You Name It – How Memory and Delay Govern First Name Dynamics

The adoption and abandonment of first names through time is a fascinating phenomenon that may shed light on social dynamics and the forces that determine cultural taste in general. Here we show that baby name dynamics is governed almost solely by deterministic forces, even though the emerging abundance statistics resembles the one obtained from a pure drift model. Exogenous events are shown to affect the name dynamics very rarely, and most of the year-to-year fluctuations around the deterministic trend may be attributed solely to demographic noise. We suggest that the rise and fall of a name reflect an “infection” process with delay and memory. The symmetry between adoption and abandonment speed emerges from our model without further assumptions

Knowing what's coming: Unpredictable motion causes more motion sickness

This study explores the role of anticipation in motion sickness. We compared three conditions varying in motion predictability and assessed the effect of anticipation on subsequent illness ratings using a within-subjects design. Anticipation is thought to play a role in motion sickness by reducing the discrepancy between sensed and expected sensory information. However, both the exact role and potential magnitude of anticipation on motion sickness are unknown. Participants ( = 17) were exposed to three 15-min conditions consisting of repeated fore-aft motion on a sled on a 40-m rail (1) at constant intervals and consistent motion direction, (2) at constant intervals but varied motion direction, and (3) at varied intervals but consistent motion direction. Conditions were otherwise identical in motion intensity and displacement, as they were composed of the same repetitions of identical blocks of motion. Illness ratings were recorded at 1-min intervals using an 11-point motion sickness scale. Average illness ratings after exposure were significantly lower for the predictable condition, compared with both the directionally unpredictable condition and the temporally unpredictable condition. Unpredictable motion is significantly more provocative compared with predictable motion. Findings suggest motion sickness results from a discrepancy between sensed and expected motion, rather than from unpreparedness to motion. This study underlines the importance of an individual's anticipation to motion in motion sickness. Furthermore, this knowledge could be used in domains such as that of autonomous vehicles to reduce carsickness

The effectiveness of policies to transform a gas-exporting country into a gas-transit country:The case of The Netherlands

The Netherlands has been a major European natural gas producer and exporter for many decades, but now faces the challenge to deal with diminishing resources. In response, the Dutch government initiated a gas-hub strategy, which is the policy to transform the gas industry from an export-oriented business into a transit-oriented business. This policy included a number of investments in the gas infrastructure as well as institutional reforms to enhance the liquidity of the gas market. We study the effects of this gas-hub policy. Using hourly data on the Dutch gas balance over the period 2006-2013, we find that gas storage and trading have become more important, but-that the level of gas in transit in the Netherlands remained fairly constant Consequently, the Dutch gas industry is still mainly oriented on domestic production and export of gas, while the Dutch gas hub (UP) has become a key virtual trading place. The policy lesson from the Dutch experience is that implementing a gas-hub strategy requires significant investments in the gas infrastructure, while their effects do not necessarily become visible in the short run. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved