Task-switch costs subsequent to cue-only trials

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Fiona Carr, Carmen Horne, and Brigitta Toth for assistance with data collection. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Funding information The authors would like to thank the School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, for contributing funding for participant payments.Peer reviewedPostprin

Strategic Interaction and Networks

This paper brings a general network analysis to a wide class of economic games. A network, or interaction matrix, tells who directly interacts with whom. A major challenge is determining how network structure shapes overall outcomes. We have a striking result. Equilibrium conditions depend on a single number: the lowest eigenvalue of a network matrix. Combining tools from potential games, optimization, and spectral graph theory, we study games with linear best replies and characterize the Nash and stable equilibria for any graph and for any impact of players’ actions. When the graph is sufficiently absorptive (as measured by this eigenvalue), there is a unique equilibrium. When it is less absorptive, stable equilibria always involve extreme play where some agents take no actions at all. This paper is the first to show the importance of this measure to social and economic outcomes, and we relate it to different network link patterns.Networks, potential games, lowest eigenvalue, stable equilibria, asymmetric equilibria

Ecodriving and Carbon Footprinting: Understanding How Public Education Can Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Use

Ecodriving is a collection of changes to driving behavior and vehicle maintenance designed to impact fuel consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in existing vehicles. Because of its promise to improve fuel economy within the existing fleet, ecodriving has gained increased attention in North America. One strategy to improve ecodriving is through public education with information on how to ecodrive. This report provides a review and study of ecodriving from several angles. The report offers a literature review of previous work and programs in ecodriving across the world. In addition, researchers completed interviews with experts in the field of public relations and public message campaigns to ascertain best practices for public campaigns. Further, the study also completed a set of focus groups evaluating consumer response to a series of websites that displayed ecodriving information. Finally, researchers conducted a set of surveys, including a controlled stated-response study conducted with approximately 100 University of California, Berkeley faculty, staff, and students, assessing the effectiveness of static ecodriving web-based information as well as an intercept clipboard survey in the San Francisco Bay Area. The stated-response study consisted of a comparison of the experimental and control groups. It found that exposure to ecodriving information influenced people’s driving behavior and some maintenance practices. The experimental group’s distributional shift was statistically significant, particularly for key practices including: lower highway cruising speed, driving behavior adjustment, and proper tire inflation. Within the experimental group (N = 51), fewer respondents significantly changed their maintenance practices (16%) than the majority that altered some driving practices (71%). This suggests intentionally altering driving behavior is easier than planning better maintenance practices. While it was evident that not everyone modifies their behavior as a result of reviewing the ecodriving website, even small shifts in behavior due to inexpensive information dissemination could be deemed cost effective in reducing fuel consumption and emissions

Sin taxes in differentiated product oligopoly: an application to the butter and margarine market

There is policy interest in using tax to change food purchasing behaviour. The literature has not accounted for the oligopolistic structure of the industry. In oligopoly the impact of taxes depend on preferences, and how firms pass tax onto prices. We consider a tax on saturated fat. Using transaction level data we find that the form of tax and firms' strategic behaviour are important determinants of the impact. Our results suggest that an excise tax is more efficient than an ad valorem tax at reducing saturated fat purchases and an ad valorem tax is more efficient at raising revenue.

Discussion in Middle and High School Earth Science Classrooms and Its Impact on Students\u27 Abilities to Construct Evidence-Based Arguments in Their Written Work

Middle and high school teachers who participate in the Maine Physical Sciences Partnership (MainePSP) noted persistent problems in their classrooms, including low levels of student engagement and gaps in how students use evidence. To address these problems, this study was designed in collaboration with MainePSP teachers in a design-based implementation research process as teachers aimed to better connect classroom discussion and written argumentation. Though scientific writing makes use of argumentation to support ideas, it is often the sharing of ideas that makes an argument stronger. Two teachers collected data from their seventh and ninth grade Earth Science classrooms at schools in central Maine. Written responses were collected as students answered two questions from their respective curricula. For the first question, students provided their answers without discussing the question beforehand. This question provided a baseline of ability to measure gains made on the second question. For the second question, classrooms were assigned to one of three discussion protocols—no discussion, discussion without Talk Science, and discussion with Talk Science. Talk Science is a discussion method designed to facilitate productive classroom discussion by emphasizing evidence and reasoning. For both questions, students were instructed to write their answer using the Claim, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) framework that was already being used in both of the participating classrooms. This style of argumentation allows the students to make a claim and support it using two pieces of evidence. Then, reasoning is used to connect the evidence to the claim. The written responses were analyzed using a project-specific CER and Content rubric that was also designed in collaboration with high school teachers. Analyses suggest ninth graders improve their scores on evidence, reasoning, and content when encouraged to have a Talk Science discussion. These gains are most likely due to the emphasis that Talk Science places on sharing evidence and reasoning, which supports content knowledge. Seventh graders showed the most improvement on their claim when encouraged to have a Talk Science discussion. Audio data from the discussions reveal some factors responsible for this difference. While, the ninth grade teacher prompted students to support their statements by sharing evidence and reasoning, the seventh grade teacher focused prompted students to ‘add on’ to others’ statements. In addition, all of the students were asked to reflect on their classroom discussion and the results were strongly positive. Most students valued the discussions either for obtaining information directly related to answering the question or for gaining further explanation of ideas taught in class. The results of this study will be used to influence classroom instruction and professional development within the MainePSP. Because the use of CER and content knowledge were shown to improve, other teachers may be more likely to include discussions with Talk Science and written CER argumentation in their classrooms. Furthermore, though teachers often report that classroom discussions take too much time or do not seem to engage students, it is apparent here that students do value classroom discussion

