Social Influence and Individual Difference in Experimental Juries

In a jury decision-making, individuals must compromise in order to reach a group consensus. If individuals compromise for non-rational reasons, such as a preference for conformity or due to erroneous information, then the final decision of the group may be biased. This paper presents original experimental data which shows that groups do have a significant tendency to compromise in jury-like settings. Econometric evidence also shows that features of groups, including the generosity of the group overall, will dictate the extent of compromise. The data also reveal that individual traits such as gender and capacity for empathy are associated with the extent of compromise in a jury-type setting. The implications are that interactions between individual and group characteristics limit the objectivity of decision-making

The backdoor to overconsumption: the effect of associating 'light' food with health.

Marketers present compromise food products (e.g. light chips) as a way to reduce consumers' conflict between the short-term desire of wanting a snack and the long-term goal of a healthy body. Policy makers welcome compromise products as a way to fight the obesity epidemic. Compromise products are typically associated with health. Two experiments and a survey were conducted to explore the effects of health references on the consumed amount of compromise products. Health references appear to increase consumption of compromise products for consumers with relatively weak food restriction goals, such as dietary restrained young women and dietary unrestrained older women. This suggests that associating compromise products with health messages may enhance rather than solve the obesity problem.Cognitive load; Consumption; Disinhibition; Effects; Food consumption; Health goals;

Tracking Cyber Adversaries with Adaptive Indicators of Compromise

A forensics investigation after a breach often uncovers network and host indicators of compromise (IOCs) that can be deployed to sensors to allow early detection of the adversary in the future. Over time, the adversary will change tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), which will also change the data generated. If the IOCs are not kept up-to-date with the adversary's new TTPs, the adversary will no longer be detected once all of the IOCs become invalid. Tracking the Known (TTK) is the problem of keeping IOCs, in this case regular expressions (regexes), up-to-date with a dynamic adversary. Our framework solves the TTK problem in an automated, cyclic fashion to bracket a previously discovered adversary. This tracking is accomplished through a data-driven approach of self-adapting a given model based on its own detection capabilities. In our initial experiments, we found that the true positive rate (TPR) of the adaptive solution degrades much less significantly over time than the naive solution, suggesting that self-updating the model allows the continued detection of positives (i.e., adversaries). The cost for this performance is in the false positive rate (FPR), which increases over time for the adaptive solution, but remains constant for the naive solution. However, the difference in overall detection performance, as measured by the area under the curve (AUC), between the two methods is negligible. This result suggests that self-updating the model over time should be done in practice to continue to detect known, evolving adversaries.Comment: This was presented at the 4th Annual Conf. on Computational Science & Computational Intelligence (CSCI'17) held Dec 14-16, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada, US

Neuraminidase-activated microglia compromise the viability of ependymocytes

Neuraminidase (NA) is a sialidase present in the envelope/wall of some virus/bacteria responsible for brain infections, such as flu, mumps or meningitis. The intracerebroventricular injection of NA in the rat brain provokes ependymal detachment and death, and an acute inflammatory process. Although inflammation reverses, ependymal lining is not regenerated. Complement system activation within the CSF contributes to ependymal damage, but is not the only cause (Granados-Duran et al, 2016). Here we aimed to investigate if microglial activation might also play a role. For this purpose we used pure isolated ependymocytes (Grondona et al, 2013) and ventricular wall explants, which were co-cultured with microglial cells, both in basal conditions and with agents that induce microglial activation: NA, LPS, or Pam3CSK4 (synthetic lipopeptide). The viability of the ependymal cells was assessed by trypan blue exclusion. The viability of isolated ependymocytes was reduced when NA or LPS were added to the culture, compared to controls without additives. In the absence of microglia, NA or LPS did not compromise viability significantly, indicating that microglia was involved in ependymocytes death. The addition of NA to cultured explants reduced ependymocytes viability only when microglial cells were present in the culture; a similar reduction was observed when LPS or Pam3CSK4 were added. Conversely, explants cultured in the absence of microglia did not suffer a significant decrease in ependymocytes viability upon NA addition to the medium. We hypothesized that cytokines released by activated microglia, such as IL1β or TNFα, could mediate ependymocytes death. RT-PCR performed in RNA obtained from pure ependymocytes confirmed the presence of IL1β and TNFα receptors in ependymal cells. Nevertheless further experiments are required to confirm this hypothesis. We conclude that microglia activated by NA mediates, at least in part, ependymal cell death, what might be relevant for neuroinflammatory diseases mediated by NA bearing virus/bacteria.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

‘Islands in the stream’ – causeways or compromise?

In recent years, policy drivers have given a strategic push towards encouraging ‘employer-led’ work based learning in Higher Education. For example, Leitch ( 2006?) and other key policy makers advocate institutional change and reform in HE to respond to market needs; HEFCE encourages HEI’s “Towards a strategy for work based learning”; the QAA has reflected most recently on ‘employer-responsive provision’. This paper sets out to explore the impact of these strategic objectives and some issues which emerge from the rapprochement of stakeholders and providers. It is based on experience in an institution where challenges and tensions are being met and overcome. The case example is part of a Higher Level Skills Pathway (HLSP) Project whose lead partner is the North West Universities Association (NWUA) in North West England. Learning Pathway provision for Housing Practitioners (via a Professional Certificate in Leadership) has been developed in conjunction with employers using the WBIS (Work based and Integrative Studies) framework at the University of Chester. This flexible modular framework puts knowledge and experiential learning gained in the work context at the core of learning activity. This paper uses the example to characterise the power relationships and tensions. Reflecting on the case study, it seems that by attending to such policy drivers, much compromise is required from both parties in terms of curriculum design and the relationships being built between Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) and employers. The term ‘employer-led’ denotes an uneven power relationship and this may in the long run serve to undermine the hallmark of HE provision – quality and standards. In conclusion we suggest that the whole relationship needs to be predicated on co-produced provision in order to build sustainable relationships between employers and HEI’s. The term ‘co-production’ equalises the power relationship, encouraging the goal of dynamic interaction, mutual respect and benefits based on the expertise and knowledge of each party

Quicksands of Compromise

In his address to the November, 1971 Meeting of the National Federation of Catholic Physicians\u27 Guilds in New Orleans Dr. Brennan defended the acceptance of the revised code of medical ethics. His address is reprinted here

Honor and Compromise, and Getting History Right

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly does not have a Ph.D. in history, although he does have two master’s degrees, in Strategic Studies (from the National Defense University) and in National Security Affairs from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. So perhaps it was simply that he believed what he said about the Civil War this past Monday on Laura Ingraham’s new Fox News ‘Ingraham Angle’ was so innocuous that he could also believe that it wouldn’t even become a blip on anyone’s radar screen. (excerpt