Different modes of hypertrophy in skeletal muscle fibers

Skeletal muscles display a remarkable diversity in their arrangement of fibers into fascicles and in their patterns of innervation, depending on functional requirements and species differences. Most human muscle fascicles, despite their great length, consist of fibers that extend continuously from one tendon to the other with a single nerve endplate band. Other mammalian muscles have multiple endplate bands and fibers that do not insert into both tendons but terminate intrafascicularly. We investigated whether these alternate structural features may dictate different modes of cell hypertrophy in two mouse gracilis muscles, in response to expression of a muscle-specific insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 transgene (mIGF-1) or to chronic exercise. Both hypertrophic stimuli independently activated GATA-2 expression and increased muscle cross-sectional area in both muscle types, with additive effects in exercising myosin light chain/mIGF transgenic mice, but without increasing fiber number. In singly innervated gracilis posterior muscle, hypertrophy was characterized by a greater average diameter of individual fibers, and centralized nuclei. In contrast, hypertrophic gracilis anterior muscle, which is multiply innervated, contained longer muscle fibers, with no increase in average diameter, or in centralized nuclei. Different modes of muscle hypertrophy in domestic and laboratory animals have important implications for building appropriate models of human neuromuscular disease

Learning from Covid: How Can we Predict Mobility Behaviour in the Face of Disruptive Events? – How to Investigate the Mobility of the Future

Introduction: With the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak and the restrictions put in place to prevent an uncontrolled spread of the virus, the circumstances for daily activities changed. A remarkable shift in the modal split distribution was observed [Ank21]. Moreover, the changes in mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic had multiple impacts on road traffic [Yas21]. By now, several researchers have looked at the impact of COVID-19 as a disruptive event on mobility behaviour. This workshop within the 4th Symposium on Management of Future Motorway and Urban Traffic Systems aimed to discuss insights from these research projects and how they enable experts to transfer this newfound knowledge to future disruptive events such as climate change, rising energy costs and events related to a possible energy transition. Thus, the research question this workshop investigated reads as follows: What can we learn from the pandemic to be able to predict how different future disruptive events can shape the mobility of tomorrow

14P. Application of Neuroimaging Methods in IS Research: An fMRI Study of Online Recommendation Agents

Recommendation agents are deployed to give online consumers advice on products. This study focuses on how two demographic interface characteristics of online recommendation agents – ethnicity and gender – influence the way consumers agree with the product recommendations offered by anthropomorphic (humanoid) recommendation agents. Because consumers may not always straightforwardly self-report their true perceptions about entities that differ from them in their ethnicity and gender, this study applies neuroimaging methods (fMRI) to understand how the design of online recommendation agents can include anthropomorphic interfaces with different ethnicity and gender to enhance the interaction between consumers and agents. Subjects who either fully matched or fully mismatched with the ethnicity and gender of recommendation agents were asked to indicate their agreement with the advice provided by the recommendation agents while their brain activities were observed in an fMRI scanner. The results show that there is only activation in brain areas of intense emotion (amygdala) and fear of loss (insular cortex) when subjects disagree with a recommendation agent that does not match their ethnicity and gender, while there is no activation for recommendation agents that match their ethnicity and gender. The fMRI results suggest that ethnicity and gender mismatch spawns strong emotional responses in the brain, particularly among women

Incorporating Social Presence in the Design of the Anthropomorphic Interface of Recommendation Agents: Insights from an fMRI Study

Recommendation agents (RAs) are regularly used in online environments to give consumers advice on products. Since social components of human-like RAs (humanoid avatars) are important components in their adoption and use, this study focuses on how the design of the anthropomorphic interface of RAs in terms of social demographics, namely ethnicity and gender, can enhance the RA’s social presence to facilitate their adoption. Since social presence has been shown in the literature to predict the adoption and use of RAs, we examine whether match or mismatch in terms of the anthropomorphic RA’s ethnicity and gender can enhance the user’s social interaction with an RA. To overcome concerns of social desirability bias and political correctness when users assess the social presence of RAs that vary in their ethnicity and gender, we conducted a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study to complement a traditional behavioral experiment. Our goal was to explain prior behavioral findings that showed that ethnicity (as opposed to gender) match is associated with higher social presence, particularly among women. Specifically, brain activity was captured in an fMRI scanner while users who varied on their ethnicity and gender to either match or mismatch the ethnicity and gender of four RAs evaluated each of the RAs on their social presence. Besides contributing to the neuroscience literature by identifying the brain activations that relate to social presence, the fMRI results shed light on the nature of social presence and explain earlier behavioral findings by showing gender differences in the neural correlates of social presence in terms of ethnicity and gender match and mismatch. Implications on designing anthropomorphic interfaces to embody social demographics to enhance social presence are discussed

Fostering Active Learning in an International Joint Classroom: A Case Study

Engaging students in an international online setting that is interdisciplinary and culturally diverse is a challenge. A joint classroom between German and Ugandan universities used a formative assessment approach paired with active learning elements to foster individual and peer learning in an international virtual setting. A survey at three different times across the semester explored students’ perceptions towards the value of the active learning activities and evaluated how perceptions changed over time. Overall, students enjoyed the diverse active learning activities and perceived value toward their success in class. This was more pronounced and unidirectional for individual tasks than it was for group work. In addition to the findings of the structured survey, observation and feedback indicated that other elements contributed to effective course delivery. These included clear and frequent communication to the students from the primary instructor, prompt feedback from the instructor on graded exercises, such as a reflective learning diary and ungraded quizzes, and student confidence that sincere effort would achieve a good grade

Understanding and Mitigating Product Uncertainty in Online Auction Marketplaces

The Internet interface poses a difficulty for buyers in evaluating products online, particularly physical experience and durable goods, such as used cars. This increases buyers' product uncertainty, defined as the buyer's perceived estimate of the variance in product quality based on subjective probabilities about the product's characteristics and whether the product will perform as expected. However, the literature has largely ignored product uncertainty and mostly focused on mitigating buyer's seller uncertainty. To address this void, this study aims to conceptualize the construct of product uncertainty and propose its antecedents and consequences in online auction marketplaces. First, drawing upon the theory of markets with asymmetric information, we propose product uncertainty to be distinct from, yet affected by, seller uncertainty. Second, based on auction pricing theory, we propose that product uncertainty and seller uncertainty negatively affect two key success outcomes of online marketplaces: price premium and transaction activity. Third, following information signaling theory, we propose a set of product information signals to mitigate product uncertainty: (1) online product descriptions (textual, visual, multimedia); (2) third-party product certifications (inspection, history report, warranty); (3) auction posted prices (reserve, starting, buy-it-now); and (4) intrinsic product characteristics (book value and usage). Finally, we propose that the effect of online product descriptions and intrinsic product characteristics on product uncertainty is moderated by seller uncertainty. The proposed model is supported by a unique dataset comprised of a combination of primary (survey) data drawn from 331 buyers who bid upon a used car on eBay Motors, matched with secondary transaction data from the corresponding online auctions. The results distinguish between product and seller uncertainty, show the stronger role of product uncertainty on price premiums and transaction activity compared to seller uncertainty, empirically identify the most influential product information signals, and support the mediating role of product uncertainty. This paper contributes to and has implications for better understanding the nature and role of product uncertainty, identifying mechanisms for mitigating product uncertainty, and demonstrating complementarities between product and seller information signals. The model's generalizability and implications are discussed