Trust with Private and Common Property: Effects of Stronger Property Right Entitlements

Is mutually beneficial cooperation in trust games more prevalent with private property or common property? Does the strength of property right entitlement affect the answer? Cox, Ostrom, Walker, et al. [1] report little difference between cooperation in private and common property trust games. We assign stronger property right entitlements by requiring subjects to meet a performance quota in a real effort task to earn their endowments. We find that cooperation is lower in common property trust games than in private property trust games, which is an idiosyncratic prediction of revealed altruism theory [2].

Trust with Private and Common Property: Effects of Stronger Property Right Entitlements

Is mutually beneficial cooperation in trust games more prevalent with private property or common property? Does the strength of property right entitlement affect the answer? Cox, Ostrom, Walker, et al. [1] report little difference between cooperation in private and common property trust games. We assign stronger property right entitlements by requiring subjects to meet a performance quota in a real effort task to earn their endowments. We report experiment treatments with sequential choice and strategy responses. We find that cooperation is lower in common property trust games than in private property trust games, which is an idiosyncratic prediction of revealed altruism theory [2]. Demonstrable differences and similarities between our strategy response and sequential choice data provide insight into the how these protocols can yield different results from hypothesis tests even when they are eliciting the same behavioral patterns across treatments

Computational environment for modeling and enhancing community resilience: Introducing the center for risk-based community resilience planning

The resilience of a community is defined as its ability to prepare for, withstand, recover from and adapt to the effects of natural or human-caused disasters, and depends on the performance of the built environment and on supporting social, economic and public institutions that are essential for immediate response and long-term recovery and adaptation. The performance of the built environment generally is governed by codes, standards, and regulations, which are applicable to individual facilities and residences, are based on different performance criteria, and do not account for the interdependence of buildings, transportation, utilities and other infrastructure sectors. The National Institute of Standards and Technology recently awarded a new Center of Excellence (NIST-CoE) for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning, which is headquartered at Colorado State University and involves nine additional universities. Research in this Center is focusing on three major research thrusts: (1) developing the NIST-Community Resilience Modeling Environment known as NIST-CORE, thereby enabling alternative strategies to enhance community resilience to be measured quantitatively; (2) developing a standardized data ontology, robust data architecture and data management tools in support of NIST-CORE; and (3) performing a comprehensive set of hindcasts on disasters to validate the data architecture and NIST-CORE

Using Low-Fix Rate GPS Telemetry to Expand Estimates of Ungulate Reproductive Success

Background Population parameters such as reproductive success are critical for sustainably managing ungulate populations, however obtaining these data is often difficult, expensive, and invasive. Movement-based methods that leverage Global Positioning System (GPS) relocation data to identify parturition offer an alternative to more invasive techniques such as vaginal implant transmitters, but thus far have only been applied to relocation data with a relatively fine (one fix every  \u3c 8 h) temporal resolution. We employed a machine learning method to classify parturition/calf survival in cow elk in southeastern Kentucky, USA, using 13-h GPS relocation data and three simple movement metrics, training a random forest on cows that successfully reared their calf to a week old. Results We developed a decision rule based upon a predicted probability threshold across individual cow time series, accurately classifying 89.5% (51/57) of cows with a known reproductive status. When used to infer status of cows whose reproductive outcome was unknown, we classified 48.6% (21/38) as successful, compared to 85.1% (40/47) of known-status cows. Conclusions While our approach was limited primarily by fix acquisition success, we demonstrated that coarse collar fix rates did not limit inference if appropriate movement metrics are chosen. Movement-based methods for determining parturition in ungulates may allow wildlife managers to extract more vital rate information from GPS collars even if technology and related data quality are constrained by cost

