Optimal decision bounds for probabilistic population codes and time varying evidence

Decision making under time constraints requires the decision maker to trade off between making quick, inaccurate decisions and gathering more evidence for more accurate, but slower decisions. We have previously shown that, under rather general settings, optimal behavior can be described by a time-dependent decision bound on the decision maker’s belief of being correct (Drugowitsch, Moreno-Bote, Pouget, 2009). In cases where the reliability of sensory information remains constant over time, we have shown how to design diffusion models (DMs) with time-changing boundaries that feature such behavior. Such theories can be easily mapped onto simple neural models of decision making with two perfectly anti-correlated neurons, where they predict the existence of a stopping bound on the most active neurons. It is unclear however how the stopping bound would be implemented with more realistic neural population codes, particularly when the reliability of the evidence changes over time.
Here we show that, under certain realistic conditions, we can apply the theory of optimal decision making to the biologically more plausible probabilistic population codes (PPCs; Ma et al. 2006). Our analysis shows that, with population codes, the optimal decision bounds are a function of the neural activity of all neurons in the population, rather than a previously postulated bound on its maximum activity. This theory predicts that the bound on the most active neurons would appear to shift depending on the firing rate of other neurons in the population, a puzzling behavior under the drift diffusion model as it would wrongly suggest that subjects change their stopping rule across conditions. This theory also applies to the case of time varying evidence, a case that cannot be handled by drift diffusion models without unrealistic assumptions

Chicken Tikka Masala Multiculturalism: The United Kingdom’s Continuation of Past Colonial Practices

Chicken tikka masala is a dish in the United Kingdom that is consumed by millions each year. In 2000, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook declared that it was the national dish of the United Kingdom which has led to a two billion dollar industry and chicken tikka multiculturalism. This type of multiculturalism is discussed by scholars such as Amir Ali. Chicken tikka masala has been declared as the national dish of the United Kingdom since 2001 when the former British This South Asian dish has a rich history and a heavy influence in the UK, which has led to “chicken tikka multiculturalism” which was made to accept the growing South Asian populations and address the anti-Asian sentiment. Chicken tikka multiculturalism is used by scholars who address a diverse and unique movement in the United Kingdom to explain the adoption of a foreign dish and a multicultural society. This ethnic dish has been claimed by the United Kingdom as their own, but as many South Asians argue, the true roots go back to India. While the United Kingdom has benefited financially from the adoption of this dish, South Asian Britons remain to be the most deprived in the country and experience hate crimes to this day. The United Kingdom has declared itself as a beacon of multiculturalism, but solely takes one aspect of South Asian culture while rejecting the people themselves

Dispersal of _Aedes aegypti_: field study in temperate areas and statistical approach

We studied the dispersion of _Aedes aegypti_ during egg laying in natural conditions. Two independent experiments involving mosquitoes dispersing from urbanization towards adjacent un-urbanized areas were carried out and analyzed in statistical terms. We find relations between stochastic variables related to the egg laying mosquito activity (ELMA), useful to assess dispersion probabilities, despite the lack of knowledge of the total number of ovipositions in the zone. We propose to evaluate the activity as minus the logarithm of the fraction of negative ovitraps at different distances from buildings. We also estimate the average number of eggs laid per oviposition using a regression between the ELMA and the number of eggs found. Three zones with different oviposition activity were determined: a corridor surrounding the urbanized area, a second region between 10m and 25m and the third region extending from 30m to 45m from the urbanization. The landscape (plant cover) and the human activity in the area appear to have an influence in the dispersal of _Aedes aegypti_

Amazon and the New World of Publishing

Comments on Chris Sagers, Apple, Antitrust, and Irony (Harvard University Press, 2018

Moving from Express Preemption to Conflict Preemption in Scrutinizing Contracts over Copyrighted Goods.

There is a built-in tension between the perception of copyright law as promoting a delicate balance between the interests of creators, distributions, and users of information goods and contract law’s laissez-faire philosophy. Legal systems need to decide how to approach this tension and specifically whether, and to what degrees, to allow parties to freely contract around the legal norms set forth by copyright law. For more than four decades, federal courts have tried to address this tension using the Copyright Act’s express preemption provision, which prohibits states from creating rights that are “equivalent” to copyright. In a previous work, I showed that those attempts have failed to produce a robust test for contract preemption and that most circuit courts nowadays hold contracts completely shielded from express preemption. However, in conflict with this trend, the Second Circuit recently held two contracts expressly preempted. This Essay analyzes those opinions and shows that the Second Circuit could not come up with a successful test. Like previous attempts, it adopted a formalistic approach, which is both underinclusive and overinclusive, and that seems detached from copyright policy. There is, however, another way to approach the copyright-contract tension—conflict preemption—which, interestingly, the Second Circuit has recently developed in another context—the conflict between copyright and privacy law. The Essay builds on that decision to show why conflict preemption is more appropriate to potentially scrutinize breach of contract claims, primarily as it introduces much-needed flexibility into the preemption analysis. It shows that because contracts rarely undermine federal copyright policy, preemption should apply in unusual cases, particularly when plaintiffs use standard form agreements to promote goals similar to those of copyright law in a way that clearly undermines federal policy

