An automated calibration method for non-see-through head mounted displays

Accurate calibration of a head mounted display (HMD) is essential both for research on the visual system and for realistic interaction with virtual objects. Yet, existing calibration methods are time consuming and depend on human judgements, making them error prone, and are often limited to optical see-through HMDs. Building on our existing approach to HMD calibration Gilson et al. (2008), we show here how it is possible to calibrate a non-see-through HMD. A camera is placed inside a HMD displaying an image of a regular grid, which is captured by the camera. The HMD is then removed and the camera, which remains fixed in position, is used to capture images of a tracked calibration object in multiple positions. The centroids of the markers on the calibration object are recovered and their locations re-expressed in relation to the HMD grid. This allows established camera calibration techniques to be used to recover estimates of the HMD display's intrinsic parameters (width, height, focal length) and extrinsic parameters (optic centre and orientation of the principal ray). We calibrated a HMD in this manner and report the magnitude of the errors between real image features and reprojected features. Our calibration method produces low reprojection errors without the need for error-prone human judgements.

Turning points: the personal and professional circumstances that lead academics to become middle managers

In the current higher education climate, there is a growing perception that the pressures associated with being an academic middle manager outweigh the perceived rewards of the position. This article investigates the personal and professional circumstances that lead academics to become middle managers by drawing on data from life history interviews undertaken with 17 male and female department heads from a range of disciplines, in a post-1992 UK university. The data suggests that experiencing conflict between personal and professional identities, manifested through different socialization experiences over time, can lead to a ‘turning point’ and a decision that affects a person’s career trajectory. Although the results of this study cannot be generalized, the findings may help other individuals and institutions move towards a firmer understanding of the academic who becomes head of department—in relation to theory, practice and research.

Winning and losing in the creative industries: an analysis of creative graduates' career opportunities across creative disciplines

Following earlier work looking at overall career difficulties and low economic rewards faced by graduates in creative disciplines, the paper takes a closer look into the different career patterns and economic performance of “Bohemian” graduates across different creative disciplines. While it is widely acknowledged in the literature that careers in the creative field tend to be unstructured, often relying on part-time work and low wages, our knowledge of how these characteristics differ across the creative industries and occupational sectors is very limited. The paper explores the different trajectory and career patterns experienced by graduates in different creative disciplinary fields and their ability to enter creative occupations. Data from the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) are presented, articulating a complex picture of the reality of finding a creative occupation for creative graduates. While students of some disciplines struggle to find full-time work in the creative economy, for others full-time occupation is the norm. Geography plays a crucial role also in offering graduates opportunities in creative occupations and higher salaries. The findings are contextualised in the New Labour cultural policy framework and conclusions are drawn on whether the creative industries policy construct has hidden a very problematic reality of winners and losers in the creative economy.

Motivation in second language acquisition in Chinese research students in the UK

The present study sets out to examine motivation to learn English by Chinese research students in an informal setting. Data were collected, using semi-structured interviews, from four research students at two points in time during their first year in the UK. The main findings are: they believed that learning English was important; their main goal orientations were instrumental and extrinsic; they set learning goals and persisted to attain them; they valued their current learning environment in general and saw it as supportive of their goals; they held both positive and negative attitudes towards the British, which had differential effects on their motivation; their self-perceived support seemed to have a positive impact on their motivation and the development of self-confidence; they tended to attribute their success to stable causes such as the environment and failure to unstable but controllable causes such as effort. It is concluded that qualitative data of this kind may complement insights from quantitative research. Implications for target country institutions in the provision of support are discussed.

How reward modulates mimicry: EMG evidence of greater automatic facial mimicry of more rewarding faces

Spontaneous mimicry is a marker of empathy. Conditions characterized by reduced spontaneous mimicry (e.g., autism) also display deficits in sensitivity to social rewards. We tested if spontaneous mimicry of socially rewarding stimuli (happy faces) depends on the reward value of stimuli in 32 typical participants. An evaluative conditioning paradigm was used to associate different reward values with neutral target faces. Subsequently, electromyographic activity over the Zygomaticus Major was measured whilst participants watched video clips of the faces making happy expressions. Higher Zygomaticus Major activity was found in response to happy faces conditioned with high reward versus low reward. Moreover, autistic traits in the general population modulated the extent of spontaneous mimicry of happy faces. This suggests a link between reward and spontaneous mimicry and provides a possible underlying mechanism for the reduced response to social rewards seen in autism.

