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ABBABB or 1212: Abstract language facilitates children’s early patterning skills
No full textEmerging research demonstrates a central role of early patterning skills in supporting cognitive development. This study focused on the labels used to describe patterns. Ninety children (M age = 5.4 years) solved and explained ten pattern abstraction tasks (i.e., recreated a model pattern using novel materials). Using a between-subjects design, children were taught using one of four labels: letters (AAB, AAB), numbers (112, 112), quantitative grouping labels (two one, two one), or no labels (this part, this part). All three forms of abstract language were beneficial relative to no labels. Grouping labels, which conveyed information about quantity, also aided performance on posttest items. Children’s speech and gesture provided further insights into how abstract language may support early patterning skills and attention to structure
Metacognitive monitoring and help-seeking decisions on mathematical equivalence problems
No full textMetacognition is central to children’s cognitive development. However, there is conflicting evidence about children’s ability to accurately monitor their performance and subsequently control their behavior. This is of particular interest for mathematics topics on which children exhibit persistent misconceptions—that is, when children’s knowledge of a topic is inaccurate, yet resistant to change. This study investigated elementary school children’s metacognitive regulation on mathematical equivalence problems (N = 52, ages 6.7 – 9.8 years), including their ability to accurately monitor their certainty and their ability to control their behavior by making strategic help-seeking decisions. Results revealed that children were exceedingly confident— even when their answers were incorrect—resulting in relatively low accurate monitoring scores. However, their help-seeking decisions were largely strategic—reflecting children’s tendency to not ask for help when feeling confident—resulting in relatively high control scores. Additionally, individual differences in accurate monitoring and in strategic control were positively correlated with children’s comprehensive knowledge of mathematical equivalence, and the correlation with accurate monitoring held up after controlling for baseline accuracy, certainty, and help-seeking. Collectively, these results suggest that children may face unique, but critically important, metacognitive challenges when solving mathematical equivalence problems
Unbridled Attrition?
Get PDFA model that can accommodate several “distinct” language development scenarios seems to be a step in the right direction. After all, to the extent that Universal Grammar is considered a biological component of the human condition, a unified treatment of language acquisition should be preferable, particularly for those who subscribe to the view that the human language capacity remains at work throughout the lifespan. This unification has (at least) two desirable outcomes. First, the theoretical underpinnings are simplified: for example, multilingual language acquisition may be considered just a generalized extension of monolingual language acquisition, with the same underlying mechanisms at work. Second, it provides us with a new normal, under which phenomena such as attrition, even if ecologically rare, are not unexpected. The Attrition via Acquisition model proposed by Hicks and Domínguez (this issue; henceforth H&D) exhibits the necessary ambition, as it accounts for attrition even beyond a processing/use level, but couches this in a larger model of acquisition. However, without applying some brakes to the mechanisms, it leaves me wondering why we aren’t all attriting all the time
Transparency of Behavior-Based Pricing
Get PDFCollection and usage of consumers’ purchase history data for behavior-based pricing (BBP) is aprevalent practice for firms and a worldwide concern for consumers. Extant research has examined BBP under the assumption that consumers observe whether firms practice BBP. However, consumers are often unaware of how firms collect and use their data. In addition, advances in information technology have reduced firms’ cost of implementing BBP, which would seem to benefitthem. We find that when consumers do not observe whether a firm practices BBP, the cost of implementing BBP has a non-monotone impact on firm profit, consumer surplus, and social welfare. Thus, reduction in the cost of implementing BBP can be detrimental to firms and beneficial to consumers. In particular, when the cost is low, a firm cannot help practicing BBP even though BBP is a dominated strategy when consumers observe it. When the cost is moderate, the firm does not use BBP; however, it must distort its first-period price downward to convince consumers of its choice, which causes the profit without BBP to be lower than the profit with BBP. A high cost of implementing BBP serves as a commitment device that the firm will forfeit BBP, thereby improving firmprofit. We also find that a firm’s ability to offer personalized enhanced service may decrease its profit. Moreover, consumer advocates call for regulations that mandate that firms disclose collection and usage of consumer data. However, it is unclear how such regulations might affect firms and consumers. By comparing regimes in which consumers observe and do not observe whether a firm practices BBP, we find that transparency of BBP increases firm profit but decreases consumer surplus and social welfare. Therefore, commanding firms to disclose collection and usageof consumer data could lead to unintended consequences
Understanding Illicit UI in iOS apps Through Hidden UI Analysis
Get PDFIn Chameleon apps, benign UIs are displayed during Apple App vetting while their hidden potentially-harmful illicit UIs (PHI-UI) are revealed once they reached App Store. In this paper, we report the first systematic study on iOS Chameleon apps, which sheds light on a largely overlooked threat that the illicit activities are launched solely based on UI. Our research employed CHAMELEON-HUNTER, a new static analysis approach that determines the suspiciousness of a PHI-UI leveraging the semantic features generated from iOS app UI and metadata. The approach is based on the observation that PHI-UI not only is structurally hidden but also has notable semantic inconsistency with the benign UI. Our evaluation shows that CHAMELEON-HUNTER is highly effective, achieving 92.6% precision and 94.7% recall. From 28K Apple App Store apps, we found 142 new Chameleon apps, which were confirmed and promptly removed by Apple. Our work reveals that Chameleon apps can easily bypass the App store vetting and conduct a set of suspicious activities including collecting users’ private information, swindling money with fake monetary services, and leading the user to a pirated app store
