Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Three Essays on Laboratory and Field Experimental Economics

THREE ESSAYS ON LABORATORY AND FIELD EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS BY GUANLIN GAO AUGUST 2015 Committee Chair: Dr. James Cox Major Department: Economics This dissertation explores what factors and institutions influence individual decision making and their economic impacts on the society, using approaches of laboratory and field experiments. The first essay addresses the effect of communication on cooperation. The second essay explores various types of public recognition, and their impacts on individual donation. The third essay studies how principals use their time in K-12 schools and the potential impact on student and school outcomes. The first essay employs a laboratory experiment including three factors in human interactions, a noisy environment, indefinite length of interactions, and various levels of communication, to study what factors make individuals more cooperative. Results show that subjects are less cooperative in a noisy environment, and communication via fixed messages is not a remedy for the low cooperation rate in this noisy environment. However, communication via free messages leads to more cooperations, and it maintains cooperation rate at a high level over time. The second essay is a joint work with Yefeng Chen, Haoran He, and Jun Luo. We conduct a field experiment to investigate how public recognition influences individual charitable giving. We design five treatments with distinct public recognition schemes and vary the timing when we offer opportunities of public recognition. Results show that both donation amount and participation rate are significantly higher when we mandate recognition. However, public recognition offered before donation crowds out small donations and thus lowers the participation rate. We claim that public recognition is a “double-edged sword” on individual charitable giving. The third essay is a joint work with Mary Mira. We conduct a principal motion study in Fulton County, Georgia and shadow 30 school principals from all levels of public K-12 schools for two work days. We link our observational data with student performance data from state-wide standard scores. Results show that principals’ time spend on building and maintaining school culture and school climate, as well as evaluating teachers and school staff are most positively related to student performance. THREE ESSAYS ON LABORATORY AND FIELD EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS BY GUANLIN GAO A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies of Georgia State University GEROGIA SATE UNIVERSITY 2015 Copyright by Guanlin Gao 2015
Emparejamiento selectivo en temperamento e inteligencia y su relación con la satisfacción marital

El emparejamiento selectivo se refiere a la union de pares de individuos mas semejantes de lo que cabria esperar por azar. En este estudio se han analizado, en parejas adultas, varias hipotesis sobre emparejamiento selectivo: hipotesis de la semejanza (o complementariedad), homogamia social y convergencia. Una vez analizado el tipo de emparejamiento se estudio la relacion entre el grado de semejanza y la satisfaccion marital. Los participantes fueron 357 parejas adultas (19-69 anos) quienes cumplimentaron pruebas de aptitud verbal, razonamiento inductivo y temperamento. Los resultados indicaron que las parejas tienden a ser semejantes en practicamente todos los rasgos evaluados incluso cuando se controlan los efectos de la edad y nivel de estudios. Aparecieron diferencias en el grado de semejanza de las parejas segun el tiempo de relacion. Ademas, solo la semejanza en inteligencia verbal (para los varones) e impulsividad (para las mujeres) se relaciono con la satisfaccion marital en aquellas parejas con mayor tiempo de relacion. Assortative mating in temperament and intelligence, and the role of marital satisfaction. Assortative mating is the mating of pairs that are more similar in some trait than would be expected from random mating. It takes place when sexually reproducing organisms tend to mate with individuals that are like themselves in some respect (positive assortative mating) or dissimilar (negative assortative mating). The present study measures verbal and nonverbal intelligence, along with several temperamental traits, testing the similarity, complementarity, social homogamy, and convergence hypotheses. The role of marital satisfaction was also analyzed. The sample comprised 357 adults (age range 19-69), who completed verbal aptitude, inductive reasoning, and temperament tests. The findings show that couples are similar in almost all the measured traits, even after controlling for age and educational level. Differences were observed in the couples’ degree of similarity depending on the duration of their relationship. Further, only similarity in verbal intelligence for males and in impulsivity for females was associated with marital satisfaction in long-term couples.
Global attention facilitates the planning, but not execution of goal-directed reaches

In daily life, humans interact with multiple objects in complex environments. A large body of literature demonstrates that target selection is biased toward recently attended features, such that reaches are faster and trajectory curvature is reduced when target features (i.e., color) are repeated (priming of pop-out). In the real world, however, objects are comprised of several features—some of which may be more suitable for action than others. When fetching a mug from the cupboard, for example, attention not only has to be allocated to the object, but also the handle. To date, no study has investigated the impact of hierarchical feature organization on target selection for action. Here, we employed a color-oddity search task in which targets were Pac-men (i.e., a circle with a triangle cut out) oriented to be either consistent or inconsistent with the percept of a global Kanizsa triangle. We found that reaches were initiated faster when a task-irrelevant illusory figure was present independent of color repetition. Additionally, consistent with priming of pop-out, both reach planning and execution were facilitated when local target colors were repeated, regardless of whether a global figure was present. We also demonstrated that figures defined by illusory, but not real contours, afforded an early target selection benefit. In sum, these findings suggest that when local targets are perceptually grouped to form an illusory surface, attention quickly spreads across the global figure and facilitates the early stage of reach planning, but not execution. In contrast, local color priming is evident throughout goal-directed reaching.
Plasma Calcium and Magnesium in Newborn Babies