A Critically Appraised Topic: Comparing Cognitive Dissonance and Healthy Weight Interventions in the Prevention of Eating Disorders in At-Risk Female Collegiate Athletes

Abstract Background: Female athletes are predisposed to a higher risk of eating disorder development due to the pressures of performance and appearance with a critical focus on weight. Different risk factors that affect these female athletes include thin idealization, dietary restraint, and body dissatisfaction. Cognitive dissonance theory and healthy weight interventions are two education programs that aim to decrease the risk of eating disorder development. This article explores current evidence for a difference in effectiveness between the two theories in decreasing risk of eating disorder development among females in the collegiate setting. Methods: Three online databases (PubMed, Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health Literature [CINAHL], and ScienceDirect) were searched between September and November of 2020. Studies were only included if they contained assessment of risk factors for eating disorder development as an outcome, included female collegiate athletes, and compared cognitive dissonance theory with healthy weight intervention for prevention of eating disorders. A STROBE analysis was performed for quality assessment of each study. Results: The literature search produced fifty-six potential studies for inclusion, three were included in the analysis. Each study compared cognitive dissonance and healthy weight intervention to an untreated control group in eating disorder risk factor assessment. One study5 found that female athletes classified in non-lean sports showed great improvement in body negativity with cognitive dissonance than in the healthy weight intervention. Two studies3,6 found both programs/interventions decreased risk. Two3,6 out of the three3,5,6 demonstrated cognitive dissonance is better and one out of the three believe healthy weight programs work just as well, and are preferred by athletes. One study6 found that female athletes from nine NCAA athletic communities reported decreased thin-ideal internalization at the 1-year mark from the Bodies in Motion cognitive dissonance program as compared to the control group. Conclusion: There is moderate quality evidence that there is a difference in effectiveness of reducing risk factors for eating disorders in female collegiate athletes who participate in a cognitive dissonance program compared to a healthy weight program. Cognitive dissonance was found to have more lasting effects on the population. However, both cognitive dissonance and healthy weight intervention had a positive impact on female colligate athlete’s body image internalizations. Keywords: eating disorder, disordered eating, risk factors, prevention, cognitive dissonance, healthy weight interventio

Electrospinning Novel Aligned Polymer Fiber Structures for Use in Neural Tissue Engineering

A suitable tissue scaffold to support and assist in the repair of damaged tissues or cells is important for success in clinical trials and for injury recovery. Electrospinning can create a variety of polymer nanofibers and microfibers, and is being widely used to produce experimental tissue scaffolds for neural applications. This dissertation examines various approaches by which electrospinning is being used for neural tissue engineering applications for the repair of injuries to the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). Due to the poor regeneration of neural tissues in the event of injury, tissue scaffolds are being used to promote the recovery and restoration of neural function. Next generation scaffolds using bioactive materials, conductive polymers, and coaxial fiber structures are now being developed to improve the recovery of motor functions in in vivo studies. This dissertation includes fabrication techniques, the results of neural cell cultures performed both in vivo and in vitro on electrospun fiber scaffolds, examines barriers to full functional recovery, and future directions for electrospinning and neural tissue engineering. Aligned, free-standing fiber scaffolds using poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) were developed as an in vitro model to study cell interaction on free-standing fiber scaffolds in vivo. Stages were designed to allow for the formation of free-standing fiber scaffolds that were not supported by an underlying surface. Fibers were spun across the columns of the stages to produce free-standing fiber scaffolds. The scaffolds were then used for in vitro cell culture using chick dorsal root ganglia (DRG). Fiber scaffolds were also spun on a flat substrate and used for in vitro cell studies for comparison. The axonal outgrowth observed for DRG cells cultured on free-standing fiber scaffolds was comparable to those grown on fibers with an underlying surface, indicating that cells follow the alignment of fibers even without an underlying support. Electrospinning coaxial fibers is a more complex application of electrospinning techniques that has been explored here as a method of creating a core-sheath fiber structure to act as a scaffold across glial scar tissue present in spinal cord injuries (SCIs). Here, we looked at altering the basic electrospinning set-up to spin core-sheath fibers. The core was spun with a conductive polymer, poly(3,4-ethyelenedixoythiophene): poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and the sheath was spun PLLA to create coaxial fibers with a conductive core and an insulating sheath. A conductive polymer was used so that electrical stimulation could be applied along the fibers during cell culture to examine if the additional external stimulation would further assist in axonal outgrowth when combined with the topographical cues of the fiber scaffolds. This allows for the combination of electrical stimulation with the topographical guidance provided by aligned fiber scaffolds to improve axonal outgrowth and functional recovery in vivo