Owning Nothingness: Between the Legal and the Social Norms of the Art World

Almost $8 million—that is what the Crystal Bridges Museum paid for one work of contemporary art in November 2015. What did that museum get for that hefty sum? From a legal perspective, absolutely nothing. The work it purchased was just an idea, and ideas of this kind escape legal protection. Despite this lack of legal protection, the social norms of the art world lead large, sophisticated, experienced, and legally represented institutes to pay millions of dollars for this type of work. This Article is one of the first in legal scholarship to examine at depth those norms in this multibilliondollar industry. It does so by, inter alia, reporting on interviews the author conducted with industry insiders concerning their practices. This Article suggests that those norms create property-like rights in all artworks, whether or not they are legally protected, as well as an ongoing right of artists to partly control the use of their works. Those social norms fill a gap between the ways in which the contemporary art world understands creativity and the ways in which our legal system actually incentivizes creative endeavors. This Article analyzes the normative implications of these social norms and the gap they fill. First, it explains how those norms incentivize certain forms of creativity in a way that is more effective and efficient than property rights. Second, going beyond the art world, the Article shows how the social norms expose certain hidden assumptions in copyright authorship and their shortcomings. It suggests how the law can be improved to account for the richer description of creativity this Article provides. Third, the Article contributes to the ongoing debate concerning private property ownership. The art world provides sellers with significant post-sale control over their works in a way that the law commonly finds undesirable. That tension might justify rethinking the current legal rules that disincentivize post-sale control

Incentivizing Top-Musicians

Part I explores the challenge that COPYRIGHT’S EXCESS tackles. It explains the core of copyright’s incentive theory, why it is difficult to test it empirically, and how COPY- RIGHT’S EXCESS rises to that challenge, especially by exploring the lack of correlation between sales and productivity, and, in particular, superstars’ productivity in the music industry. Parts II-IV of this Essay consider several explanations for the lack of correlation. Part II addresses the sometimes-neglected role of the recording companies. Those intermediaries profoundly affect the art- ists’ compensation and their creative decisions. Therefore, any analysis of the connection between sales, artistic income, and artistic output (i.e., productivity), needs to consider their role. Part III addresses one of Lunney’s theories for explaining the discrepancy between sales and productivity. Labor economists have long held that while low-paid workers will wish to work more as their compensation increases, highly-paid workers will instead substitute work time for leisure time as their compensation increases and work less. Can this phenomenon explain why superstars became less productive when the music industry’s sales peaked? In Part III, I explain why I find this explanation unlikely. Superstars, this Part suggests, are probably too wealthy to be affected by this phenomenon. Part IV focuses on the superstars’ incentives to continue to create even after their previous successes have made them very wealthy. It suggests that the main driving forces of top musicians are likely their internal joy from creating, and possibly more importantly, the social- psychological reward that is attached to their success. Ultra-wealthy businessmen present a similar phenomenon: They continue to work even when they already accumulate enough wealth to meet all their material needs because, as studies suggest, they enjoy their work, and they love to be considered successful by their reference group. It is reasonable to expect wealthy musicians to act similarly for corre- sponding motivations. Part V briefly considers some of the possible implications. If top- artists are not primarily motivated by money, putting aside the status that is attached thereto, then society should be hesitant to devise a copyright system that makes those wealthy individuals even richer. It might get very little in return. In that respect, this Essay ends close to where COPYRIGHT’S EXCESS does: with the call for copyright law to focus on incentivizing marginal artists and not the super-rich

Catalyst Synthesis & Characterization for Dry Reforming of Methane: Synthesis of Ni-based Hydrotalcite Catalyst by Impregnation Method

The increased consumption and abundance of fossil fuels has led to significant greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions, mainly CO2, which has led to health problems and climate changes. Therefore, it is essential to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere which contributes to protect our plant and the public health. Several technologies have been used in this regard such as carbon capture and utilizing it. The GTL (Gas-to-liquid) technology uses reforming units such as DRM (Dry Reforming of Methane) that utilizes COv2 to produce syngas for generating various products. Therefore, to mitigate carbon dioxide the reforming unit requires a catalyst to perform in the production of syngas by using two of the main GHGs, methane and carbon dioxide. This work is based on the synthesis of synthesizing Ni-based catalysts for DRM to produce syngas and specifically focuses on the preparation and characterization of hydrotalcite derived Mg-Al and doped Zn on Mg-Al with molar ratio of 2:1 for Mg: Al. The bimetallic supports were prepared via the co-precipitation method while metallic supports by precipitation method. The Ni-based catalysts were synthesized through the impregnation method. Furthermore, to avoid carbon deposition and sintering of the catalyst, the conducted temperature for DRM reaction was at 650 degrees C. The characterization technologies of the catalysts were performed using XRD, BET, FTIR, H2- TPR, and DRM reaction techniques to confirm the hydrotalcite structure and the metal-support interactions