Reciprocity towards groups : a laboratory experiment on the causes

Field studies of conflict report cycles of mutual revenge between groups, often linked to perceptions of intergroup injustice. We test the hypothesis that people are predisposed to reciprocate against groups. In a computerized laboratory experiment, subjects who were harmed by a partner’s uncooperative action reacted by harming other members of the partner’s group. This group reciprocity was only observed when one group was seen to be unfairly advantaged. Our results support a behavioral mechanism leading from perceived injustice to intergroup conflict. We discuss the relevance of group reciprocity to economic and political phenomena including conflict, discrimination and team competition

Reciprocity towards groups

People exhibit group reciprocity when they retaliate, not against a person who harmed them, but against another person in that person's group. We tested for group reciprocity in laboratory experiments. Subjects played a Prisoner's Dilemma with partners from different groups. They then allocated money between themselves and other participants. In punishment games, subjects whose partner had defected punished participants from the partner's group more, compared to their punishment of participants from a third group. In dictator-style games, subjects did not exhibit group reciprocity. We examine possible correlates of group reciprocity, including group identification and cooperativeness

Group Reciprocity

People exhibit group reciprocity when they retaliate, not against the person who harmed them, but against somebody else in that person's group. Group reciprocity may be a key motivation behind intergroup conflict. We investigated group reciprocity in a laboratory experiment. After a group identity manipulation, subjects played a Prisoner's Dilemma with others from different groups. Subjects then allocated money between themselves and others, learning the group of the others. Subjects who knew that their partner in the Prisoner's Dilemma had defected became relatively less generous to people from the partner's group, compared to a third group. We use our experiment to develop hypotheses about group reciprocity and its correlates.reciprocity, groups, conflict

EXOhSPEC folded design optimization and performance estimation

The EXOplanet high resolution SPECtrograph (EXOhSPEC) instrument is an echelle spectrograph dedicated to the detection of exoplanets by using the radial velocity method using 2m class telescopes. This spectrograph is specified to provide spectra with a spectral resolution R < 70, 000 over the spectral range from 400 to 700 nm and to reach a shortterm radial velocity precision of 3 m/s. To achieve this the separation between two adjacent spectral orders is specified to be greater than 30 pixels and to enable a wide range of targets the throughput of the instrument is specified to be higher than 4%. We present the results of the optimization of the spectrograph collimator performed and initial tests of its optical performance. First, we consider the spectrograph design and we estimate its theoretical performance. We show that the theoretical image quality is close to the diffraction limit. Second, we describe the method used to perform the tolerancing analyzes using ZEMAX software to estimate the optical performance of the instrument after manufacturing, assembly and alignment. We present the results of the performance budget and we show that the estimated image quality performance of EXOhSPEC are in line with the specifications. Third, we present the results of the stray light analysis and we show that the minimum ratio between the scientific signal and the stray light halo signal is higher than 1,000. Finally, we provide a status on the progress of the EXOhSPEC project and we show the first results obtained with a preliminary version of the prototype.Final Accepted Versio

Intergroup Revenge: A Laboratory Experiment

Several everyday examples imply that humans reciprocate not only towards direct perpetrators, but also to entire groups, thereby potentially affecting innocent bystanders. We test the hypothesis that people are predisposed to reciprocate against groups. In a laboratory experiment, subjects who were helped or harmed by another player’s action reacted by helping or harming another member of that player’s group. This group reciprocity was only observed when one group was seen as unfairly advantaged. Thus, activation of group reciprocity may be a causal mechanism that links perceived injustice to intergroup conflict. We discuss the relevance of group reciprocity to political and economic phenomena including violence, discrimination and team competition

A Method to Achieve High Dynamic Range in a CMOS Image Sensor Using Interleaved Row Readout

©2022 The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/We present a readout scheme for CMOS image sensors that can be used to achieve arbitrarily high dynamic range (HDR) in principle. The linear full well capacity (LFWC) in high signal regions was extended 50 times from 20 to 984 ke − via an interlaced row-wise readout order, while the noise floor remained unchanged in low signal regions, resulting in a 34-dB increase in DR. The peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is increased in a continuous fashion from 43 to 60 dB. This was achieved by summing user-selected rows that were read out multiple times. Centroiding uncertainties were lowered when template-fitting a projected pattern, compared to the standard readout scheme. Example applications are aimed at scientific imaging due to the linearity and PSNR increase.Peer reviewe