Crystal Field Triplets: A New Route to Non-Fermi Liquid Physics

A model for crystal field triplet ground states on rare earth or actinide ions with dipolar and quadrupolar couplings to conduction electrons is studied for the first time with renormalization group methods. The quadrupolar coupling leads to a new nontrivial, non-Fermi liquid fixed point, which survives in an intermediate valence Anderson model. The calculated magnetic susceptibility displays one parameter scaling, going as $T^{-\alpha}$ ($\alpha \approx 0.4$) at intermediate temperatures, reminiscent of the non-Fermi liquid alloy UCu_{5-x}Pd_x.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, REVTe

Application of the Goda Pressure Formulae for Horizontal Wave Loads on Elevated Structures

Small-scale physical experiments were conducted to investigate the application of the Goda wave pressure formulae modified to predict the horizontal wave loads on elevated structures considering non-breaking, broken, and impulsive breaking waves. The air gap defined as the vertical distance from the still water level to the base of the structure played a key role in the reduction of wave impact forces. Physical model results using random waves confirmed that the modified application of the Goda wave pressure formulae provided a good estimate of the horizontal forces on elevated structures for both broken and impulsive breaking waves. As the air gap was increased, the resulting forces decreased, and the estimated values became increasingly conservative. When the ratio of the air gap to water depth, a/h′, increased from −1.0 to 1.5, the reduction in force was approximately 75% when the wave height to breaking water depth ratio, H/h[subscript b], was equal to unity.Keywords: Random waves, Jetty, Air gap, Wave force, Goda wave pressure formulae, Elevated structure, Goda, Wave pressur

An empirical solution for tsunami run-up on compound slopes

Deterministic numerical models for tsunami inundation provide the most accurate means for estimating tsunami run-up when the bathymetry/topography and water level time history at the seaward boundary are well known. However, it is often the case that there is uncertainty in both the bathymetry/topography and water level at the seaward boundary. For these reasons, empirical solutions for tsunami run-up may be preferred because the run-up can be computed quickly allowing a probabilistic estimate the tsunami run-up risk. In this paper, an empirical solution for tsunami run-up is developed based on an analytic solution and calibrated using a Boussinesq wave model for plane-sloped and compound-sloped cases, including the effects of bottom friction, wave breaking, and the slope of the inundated land area. The new relation is a function of the tsunami wave amplitude at a specific water depth (100 m) to provide clear guidance for practical application, and of two values of the surf-similarity parameter to account for a compound slope. The model comprises three equations for three regions: breaking, transition and non-breaking. The model predictions are compared with survey data from the 2011 Tohoku tsunami in Japan without recalibration. The new equation provides reasonable estimates of run-up height and is generally conservative.Keywords: Surf-similarity, Analytic solution, Empirical solution, Tsunami, Run-up, Compound slop

Distinct TLR- and NLR-Mediated Transcriptional Responses to an Intracellular Pathogen

How the innate immune system tailors specific responses to diverse microbial infections is not well understood. Cells use a limited number of host receptors and signaling pathways to both discriminate among extracellular and intracellular microbes, and also to generate responses commensurate to each threat. Here, we have addressed these questions by using DNA microarrays to monitor the macrophage transcriptional response to the intracellular bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. By utilizing combinations of host and bacterial mutants, we have defined the host transcriptional responses to vacuolar and cytosolic bacteria. These compartment-specific host responses induced significantly different sets of target genes, despite activating similar transcription factors. Vacuolar signaling was entirely MyD88-dependent, and induced the transcription of pro-inflammatory cytokines. The IRF3-dependent cytosolic response induced a distinct set of target genes, including IFNβ. Many of these cytosolic response genes were induced by secreted cytokines, so we further identified those host genes induced independent of secondary signaling. The host response to cytosolic bacteria was reconstituted by the cytosolic delivery of L. monocytogenes genomic DNA, but we observed an amplification of this response by NOD2 signaling in response to MDP. Correspondingly, the induction of IFNβ was reduced in nod2−/− macrophages during infection with either L. monocytogenes or Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Combinatorial control of IFNβ induction by recognition of both DNA and MDP may highlight a mechanism by which the innate immune system integrates the responses to multiple ligands presented in the cytosol by intracellular pathogens