Institutional capacity and implementation issues in farmers' rights

Armed with the ‘equity’ and ‘conservation’ arguments that have a deep resonance with farming communities, developing countries are crafting a range of measures designed to protect farmers’ access to innovations, reward their contributions to the conservation and enhancement of plant genetic resources and provide incentives for sustained on-farm conservation. These measures range from the commericialization of farmers’ varieties to the conferment of a set of legally enforceable rights on farming communities – the exercise of which is expected to provide economic rewards to those responsible for on-farm conservation and innovation. The rights-based approach has been the cornerstone of legislative provision for implementing farmers’ rights in most developing countries. In drawing up these measures, developing countries do not appear to have systematically examined or provided for the substantial institutional capacity required for the effective implementation of farmers’ rights provisions. The lack of institutional capacity threatens to undermine any prospect of serious implementation of these provisions. More importantly, the expectation that significant incentives for on-farm conservation and innovation will flow from these ‘rights’ may be based on a flawed understanding of the economics of intellectual property rights. While farmers’ rights may provide only limited rewards for conservation, they may still have the effect of diluting the incentives for innovative institutional breeding programs – with the private sector increasingly relying on non-IPR instruments to profit from innovation. The focus on a rights-based approach may also draw attention away from alternative stewardship-based approaches to the realization of farmers’ rights objectives.

Energetics, lifestyle, and reproduction in birds

Theoretical and empirical studies of life history aim to account for resource allocation to the different components of fitness: survival, growth, and reproduction. The pioneering evolutionary ecologist David Lack [(1968) Ecological Adaptations for Breeding in Birds (Methuen and Co.,London)] suggested that reproductive output in birds reflects adaptation to environmental factors such as availability of food and risk of predation, but subsequent studies have not always supported Lack’s interpretation. Here using a dataset for 980 bird species (Dataset S1), a phylogeny, and an explicit measure of reproductive productivity, we test predictions for how mass-specific productivity varies with body size, phylogeny,and lifestyle traits. We find that productivity varies negatively with body size and energetic demands of parental care and positively with extrinsic mortality. Specifically: (i) altricial species are 50% less productive than precocial species; (ii) species with female-only care of offspring are about 20% less productive than species with other methods of parental care; (iii) nonmigrants are 14% less productive than migrants; (iv) frugivores and nectarivores are about 20% less productive than those eating other foods; and (v) pelagic foragers are 40% less productive than those feeding in other habitats. A strong signal of phylogeny suggests that syndromes of similar life-history traits tend to be conservative within clades but also to have evolved independently in different clades. Our results generally support both Lack’s pioneering studies and subsequent research on avian life history.

Fetal programming effects of testosterone on the reward system and behavioral approach tendencies in humans

BACKGROUND: Sex differences are present in many neuropsychiatric conditions that affect emotion and approach-avoidance behavior. One potential mechanism underlying such observations is testosterone in early development. Although much is known about the effects of testosterone in adolescence and adulthood, little is known in humans about how testosterone in fetal development influences later neural sensitivity to valenced facial cues and approach-avoidance behavioral tendencies. METHODS: With functional magnetic resonance imaging we scanned 25 8-11-year-old children while viewing happy, fear, neutral, or scrambled faces. Fetal testosterone (FT) was measured via amniotic fluid sampled between 13 and 20 weeks gestation. Behavioral approach-avoidance tendencies were measured via parental report on the Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Rewards questionnaire. RESULTS: Increasing FT predicted enhanced selectivity for positive compared with negatively valenced facial cues in reward-related regions such as caudate, putamen, and nucleus accumbens but not the amygdala. Statistical mediation analyses showed that increasing FT predicts increased behavioral approach tendencies by biasing caudate, putamen, and nucleus accumbens but not amygdala to be more responsive to positive compared with negatively valenced cues. In contrast, FT was not predictive of behavioral avoidance tendencies, either through direct or neurally mediated paths. CONCLUSIONS: This work suggests that testosterone in humans acts as a fetal programming mechanism on the reward system and influences behavioral approach tendencies later in life. As a mechanism influencing atypical development, FT might be important across a range of neuropsychiatric conditions that asymmetrically affect the sexes, the reward system, emotion processing, and approach behavior.

