Cash Prize Research Articles

Factors Affecting the Magnitude and Proportionality of Solutions to Problems of Coordination

Three experiments were conducted to assess the nature and generality of people's solutions to problems of temporal and numerical coordination in which interests are primarily opposed. In Exp. I, subjects were placed in a timing task with a group of nonpresent others and were asked to make a simple pushbutton response when they believed they would be exactly the Nth person in their group to do so. In Exp. II, groups of randomly chosen respondents in the Boston metropolitan area took part in a mail contest in which a cash prize was awarded to the Nth person in a group to return a postcard. In Exp. III, subjects were placed in a simulated auction setting in the laboratory and were required to compete with a group of nonpresent others in order to make the Nth bid in their group. Five variables were manipulated, two of which proved to be significant in all three studies. Thus, it was found that the wider the temporal or numerical continuum with which an individual is provided, and the higher the ordinal position he is required to occupy in relation to other members of his group, the larger the magnitude of his judgments. Subjects' coordination judgments were further analyzed in relation to the objectively imposed and subjectively defined contexts within which they were made. The findings indicate that coordination judgments are fundamentally alike in the three experiments, and are made not in absolute, but in proportional, fashion.

Next Month's New Outlook Will be a Special Issue on Career Education Making Mobility Meaningful

The sequential orientation and mobility curriculum in use at the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School consists of 127 lessons divided into five units of instruction (indoor travel, campus travel, residential travel, basic business travel, and advanced business travel). In addition to the motivational possibilities built into the curriculum, the instructional staff have also experimented with a mobility quiz contest and with awards and cash prizes for achievement and extra-curricular travel experience. The specific skills and tasks involved in each unit are listed in an appendix to the article.

Young Artists of New Rochelle

competitive Amateur Music Night was presented in New Rochelle, New York, as an event in the summer recreation program. Among the participants were a soprano with a liberal tremolo but a beautiful gown; a blind boy whose Seeing Eye dog led him to a hopelessly out-of-tune piano on which he played Beethoven's Fuir Elise; a young classical clarinetist, attracted by the small cash prize; and two rock groups, loud and routine. The judges argued. The audience was thinning out when the prize was finally awarded to one of the rock groups. I had accompanied the clarinetist, and a friend of mine was one of the judges. When we next met at a piano teachers' workshop, we discussed the sad plight of youngsters who might want to play classical music in public. They had no chance for anything but

Attitudes toward Animals

Teachers of biology in secondary schools are often asked to help students perform surgical or other painful experiments on animals. Such requests usually stem from press reports of organ transplants, space journeys, and similarly dramatic occurrences in science that have struck a young, impressionable mind with a wish to imitate. There are more tangible inducements, too. Cash prizes, free trips, and other emoluments are offered for science-fair projects that have received little or no scrutiny from the humane point of view. The current situation has become so serious that the National Society for Medical Research (NSMR) recently issued a revised set of guiding principles drafted by representatives of nine national scientific societies. The principles are based on a reconsideration of the 1959 and 1968 versions, neither of which had succeeded in preventing gruesome abuse of animals by untrained youths.

Resistance to improper dependency relationships

Two hundred and twenty-eight college men and women were individually assigned to supervise the work of two same-sex peers who were eligible for a cash prize although no prize was available for the subject. One of the workers asked for help, either because of the experimenter's mistake (external locus of dependency), or because of the person's own deficiency (internal locus of dependency), while other information indicated the worker was either highly dependent, moderately dependent, or only slightly dependent upon the subject's help in order to gain the prize. The person asking for assistance was more disliked than the worker not requesting help, even when the former's dependency was externally created, presumably because the help request restricted the subject's behavioral freedom. The greatest dislike for the worker seeking help arose, however, when it was this person's own fault he needed help. In accord with Brehm's reactance theory, there was the least effort for the worker asking for help when this person was highly dependent upon the subject but needed assistance because of his own shortcomings; the illegitimate help request evidently gave the subject a suitable excuse, permitting him to succumb to the resentment (or reactance) arising from the great implied demand upon him. Although the women generally gave the worker more help than did the men, both sexes displayed this resentment at the improper help request and both tended to dislike the worker seeking assistance.

Union section and committee activities

The fourth award of the Vetlesen Prize for outstanding accomplishments in sciences of the Earth and the Universe was made October 18, 1966, at Columbia University to Jan Hendrik Oort, Director of the Observatory and Professor of Astronomy of the University of Leiden, The Netherlands.This Prize, which was established in Columbia University by the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation in 1959, is an outstanding award, comparable to the Nobel Prizes in other sciences, carrying not only the distinction and the honor but a cash prize of $25,000 and a gold medal.

John Scott Awards

Frank T. McClure of Johns Hopkins University and Alexander Kolin of the University of California at Los Angeles were among a group of five scientists to be named recipients of the 1965 John Scott Awards. Consisting of a copper medal and a $2000 cash prize, the awards were established in 1816 under the will of John Scott, a chemist in Edinburgh, who bequeathed $4000 in trust to the City of Philadelphia, stipulating that the income be distributed “among ingenious men and women who make useful inventions”. Today the fund amounts to some $111 000 and prizes from it are administered by the Philadelphia Board of Directors of City Trusts.

