Interest groups and politics: The need to concentrate on group formation

This paper assesses the development of the modeling of group behavior in the interest group literature. Throughout the literature, interest groups have been modeled in multiple ways: from passive groups that do not interact with one another to groups that act just as rational strategic players. Although there has been considerable progress and models are increasingly more realistic and successful at explaining political outcomes, we still have a long way to go. In this paper, I propose that the introduction of group formation into our models is the best way of continuing with research.survey interest groups group formation

Conditional Cooperation: Disentangling Strategic from Non-Strategic Motivations

We use a novel experimental design to examine the role of reputational concerns in explaining conditional cooperation in social dilemmas. By using the strategy method in a repeated sequential prisoners’ dilemma in which the probabilistic end is known, we can distinguish between strategically and non-strategically motivated cooperation. Second movers who are strong reciprocators ought to conditionally cooperate with first movers irrespective of whether the game continues or not. In contrast, strategically motivated second movers conditionally cooperate only if the game continues and they otherwise defect. Experimental results, with two different subject pools, indicate reputation building is used around 30% of the time, which accounts for between 50% and 75% of all realized cooperative actions. The percentage of strong reciprocators varied between 6% to 23%.cooperation;reputation building;strong reciprocity;repeated prisoners’ dilemma

Revisiting Strategic versus Non-strategic Cooperation

We use a novel experimental design to disentangle strategically- and non-strategically-motivated cooperation. By using contingent responses in a repeated sequential prisoners’ dilemma with a known probabilistic end, we differentiate end-game behavior from continuation behavior within individuals while controlling for expectations. This design allows us to determine the extent to which strategically-cooperating individuals are responsible for the so-called endgame effect. Experiments with two different subject pools indicate that the most common motive for cooperation in repeated games is strategic and that the extent to which endgame effects are driven by strategically-cooperating individuals depends on the profitability of cooperation.reputation building;strong reciprocity;conditional cooperation;strategic cooperation

Selling space and time : the case of sejjieh dekorattiv

Sometime during the late 1980's, the weathered stones from dismantled or collapsed dry-stone walls started being gathered, and their outer surfaces were sawn away in laminae about an inch thick. Such laminae, weathered and rugged on one side, freshly cut and smooth on the other, were then glued side by side to the facades of newly-built houses. The neatly cut, white limestone ashlar masonry in which these facades, like most buildings in Malta, had been raised, was concealed beneath the collage of darkened and irregularly shaped slices of rubble. At first glance, the areas treated in this way had been transformed into a rubble wall. Ethnographic research has been conducted in San Gwann, a suburban village and Rabat, a small town. Several streets were explored in these localities in order to obtain some understanding of the distribution of sejjieh dekorattiv throughout the village or town, paying close attention to the role it plays in the context of particular facades. Fifteen informal interviews were carried out with a number of home-owners, aimed at eliciting their perceptions of sejjieh dekorattiv. This article is the first result of an ongoing research project. Important issues, such as the trends which emerge from the overall distribution of sejjieh dekorattiv throughout Malta as a whole have not as yet been tackled. The observations which follow must not be seen as definitive. They should rather be seen as an attempt to initiate discussion and investigation of this issue.peer-reviewe

The Semi-Micro Adaption of the Iowa System of Qualitative Analysis

During the last few years much effort has been expended in attempts to develop apparatus and special techniques for the analysis of small quantities of material. These procedures can be divided into two classes, the micro and the semi-micro. Micro analysis deals with samples up to or about 3-5 milligrams. This micro method consumes much less time, requires smaller quantities of reagents, requires much less of the unknown and in other ways proves superior to macro analysis. However, strict micro analysis often requires the use of a microscope and other delicate pieces of apparatus, as well as a knowledge of chemistry possessed by few of those enrolled in the elementary course of qualitative analysis. It is therefore not applicable to the general course in qualitative analysis

Factors militating against utilization of information resources for research by scientists in agricultural research institutes in Nigeria

This paper was designed to investigate factors militating against utilization of information resources for research by scientists in Agricultural Research Institutes in Nigeria. The descriptive survey research design was used for the research. The population of the study was 1002 from which 200 was sampled using certified proportionate sampling technique where 20% of the respondents from each research institute was elected for the actual study. The questionnaire and observation were instruments used for collecting required data. Data gathered was organised according to research questions. The findings of the study showed that majority of the agricultural scientists rated the use of internet services/materials/documents and conference proceedings, among others, respectively between average and very high extent for their research. On the other hand, majority of the scientists rated utilization of encyclopaedias and memos, among others respectively, between low and very low extent for their research purposes. The findings also revealed that lack of enough qualified and experienced librarians to provide, process, and make available library information resources and services, inadequate funding of the libraries and lack of adequate information resources were militating factors against utilization of information resources for research among others. The study recommended that the Federal Government should improve funding to all Agricultural Research Institutes with a directive that 20% of such allocations be used for the development of research libraries, among others

Adaptation to binocular anticorrelation results in increased neural excitability

Throughout the brain, information from individual sources converges onto higher order neurons. For example, information from the two eyes first converges in binocular neurons in area V1. Some neurons appear tuned to similarities between sources of information, which makes intuitive sense in a system striving to match multiple sensory signals to a single external cause, i.e., establish causal inference. However, there are also neurons that are tuned to dissimilar information. In particular, some binocular neurons respond maximally to a dark feature in one eye and a light feature in the other. Despite compelling neurophysiological and behavioural evidence supporting the existence of these neurons (Cumming & Parker, 1997; Janssen, Vogels, Liu, & Orban, 2003; Katyal, Vergeer, He, He, & Engel, 2018; Kingdom, Jennings, & Georgeson, 2018; Tsao, Conway, & Livingstone, 2003), their function has remained opaque. To determine how neural mechanisms tuned to dissimilarities support perception, here we use electroencephalography to measure human observers’ steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs) in response to change in depth after prolonged viewing of anticorrelated and correlated random-dot stereograms (RDS). We find that adaptation to anticorrelated RDS results in larger SSVEPs, while adaptation to correlated RDS has no effect. These results are consistent with recent theoretical work suggesting ‘what not’ neurons play a suppressive role in supporting stereopsis (Goncalves & Welchman, 2017); that is, selective adaptation of neurons tuned to binocular mismatches reduces suppression resulting in increased neural excitability.This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2017-573 to R. R.), the Isaac Newton Trust (17.08(o) to R. R.), and the Wellcome Trust (095183/Z/10/Z to A. E. W. and 206495/Z/17/Z to E. M.)