82 research outputs found
Unwillingness to pay for privacy: A field experiment
No full textWe measure willingness to pay for privacy in a field experiment. Participants were given the choice to buy a maximum of one DVD from one of two online stores. One store consistently required more sensitive personal data than the other, but otherwise the stores were identical. In one treatment, DVDs were one Euro cheaper at the store requesting more personal information, and almost all buyers chose the cheaper store. Surprisingly, in the second treatment when prices were identical, participants bought from both shops equally often. -- Wir messen die Zahlungsbereitschaft für Datenschutz in einem Feldexperiment. Die Teilnehmer konnten maximal eine DVD bei einem von zwei Online-Shops kaufen. Einer der beiden Läden verlangte immer mehr sensitive Daten als der andere, aber abgesehen davon waren die Läden gleich. Im ersten Treatment waren alle DVDs genau einen Euro günstiger bei dem Laden, der mehr sensitive Daten abfragte, und fast alle Käufer wählten diesen günstigeren Laden. In einem zweiten Treatment mit identischen Preisen bei beiden Läden kauften die Teilnehmer überraschenderweise bei beiden Läden gleich häufig.privacy,willingness to pay,field experiments
Long-term imaging of the photosensitive, reef-building coral Acropora muricata using light-sheet illumination
No full text© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Laissue, P. P., Roberson, L., Gu, Y., Qian, C., & Smith, D. J. Long-term imaging of the photosensitive, reef-building coral Acropora muricata using light-sheet illumination. Scientific Reports, 10(1), (2020):10369, doi:10.1038/s41598-020-67144-w.Coral reefs are in alarming decline due to climate emergency, pollution and other man-made disturbances. The numerous ecosystem services derived from coral reefs are underpinned by the growth and physical complexity of reef-forming corals. Our knowledge of their fundamental biology is limited by available technology. We need a better understanding of larval settlement and development, skeletogenesis, interactions with pathogens and symbionts, and how this biology interacts with environmental factors such as light exposure, temperature, and ocean acidification. We here focus on a fast-growing key coloniser, Acropora muricata (Linnaeus, 1758). To enable dynamic imaging of this photosensitive organism at different scales, we developed light-sheet illumination for fluorescence microscopy of small coral colonies. Our approach reveals live polyps in previously unseen detail. An imaging range for Acropora muricata with no measurable photodamage is defined based upon polyp expansion, coral tissue reaction, and photobleaching. We quantify polyp retraction as a photosensitive behavioural response and show coral tissue rupture at higher irradiance with blue light. The simple and flexible technique enables non-invasive continuous dynamic imaging of highly photosensitive organisms with sizes between 1 mm3 and 5 cm3, for eight hours, at high temporal resolution, on a scale from multiple polyps down to cellular resolution. This live imaging tool opens a new window into the dynamics of reef-building corals.This work was made possible through a Royal Society Research Grant [RG120274], an innovation voucher from the University of Essex [DBF6000], a Royal Society Industry Fellowship [IF150018] and two Whitman Center Fellowships from the Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole, USA) to PPL. PPL would like to thank Russell Smart for aquarium maintenance and Tony Jordan for production of customised parts. PPL also thanks the open-source communities OpenSPIM and µManager for support, as well as Cairn Research, 89North, Nikon Instruments UK, Alex Gardiol from Olympus Keymed UK, and Scott Young, Matt Preston and Daniel Croucher from Teledyne Photometrics for equipment loans. PPL is grateful to Amy Gladfelter, Hari Shroff, Abhishek Kumar, Louis Kerr, Philip M. Mullineaux, Marino Exposito-Rodriguez and Jean A. Laissue for support and critical discussions
Proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2 mediates gonadotropin-releasing hormone signaling to a specific extracellularly regulated kinase-sensitive transcriptional locus in the luteinizing hormone beta-subunit gene