Japan Academy honor

Leo Esaki of the International Business Machines Corporation has been named one of the winners of this year's Japan Academy award. Comprising a bronze medal and a 200 000 yen cash prize (approximately $555), the award was presented on May 18 at the Academy's offices in Ueno, Tokyo. Dr. Esaki was honored for his invention and subsequent development of the tunnel diode, which utilizes quantum‐mechanical tunneling to surmount a potential barrier in its electric field. The device can exhibit gain at very high frequencies with great stability against temperature and other ambient variations. Its principle of operation has led to new understanding in semiconductor physics.

Miscellanea Medica

<h3>Awards, Grants</h3> The<b>University of Chicago</b>has been awarded a five-year grant of $594,692 by the<b>United States Public Health Service</b>for a special program to train medical scientists in the field of child health and development. Heading the program is Albert Dorfman, MD, professor and chairman of the department of pediatrics at the University and director of the La Radiba-University of Chicago Institute. The program is designed to meet a growing shortage of trained research scientists and teachers in child health. <b>Edith B. Jackson</b>, MD, visiting professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, is the first winner of the<b>Agnes McGavin Award</b>of the American Psychiatric Association, for outstanding contributions to the prevention of emotional disorders in children. The award, consisting of a $500 cash prize was presented to Dr. Jackson at the APA's annual meeting held last month in Los Angeles. Robert

1961 competition for physics teaching apparatus

If one judges by attendance and enthusiasm, many physicists look forward to the apparatus competitions held under the auspices of the Committee on Apparatus for Educational Institutions of the American Association of Physics Teachers every two years as a part of the joint meeting of the AAPT and APS in New York. Fifty‐four pieces of new and improved apparatus for undergraduate college physics were exhibited at the Hotel New Yorker this year from February 1 to February 4. Supported by a grant from the Central Scientific Company, the competition was intended primarily to inspire and give recognition to inventive ingenuity in the development of new laboratory and demonstration equipment for physics teaching. With public recognition went certificates and three cash prizes of $500, $200, and $100 in each of two categories: equipment used in demonstration lectures in undergraduate college physics and equipment used in undergraduate physics laboratories. A number of honorable mention awards were also made.

Preliminary Study of Endurance and Perceptual Change in Sleep Deprivation

The study reported in this paper is the result of an opportunistic series of observations which the authors intend to follow up with careful experimentation. The opportunity to observe fairly prolonged sleep deprivation presented itself when a talkathon contest was held in Toronto in the spring of 1959. Contestants were required to talk continuously, with a 10-min. break each hour, and'were not allowed to sleep. Anyone who remained in the contest for 88 consecutive hours was awarded a cash prize. Two questions were asked. First, what are some of the predictors of endurance in a situation of this kind? Second, does sleep deprivation lead to changes in perception of time, space and body, and a feeling of unreality? This study can provide only the tentative answers to these questions since the observational situation allowed very little control.

An Opinion Survey on Outside Research

THE current spectacular increase in research activity with independent research organizations induced us to determine the reasons why industrial organizations delegate problems to outside organizations. This seemed of very general interest, partly to explain an important trend, and partly for suggestions regarding services which Possibly ought to be provided. The national fall meeting of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY in Chicago provided an opportunity to poll a representative cross section of active Society members and others interested. Visitors at the National Chemical Exposition held in Chicago Sept. 10 to 14 were requested to complete in less than ten words the following sentence: An independent research organization advantageously supplements an industrial resi arch staff because.As a partial compensation for the participation, a cash prize was given every day for one of the entries. During the five clays of the exhibition, 881 entries were received from different persons. In the few instances when...

News and Comment

<h3>GENERAL NEWS</h3><h3>MISSISSIPPI VALLEY MEDICAL SOCIETY</h3> The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Mississippi Valley Medical Society will be held Sept. 25 to 27, 1946, at the Hotel Jefferson, St. Louis. The Mississippi Valley Medical Society is resuming its annual Essay Contest and in 1946 will offer a cash prize of $100, a gold medal and a certificate of award for the best unpublished essay on any subject of general medical interest (including medical economics) and practical value to the general practitioner of medicine. Certificates of merit may also be granted to the physicians whose essays are rated second and third best. Contestants must be members of the American Medical Association and residents of the United States. Contributions must not exceed 5,000 words, must be typewritten in English in manuscript form, and five copies must be submitted not later than May 1, 1946. Further details may be secured from Harold Swanberg,

Medal Awards for Inventions

THE Council of the Institute of Patentees has decided to suspend the award of the Institute Bronze Medal and in place thereof to substitute the Institute's Silver Medal to rank equally with the Founder's Silver Medal. These medals, will be awarded in each section of the Exhibition of Inventions to be opened in the Central Hall, Westminster, S.W.I on September 30 and in Newcastle on November 25; therefore ten silver medals will be awarded throughout the five sub-sections of the New Inventions Section of the Exhibition. The Gold, Silver and Bronze Certificates will be awarded as in previous years. As the Institute proposes to organize a series of exhibitions throughout the country, it has been decided that the Grey-Wilson Memorial Gold Medal, supported by cash prize, together with the Yorkshire Medal, will be competed for during January of each year, the successful exhibitors at any Exhibition organized by the Institute being eligible to compete. The Yorkshire Medal is a new medal which was provided for under the will of the late Mr. Hoffman-Wood, an architect of Addingham, Yorkshire, who died three years ago, and the Institute will make recommendations annually to the trustees regarding its award. The medal is valued at twenty-five guineas, and sufficient funds are available for an award in perpetuity. The award of the Yorkshire Medal must be for an inven tion not relating to warfare.