Causal conjunction fallacies: The roles of causal strength and mental resources

In two experiments we tested the prediction derived from Tversky and Kahneman's (1983) work on the causal conjunction fallacy that the strength of the causal connection between constituent events directly affects the magnitude of the causal conjunction fallacy. We also explored whether any effects of perceived causal strength were due to graded output from heuristic Type 1 reasoning processes or the result of analytic Type 2 reasoning processes. As predicted, Experiment 1 demonstrated that fallacy rates were higher for strongly than for weakly related conjunctions. Weakly related conjunctions in turn attracted higher rates of fallacious responding than did unrelated conjunctions. Experiment 2 showed that a concurrent memory load increased rates of fallacious responding for strongly related but not for weakly related conjunctions. We interpret these results as showing that manipulations of the strength of the perceived causal relationship between the conjuncts result in graded output from heuristic reasoning process and that additional mental resources are required to suppress strong heuristic output.

High tech start-ups in University Science Park incubators: The relationship between the start-up’s lifecycle progression and use of the incubator’s resources

University Science Park incubators (USIs) have emerged as a means by which Government, academia and business can develop high technology business firms (spin out HTBFs) from initial conception through to becoming established small firms, which are ready to move beyond the Science Park confines. Although there is considerable literature on how USIs can be improved and developed there is a paucity of studies, which explore how lifecycle development within HTBFs in USIs can affect how they use the unique resources and opportunities of the USI. Moreover, there is a focus on single point in time studies, which do not adequately investigate the longitudinal dynamics of HTBF lifecycle development within USIs. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore the longitudinal use of the unique resources of the USI by HTBFs at different lifecycle stages. The research methodology involved 18 HTBFs within two separate USIs. A series of longitudinal interviews and focus groups were conducted with HTBFs and USI staff over a 36-month period. NUD*IST software was used in developing the coding and analysis of transcripts. The results show that a HTBF's propensity to make effective use of the USI's resources and support increases as the lifecycle stage of the company increases and the small-firm searches for independence and autonomy. Therefore, further research is required to investigate the following two outstanding questions; firstly, which usage pattern is associated with the HTBF's ultimate success or failure in the marketplace? And secondly, are there any services missing from the observed array that the USI could provide to enhance the HTBF's degree of ultimate success? © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The impact of personal resources and their goal relevance on satisfaction with food-related life among the elderly.

The study explored how actual resources, perceived levels of different types of resources and goal relevance of these resources affect older people's satisfaction with food-related life using a survey in eight European countries, where 3291 participants above 65 years of age and living in their own homes took part. Satisfaction with food-related life was measured using Satisfaction With Food-related Life (SWFL) scale developed by Grunert, Raats, Dean, Nielsen, Lumbers and The Food in Later Life Team. [(2007). A measure of satisfaction with food-related life. Appetite, 49, 486–493]. Results showed that older people rated the resources that they believed to have plentiful of as being highly relevant to achieve their goals. The individuals who rated the relevance and their level of different resources as high were also more satisfied with their food-related quality of life. Further, satisfaction with food-related life, as was expected, was predicted by income, health measures and living circumstances. However, the study also showed that perceived levels of other resources such as support of family and friends, food knowledge, storage facilities also added to the individuals’ satisfaction with food-related life. In addition, the congruence between perceived level and relevance of a resource was also shown to add to people's satisfaction with food-related life, implying that older people's satisfaction with food-related life depends not only on the level of resources they think they have but also on their goals and how important they think these resources are to achieving their goals.

Ambiguity, social opinion and the use of common property resources

In this paper we argue that ambiguity, combined with social opinion formation, can be used as the foundation of a game-theoretic equilibrium concept that transcends the standard Nash equilibrium concept, applied to a model of the tragedy of the commons. Our approach sheds light on the international environmental crisis and the relevant ongoing international negotiations. We conclude that social opinion formation in most cases has a significant impact on equilibrium common property resource usage.

Physical model for the generation of ideal resources in multipartite quantum networking

We propose a physical model for generating multipartite entangled states of spin-s particles that have important applications in distributed quantum information processing. Our protocol is based on a process where mobile spins induce the interaction among remote scattering centers. As such, a major advantage lies in the management of stationary and well-separated spins. Among the generable states, there is a class of N-qubit singlets allowing for optimal quantum telecloning in a scalable and controllable way. We also show how to prepare Aharonov, W, and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states.