Operational Transparency on Crowdfunding Platforms: Effect on Donations for Emergency Response
No full textOnline crowdfunding has emerged as a powerful tool to raise funds for emergency response. Crowdfunding campaigns can use two transparency tools to attract donors: updates and certication. Updates are additional messages that the organizer issues after launching the campaign and are a form of operational transparency when they communicate the campaign's work to donors. Alternatively, certication is a form of conventional transparency that ensures the campaign truly benets a charitable purpose. Using an econometric analysis, we investigate the eects of transparency on donations. We study the direction of causality and mechanisms behind work-related updates by conducting experiments. Results from the econometric analysis using over 100,000 campaigns beneting victims of emergencies reveal that both updates and certication have positive eects on donations. Each additional work-related word in an update (operational transparency) increases donations on average by 65 dollars per month, while certification (conventional transparency) raises funds on average by 22 dollars per month. Results from the experiments conrm the direction of causality; posting work- related updates in crowdfunding campaigns increases donations. Two mechanisms explain this eect: donors' enhanced perceptions of eort and perceptions of trust
Thermal Stability of Gold/Palladium Octopods Studied in Situ in 3D: Understanding Design Rules for Thermally Stable Metal Nanoparticles
No full textMultifunctional metal nanoparticles (NPs) such as anisotropic multimetallic NPs are crucial for boosting nanomaterial based applications. Advanced synthetic protocols exist to make a large variety of such nanostructures. However, a major limiting factor for the usability of them in real life applications is their stability. Here, we show that Au/Pd octopods, 8-branched nanocrystals with Oh symmetry, with only a low amount of Pd exhibited a high thermal stability and maintained strong plasmon resonances up to 600 C. Furthermore, we study the influence of the composition, morphology and environment on the thermal stability and define key parameters for the design of thermally stable multifunctional NPs
Knocking at the gate: The path to publication for entrepreneurship experiments through the lens of gatekeeping theory
No full textWe draw on gatekeeping theory to explore the individual and routine-level criticisms that entrepreneurship experimentalists receive during the review process. Using a multi-study approach, we categorize common gatekeeping themes and present illustrative critiques derived from a unique sample of decision letters and a supplemental survey of entrepreneurship editors. In combination, we extend gatekeeping theory by considering how it applies to the scholarly domain, contribute to the literature by exploring an alternative theoretical explanation as to why entrepreneurship experiments might fail to survive the review process, and finally, provide contextualized recommendations for authors and reviewers of experimental research
Managing Market Thickness in Online Business-to-Business Markets
Get PDFWe explore marketplace design in the context of a B2B platform specializing in liquidation auctions. Even when the platform's aggregate levels of supply and demand remain xed, we establish that the platform's ability to use its design levers to manage the availability of supply over time yields signicant value.We study two such levers, each using the platform's availability of supply as a means to incentivize participation from buyers who decide strategically when/how often to participate. First, the platform's listing policy sets the ending times of incoming auctions (hence, the frequency of market clearing). Exploiting a natural experiment, we illustrate that consolidating auctions' ending times to certain weekdays increases the platform's revenues by 7.3% mainly by inducing a higher level of bidder participation. The second lever is a recommendation system that can be used to reveal information about real-time market thickness to potential bidders. The optimization of these levers highlights a novel trade-o. Namely, when the platform consolidates auctions' ending times, more bidders may participate in the marketplace (demand-side competition); but ultimately auctions for substitutable goods cannibalize one another (supply-side competition). To optimize these design decisions, we estimate a structural model that endogenizes bidders' dynamic behavior, i.e., their decisions on whether/how often to participate in the marketplace and how much to bid. We nd that appropriately designing a recommendation system yields an additional revenue increase (on top of the benets obtained by optimizing the platform's listing policy) by reducing supply-side cannibalization and altering the composition of participating bidders
How Do Incentives Influence Local Public Support for the Siting of Shale Gas Projects in China?
Get PDFIn 2016, China became the third largest producer of shale gas in the world. The Chinese central government has been supporting shale gas development since 2011. There are hopes that shale gas development, along with major efforts in renewable energy systems, can bring a fundamental change in the nation’s current coal-dependent energy system. Numerous challenges have slowed implementation including resistance to development of the industry by local residents living near shale gas sites. A significant body of research has examined the effectiveness of incentives in changing risk perceptions and attitudes toward the siting of industrial projects in the Western context. The present research identifies whether governmental incentives increase the extent of local support for shale gas projects in the Chinese context. Specifically, this paper strives to study two types of incentives: direct compensation to households bearing the potential negative impacts of shale gas projects and, household compensation accompanied by allocation of a portion of the shale tax revenues to local communities where the development occurs. An online survey with an embedded experiment was designed and conducted in August 2016 in five Chinese provinces where there are current or future shale gas projects. The experiment shows that household compensation alone or in combination with community reinvestment significantly increases local support of shale gas projects. Further, we found that the respondents most likely to be supportive after the experimental treatments are those who are young, more highly educated, have higher income, and perceive themselves as living close to a project. This research sheds light on how incentives might help contribute to resolution of siting controversies or prevent the onset of such controversies