Normal values for plasma calcium and magnesium levels during the first week of life, in breast- and bottle-fed babies, have been determined. It has been shown on the sixth day that plasma levels of calcium, magnesium, and protein are all significantly lower in bottle-fed babies than in breast-fed babies, while the reverse is true of the plasma inorganic phosphorus. The normal babies have been compared with 30 babies who had convulsions, beginning towards the end of the first week of life. In only six of the babies was the plasma calcium outside our normal range and only four had abnormally low magnesium levels. As so many of these babies had calcium and magnesium levels within the normal range it must seriously be questioned whether hypocalcaemia or hypomagnesaemia could have been the sole cause of the convulsions.
Towards a new set of ideals: consequences of the practice turn in tangible interaction

The practice-oriented turn in social sciences has implied a series of fundamental consequences and design challenges for HCI in general, and particularly in tangible interaction research. This could be interpreted as a move away from scientific ideals based on a modernist tradition, reflected in four contemporary themes in tangible interaction research. The first theme concerns a shift from an information centric to an action centric perspective on interaction. The second concerns a broadened focus from studying properties of the system, to instead aim at supporting qualities of the activity of using a system. The third concerns the general shift towards supporting sharable use, rather than primarily individual use settings. The last theme concerns the shift towards multiple and subjective interpretation of how to use new technological artefacts. We discuss how these themes are grounded in theoretical as well as more concrete technical developments in the area of tangible computing.
Real-time Fault-tolerant Scheduling in Heterogeneous Distributed Systems

∗ This work was supported by National Defense Pre-research Foundation of China. Abstract: Some works have been done in addressing real-time fault-tolerant scheduling algorithms. However, they all based on homogeneous distributed systems or multiprocessor systems, which have identical processors. This paper presents two fault-tolerant scheduling algorithms, RTFTNO and RTFTRC, for periodic real-time tasks in heterogeneous distributed systems. Reliability cost, a main performance metric, is applied. RTFTRC algorithm tries to minimize the reliability cost, while RTFTNO does not consider such metric. The results of the performance evaluation for two algorithms are discussed. Simulation experiments show that RTFTRC has better performance than RTFTNO.
Involvement of the NMDA receptor in moderate ethanol preconditioning-dependent neuroprotection from amyloid-beta in vitro

This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact ecommons@luc.edu. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend very special thanks to my co-mentors and friends Dr. Michael A. Collins & Dr. Edward J. Neafsey for their expert intellectual, technical and literary tutelage. Also, I would like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Dr. for their insights. I would like to thank Dr. Edward Campbell for his expertise and assistance in teaching me deconvolution microscopy. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the generous support without which my research may not have been Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry (MCB) that is and was composed of some of the finest faculty, educators and administrators (MCB, Elayne Grzeda and Ashyia Paul, CBNA, Kristin Wojtulewicz and Kimberly Stubbs) I have ever had the pleasure to learn from and work with. Truly I have been blessed to be a part of this fine institution and specifically the MCB program. To my late father Ralph Max Mitchell who instilled in me a passion for science and nature from as early on as I can recollect and to my mother Julianne Mitchell whom to this very day loves and encourages me. Thank you.
Interdependence Analysis and the 3+1Cs in the Coach-Athlete Relationship.

1. understanding of the essential elements of interdependence theory; 2. knowledge of the relevance of interdependence theory to understanding closeness, commitment, complementarity, and co-orientation (3+1Cs) in the coach–athlete relationship; 3. capacity to use key concepts of interdependence theory to analyze coach–athlete relationships and explain research results and their practical importance; 4. ability to offer future research directions; and 5. insight into practical considerations as they pertain to conflicts of interest between a coach and an athlete.
Identifying Child Molesters: Preventing Child Sexual Abuse by Recognizing the Patterns of the Offenders

