The Minimum Approval Mechanism Implements the Efficient Public Good Allocation Theoretically and Experimentally

May 2013. Revised September 2013

The perineuronal proteoglycan surface coat in the adult rat brain, with special reference to its reactions to Gomori's ammoniacal silver.

The present study showed that many neurons in the adult rat brain possessed a perineuronal sulfated proteoglycan surface coat which reacted to cationic iron colloid and aldehyde fuchsin. This surface coat was stained supravitally with Ehrlich's methylene blue and doubly stained with Ehrlich's methylene blue and aldehyde fuchsin. The surface coat was also stained with Gomori's ammoniacal silver and doubly stained with Gomori's ammoniacal silver and cationic iron colloid. The surface coat was usually expressed together with a nerve cell surface glycoprotein net detectable with lectin Wisteria floribunda agglutinin. These findings indicate that the perineuronal proteoglycan surface coat is identical to Cajal's superficial reticulum and contains some collagenous elements. It was further demonstrated that collagenase digestion erased Gomori's ammoniacal silver impregnation within the perineuronal proteoglycan surface coat.</p

Spin-gap formation due to spin-Peierls instability in π-orbital-ordered NaO2

We have investigated the low-temperature magnetism of sodium superoxide (NaO2), in which spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom are closely entangled. The magnetic susceptibility shows anomalies at T1 = 220 K and T2 = 190 K, which correspond well to the structural phase transition temperatures, and a sudden decrease below T3 = 34 K. At 4.2 K, the magnetization shows a clear stepwise anomaly around 30 T with a large hysteresis. In addition, the muon spin relaxation experiments indicate no magnetic phase transition down to T = 0.3 K. The inelastic neutron scattering spectrum exhibits magnetic excitation with a finite energy gap. These results confirm that the ground state of NaO2 is a spin-singlet state. To understand this ground state in NaO2, we performed Raman scattering experiments. All the Raman-active libration modes expected for the marcasite phase below T2 are observed. Furthermore, we find that several new peaks appear below T3. This directly evidences the low crystal symmetry, namely, the presence of the phase transition at T3.We conclude that the singlet ground state of NaO2 is due to the spin-Peierls instability

Who is audited? Experimental study on rule-based tax auditing schemes

In this study, we employ a game-theoretic framework to formulate and analyze a number of tax audit schemes. We then test the theoretical predictions in a laboratory experiment. We compare audit schemes based on three audit rules: the random rule, cut-off rule, and lowest income reporter audited rule. While the cut-off rule is known to be optimal in theory, it has not thus far been examined in a controlled laboratory experimental setting. Contrary to the theory, the lowest income reporter audited rule yielded higher compliance behavior than the optimal cut-off rule in the experiment, even after controlling for social norms regarding tax payment perceived by the subjects. This empirical finding is practically important because the tax authorities in most countries assign higher priority to enhancing tax compliance