Improving one’s choices by putting oneself in others’ shoes – an experimental analysis

This paper investigates how letting people predict others’ choices under risk affects subsequent own choices. We find an improvement of strong rationality (risk neutrality) for losses in own choices, but no such improvement for gains. There is no improvement of weak rationality (avoiding preference reversals). Overall, risk aversion in own choices increases. Conversely, for the effects of own choices on predicting for others, the risk aversion predicted in others’ choices is reduced if preceded by own choices, for both gains and losses. Remarkably, we find a new probability matching paradox at the group level. Relative to preceding studies on the effects of predicting others’ choices, we added real incentives, pure framing effects, and simplicity of stimuli. Our stimuli were maximally targeted towards our research questions

Evolutionary characterization of pig interferon-inducible transmembrane gene family and member expression dynamics in tracheobronchial lymph nodes of pigs infected with swine respiratory disease viruses

Studies have found that a cluster of duplicated gene loci encoding the interferon-inducible transmembrane proteins (IFITMs) family have antiviral activity against several viruses, including influenza A virus. The gene family has 5 and 7 members in humans and mice, respectively. Here, we confirm the current annotation of pig IFITM1, IFITM2, IFITM3, IFITM5, IFITM1L1 and IFITM1L4, manually annotated IFITM1L2, IFITM1L3, IFITM5L, IFITM3L1 and IFITM3L2, and provide expressed sequence tag (EST) and/or mRNA evidence, not contained with the NCBI Reference Sequence database (RefSeq), for the existence of IFITM6, IFITM7 and a new IFITM1-like (IFITM1LN) gene in pigs. Phylogenic analyses showed seven porcine IFITM genes with highly conserved human/mouse orthologs known to have anti-viral activity. Digital Gene Expression Tag Profiling (DGETP) of swine tracheobronchial lymph nodes (TBLN) of pigs infected with swine influenza virus (SIV), porcine pseudorabies virus, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus or porcine circovirus type 2 over 14 days post-inoculation (dpi) showed that gene expression abundance differs dramatically among pig IFITM family members, ranging from 0 to over 3,000 tags per million. In particular, SIV upregulated IFITM1 by 5.9 fold at 3 dpi. Bayesian framework further identified pig IFITM1 and IFITM3 as differentially expressed genes in the overall transcriptome analysis. In addition to being a component of protein complexes involved in homotypic adhesion, the IFITM1 is also associated with pathways related to regulation of cell proliferation and IFITM3 is involved in immune responses

Land Use and Land Cover Change Modeling and Future Potential Landscape Risk Assessment Using Markov-CA Model and Analytical Hierarchy Process

Land use and land cover change (LULCC) has directly played an important role in the observed climate change. In this paper, we considered Dujiangyan City and its environs (DCEN) to study the future scenario in the years 2025, 2030, and 2040 based on the 2018 simulation results from 2007 and 2018 LULC maps. This study evaluates the spatial and temporal variations of future LULCC, including the future potential landscape risk (FPLR) area of the 2008 great (8.0 Mw) earthquake of south-west China. The Cellular automata–Markov chain (CA-Markov) model and multicriteria based analytical hierarchy process (MC-AHP) approach have been considered using the integration of remote sensing and GIS techniques. The analysis shows future LULC scenario in the years 2025, 2030, and 2040 along with the FPLR pattern. Based on the results of the future LULCC and FPLR scenarios, we have provided suggestions for the development in the close proximity of the fault lines for the future strong magnitude earthquakes. Our results suggest a better and safe planning approach in the Belt and Road Corridor (BRC) of China to control future Silk-Road Disaster, which will also be useful to urban planners for urban development in a safe and sustainable manner

Improving the convergence behaviour of a fixed-point-iteration solver for multiphase flow in porous media

A new method to admit large Courant numbers in the numerical simulation of multiphase flow is presented. The governing equations are discretized in time using an adaptive θ-method. However, the use of implicit discretizations does not guarantee convergence of the nonlinear solver for large Courant numbers. In this work, a double-fixed point iteration method with backtracking is presented, which improves both convergence and convergence rate. Moreover, acceleration techniques are presented to yield a more robust nonlinear solver with increased effective convergence rate. The new method reduces the computational effort by strengthening the coupling between saturation and velocity, obtaining an efficient backtracking parameter, using a modified version of Anderson's acceleration and adding vanishing artificial diffusion

Non-ancient solution of the Ricci flow

For any complete noncompact K$\ddot{a}$hler manifold with nonnegative and bounded holomorphic bisectional curvature,we provide the necessary and sufficient condition for non-ancient solution to the Ricci flow in this paper.Comment: seven pages, latex fil

MEKS: a program for computation of inclusive jet cross sections at hadron colliders

