461 research outputs found
Criterion and predictive validity of revealed and stated preference data: the case of “Mountain Home Music” concert demand
Despite a robust literature on nonmarket valuation of cultural assets, serious validity concerns remain. We address this by estimating a demand model for a regional concert series. We survey concertgoers during and then again after the concert season to gather ex ante and ex post stated and revealed preference data. Comparing ex ante stated preference data to ex post revealed preference data we find respondents overstate their concert attendance behavior. An ex ante revealed-stated preference demand model with a stated preference adjustment helps calibrate the results and avoid bias from using solely hypothetical, stated preference data. The results demonstrate how to improve predictive accuracy in contingent behavior models and improve our understanding of demand for live music performances
A simple stress test of experimenter demand effects
As a stress test of experimenter demand effects, we run an experiment where subjects can physically destroy coupons awarded to them. About one subject out of three does. Giving money back to the experimenter is possible in a separate task but is more consistent with an experimenter demand effect than an explanation based on altruism towards the experimenter. A measure of sensitivity to social pressure helps predict destruction when social information is provided
Endogenous Popularity: How Perceptions of Support Affect the Popularity of Authoritarian Regimes
Being popular makes it easier for dictators to govern. A growing body of scholarship therefore focuses on the factors that influence authoritarian popularity. However, it is possible that the perception of popularity itself affects incumbent approval in autocracies. We use framing experiments embedded in four surveys in Russia to examine this phenomenon. These experiments reveal that manipulating information—and thereby perceptions—about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity can significantly affect respondents’ support for him. Additional analyses, which rely on a novel combination of framing and list experiments, indicate that these changes in support are not due to preference falsification, but are in fact genuine. This study has implications for research on support for authoritarian leaders and defection cascades in nondemocratic regimes.publishedVersio
ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY OF POTASSIUM CHLORIDE
The electrical conductivity of potassium chloride is discussed within the framework of a four-defect model of the crystal. The four defects are mobile anion and cation vacancies and immobile divalent cation impurities and divalent cation impurity-cation vacancy complexes. The Teltow formulation of the four-defect mode1 fails to describe precisely the measured electrical conductivity of KCl over the entire intrinsic and extrinsic range
Ionic Transport in Potassium Chloride
The electrical conductivity and chlorine ion diffusion in KC1 and KCl:SrC12 single crystals have been analyzed by least-squares methods, using as a model a perfect crystal perturbed by five defects: isolated anion vacancies, isolated cation vacancies, divalent cation impurities, divalent cation-impurity-cation-vacancy complexes, and vacancy pairs. The transport equations were derived from this five-defect model using a simple theory for noninteracting particles, except for the nearest-neighbor binding to form complexes and vacancy pairs, and using the same theory including long-range Coulomb interactions between the isolated defects. This latter theory yielded the better description of the experimental results. However, the analyses showed that significant nonrandom deviations exist between theory and experiment. These deviations exist in both the intrinsic and extrinsic regions of conductivity. The failure of existing concepts for these transport properties is discussed in terms of possible additional mechanisms, i.e., electrons, cationic Frenkel defects, or trivacancies, and in terms of more complete theoretical treatment
Cholesterol\u27s location in lipid bilayers
It is well known that cholesterol modifies the physical properties of lipid bilayers. For example, the much studied liquid-ordered Lo phase contains rapidly diffusing lipids with their acyl chains in the all trans configuration, similar to gel phase bilayers. Moreover, the Lo phase is commonly associated with cholesterol-enriched lipid rafts, which are thought to serve as platforms for signaling proteins in the plasma membrane. Cholesterol\u27s location in lipid bilayers has been studied extensively, and it has been shown – at least in some bilayers – to align differently from its canonical upright orientation, where its hydroxyl group is in the vicinity of the lipid–water interface. In this article we review recent works describing cholesterol\u27s location in different model membrane systems with emphasis on results obtained from scattering, spectroscopic and molecular dynamics studies
A calorimetric, volumetric and combined SANS and SAXS study of hybrid siloxane phosphocholine bilayers
Siloxanes are molecules used extensively in commercial, industrial, and biomedical applications. The inclusion of short siloxane chains into phospholipids results in interesting physical properties, including the ability to form low polydispersity unilamellar vesicles. As such, hybrid siloxane phosphocholines (SiPCs) have been examined as a potential platform for the delivery of therapeutic agents. Using small angle X-ray and neutron scattering, vibrating tube densitometry, and differential scanning calorimetry, we studied four hybrid SiPCs bilayers. Lipid volume measurements for the different SiPCs compared well with those previously determined for polyunsaturated PCs. Furthermore, the different SiPC\u27s membrane thicknesses increased monotonically with temperature and, for the most part, consistent with the behavior observed in unsaturated lipids such as, 1-palmitoyl-2-docosahexaenoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine and 1-stearoyl-2-docosahexaenoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, and the branched lipid 1,2-diphytanoyl-sn-glyerco-3-phosphocholine (DPhyPC)
\u3csup\u3e1\u3c/sup\u3eH NMR Shows Slow Phospholipid Flip-Flop in Gel and Fluid Bilayers
We measured the transbilayer diffusion of 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) in large unilamellar vesicles, in both the gel (Lβ′) and fluid (Lα) phases. The choline resonance of headgroup-protiated DPPC exchanged into the outer leaflet of headgroup-deuterated DPPC-d13 vesicles was monitored using 1H NMR spectroscopy, coupled with the addition of a paramagnetic shift reagent. This allowed us to distinguish between the inner and outer bilayer leaflet of DPPC, to determine the flip-flop rate as a function of temperature. Flip-flop of fluid-phase DPPC exhibited Arrhenius kinetics, from which we determined an activation energy of 122 kJ mol-1. In gel-phase DPPC vesicles, flip-flop was not observed over the course of 250 h. Our findings are in contrast to previous studies of solid-supported bilayers, where the reported DPPC translocation rates are at least several orders of magnitude faster than those in vesicles at corresponding temperatures. We reconcile these differences by proposing a defect-mediated acceleration of lipid translocation in supported bilayers, where long-lived, submicron-sized holes resulting from incomplete surface coverage are the sites of rapid transbilayer movement
The structures of polyunsaturated lipid bilayers by joint refinement of neutron and X-ray scattering data
© 2020 Elsevier B.V. We present the detailed structural analysis of polyunsaturated fatty acid-containing phospholipids namely, 1-palmitoyl-2-docosahexaenoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (PDPC) and 1-stearoyl-2-docosahexaenoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (SDPC). A newly developed molecular dynamics (MD) simulation parsing scheme for lipids containing fatty acids with multiple double bonds was implemented into the scattering density profile (SDP) model to simultaneously refine differently contrasted neutron and X-ray scattering data. SDP analyses of scattering data at 30 °C yielded lipid areas of 71.1 Å2 and 70.4 Å2 for PDPC and SDPC bilayers, respectively, and a model free analysis of PDPC at 30 °C resulted in a lipid area of 72 Å2. In addition to bilayer structural parameters, using area-constrained MD simulations we determined the area compressibility modulus, KA, to be 246.4 mN/m, a value similar to other neutral phospholipids
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