No full textG protein-coupled receptor regulation of gene transcription primarily occurs through the phosphorylation of transcription factors by MAPKs. This requires transduction of an activating signal via scaffold proteins that can ultimately determine the outcome by binding signaling kinases and adapter proteins with effects on the target transcription factor and locus of activation. By investigating these mechanisms, we have elucidated how pituitary gonadotrope cells decode an input GnRH signal into coherent transcriptional output from the LH beta-subunit gene promoter. We show that GnRH activates c-Src and multiple members of the MAPK family, c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase 1/2, p38MAPK, and ERK1/2. Using dominant-negative point mutations and chemical inhibitors, we identified that calcium-dependent proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2 specifically acts as a scaffold for a focal adhesion/cytoskeleton-dependent complex comprised of c-Src, Grb2, and mSos that translocates an ERK-activating signal to the nucleus. The locus of action of ERK was specifically mapped to early growth response-1 (Egr-1) DNA binding sites within the LH beta-subunit gene proximal promoter, which was also activated by p38MAPK, but not c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase 1/2. Egr-1 was confirmed as the transcription factor target of ERK and p38MAPK by blockade of protein expression, transcriptional activity, and DNA binding. We have identified a novel GnRH-activated proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2-dependent ERK-mediated signal transduction pathway that specifically regulates Egr-1 activation of the LH beta-subunit proximal gene promoter, and thus provide insight into the molecular mechanisms required for differential regulation of gonadotropin gene expression
Language and Culture
No full textLanguage pervades social life. It is a primary means by which we gain access to the contents of others\u27 minds and establish shared understanding of the reality. Meanwhile, there is an enormous amount of linguistic diversity among human populations. Depending on what counts as a language, there are 3,000 to 10,000 living languages in the world, although a quarter of the world’s languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers and half have fewer than 10,000 (Crystal, 1997). Not surprisingly, a key question in culture and psychology research concerns the role of language in cultural processes. The present chapter focuses on two issues that have received by far the greatest amount of research attention from cultural researchers. First, how does language and human cultures co-evolve? Second, what are the non-linguistic cognitive effects of using a certain language? Does speaking different languages orient individuals to see and experience the external reality differently? The scope of the present chapter does not permit a comprehensive review of all pertinent research; only a selected sample of studies will be used to illustrate the main ideas in the present chapter
Towards automated sample collection and return in extreme underwater environments
No full text© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Billings, G., Walter, M., Pizarro, O., Johnson-Roberson, M., & Camilli, R. Towards automated sample collection and return in extreme underwater environments. Journal of Field Robotics, 2(1), (2022): 1351–1385, https://doi.org/10.55417/fr.2022045.In this report, we present the system design, operational strategy, and results of coordinated multivehicle field demonstrations of autonomous marine robotic technologies in search-for-life missions within the Pacific shelf margin of Costa Rica and the Santorini-Kolumbo caldera complex, which serve as analogs to environments that may exist in oceans beyond Earth. This report
focuses on the automation of remotely operated vehicle (ROV) manipulator operations for targeted biological sample-collection-and-return from the seafloor. In the context of future extraterrestrial exploration missions to ocean worlds, an ROV is an analog to a planetary lander, which must be capable of high-level autonomy. Our field trials involve two underwater vehicles, the SuBastian
ROV and the Nereid Under Ice (NUI) hybrid ROV for mixed initiative (i.e., teleoperated or autonomous) missions, both equipped seven-degrees-of-freedom hydraulic manipulators. We describe an adaptable, hardware-independent computer vision architecture that enables high-level automated manipulation. The vision system provides a three-dimensional understanding of the workspace to inform manipulator motion planning in complex unstructured environments. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the vision system and control framework through field trials in increasingly challenging environments, including the automated collection and return of biological samples from within the active undersea volcano Kolumbo. Based on our experiences in the field, we discuss the performance of our system and identify promising directions for future research.This work was funded under a NASA PSTAR grant, number NNX16AL08G, and by the National Science Foundation under grants IIS-1830660 and IIS-1830500. The authors would like to thank the Costa Rican Ministry of Environment and Energy and National System of Conservation Areas for permitting research operations at the Costa Rican shelf margin, and the Schmidt Ocean Institute (including the captain and crew of the R/V Falkor and ROV SuBastian) for their generous support and making the FK181210 expedition safe and highly successful. Additionally, the authors would like to thank the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs for permitting the 2019 Kolumbo Expedition to the Kolumbo and Santorini calderas, as well as Prof. Evi Nomikou and Dr. Aggelos Mallios for their expert guidance and tireless contributions to the expedition
