Contradictory yet coherent? Inconsistency in performance feedback and R&D investment change

This paper is based upon doctoral research of the first author conducted while at the Center for Innovation Research, Tilburg University. The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.In this paper, we study to what extent inconsistent feedback signals about performance affect firm adaptive behavior in terms of changes made to research-and-development (R&D) investments. We argue that inconsistency in performance feedback—based on discrepancies between two distinct performance signals—affects the degree to which such investments will be changed. Our aim is to show that accounting for inconsistent performance feedback is necessary as predictions for the direction of change in R&D investments based on the individual performance feedback signals are contradictory. Furthermore, we contribute by proposing a holistic consideration mechanism as an alternative to the selective attention mechanism previously applied to inconsistent performance feedback. Our findings show that the impact of inconsistency depends on the exact configuration of the underlying performance feedback signal discrepancies. While consistently negative performance feedback signals would amplify their impact in stimulating increased R&D investments, inconsistent performance feedback signals created more nuanced effects. Having lower performance compared to an industry-based peer group—despite doing well compared to the previous year—made firms decrease their R&D investments. For the opposite case of inconsistent performance feedback, we did not find an effect on change in R&D investments. These findings support to a degree our contention that explaining the effects of inconsistent performance feedback requires a holistic consideration theoretical mechanism instead of one involving selective attention. In sum, these findings suggest future research should take into account the differences between distinct instances of inconsistent performance feedback

Social Performance Cues Induce Behavioral Flexibility in Humans

Behavioral flexibility allows individuals to react to environmental changes, but changing established behavior carries costs, with unknown benefits. Individuals may thus modify their behavioral flexibility according to the prevailing circumstances. Social information provided by the performance level of others provides one possible cue to assess the potential benefits of changing behavior, since out-performance in similar circumstances indicates that novel behaviors (innovations) are potentially useful. We demonstrate that social performance cues, in the form of previous players’ scores in a problem-solving computer game, influence behavioral flexibility. Participants viewed only performance indicators, not the innovative behavior of others. While performance cues (high, low, or no scores) had little effect on innovation discovery rates, participants that viewed high scores increased their utilization of innovations, allowing them to exploit the virtual environment more effectively than players viewing low or no scores. Perceived conspecific performance can thus shape human decisions to adopt novel traits, even when the traits employed cannot be copied. This simple mechanism, social performance feedback, could be a driver of both the facultative adoption of innovations and cumulative cultural evolution, processes critical to human success

Kinematics of Ionized Gas at 0.01 AU of TW Hya

We report two-dimensional spectroastrometry of Br gamma emission of TW Hya to study the kinematics of the ionized gas in the star-disk interface region. The spectroastrometry with the integral field spectrograph SINFONI at the Very Large Telescope is sensitive to the positional offset of the line emission down to the physical scale of the stellar diameter (~0.01 AU). The centroid of Br gamma emission is displaced to the north with respect to the central star at the blue side of the emission line, and to the south at the red side. The major axis of the centroid motion is P.A.= -20 degrees, which is nearly equal to the major axis of the protoplanetary disk projected on the sky, previously reported by CO sub millimeter spectroscopy (P.A.= -27 degrees) The line-of-sight motion of the Br gamma emission, in which the northern side of the disk is approaching toward us, is also consistent with the direction of the disk rotation known from the CO observation. The agreement implies that the kinematics of Br gamma emission is accounted for by the ionized gas in the inner edge of the disk. A simple modeling of the astrometry, however, indicates that the accretion inflow similarly well reproduces the centroid displacements of Br gamma, but only if the position angles of the centroid motion and the projected disk ellipse is a chance coincidence. No clear evidence of disk wind is found.Comment: A few corrections in the text and a figur

Discrepancies Between Perceptions of the Parent-Adolescent Relationship and Early Adolescent Depressive Symptoms:An Illustration of Polynomial Regression Analysis

Adolescence is a critical period for the development of depressive symptoms. Lower quality of the parent-adolescent relationship has been consistently associated with higher adolescent depressive symptoms, but discrepancies in perceptions of parents and adolescents regarding the quality of their relationship may be particularly important to consider. In the present study, we therefore examined how discrepancies in parents' and adolescents' perceptions of the parent-adolescent relationship were associated with early adolescent depressive symptoms, both concurrently and longitudinally over a 1-year period. Our sample consisted of 497 Dutch adolescents (57 % boys, M (age) = 13.03 years), residing in the western and central regions of the Netherlands, and their mothers and fathers, who all completed several questionnaires on two occasions with a 1-year interval. Adolescents reported on depressive symptoms and all informants reported on levels of negative interaction in the parent-adolescent relationship. Results from polynomial regression analyses including interaction terms between informants' perceptions, which have recently been proposed as more valid tests of hypotheses involving informant discrepancies than difference scores, suggested the highest adolescent depressive symptoms when both the mother and the adolescent reported high negative interaction, and when the adolescent reported high but the father reported low negative interaction. This pattern of findings underscores the need for a more sophisticated methodology such as polynomial regression analysis including tests of moderation, rather than the use of difference scores, which can adequately address both congruence and discrepancies in perceptions of adolescents and mothers/fathers of the parent-adolescent relationship in detail. Such an analysis can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of risk factors for early adolescent depressive symptoms.</p

Синтез селективно-инвариантных систем с обратными моделями

Запропоновано узагальнення методу синтезу селективно-інваріантних систем управління на випадок двоканальних немінімально-фазових об'єктів. Для вирішення задачі синтезу компенсуючих регуляторів застосовані стійкі оберненні моделі

Phenotypic and genotypic monitoring of Schistosoma mansoni in Tanzanian schoolchildren five years into a preventative chemotherapy national control programme

We conducted combined in vitro PZQ efficacy testing with population genetic analyses of S. mansoni collected from children from two schools in 2010, five years after the introduction of a National Control Programme. Children at one school had received four annual PZQ treatments and the other school had received two mass treatments in total. We compared genetic differentiation, indices of genetic diversity, and estimated adult worm burden from parasites collected in 2010 with samples collected in 2005 (before the control programme began) and in 2006 (six months after the first PZQ treatment). Using 2010 larval samples, we also compared the genetic similarity of those with high and low in vitro sensitivity to PZQ

Rechargeable Batteries of the Future—The State of the Art from a BATTERY 2030+ Perspective

The development of new batteries has historically been achieved through discovery and development cycles based on the intuition of the researcher, followed by experimental trial and error—often helped along by serendipitous breakthroughs. Meanwhile, it is evident that new strategies are needed to master the ever-growing complexity in the development of battery systems, and to fast-track the transfer of findings from the laboratory into commercially viable products. This review gives an overview over the future needs and the current state-of-the art of five research pillars of the European Large-Scale Research Initiative BATTERY 2030+, namely 1) Battery Interface Genome in combination with a Materials Acceleration Platform (BIG-MAP), progress toward the development of 2) self-healing battery materials, and methods for operando, 3) sensing to monitor battery health. These subjects are complemented by an overview over current and up-coming strategies to optimize 4) manufacturability of batteries and efforts toward development of a circular battery economy through implementation of 5) recyclability aspects in the design of the battery