfect information case, the firm prefers a positive match (hightype salesperson assigned to the highpotential task) and offers customized commission rates. However, in the case of asymmetric information, while the firm still prefers a positive match, it is now optimal to provide the uniform commission rate. Such a contract is not optimal in perfectinformation case because it gives the hightype salesperson excessive surplus in the second stage. But it becomes optimal in the case of asymmetric information because the excessive surplus becomes information rent and generates additional incentive for the talented salesperson to stand out in the first stage; moreover, the benefit of correct assignment dominates the cost of excessive payment. In summary, we provide a rationale for the commonly observed uniform commission rate as a selection mechanism that improves the sales assignment

De novo hemolytic uremic syndrome postrenal transplant after cytomegalovirus infection

After renal transplantation, hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) may occur as recurrent disease or de novo. Here, we describe the de novo occurrence of HUS immediately after the onset of primary cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in two renal allograft recipients. Patient no. 1 had primary CMV disease with biopsy-proven CMV esophagitis 2 months after transplantation. Patient no. 2 experienced primary CMV disease with fever and leukopenia 8 years after transplantation. Both patients were treated with intravenous ganciclovir. Both patients developed HUS with biopsy-proven thrombotic microangiopathy in the renal allograft only a few days (3 to 5 days) after the onset of CMV disease. The short interval between the onset of CMV disease and HUS, as well as the parallel course of CMV viremia and HUS in both patients, indicate there may be a pathophysiological link between both diseases. However, because antiviral therapy with ganciclovir was started before the onset of HUS in both patients, we cannot definitely rule out that HUS was triggered by ganciclovir

The attenuation of ultraviolet radiation in high dissolved organic carbon waters of wetlands and lakes on the northern Great Plains.

We used a scanning spectroradiometer to conduct underwater optical surveys of 44 waterbodies during the ice-free seasons of three consecutive years in wetlands and lakes in central Saskatchewan, Canada. The waterbodies ranged widely in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration (4.1-156.2 mg L⁻¹) and conductivity (270-74,300 μohms cm⁻¹). Although penetration of UV radiation (UV-R; 280-400 nm) in these systems was largely a function of DOC concentration, as has been reported previously, UV-R penetrated more deeply in saline waterbodies than in freshwater systems with similar DOC concentrations. Power models representing our K dUV-B or KdUV-A versus DOC relationships were described by KdUV-B = 0.604DOC1.287 (r² = 0.76, N = 23) and KdUV-A = 0.428DOC1.136 (r² = 0.55, N = 24) for freshwater systems and KdUV-B = 2.207DOC0.732 (r² = 0.40, N = 20) and KdUV-A = 1.436DOC0.600(r² = 0.18, N = 20) for saline systems. Our data, when combined with data from other researchers, resulted in the more general freshwater models KdUV-B = 0.705DOC1.248 (r² = 0.84, N = 43) and KdUV-A = 0.470DOC1.112 (r² = 0.70, N = 44), UV-B radiation (280-320 nm) is not expected to penetrate deeply (typically <50 cm) in prairie lakes and wetlands because of high intrinsic DOC concentrations. However, the central plains are characteristically windy and this, coupled with the shallowness of many of these systems, suggests that biota may still be at risk from present-day and future-enhanced levels of UV-B (which may result from ozone depletion). Moreover, this risk may be exacerbated in saline systems. This could be significant, especially because saline waterbodies are often highly productive and represent important North American staging areas for shorebirds and waterfowl