The effect of priming on fraud: Evidence from a natural field experiment

This is the final version. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record. We present a natural field experiment to examine if priming can influence behavior in a market for credence goods. 40 testers took 600 taxi journeys in Vienna, Austria, and using a between–subject design we vary the script they spoke, each designed to prime either honesty, dishonesty, or a competitor. We find that the honesty prime increases taxi fares by 5.5% relative to a baseline, the result of overcharging rather than overtreatment. Priming dishonesty and a competitor have no impact on fares. We find that the effects of priming on behavior are likely to be small compared to information asymmetries.Austrian Science Fun

Dense breast stromal tissue shows greatly increased concentration of breast epithelium but no increase in its proliferative activity

INTRODUCTION: Increased mammographic density is a strong risk factor for breast cancer. The reasons for this are not clear; two obvious possibilities are increased epithelial cell proliferation in mammographically dense areas and increased breast epithelium in women with mammographically dense breasts. We addressed this question by studying the number of epithelial cells in terminal duct lobular units (TDLUs) and in ducts, and their proliferation rates, as they related to local breast densities defined histologically within individual women. METHOD: We studied deep breast tissue away from subcutaneous fat obtained from 12 healthy women undergoing reduction mammoplasty. A slide from each specimen was stained with the cell-proliferation marker MIB1. Each slide was divided into (sets of) areas of low, medium and high density of connective tissue (CT; highly correlated with mammographic densities). Within each of the areas, the numbers of epithelial cells in TDLUs and ducts, and the numbers MIB1 positive, were counted. RESULTS: The relative concentration (RC) of epithelial cells in high compared with low CT density areas was 12.3 (95% confidence interval (CI) 10.9 to 13.8) in TDLUs and 34.1 (95% CI 26.9 to 43.2) in ducts. There was a much smaller difference between medium and low CT density areas: RC = 1.4 (95% CI 1.2 to 1.6) in TDLUs and 1.9 (95% CI 1.5 to 2.3) in ducts. The relative mitotic rate (RMR; MIB1 positive) of epithelial cells in high compared with low CT density areas was 0.59 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.66) in TDLUs and 0.65 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.79) in ducts; the figures for the comparison of medium with low CT density areas were 0.58 (95% CI 0.48 to 0.70) in TDLUs and 0.66 (95% CI 0.44 to 0.97) in ducts. CONCLUSION: Breast epithelial cells are overwhelmingly concentrated in high CT density areas. Their proliferation rate in areas of high and medium CT density is lower than that in low CT density areas. The increased breast cancer risk associated with increased mammographic densities may simply be a reflection of increased epithelial cell numbers. Why epithelium is concentrated in high CT density areas remains to be explained

Rituximab for maintenance of remission in ANCA-associated vasculitis: expert consensus guidelines—Executive summary

[This is the executive summary of Rituximab for maintenance of remission in ANCA-associated vasculitis: expert consensus guidelines: full guideline, doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kez640

Microbial ligand costimulation drives neutrophilic steroid-refractory asthma

Funding: The authors thank the Wellcome Trust (102705) and the Universities of Aberdeen and Cape Town for funding. This research was also supported, in part, by National Institutes of Health GM53522 and GM083016 to DLW. KF and BNL are funded by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, BNL is the recipient of an European Research Commission consolidator grant and participates in the European Union FP7 programs EUBIOPRED and MedALL. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Fibre Distribution and the Process-Property Dilemma

The options for the fibre reinforcement of polymer matrix composites cover a range from short-fibre chopped strand mat, through woven fabric to unidirectional pre-impregnated (prepreg) reinforcements. The modelling of such materials may be simplified by assumptions such as perfect regular packing of fibres and the total absence of fibre waviness. However, these and other features such as the crimp or waviness in woven fabrics make real materials more complex than the simplified models. Clustering of fibres creates fibre-rich and resin-rich volumes (FRV and RRV respectively) in the composites. Prior to impregnation, large RRV will be pore-space that can expedite the flow of resin in liquid composite moulding processes (especially resin transfer moulding (RTM) and resin infusion under flexible tooling (RIFT). In the composite, the clustering of fibres tends to reduce the mechanical properties. The use of image processing and analysis can permit micro-/meso-structural characterisation which may correlate to the respective properties. This chapter considers the quantification of microstructure images in the context of the process-property dilemma for woven carbon-fibre reinforced composites with the aim of increasing understanding of the balance between processability and mechanical performance