Contents * Foreword * Acknowledgments * Introduction * Chapter 1. The Problem * Case Studies * Chapter 2. Knowing It Is a Problems: The Need for Clarity * Clear Definitions * Guiding Treatment * Guiding Research * Guiding Relationships * Guiding Interventions * Chapter 3. Why It Is a Problem: What Is the Harm? * Psychological Issues * Moral Issues * Cultural Issues * Chapter 4. Prevalence: How Often Does It Happen? * Chapter 5. Characteristics of the Child Molester: Who Does It? * Demographics * Chapter 6. The Grooming Process: How Do They Do It * Sexual Attraction to Children * Justifying the Interest * Grooming the Adult Community * Grooming the Child * Chapter 7. The Social Climate That Helps Foster It: Turning a Blind Eye * Attitudes Toward Children * Attitudes Toward Women * Societal Denial * Molester Denial * Chapter 8. Visible Grooming * Current Prevention Strategies * Visible Grooming of Adults * Chapter 9. Setting Boundaries to Help Prevent Child Sexual Abuse * Intervening with a Potential Child Molester * Chapter 10. Summary * Appendix: Legal Definitions * References * Additional Resources * Index * Reference Notes Included
Japanese Speech Understanding using Grammar Specialization

The most common speech understanding architecture for spoken dialogue systems is a combination of speech recognition based on a class N-gram language model, and robust parsing. For many types of applications, however, grammar-based recognition can offer concrete advantages. Training a good class N-gram language model requires substantial quantities of corpus data, which is generally not available at the start of a new project. Head-to-head comparisons of class N-gram/robust and grammar-based systems also suggest that users who are familiar with system coverage get better results from grammar-based architectures (Knight et al., 2001). As a consequence, deployed spoken dialogue systems for real-world applications frequently use grammar-based methods. This is particularly the case for speech translation systems. Although leading research systems like Verbmobil and NE-SPOLE! (Wahlster, 2000; Lavie et al., 2001) usually employ complex architectures combining statistical and rule-based methods, successful practical examples like Phraselator and S-MINDS (Phraselator, 2005; Sehda, 2005) are typically phrasal translators with grammar-based recognizers.
Multimodal Metaphor in Ten Dutch TV Commercials

Since the publication of Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By (1980), conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) has dominated metaphor studies. While one of the central tenets of that monograph is that metaphors are primarily a phenomenon of thought, not of language, conceptual metaphors have until recently been studied almost exclusively via verbal expressions. Another limitation of the CMT paradigm is that it has tended to focus on deeply embedded metaphors rather than on creative metaphors of the kind that Black (1979) discusses. One result of this focus is that relatively little attention is paid in CMT to the form and appearance a metaphor can assume (cf. Lakoff and Turner 1989). Clearly, which channel(s) of information (language, visuals, sound, gestures, among others) are chosen to convey a metaphor is a central factor in how a metaphor is construed and interpreted. A healthy theory of metaphor as a structuring element of thought therefore requires systematic examination of both its multimodal and its creative manifestations. Conversely, research into non-verbal and multimodal metaphor can help the theorization of multimodality. In this paper it is shown that creative metaphors occurring in commercials usually draw on a combination of language, pictures, and non-verbal sound. After an inventory of parameters involved in the analysis of multimodal metaphors, ten cases are discussed, with specific attention to the role of the various modes in the metaphors’ construal and interpretation. On the basis of the case studies, the last sections of the paper discuss three issues that are crucial for further study: (1) the ways in which similarity is cued in multimodal, as opposed to verbal, metaphors; (2) the problems adhering to the verbalization of multimodal metaphors; (3) the influence of textual genre on the interpretation of multimodal metaphors.
Treatment and prognosis of angiosarcoma of the scalp and face: a retrospective analysis of 48 patients.

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to retrospectively analyse the treatment results of clinically localised angiosarcoma of the scalp and face. METHODS The records of 48 patients who were treated between 1987 and 2009 were reviewed. single modality or a combination of surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy were administered. The median follow-up of all 48 patients was 13.7 months (range 2.5-105.9 months). RESULTS At the time of analysis, 45 of 48 patients (93.8%) had disease recurrences, and the lung was the most frequent site for recurrence (37 patients). In multivariate analysis, performance status (PS) and number of tumours were significant predictors of lung-metastasis-free (LMF) rate. For patients with multifocal tumours, chemotherapy use significantly decreased the LMF rate (p=0.0072). The 2-year actuarial overall survival (OS), progression-free survival and local control rates in all 48 patients were 22.1%, 10.7% and 46.3%, respectively. In multivariate analysis, PS, number of tumours, surgery and radiotherapy were significant prognostic factors for OS. Patients treated with both surgery and radiotherapy (2-year OS: 45.8%) had a significantly more favourable OS (p<0.0001) than patients treated with either surgery or radiotherapy (2-year OS: 11.1%) and patients treated with neither surgery nor radiotherapy (2-year OS: 0%). CONCLUSIONS Our results indicated that PS and number of tumours were significant predictors for developing lung metastases. Our results also indicated that PS, number of tumours, surgery use and radiotherapy use were independent prognostic factors for OS. Multimodal treatments including surgery and radiotherapy were effective in improving OS for patients with these tumours. Advances in knowledge Multimodal treatments including surgery and radiotherapy are effective in improving overall survival for patients with angiosarcoma of the scalp and face.
The Clinical Characteristics, Carbapenem Resistance, and Outcome of Acinetobacter Bacteremia According to Genospecies