EKS is a numerical program that predicts differential cross sections for production of single-inclusive hadronic jets and jet pairs at next-to-leading order (NLO) accuracy in a perturbative QCD calculation. We describe MEKS 1.0, an upgraded EKS program with increased numerical precision, suitable for comparisons to the latest experimental data from the Large Hadron Collider and Tevatron. The program integrates the regularized patron-level matrix elements over the kinematical phase space for production of two and three partons using the VEGAS algorithm. It stores the generated weighted events in finely binned two-dimensional histograms for fast offline analysis. A user interface allows one to customize computation of inclusive jet observables. Results of a benchmark comparison of the MEKS program and the commonly used FastNLO program are also documented.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure

Проблемы формирования механизма мотивации персонала промышленного предприятия

Цель данной работы — углубление теоретических положений проблемы мотивации и разработка механизмов мотивации, стимулирования труда персонала промышленных предприятий в условиях формирования рыночных отношений.Исследованы теоретические и практические аспекты мотивации персонала, её структура и содержание. Разработаны критерии оценки эффективности систем мотивации персонала, модель формирования и мониторинга системы мотивации на основе уточненных факторов РичиМартина, трудовой концепции работника, построения «мотивационного профиля бюллетеня работника».Досліджені теоретичні і практичні аспекти мотивації персоналу, її структура і зміст. Розроблені критерії оцінки ефективності систем мотивації персоналу, модель формування і моніторингу системи мотивації на основі уточнених чинників Ричи-Мартіна, трудової концепції працівника, побудови «мотиваційного профілю бюлетеня працівника».The theoretical and practical aspects of motivation, its structure and content. Develop criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of staff motivation, a model of monitoring and incentive system based on the corrected factors Richie Martin, working the concept of worker, building a «motivational profile employee newsletter

Self-Assembled Photochromic Molecular Dipoles for High-Performance Polymer Thin-Film Transistors.

The development of high-performance multifunctional polymer-based electronic circuits is a major step toward future flexible electronics. Here, we demonstrate a tunable approach to fabricate such devices based on rationally designed dielectric super-lattice structures with photochromic azobenzene molecules. These nanodielectrics possessing ionic, molecular, and atomic polarization are utilized in polymer thin-film transistors (TFTs) to realize high-performance electronics with a p-type field-effect mobility (μFET) exceeding 2 cm2 V-1 s-1. A crossover in the transport mechanism from electrostatic dipolar disorder to ionic-induced disorder is observed in the transistor characteristics over a range of temperatures. The facile supramolecular design allows the possibility to optically control the extent of molecular and ionic polarization in the ultrathin nanodielectric. Thus, we demonstrate a 3-fold increase in the capacitance from 0.1 to 0.34 μF/cm2, which results in a 200% increase in TFT channel current

Improved numerical wave generation for modelling ocean and coastal engineering problems

We introduce a dynamic-boundary numerical wave generation procedure developed for wave structure interaction (WSI) simulations typical of ocean and coastal engineering problems. This implementation relies on a dynamic mesh which deforms in order to replicate the motion of the wave-maker, and it is integrated in wsiFoam: a multi-region coupling strategy applied to two-phase Navier-Stokes solvers developed in our previous work [Mart´ınez Ferrer et al. A multi-region coupling scheme for compressible and incompressible flow solvers for two-phase flow in a numerical wave tank. Computer & Fluids 125 (2016) 116–129]. The combination of the dynamic-boundary method with a multi-region mesh counteracts the increase in computational cost, which is intrinsic to simulations featuring dynamic domains. This approach results in a high performance computing wave generation strategy that can be utilised in a numerical wave tank to carry out accurate and efficient simulations of wave generation, propagation and interaction with fixed structures and floating bodies. We conduct a series of benchmarks to verify the implementation of this wave generation method and the capabilities of the solver wsiFoam to deal with wave structure interaction problems. These benchmarks include regular and focused waves, wave interaction with a floating body and the modelling of a wave energy converter, using different wave-maker geometries: piston, flap and plunger. The results gathered in this work agree well with experimental data measured in the laboratory and other numerical simulations

Prince: An improved method for measuring incentivized preferences

This paper introduces the Prince incentive system for measuring preferences. Prince combines the tractability of direct matching, allowing for the precise and direct elicitation of indifference values, with the clarity and validity of choice lists. It makes incentive compatibility completely transparent to subjects, avoiding the opaqueness of the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism. It can be used for adaptive experiments while avoiding any possibility of strategic behavior by subjects. To illustrate Prince’s wide applicability, we investigate preference reversals, the discrepancy between willingness to pay and willingness to accept, and the major components of decision making under uncertainty: utilities, subjective beliefs, and ambiguity attitudes. Prince allows for measuring utility under risk and ambiguity in a tractable and incentive-compatible manner even if expected utility is violated. Our empirical findings support modern behavioral views, e.g., confirming the endowment effect and showing that utility is closer to linear than classically thought. In a comparative study, Prince gives better results than a classical implementation of the random incentive system