MICAL-1 is a negative regulator of MST-NDR kinase signaling and apoptosis.

MICALs (molecules interacting with CasL) are atypical multidomain flavoenzymes with diverse cellular functions. The molecular pathways employed by MICAL proteins to exert their cellular effects remain largely uncharacterized. Via an unbiased proteomics approach, we identify MICAL-1 as a binding partner of NDR (nuclear Dbf2-related) kinases. NDR1/2 kinases are known to mediate apoptosis downstream of the mammalian Ste-20-like kinase MST1, and ablation of NDR1 in mice predisposes the mice to cancer as a result of compromised apoptosis. MST1 phosphorylates NDR1/2 kinases at their hydrophobic motif, thereby facilitating full NDR kinase activity and function. However, if and how this key phosphorylation event is regulated are unknown. Here we show that MICAL-1 interacts with the hydrophobic motif of NDR1/2 and that overexpression or knockdown of MICAL-1 reduces or augments NDR kinase activation or activity, respectively. Surprisingly, MICAL-1 is a phosphoprotein but not an NDR or MST1 substrate. Rather, MICAL-1 competes with MST1 for NDR binding and thereby antagonizes MST1-induced NDR activation. In line with this inhibitory effect, overexpression or knockdown of MICAL-1 inhibits or enhances, respectively, NDR-dependent proapoptotic signaling induced by extrinsic stimuli. Our findings unveil a previously unknown biological role for MICAL-1 in apoptosis and define a novel negative regulatory mechanism of MST-NDR signaling.

Contrasting effects of necrotrophic and biotrophic plant pathogens on the aphid Aphis fabae

Phytophagous insects have to contend with a wide variation in food quality brought about by a variety of factors intrinsic and extrinsic to the plant. One of the most important factors is infection by plant pathogenic fungi. Necrotrophic and biotrophic plant pathogenic fungi may have contrasting effects on insect herbivores due to their different infection mechanisms and induction of different resistance pathways, although this has been little studied and there has been no study of their combined effect. We studied the effect of the biotrophic rust fungus Uromyces viciae-fabae (Pers.) Schroet (Basidiomycota: Uredinales: Pucciniaceae) and the necrotrophic fungus Botrytis cinerea Pers. (Ascomycota: Helotiales: Sclerotiniaceae) singly and together on the performance of the aphid Aphis fabae Scop. (Hemiptera: Aphididae) on Vicia faba (L.) (Fabaceae). Alone, botrytis had an inhibitory effect on individual A. fabae development, survival and fecundity, while rust infection consistently enhanced individual aphids’ performance. These effects varied in linear relation to lesion or pustule density. However, whole-plant infection by either pathogen resulted in a smaller aphid population of smaller aphids than on uninfected plants, indicating a lowering of aphid carrying capacity with infection. When both fungi were applied simultaneously to a leaf they generally cancelled the effect of each other out, resulting in most performance parameters being similar to the controls, although fecundity was reduced. However, sequential plant infection (pathogens applied five days apart) led to a 70% decrease in fecundity and 50% reduction in intrinsic rate of increase. The application of rust before botrytis had a greater inhibitory effect on aphids than applying botrytis before rust. Rust infection increased leaf total nitrogen concentration by 30% while infection by botrytis with or without rust led to a 38% decrease. The aphids’ responses to the two plant pathogens individually is consistent with the alteration in plant nutrient content by infection and also the induction of different plant defence pathways and the possible cross-talk between them. This is the first demonstration of the complex effects of the dual infection of a plant by contrasting pathogens on insect herbivores. Key words: Vicia faba, Botrytis cinerea, Uromyces viciae-fabae, tripartite interactions, induced resistance

The effects of cross-border and cross-industry mergers and acquisitions on home-region and global multinational enterprises