Background Few clinical data are available on the relationship between genospecies and outcome of Acinetobacter bacteremia, and the results are inconsistent. We performed this study to evaluate the relationship between genospecies and the outcome of Acinetobacter bacteremia. Methods Clinical data from 180 patients who had Acinetobacter bacteremia from 2003 to 2010 were reviewed retrospectively. The genospecies were identified by rpoB gene sequence analysis. The clinical features and outcomes of 90 patients with A. baumannii bacteremia were compared to those of 90 patients with non-baumannii Acinetobacter bacteremia (60 with A. nosocomialis, 17 with Acinetobacter species “close to 13 TU”, 11 with A. pittii, and two with A. calcoaceticus). Results A. baumannii bacteremia was associated with intensive care unit-onset, mechanical ventilation, pneumonia, carbapenem resistance, and higher APACHE II scores, compared to non-baumannii Acinetobacter bacteremia (P<0.05). In univariate analyses, age, pneumonia, multidrug resistance, carbapenem resistance, inappropriate empirical antibiotics, higher APACHE II scores, and A. baumannii genospecies were risk factors for mortality (P<0.05). Multivariate analysis revealed A. baumannii genospecies (OR, 3.60; 95% CI, 1.56–8.33), age, pneumonia, and higher APACHE II scores to be independent risk factors for mortality (P<0.05). Conclusion A. baumannii genospecies was an independent risk factor for mortality in patients with Acinetobacter bacteremia. Our results emphasize the importance of correct species identification of Acinetobacter blood isolates.
Loss of Either Rac1 or Rac3 GTPase Differentially Affects the Behavior of Mutant Mice and the Development of Functional GABAergic Networks

Rac GTPases regulate the development of cortical/hippocampal GABAergic interneurons by affecting the early development and migration of GABAergic precursors. We have addressed the function of Rac1 and Rac3 proteins during the late maturation of hippocampal interneurons. We observed specific phenotypic differences between conditional Rac1 and full Rac3 knockout mice. Rac1 deletion caused greater generalized hyperactivity and cognitive impairment compared with Rac3 deletion. This phenotype matched with a more evident functional impairment of the inhibitory circuits in Rac1 mutants, showing higher excitability and reduced spontaneous inhibitory currents in the CA hippocampal pyramidal neurons. Morphological analysis confirmed a differential modification of the inhibitory circuits: deletion of either Rac caused a similar reduction of parvalbumin-positive inhibitory terminals in the pyramidal layer. Intriguingly, cannabinoid receptor-1-positive terminals were strongly increased only in the CA1 of Rac1-depleted mice. This increase may underlie the stronger electrophysiological defects in this mutant. Accordingly, incubation with an antagonist for cannabinoid receptors partially rescued the reduction of spontaneous inhibitory currents in the pyramidal cells of Rac1 mutants. Our results show that Rac1 and Rac3 have independent roles in the formation of GABAergic circuits, as highlighted by the differential effects of their deletion on the late maturation of specific populations of interneurons.
Source-Goal Asymmetries in Motion Representation: Implications for Language Production and Comprehension

Recent research has demonstrated an asymmetry between the origins and endpoints of motion events, with preferential attention given to endpoints rather than beginnings of motion in both language and memory. Two experiments explore this asymmetry further and test its implications for language production and comprehension. Experiment 1 shows that both adults and 4-year-old children detect fewer within-category changes in source than goal objects when tested for memory of motion events; furthermore, these groups produce fewer references to source than goal objects when describing the same motion events. Experiment 2 asks whether the specificity of encoding source/goal relations differs in both spatial memory and the comprehension of novel spatial vocabulary. Results show that endpoint configuration changes are detected more accurately than source configuration changes by both adults and young children. Furthermore, when interpreting novel motion verbs, both age groups expect more fine-grained lexical distinctions in the domain of endpoint configurations compared to that of source configurations. These studies demonstrate that a cognitive-attentional bias in spatial representation and memory affects both the detail of linguistic encoding during the use of spatial language and the specificity of hypotheses about spatial referents that learners build during the acquisition of the spatial lexicon.