Examining Scientific Writing Styles from the Perspective of Linguistic Complexity

Publishing articles in high-impact English journals is difficult for scholars around the world, especially for non-native English-speaking scholars (NNESs), most of whom struggle with proficiency in English. In order to uncover the differences in English scientific writing between native English-speaking scholars (NESs) and NNESs, we collected a large-scale data set containing more than 150,000 full-text articles published in PLoS between 2006 and 2015. We divided these articles into three groups according to the ethnic backgrounds of the first and corresponding authors, obtained by Ethnea, and examined the scientific writing styles in English from a two-fold perspective of linguistic complexity: (1) syntactic complexity, including measurements of sentence length and sentence complexity; and (2) lexical complexity, including measurements of lexical diversity, lexical density, and lexical sophistication. The observations suggest marginal differences between groups in syntactical and lexical complexity.Comment: 6 figure

Coordination of Decisions in a Spatial Agent Model

For a binary choice problem, the spatial coordination of decisions in an agent community is investigated both analytically and by means of stochastic computer simulations. The individual decisions are based on different local information generated by the agents with a finite lifetime and disseminated in the system with a finite velocity. We derive critical parameters for the emergence of minorities and majorities of agents making opposite decisions and investigate their spatial organization. We find that dependent on two essential parameters describing the local impact and the spatial dissemination of information, either a definite stable minority/majority relation (single-attractor regime) or a broad range of possible values (multi-attractor regime) occurs. In the latter case, the outcome of the decision process becomes rather diverse and hard to predict, both with respect to the share of the majority and their spatial distribution. We further investigate how a dissemination of information on different time scales affects the outcome of the decision process. We find that a more ``efficient'' information exchange within a subpopulation provides a suitable way to stabilize their majority status and to reduce ``diversity'' and uncertainty in the decision process.Comment: submitted for publication in Physica A (31 pages incl. 17 multi-part figures

Strength of Protection for Geographical Indications: Promotion Incentives and Welfare Effects

We address the question of how the strength of protection for geographical indications (GIs) affects the GI industry\u27s promotion incentives, equilibrium market outcomes, and the distribution of welfare. Geographical indication producers engage in informative advertising by associating their true quality premium (relative to a substitute product) with a specific label emphasizing the GI\u27s geographic origin. The extent to which the names/words of the GI label can be used and/or imitated by competing products—which depends on the strength of GI protection—determines how informative the GI promotion messages can be. Consumers’ heterogeneous preferences (vis-à-vis the GI quality premium) are modeled in a vertically differentiated framework. Both the GI industry and the substitute product industry are assumed to be competitive (with free entry). The model is calibrated and solved for alternative parameter values. Results show that producers of the GI and of the lower-quality substitute good have divergent interests: GI producers are better off with full protection, whereas the substitute good\u27s producers prefer intermediate levels of protection (but they never prefer zero protection because they benefit indirectly if the GI producers’ incentives to promote are preserved). For consumers and aggregate welfare, the preferred level of protection depends on the model\u27s parameters, with an intermediate level of protection being optimal in many circumstances

Axially Symmetric U-O-Ln and U-O-U containing molecules from the control of uranyl reduction with simple f-block halides

The reduction of UVI uranyl halides or amides with simple LnII or UIII salts forms highly symmetric, linear, oxo-bridged trinuclear UV/LnIII/UV, LnIII/UIV/LnIII, and UIV/UIV/UIV complexes or linear LnIII/UV polymers depending on the stoichiometry and solvent. The reactions can be tuned to give the products of one- or two-electron uranyl reduction. The reactivity and magnetism of these compounds are discussed in the context of using a series of strongly oxo-coupled homo- and heterometallic poly(f-block) chains to better understand fundamental electronic structure in the f-block.JRC.G.I.5-Advanced Nuclear Knowledg

The performance effects of creative imitation on original products: Evidence from lab and field experiments

Research Summary: A market entrant often challenges the incumbent using creative imitation: The entrant creatively combines imitated aspects of the original with its own innovative characteristics to create a distinct offering. Using lab and field experiments to examine creative imitation in China, we find the effects of creative imitations on the originals depend on the creative imitation's quality. We explore the underlying mechanisms, and show that including a low-quality creative imitation in the retail choice set increases satisfaction with and choice of the original, while a moderate-quality creative imitation does the opposite. Moreover, creative imitation affects consumers' satisfaction with the original by influencing whether their experience with the original verifies their expectations. Our paper reveals creative imitation effects to help incumbent firms effectively address them. Managerial Summary: When the incumbent is challenged by an entrant using creative imitation, consumers may react differently to the incumbent, and understanding consumers' reactions allows the incumbent to make better strategic decisions about how to address the challenge. Using lab and field experiments, we investigate creative imitations with two quality levels common in our empirical context, low quality and moderate quality, and examine how and why they differentially affect the originals. We find the presence of a low-quality creative imitation actually increased choice of the original by enhancing consumers' satisfaction with it, while a moderate-quality creative imitation reduced choice of the original by undermining satisfaction with it. Our research suggests the incumbent should address moderate-quality creative imitations' challenges to customer satisfaction, while temporarily tolerating low-quality creative imitations