Prevalence of Disorders Recorded in Dogs Attending Primary-Care Veterinary Practices in England

Purebred dog health is thought to be compromised by an increasing occurence of inherited diseases but inadequate prevalence data on common disorders have hampered efforts to prioritise health reforms. Analysis of primary veterinary practice clinical data has been proposed for reliable estimation of disorder prevalence in dogs. Electronic patient record (EPR) data were collected on 148,741 dogs attending 93 clinics across central and south-eastern England. Analysis in detail of a random sample of EPRs relating to 3,884 dogs from 89 clinics identified the most frequently recorded disorders as otitis externa (prevalence 10.2%, 95% CI: 9.1-11.3), periodontal disease (9.3%, 95% CI: 8.3-10.3) and anal sac impaction (7.1%, 95% CI: 6.1-8.1). Using syndromic classification, the most prevalent body location affected was the head-and-neck (32.8%, 95% CI: 30.7-34.9), the most prevalent organ system affected was the integument (36.3%, 95% CI: 33.9-38.6) and the most prevalent pathophysiologic process diagnosed was inflammation (32.1%, 95% CI: 29.8-34.3). Among the twenty most-frequently recorded disorders, purebred dogs had a significantly higher prevalence compared with crossbreds for three: otitis externa (P = 0.001), obesity (P = 0.006) and skin mass lesion (P = 0.033), and popular breeds differed significantly from each other in their prevalence for five: periodontal disease (P = 0.002), overgrown nails (P = 0.004), degenerative joint disease (P = 0.005), obesity (P = 0.001) and lipoma (P = 0.003). These results fill a crucial data gap in disorder prevalence information and assist with disorder prioritisation. The results suggest that, for maximal impact, breeding reforms should target commonly-diagnosed complex disorders that are amenable to genetic improvement and should place special focus on at-risk breeds. Future studies evaluating disorder severity and duration will augment the usefulness of the disorder prevalence information reported herein

Male reproductive health and environmental xenoestrogens

EHP is a publication of the U.S. government. Publication of EHP lies in the public domain and is therefore without copyright. Research articles from EHP may be used freely; however, articles from the News section of EHP may contain photographs or figures copyrighted by other commercial organizations and individuals that may not be used without obtaining prior approval from both the EHP editors and the holder of the copyright. Use of any materials published in EHP should be acknowledged (for example, "Reproduced with permission from Environmental Health Perspectives") and a reference provided for the article from which the material was reproduced.Male reproductive health has deteriorated in many countries during the last few decades. In the 1990s, declining semen quality has been reported from Belgium, Denmark, France, and Great Britain. The incidence of testicular cancer has increased during the same time incidences of hypospadias and cryptorchidism also appear to be increasing. Similar reproductive problems occur in many wildlife species. There are marked geographic differences in the prevalence of male reproductive disorders. While the reasons for these differences are currently unknown, both clinical and laboratory research suggest that the adverse changes may be inter-related and have a common origin in fetal life or childhood. Exposure of the male fetus to supranormal levels of estrogens, such as diethlylstilbestrol, can result in the above-mentioned reproductive defects. The growing number of reports demonstrating that common environmental contaminants and natural factors possess estrogenic activity presents the working hypothesis that the adverse trends in male reproductive health may be, at least in part, associated with exposure to estrogenic or other hormonally active (e.g., antiandrogenic) environmental chemicals during fetal and childhood development. An extensive research program is needed to understand the extent of the problem, its underlying etiology, and the development of a strategy for prevention and intervention.Supported by EU Contract BMH4-CT96-0314

Computational Models of Classical Conditioning guest editors’ introduction

In the present special issue, the performance of current computational models of classical conditioning was evaluated under three requirements: (1) Models were to be tested against a list of previously agreed-upon phenomena; (2) the parameters were fixed across simulations; and (3) the simulations used to test the models had to be made available. These requirements resulted in three major products: (a) a list of fundamental classical-conditioning results for which there is a consensus about their reliability; (b) the necessary information to evaluate each of the models on the basis of its ordinal successes in accounting for the experimental data; and (c) a repository of computational models ready to generate simulations. We believe that the contents of this issue represent the 2012 state of the art in computational modeling of classical conditioning and provide a way to find promising avenues for future model development