Categorical perception of color: Assessing the role of language
No full textWhy do we draw the boundaries between blue and green, where we do? One proposed answer to this question is that we categorize color the way we do because we perceive color categorically. Starting in the 1950's, the phenomenon of categorical perception (CP) encouraged such a response. CP refers to the fact that adjacent color patches are more easily discriminated when they straddle a category boundary than when they belong to the same category. In this paper, I make three related claims. (1) Although what seems to guide discrimination performances seems to indeed be categorical information, the evidence in favor of the fact that categorical perception infl uences the way we perceive color is not convincing. (2) That CP offers a useful account of categorization is not obvious. While aiming at accounting for categorization, CP itself requires an account of categories. This being said, CP remains an interesting phenomenon. Why and how is our discrimination behavior linked to our categories? It is suggested that linguistic labels determine CP through a naming strategy to which participants resort while discriminating colors. This paper's final point is (3) that the naming strategy account is not enough. Beyond category labels, what seems to guide discrimination performance is category structure.Bornstein M. H., 1976, SCIENCE, V191, P201; BORNSTEIN MH, 1984, PSYCHOL RES-PSYCH FO, V46, P207, DOI 10.1007-BF00308884; Daoutis C., 2006, VISUAL COGNITION, V14, P217; Davidoff J, 2009, J EXP CHILD PSYCHOL, V102, P246, DOI 10.1016-j.jecp.2008.09.006; Davies I, 1998, ETHOS, V26, P338, DOI 10.1525-eth.1998.26.3.338; Drivonikou GV, 2007, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V104, P1097, DOI 10.1073-pnas.0610132104; Franklin A, 2008, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V105, P18221, DOI 10.1073-pnas.0809952105; Franklin A, 2008, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V105, P3221, DOI 10.1073-pnas.0712286105; Franklin A, 2004, BRIT J DEV PSYCHOL, V22, P349, DOI 10.1348-0261510041552738; Franklin A, 2005, J EXP CHILD PSYCHOL, V90, P114, DOI 10.1016-j.jecp.2004.10.001; Gilbert AL, 2006, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V103, P489, DOI 10.1073-pnas.0509868103; Hanley JR, 2011, PSYCHON B REV, V18, P355, DOI 10.3758-s13423-010-0043-z; Harnad S., 1987, CATEGORICAL PERCEPTI, P1; Hering E., 1964, OUTLINES THEORY LIGH; Jraissati Y., 2012, INT STUDIES PHILOS S; KARNI A, 1993, NATURE, V365, P250, DOI 10.1038-365250a0; KAY P, 1978, LANGUAGE, V54, P610, DOI 10.2307-412789; KAY P, 1984, AM ANTHROPOL, V86, P65, DOI 10.1525-aa.1984.86.1.02a00050; Liberman A. M., 1957, J EXPT PSYCHOL, V54, P358; Massaro D., 1987, CATEGORICAL PERCEPTI, P254; MASSARO DW, 1983, SPEECH COMMUN, V2, P15, DOI 10.1016-0167-6393(83)90061-4; Ozgen E, 2002, J EXP PSYCHOL GEN, V131, P477, DOI 10.1037--0096-3445.131.4.477; Pilling M, 2003, MEM COGNITION, V31, P538, DOI 10.3758-BF03196095; PISONI DB, 1974, PERCEPT PSYCHOPHYS, V15, P285, DOI 10.3758-BF03213946; RENSINK RA, 1995, PSYCHOL REV, V102, P101, DOI 10.1037--0033-295X.102.1.101; Roberson D, 2000, J EXP PSYCHOL GEN, V129, P369, DOI 10.1037--0096-3445.129.3.369; Roberson D, 2000, MEM COGNITION, V28, P977, DOI 10.3758-BF03209345; Roberson D, 2008, COGNITION, V107, P752, DOI 10.1016-j.cognition.2007.09.001; Roberson D, 1999, COGNITION, V71, P1, DOI 10.1016-S0010-0277(99)00013-X; ROSCH EH, 1973, COGNITIVE PSYCHOL, V4, P328, DOI 10.1016-0010-0285(73)90017-0; Schouten B, 2003, SPEECH COMMUN, V41, P71, DOI 10.1016-S0167-6393(02)00094-8; Siok WT, 2009, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V106, P8140, DOI 10.1073-pnas.0903627106; STUDDERT.M, 1970, PSYCHOL REV, V77, P234, DOI 10.1037-h0029078; Tan A. H. D., 2008, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V105, P4004; Whorf B. L., 1956, LANGUAGE THOUGHT REA; Winawer J, 2007, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V104, P7780, DOI 10.1073-pnas.0701644104; WOOD CC, 1974, PERCEPT PSYCHOPHYS, V15, P501, DOI 10.3758-BF03199292; Zhou K, 2010, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V107, P9974, DOI 10.1073-pnas.10056691071
Vernon Smith's Insomnia and the Dawn of Economics as Experimental Science
No full textThis is a commentary on Vernon Smith's contributions to experimental economicsexperimental economics, auctions, public goods, markets, Vernon Smith, ultimatum game, dictator games
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