Artificial Sequences and Complexity Measures

In this paper we exploit concepts of information theory to address the fundamental problem of identifying and defining the most suitable tools to extract, in a automatic and agnostic way, information from a generic string of characters. We introduce in particular a class of methods which use in a crucial way data compression techniques in order to define a measure of remoteness and distance between pairs of sequences of characters (e.g. texts) based on their relative information content. We also discuss in detail how specific features of data compression techniques could be used to introduce the notion of dictionary of a given sequence and of Artificial Text and we show how these new tools can be used for information extraction purposes. We point out the versatility and generality of our method that applies to any kind of corpora of character strings independently of the type of coding behind them. We consider as a case study linguistic motivated problems and we present results for automatic language recognition, authorship attribution and self consistent-classification.Comment: Revised version, with major changes, of previous "Data Compression approach to Information Extraction and Classification" by A. Baronchelli and V. Loreto. 15 pages; 5 figure

Registered Replication Report: Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998)

Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998) reported that participants primed with a category associated with intelligence ("professor") subsequently performed 13% better on a trivia test than participants primed with a category associated with a lack of intelligence ("soccer hooligans"). In two unpublished replications of this study designed to verify the appropriate testing procedures, Dijksterhuis, van Knippenberg, and Holland observed a smaller difference between conditions (2%-3%) as well as a gender difference: Men showed the effect (9.3% and 7.6%), but women did not (0.3% and -0.3%). The procedure used in those replications served as the basis for this multilab Registered Replication Report. A total of 40 laboratories collected data for this project, and 23 of these laboratories met all inclusion criteria. Here we report the meta-analytic results for those 23 direct replications (total N = 4,493), which tested whether performance on a 30-item general-knowledge trivia task differed between these two priming conditions (results of supplementary analyses of the data from all 40 labs, N = 6,454, are also reported). We observed no overall difference in trivia performance between participants primed with the "professor" category and those primed with the "hooligan" category (0.14%) and no moderation by gender

On the physiology of interruption after unexpectedness

We tested whether surprise elicits similar physiological changes as those associated with orienting and freezing after threat, as surprise also involves a state of interruption and attention for effective action. Moreover, because surprise is primarily driven by the unexpectedness of an event, initial physiological responses were predicted to be similar for positive, neutral, and negative surprises. Results of repetition-change studies (4 + 1 in Supplemental Materials) showed that surprise lowers heart rate (Experiments 1-4) and increases blood pressure (Experiment 4). No effects on body movement (Experiment 2) or finger temperature (Experiment 4) were found. When unexpected stimuli were presented more often (making them less surprising) heart rate returned to baseline, while blood pressure remained high (Experiment 4). These effects were not influenced by stimulus valence. However, second-to-second analyses within the first (surprising) block showed a tendency for a stronger increase in systolic blood pressure after negative vs. positive surprise

How information on sexism may increase women’s perceptions of being excluded, threaten fundamental needs, and lower career motivation

The current research investigates the effects of exposure to information about the prevalence of sexism in society on women’s perceptions, needs, expectations, and career motivation. We examined this in four studies. The publication package contains four datasets in SPSS with syntaxes

How information on sexism may increase women’s perceptions of being excluded, threaten fundamental needs, and lower career motivation

The current research investigates the effects of exposure to information about the prevalence of sexism in society on women’s perceptions, needs, expectations, and career motivation. We examined this in four studies. The publication package contains four datasets in SPSS with syntaxes

Sustained Monopolistic Business Relationships: An Interdisciplinarity Case.

Business-to-business relationships within sustained monopolies, such as those within UK Defence Procurement, have received scant attention by Management Researchers. This is unusual because under these market circumstances there appear to be few incentives to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes despite their strategic policy importance. This paper argues that an understanding of the monopolistic environment using a Transaction Cost Economics theoretical framework and Supply Chain Management, Relationship Marketing and Transaction Cost Economics concepts provides an innovative, interdisciplinarity approach to solving this problem as well as testing aspects of these disciplines empirically in a novel area. This paper describes the results from a substantial research project to test this hypothesis in the UK Defence Procurement situation. It reveals a number of key dynamics within the sustained monopolistic relationships surveyed and suggests considerable potential for further research