Parkinson\u27s Disease in Louisiana, 1999-2012: Based on Hospital Primary Discharge Diagnoses, Incidence, and Risk in Relation to Local Agricultural Crops, Pesticides, and Aquifer Recharge

The two major causes of Parkinson\u27s disease (PD) are genetic susceptibility and exposure to agricultural pesticides. Access to 23,224 individuals\u27 hospital primary discharge diagnoses of PD allowed the mapping of cases against known crop distributions and pesticides. Our main objective was to map PD risks (cases per 10,000 people) against crops and their pesticides. The ZIP Code address locations, and the 2000 and 2010 census data, were used to map the risks of PD throughout Louisiana and in relation to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)-recorded crops. The introduction of glyphosate-resistant crops appears to have initiated the PD disappearance from northeastern parishes on the west bank of the Mississippi river. Rice and sugar cane are seemingly unassociated with PD, as is the Mississippi itself, except for Jefferson and St. Charles Parishes, which are essentially urban or industrial. The present major PD-affected areas are associated with commercial forests, woodlands, and pastures, and thus with certain arbor-pastoral pesticides, 2,4-D, chlorpyrifos, and paraquat. Human populations at maximum risk are those living in areas of moderate and high aquifer-recharge potential. The levels of estimated pesticide exposure in these recharge areas we were able to access were of variable use, but significant amounts of 2,4-D were being used

Incoherent light in tapered graded-index fibre: a study of transmission and modal noise

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/We investigated the impact of taper length on light transmission through tapered graded-index fibres. We tested commercial fibres from Thorlabs and a custom graded-index fibre using both coherent and incoherent light sources. Our experimental results show optimum performance for taper transition lengths of 25 mm, although our simulations suggest further improvement may be possible for even shorter transition lengths. We also measured the modal noise power fluctuations caused by bending the fibre. Here, we observe that the custom fibre tapers have the highest transmission but suffer from the most modal noise. Accordingly, we find that the commercial graded-index fibre tapers promise practical usage as a beam mode-field converter, as they have lower power fluctuations but retain relatively high transmission if compared to commercial small core step-index fibre.Peer reviewe

Classification and management of animal anthrax outbreaks based on the source of infection

Anthrax  is  a  non-contagious  infectious  disease;  it  primarily  affects  herbivores,  but  all  mammals, including humans, can be affected. Humans may contract anthrax directly or  indirectly from infected animals. Veterinary surveillance systems, providing information  about animal and human cases, should increase the efficacy of the animal anthrax management in order to protect population. Any aspect of the disease should be carefully  monitored to implement effective prevention and control strategies. In this paper we  propose a new, detailed classification of anthrax outbreaks, based on the source of the  infection and the risk level for humans. We describe three different types of animal outbreaks and suggest the most effective procedures for their management and prevention

Transmission properties of tapered optical fibres: Simulations and experimental measurements

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/We measured the transmission of tapered and untapered optical fibres as a function of input beam numerical aperture at 635 nm. The tapered fibres were fabricated with an adiabatic tapering process from graded and step-index fibres with 50 m core diameters to form a 100 mm long taper with 5:1 taper ratio. We tested tapered graded-index and step-index fibres fabricated from commercial Thorlabs products and a custom graded-index taper. The 5:1 tapered graded-index fibre can give a transmission greater than 0.4 for Thorlabs and 0.6 for the custom taper. We simulated the transmission of the tapered fibres and found reasonable agreement with the measured graded-index tapered fibre results across the numerical aperture range of interest. Experimentally, step-index tapered fibres performed relative poorly and considerably below modelling expectations. Based on our examinations this arises because the properties of step-index fibre were not robust to the tapering process. Suitably tapered graded-index fibres may offer a new route for efficient focal ratio reduction of fibre optic signals, e.g., in fibre-fed spectrographs, though we stress that our measurements have been limited to monochromatic light in this work.Peer reviewe