We examine the effects of international and product diversification through mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on the firm's risk–return profile. We identify the rewards from different types of M&As and investigate whether becoming a global firm is a value-enhancing strategy. Drawing on the theoretical work of Vachani (Journal of International Business Studies, 22 (1991), pp. 307−222) and on Rugman and Verbeke's (Journal of International Business Studies, 35 (2004), pp. 3−18) metrics, we classify firms according to their degree of international and product diversification. To account for the endogeneity of M&As, we develop a panel vector autoregression. We find that global and host-region multinational enterprises benefit from cross-border M&As that reinforce their geographical footprint. Cross-industry M&As enhance the risk–return profile of home-region firms. This effect depends on the degree of product diversification. Hence there is no value-enhancing M&A strategy for home-region and bi-regional firms to become ‘truly global’.

Predicting long-term growth in students' mathematics achievement: the unique contributions of motivation and cognitive strategies

This research examined how motivation (perceived control, intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation), cognitive learning strategies (deep and surface strategies), and intelligence jointly predict long-term growth in students' mathematics achievement over 5 years. Using longitudinal data from six annual waves (Grades 5 through 10; Mage = 11.7 years at baseline; N = 3,530), latent growth curve modeling was employed to analyze growth in achievement. Results showed that the initial level of achievement was strongly related to intelligence, with motivation and cognitive strategies explaining additional variance. In contrast, intelligence had no relation with the growth of achievement over years, whereas motivation and learning strategies were predictors of growth. These findings highlight the importance of motivation and learning strategies in facilitating adolescents' development of mathematical competencies.

Neural basis of the undermining effect of monetary reward on intrinsic motivation

Contrary to the widespread belief that people are positively motivated by reward incentives, some studies have shown that performance-based extrinsic reward can actually undermine a person's intrinsic motivation to engage in a task. This “undermining effect” has timely practical implications, given the burgeoning of performance-based incentive systems in contemporary society. It also presents a theoretical challenge for economic and reinforcement learning theories, which tend to assume that monetary incentives monotonically increase motivation. Despite the practical and theoretical importance of this provocative phenomenon, however, little is known about its neural basis. Herein we induced the behavioral undermining effect using a newly developed task, and we tracked its neural correlates using functional MRI. Our results show that performance-based monetary reward indeed undermines intrinsic motivation, as assessed by the number of voluntary engagements in the task. We found that activity in the anterior striatum and the prefrontal areas decreased along with this behavioral undermining effect. These findings suggest that the corticobasal ganglia valuation system underlies the undermining effect through the integration of extrinsic reward value and intrinsic task value.

Government policy under price uncertainty: a source of volatility in illegal immigration

In this paper we provide an alternative explanation for why illegal immigration can exhibit substantial fluctuation. We develop a model economy in which migrants make decisions in the face of uncertain border enforcement and lump-sum transfers from the host country. The uncertainty is extrinsic in nature, a sunspot, and arises as a result of ambiguity regarding the commodity price of money. Migrants are restricted from participating in state-contingent insurance markets in the host country, whereas host country natives are not. Volatility in migration flows stems from two distinct sources: the tension between transfers inducing migration and enforcement discouraging it and secondly the existence of a sunspot. Finally, we examine the impact of a change in tax/transfer policies by the government on migration.

Money enhances memory consolidation – but only for boring material

Money’s ability to enhance memory has received increased attention in recent research. However, previous studies have not directly addressed the time-dependent nature of monetary effects on memory, which are suggested to exist by research in cognitive neuroscience, and the possible detrimental effects of monetary rewards on learning interesting material, as indicated by studies in motivational psychology. By utilizing a trivia question paradigm, the current study incorporated these perspectives and examined the effect of monetary rewards on immediate and delayed memory performance for answers to uninteresting and interesting questions. Results showed that monetary rewards promote memory performance only after a delay. In addition, the memory enhancement effect of monetary rewards was only observed for uninteresting questions. These results are consistent with both the hippocampus-dependent memory consolidation model of reward learning and previous findings documenting the ineffectiveness of monetary rewards on tasks that have intrinsic value.