The Implications of China’s Fisheries Industry Regulation and Development for the South China Sea Dispute

Rozdział z: The Quandaries and Foreign Development, ed. D. Mierzejewski, “Contemporary Asian Studies Series

Detecting activity cycles of late-type dwarfs in Kepler data

Using data of fast-rotating active dwarf stars in the Kepler database, we perform time-frequency analysis of the light curves in order to search for signs of activity cycles. We use the phenomenon that the active region latitudes vary with the cycle (like the solar butterfly diagram), which causes the observed rotation period to change as a consequence of differential rotation. We find cycles in 8 cases of the 39 promising targets with periods between of 300-900 days.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, submitted to proceedings of IAUS 302: Magnetic Fields Throughout Stellar Evolutio

Commitments, Intentions, Truth and Nash Equilibria

Games with multiple Nash equilibria are believed to be easier to play if players can communicate. We present a simple model of communication in games and investigate the importance of when communication takes place. Sending a message before play captures talk about intentions, after play captures talk about past commitments. We focus on equilibria where messages are believed whenever possible. Applying our results to Aumann’s Stag Hunt game we find that communication is useless if talk is about commitments, while the efficient outcome is selected if talk is about intentions. This confirms intuition and empirical findings in the literature

A Center Transversal Theorem for Hyperplanes and Applications to Graph Drawing

Motivated by an open problem from graph drawing, we study several partitioning problems for line and hyperplane arrangements. We prove a ham-sandwich cut theorem: given two sets of n lines in R^2, there is a line l such that in both line sets, for both halfplanes delimited by l, there are n^{1/2} lines which pairwise intersect in that halfplane, and this bound is tight; a centerpoint theorem: for any set of n lines there is a point such that for any halfplane containing that point there are (n/3)^{1/2} of the lines which pairwise intersect in that halfplane. We generalize those results in higher dimension and obtain a center transversal theorem, a same-type lemma, and a positive portion Erdos-Szekeres theorem for hyperplane arrangements. This is done by formulating a generalization of the center transversal theorem which applies to set functions that are much more general than measures. Back to Graph Drawing (and in the plane), we completely solve the open problem that motivated our search: there is no set of n labelled lines that are universal for all n-vertex labelled planar graphs. As a side note, we prove that every set of n (unlabelled) lines is universal for all n-vertex (unlabelled) planar graphs

Implementation of Communication Equilibria by Correlated Cheap Talk: The Two-Player Case

We show that essentially every communication equilibrium of any finite Bayesian game with two players can be implemented as a strategic form correlated equilibrium of an extended game, in which before choosing actions as in the Bayesian game, the players engage in a pos-sibly infinitely long (but in equilibrium almost surely finite), direct, cheap talk.Bayesian game, cheap talk, communication equilibrium, correlated equilibrium, pre-play communication

The Impact of Ad Characteristics on Adolescents’ Attitudes Towards Antismoking Ads

Smoking exerts a considerable burden not only on those who smoke but just as well on society at large. In response, governments and institutions often resort to advertising which aims to discourage smoking. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the workings of antismoking advertising is detrimentally limited. In particular, the literature delving into the impact of antismoking ad characteristics (e. g., ad content, valence, intensity) on the overall effectiveness of antismoking advertising is scarce and contradictory. This empirical study aims to enhance the knowledge of antismoking advertising by presenting results of the survey involving Slovene adolescents. The adolescents were first exposed to advertisements of different antismoking ad contents (for the purpose of this study the term ‘ad content’ refers to types of appeals used in antismoking advertising), ad valence and intensity, and later invited to respond to a number of questions measuring their attitudes toward the ads, their attitudes toward smoking, their intentions to smoke, etc. The results indicate that while the different intensity and valence of ads produce varying attitudes toward the ads, we could not confirm these differences based on ad content. Also, we found that adolescent smokers respond to antismoking ads differently than do their nonsmoking peers. Our findings offer several important implications for antismoking advertisers and the research community interested in the workings of antismoking advertising.smoking and adolescents, antismoking advertising, attitudes toward antismoking ads

Microbiome of a suppressive agricultural amended soil

The application of organic amendments to the soil is a strategy that cause the improvement of avocado agricultural soils. This strategy is included in the integrated management of avocado white root rot, caused by the phytopathogenic fungus Rosellinia necatrix in the Mediterranean area. In this study, we evaluate the suppressive capacity of an agricultural soil amended with composted almond shells and the role of its microbiome. The application of composted almond shells as organic amendment increase the suppressive activity of field soil against the pathogen, and this suppressiveness can be associated to the microbiota present in amended soil. Soil suppressivity is reduced when soil was heat treated, and then recovered when the heat-treated soil was partially complemented with field soil. Accordingly, we characterized the microbial community of amended suppressive soil by sequencing the 16S rRNA gene and ITS regions. This analysis showed the microbiome structure of the suppressive amended soil. The comparison among this community with the microbial community of an unamended soil reveals subtle differences in the structure of the microbiome. Specifically found in amended soil, we observed a high relative abundance of different classes of bacteria as Gammaprotobacteria and Betaproteobacteria (Proteobacteria), Acidimicrobiia (Actinobacteria) and Solibacteres (Acidobacteria). Regarding fungal communities, we observed a high relative abundance of some classes as Dothideomycetes, Lecanoromycetes (Ascomycota) and Tremellomycetes (Basidiomycota). Furthermore, we performed a functional analysis of the suppressive microbiome to understand the potential activities involved in suppressiveness. The use of a comercial microarray (GeoChip) with more than 80000 different probes, showed the significant increase in amended soil of carbon cycle genes, specifically genes of degradation routes of different carbon sources, as well as the significant reduction of virulence, metal resistance or aromatic compounds degradation related genes. By this analysis, we observed unique detected genes belonging to microorgnisms involved in biological control as Gammaproteobacterias, Firmicutes or Dothideomycetes. The role of these subtle changes as final responsible of the induced suppressiveness in agricultural amended soils is discussed.Universidad de Málaga, Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. AGL2014-52518-C2-1-

Looking for activity cycles in late-type Kepler stars using time-frequency analysis

We analyse light curves covering four years of 39 fast-rotating ($P_\mathrm{rot}< 1d$) late-type active stars from the Kepler database. Using time-frequency analysis (Short-Term Fourier-Transform), we find hints for activity cycles of 300-900 days at 9 targets from the changing typical latitude of the starspots, which, with the differential rotation of the stellar surface change the observed rotation period over the activity cycle. We also give a lowest estimation for the shear parameter of the differential rotation, which is ~0.001 for the cycling targets. These results populate the less studied, short period end of the rotation-cycle length relation.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA