Surprising Effect Research Articles

Real exchange rate and international spillover effects of US technology shocks

The paper presents new empirical evidence on the international effects of surprise and anticipated technology shocks in the US. We employ the proxy-instrumental variable approach to identify structural vector autoregressions in a panel setting and empirically study the transmission of US technology innovations to the G7 countries. Both unanticipated and anticipated exogenous technology improvements lead to a strong and persistent real appreciation (from the point of view of the US), along with an expansionary effect on US macroeconomic aggregates, except for hours worked which initially decline. Internationally, there is a strong and precisely estimated positive spillover on foreign output, consumption, and hours worked in the case of surprise shocks, and a weaker but still mostly non-negative effect in the case of technology news shocks. We show that the empirical evidence is qualitatively compatible with the predictions of a New Keynesian international business cycle model with imperfect financial markets, traded and non-traded goods and imported intermediate inputs in production.

A case study on Antiaging property of Mandukparni as an Ayurvedic cosmetic drug

We use cosmetics for keeping and improving natural beauty. The most common problem today is premature ageing of skin. Ayurvedic cosmetics include healthy lifestyle and use of medicinal herbs. Mandukparni is one of those herbal drugs, which is frequently used in Antiaging creams. Hence, we had made attempt to explore antiaging effect of Mandukparni on skin. A female patient of 39 years old at OPD of SRC Ayurveda college, Chikhli was selected for study. She had given Mandukparni churna in the form of lepa and also internally for 30 days. After treatment Mandukparni showed improvement in Wrinkles, Blemishes, Hyperpigmentation, Blackheads, Oiliness. Hence it can be concluded that Mandukparni is an Ayurvedic cosmetic drug showing surprising effect on skin.

Thickness effects of anode catalyst layer on reversal tolerant performance in proton exchange membrane fuel cell

Real-world driving conditions will likely cause hydrogen starvation at the anode chambers of stacks to trigger voltage reversal events, posing a tremendous challenge to the durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). The reversal-tolerant anode (RTA), a material-based solution, that inclusion of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst into the anode is usually employed to cope with the voltage reversal issue. In this work, we investigate the impact of anode catalyst layer thickness on the voltage reversal performance of the membrane-electrode assemblies (MEAs) with conventional anodes (Pt/C catalyst) and RTAs doped with IrO2 catalyst, a representative OER catalyst. We find that regardless of how thick the anode catalyst layer is, the conventional MEAs exhibit almost similar voltage reversal behaviors and times, only about 1 min to reach the shutdown voltage (−2.5 V). As for the RTA MEAs, a surprising thickness effect that the thinner RTA with the same IrO2 loading shows superior voltage reversal tolerance. Notably, an ultra-thin RTA (~2 μm) exhibits the reversal tolerance time of 310 min, which is five times higher reversal tolerance time than most of the reported RTAs. We conclude that this thickness effect mainly results from the ionomer distribution on the OER catalyst. Besides, we observe that the RTA with a higher ionomer content shows the better reversal tolerance performance. Our work highlights the importance of the OER Triple-Phase-Boundary (TPB) and the need for improved electrode designs for robust RTAs.

Performance, Reliability, or Time‐to‐Market? Innovative Product Development and the Impact of Government Regulation

Consider a firm that is developing an innovative product. We study the trade‐offs associated with its product design decisions in regards to product performance (the function of the product), product reliability (whether the product will perform its function), and product time‐to‐market (the development time for the product). Specifically, while a more innovative product may deliver better product performance, without sufficient development time, the product may not be as reliable given that innovations require a time buffer to conduct many iterations of product testing and improvement. We further examine the impact of a government‐imposed minimum product reliability standard on the firm, the product, and on social welfare. We find that contrary to common belief, a minimum product reliability standard set by the government may induce more unreliable products or hurt consumer surplus and social welfare. We also find that regulation, besides being a cost burden to the firm, can serve as a credible commitment for product reliability typically not observable to the customers when they are making purchasing decisions. Correspondingly, the regulation may have the surprising effect of increasing firm profit or prompting product innovation. Our work is useful in informing regulators in different industries of how decisions concerning government regulation could impact product reliability.

Constraint relaxation leads to jamming.

Adding transitions to an equilibrium system increases the activity. Naively, one would expect this to hold also in out-of-equilibrium systems. We demonstrate, using relatively simple models, how adding transitions to an out of equilibrium system may in fact reduce the activity and even cause it to vanish. This surprising effect is caused by adding heretofore forbidden transitions into less and less active states. We investigate six related kinetically constrained lattice gas models, some of which behave as naively expected while others exhibit this nonintuitive behavior. These models exhibit an absorbing state phase transition, which is also affected by the added transitions. We introduce a semi-mean-field approximation describing the models, which agrees qualitatively with our numerical simulation.

„Ich werde eingetaucht / in vás“? Peter Waterhouses 'Prosperos Land' als Dynamisierung von T.S. Eliots 'The Waste Land'

’Ich werde eingetaucht/in vás’? Peter Waterhouse’s Prosperos Land as Dynamisation of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. The assumption of the existence of well discernible national languages is at odds with the dynamic nature of language. It is part of the so-called “monolingual paradigm” and therefore implies inextricably linking people to their mother tongue, which is in turn tied to one respective ethnicity, culture and nation. However, languages are not always clearly discernible from one another and do not always appear in fixed, static forms. Instead, language is subject to dynamic changes, which are at the same time subject to political interests and language policies. The poems presented in this article exemplify how modern and contemporary poetry can use the conjuncture of multilingualism and ambiguity to create a sense of language dynamics themselves. Their poetics simultaneously question and make use of the assumption of static multilingualism. They unfold political problems from it and awaken in their readers a desire for proactive reading and (language) change. T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land already problematizes the coexistence of the European languages as a challenge for understanding, suggesting that languages as well as their speakers might be untranslatably shut-off from each other. However, the poem also creates surprising synergistic effects from its multilingualism and ambiguity. This way, it invites its readers to connect and cross over (language) borders in an adaptive and poetic manner, stressing the importance and capability of poetry and learning for intercultural understanding. Prosperos Land by Peter Waterhouse perpetuates and even surpasses this movement. As the ambivalent bilingual, intertextual and ambiguous title suggests, the poem challenges the possibility of linguistic as well as national demarcation from the start. Moving away from strict language borders and rules, the poem highlights the transformative magic of an almost childish exploration of language itself.

Dynamics of tidal disruption events: statistical properties

ABSTRACT We study the correlations between the dynamical history of a star that eventually experiences a tidal disruption event (TDE) and the properties of the TDE itself. As expected, we find that (i) in empty loss cone at the radius of influence, most TDEs are non-violent TDEs; i.e. the star’s periastron is only a bit smaller than the tidal radius. These stars had experienced strong tidal interactions with the supermassive black hole (SMBH), just slightly outside the tidal radius. (ii) In full loss cone at the radius of influence, most TDEs are violent; i.e. the star’s periastron is significantly smaller than the tidal radius. These stars did not previously encounter strong tidal effects. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that even in extremely empty or extremely full loss cone a finite fraction of order ${\sim} 10{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the events are non-typical. This is due to two surprising effects: (i) In an empty loss cone, a logarithmic fraction of the events are associated with stars that entered the loss cone via strong scatterings. Those events are usually violent penetrating deep into the loss cone. (ii) In full loss cone, orbits with semimajor axis smaller than the radius of influence, where the loss cone is marginally empty, dominate the TDE rate. As a result, a constant fraction of TDEs involve stars in empty loss cone orbits, which have typically experienced strong interactions with the SMBH in previous orbits.

Unintended Consequences of Products Liability: Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Market*

Abstract We explain a surprising effect of tort liability in the market for prescription drugs. Greater punitive damage risk seems to increase prescription drug utilization in states without non-economic damage caps but decrease utilization in states with such caps. We offer an explanation for this puzzle. The vertical production process for drugs involves national upstream producers (drug companies) and local downstream producers (doctors). When a single state reallocates liability from downstream to upstream producers, national drug companies see little reason to alter their nationwide output decisions, but local physicians have incentives to increase their prescriptions in that state. The net result is higher local output. We show how this dynamic can explain our puzzle by demonstrating that punitive damages shift liability upstream from doctors to drug companies, but not when non-economic damages caps limit physician malpractice liability. We provide evidence explaining when, how, and why this type of liability shifting occurs (JEL K13, I11, I18).

Do Suspense and Surprise Drive Entertainment Demand? Evidence from Twitch.tv

We measure the relative importance of suspense and surprise in the entertainment preferences of viewers of Twitch.tv, the largest online video game streaming platform. Using detailed viewership and game statistics data from broadcasts of tournaments of a popular video game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), we compute measures of suspense and surprise for a rational Bayesian viewer. We then develop and estimate a stylized utility model that underlies viewers' decisions to both join and to leave a game stream. Our method allows us to causally identify the direct effect of suspense and surprise on viewers' utilities, separating it out from other sources of entertainment value (e.g. team skill) and from indirect supply-side effects (e.g. advertising). We find that suspense enters a viewer's utility, but provide little evidence of the effect of surprise. The magnitudes simply that a one standard deviation increase in round-level suspense decreases the probability of leaving a stream by 0.2 percentage points. We fi nd no detectable effect of suspense and surprise on the decision to join a stream, ruling out indirect effects. Variation in suspense levels explains 8.1% of the observed range of the evolution of a stream's viewership. Finally, we evaluate several rule changes in the design of the CS:GO tournaments, and show that making team win probabilities more homogenous will make games longer and more suspenseful, increasing viewership. Together, these results illustrate the value of our method as a general tool to be used by content producers and platforms to evaluate and design media products.

Rapid quantification of multi-cryoprotectant toxicity using an automated liquid handling method

Cryopreservation in a vitrified state has vast potential for long-term storage of tissues and organs that may be damaged by ice formation. However, the toxicity imparted by the high concentration of cryoprotectants (CPAs) required to vitrify these specimens remains a hurdle. To address this challenge, we previously developed a mathematical approach to design less toxic CPA equilibration methods based on the minimization of a toxicity cost function. This approach was used to design improved methods for equilibration of bovine pulmonary artery endothelial cells (BPAEC) with glycerol. To fully capitalize on the toxicity cost function approach, it is critical to describe the toxicity kinetics of additional CPAs, including multi-CPA mixtures that are commonly used for vitrification. In this work, we used automated liquid handling to characterize the toxicity kinetics of five of the most common CPAs (glycerol, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), propylene glycol, ethylene glycol, and formamide), along with their binary and ternary mixtures for BPAEC. In doing so, we developed experimental methods that can be used to determine toxicity kinetics more quickly and accurately. Our results highlight some common CPA toxicity trends, including the relatively low toxicity of ethylene glycol and a general increase in toxicity as the CPA concentration increases. Our results also suggest potential new approaches to reduce toxicity, including a surprising toxicity neutralization effect of glycerol on formamide. In the future, this dataset will serve as the basis to expand our CPA toxicity model, enabling application of the toxicity cost function approach to vitrification solutions containing multiple CPAs.

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Do children learn from their prediction mistakes? A registered report evaluating error-based theories of language acquisition.

Error-based theories of language acquisition suggest that children, like adults, continuously make and evaluate predictions in order to reach an adult-like state of language use. However, while these theories have become extremely influential, their central claim—that unpredictable input leads to higher rates of lasting change in linguistic representations—has scarcely been tested. We designed a prime surprisal-based intervention study to assess this claim. As predicted, both 5- to 6-year-old children (n = 72) and adults (n = 72) showed a pre- to post-test shift towards producing the dative syntactic structure they were exposed to in surprising sentences. The effect was significant in both age groups together, and in the child group separately when participants with ceiling performance in the pre-test were excluded. Secondary predictions were not upheld: we found no verb-based learning effects and there was only reliable evidence for immediate prime surprisal effects in the adult, but not in the child group. To our knowledge, this is the first published study demonstrating enhanced learning rates for the same syntactic structure when it appeared in surprising as opposed to predictable contexts, thus providing crucial support for error-based theories of language acquisition.

Visual mismatch responses index surprise signalling but not expectation suppression

The ability to distinguish between commonplace and unusual sensory events is critical for efficient learning and adaptive behaviour. This has been investigated using oddball designs in which sequences of often-appearing (i.e., expected) stimuli are interspersed with rare (i.e., surprising) deviants. Resulting differences in electrophysiological responses following surprising compared to expected stimuli are known as visual mismatch responses (VMRs). VMRs are thought to index co-occurring contributions of stimulus repetition effects, expectation suppression (that occurs when one's expectations are fulfilled), and expectation violation (i.e., surprise) responses; however, these different effects have been conflated in existing oddball designs. To better isolate and quantify effects of expectation suppression and surprise, we adapted an oddball design based on Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation (FPVS) that controls for stimulus repetition effects. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) while participants (N = 48) viewed stimulation sequences in which a single face identity was periodically presented at 6 Hz. Critically, one of two different face identities (termed oddballs) appeared as every 7th image throughout the sequence. The presentation probabilities of each oddball image within a sequence varied between 10 and 90%, such that participants could form expectations about which oddball face identity was more likely to appear within each sequence. We also included ‘expectation neutral’ 50% probability sequences, whereby consistently biased expectations would not be formed for either oddball face identity. We found that VMRs indexed surprise responses, and effects of expectation suppression were absent. That is, ERPs were more negative-going at occipitoparietal electrodes for surprising compared to neutral oddballs, but did not differ between expected and neutral oddballs. Surprising oddball-evoked ERPs were also highly similar across the 10–40% appearance probability conditions. Our findings indicate that VMRs which are not accounted for by repetition effects are best described as an all-or-none surprise response, rather than a minimisation of prediction error responses associated with expectation suppression.

Rare gems or mundane practice? Resource constraints as drivers of frugal innovation

ABSTRACT Frugal innovation and related concepts are receiving increasing scholarly attention. While recent progress in the conceptualisation of frugal innovation as a phenomenon has been considerable, insights into the antecedents of frugal innovation remain relatively poor. We add to this literature by systematically conceptualising, theorising and empirically testing the relationship between resource constraints and the propensity of firms to produce frugal innovations, drawing on concepts of problemistic search and opportunity recognition. We distinguish two levels of resource constraints (firm-level and firm environment-level), and two types of frugal innovation (internally oriented and customer-oriented), while using managerial experience as a moderating internal factor. We find that firm-level resource constraints have a strong effect on the propensity of firms to engage in internally oriented frugal innovation, although only so for firms with experienced managers. This effect is lower when these firms operate in an environment that also faces high constraints. We find no effect of resource constraints on customer-oriented frugal innovations, but find a surprising negative moderating effect of managerial experience. We discuss the theoretical and policy implications of these findings for the frugal and wider innovation literature. This study is the first large-scale empirical investigation of frugal innovation that estimates its prevalence. We find that frugal innovation is quite common when using the widest definition of frugal innovation. The majority of frugal innovations are mundane internal efficiency upgrades through capital investment.

The effects of target-masker sex mismatch on linguistic release from masking.

Listeners often experience challenges understanding an interlocutor (target) in the presence of competing talkers (maskers). However, during linguistic release from masking (LRM), this difficulty decreases for native language targets (English) when paired with different language maskers (e.g., Dutch). There is considerable evidence that the linguistic similarity between target-masker pairs determines the size of LRM. This study investigated whether and how LRM is affected when the streams also differed in talker sex. Experiment 1 investigated intelligibility for English targets in sex-matched and mismatched conditions with Dutch or English maskers. While typical LRM effects were obtained when sex was matched, opposite effects were detected when sex was mismatched. In experiment 2, Mandarin maskers were used to increase linguistic dissimilarity and elicit stronger LRM effects. Despite the greater linguistic dissimilarity, the surprising reverse LRM effect in the sex-mismatch condition persisted. In experiment 3, the target stream was held constant and talker sex and language were manipulated in the masker. Here, expected LRM effects were obtained for both the sex-matched and sex-mismatched conditions. This indicated that the locus of the dissimilarities and not just relative properties affect LRM. Broadly, this study suggests that using naturally varying listening situations advances understanding of factors underlying LRM.

THE NEW ROLE OF ARMED FORCES AS A RESPONSE TO ASYMMETRIC THREATS

The central theme of this issue is asymmetric threats with emphasis on the new role of the armed forces as one of several possible national responses. Asymmetric threats are not a new phenomenon. According to the literature, they are one of the oldest forms of threats, although in most cases the term asymmetric is not specifically mentioned. Asymmetry as a term referring to something that is not symmetrical or equivalent emerged later than the threats we today identify as asymmetric, and is consequently considered more modern. In reality, asymmetry is a form of threat that no one expects. It can relate to the organizational, personnel-related, and quantity-related aspects or some other aspect. It is important to note that an asymmetric threat emerges in a way that comes as a surprise. Our responses are therefore delayed, since such a threat was unexpected and we are not (yet) properly prepared to counter it. For this reason asymmetric threats are a big challenge. We can deal with them in different ways; one of them is certainly military. In asymmetric warfare, a very important effect is demonstrated with the use of minimal input, assertion of various interests – most often of an individual or group against a larger group or country – innovative approaches, and with high efficiency compared to the resistance of the target. When considering the role of the armed forces and their response to asymmetric threats, both the question and the answer to whether this should be the new role of the military are quite obvious. Asymmetric threats are a series of threats with a rich history, but it is their very innovation, effect of surprise, and inflicted damage that require a great deal of vigilance on the part of all whose fundamental mission is to ensure national security. In the past few years, Slovenia has faced various threats that could be classified as asymmetric, such as floods; ice storm; mass, group and individual illegal migration, and COVID-19. The state responded to them by activating various stakeholders, including the military. With its numerous past experiences acquired at home and abroad, the Slovenian Armed Forces has successfully joined state activities to normalize, assist in, restore and resolve the existing situation, and to provide order and security. Nevertheless, all stakeholders in the country who are involved in the efforts tackling the emerging asymmetric threats, including the Slovenian Armed Forces, are constantly faced with new challenges. These are manifested in various forms such as the need for new knowledge, other forms of cooperation, provision of specific logistical support, changes in legislation, modernization of the self-protective equipment for the employees and the efficiency of communication and other devices. In order to be better prepared and more responsive to asymmetric threats in the future, we still need to do more to face the above-mentioned challenges. There are several ways to do this. One of them is to write articles on the role of the armed forces in asymmetric threats. The authors of articles in this issue share a variety of experiences, views and ideas on how to proceed in order to be better prepared and more effective in the future.

Reading development at the text level: an investigation of surprisal and embeddingbased text similarity effects on eyemovements in Chinese early readers.

This paper describes the use of semantic similarity measures based on distributed representations of words, sentences, and paragraphs (so-called “embeddings”) to assess the impact of supra-lexical factors on eye-movement data from early readers of Chinese. In addition, we used a corpus-based measure of surprisal to assess the impact of local word predictability. Eye movement data from 56 Chinese students were collected (a) in the students’ 4th grade and (b) one year later while they were in 5th grade. Results indicated that surprisal and some text similarity measures have a significant impact on the momentto- moment processing of words in reading. The paper presents an easy-to-use set of tools for linking the low-level aspects of fixation durations to a hierarchy of sentence-level and paragraph-level features that can be computed automatically. The study is the first attempt, as far as we are aware, to track the developmental trajectory of these influences in developing readers across a range of reading abilities. The similarity-based measures described here can be used (a) to provide a measure of reader sensitivity to sentence and paragraph cohesion and (b) to assess specific texts for their suitability for readers of different reading ability levels.

Playing nice in the sandbox: On the role of heterogeneity, trust and cooperation in common-pool resources.

The increasing heterogeneity of populations affects cooperation in common-pool resources in a time where the depletion of natural resources is a growing problem. This study investigates the effects of economic and sociocultural heterogeneity on trust and cooperation in common-pool resources using a laboratory experiment. The experiment comprises two Investment Games and a Common-Pool Resource Game, with a sample of 344 subjects from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. By measuring the effects of economic and sociocultural heterogeneity separately as well as combined, this study disentangles the effects of specific heterogeneity types on cooperation in common-pool resources; something that has not been done before. Higher levels of trusting behaviour are found to have a positive effect on cooperation on the micro- and macro-level over time. While theory suggests negative effects of both forms of heterogeneity on cooperation through decreased levels of trust, the results show a surprising positive effect of economic heterogeneity on cooperation, but a negative effect if economic and sociocultural heterogeneity are combined. This study concludes that economic inequality can promote cooperation in CPRs, unless this inequality is lined up with sociocultural differences.

Gate-Controlled Suspended Titanium Nanobridge Supercurrent Transistor.

Under standard conditions, the electrostatic field-effect is negligible in conventional metals and was expected to be completely ineffective also in superconducting metals. This common belief was recently put under question by a family of experiments that displayed full gate-voltage-induced suppression of critical current in superconducting all-metallic gated nanotransistors. To date, the microscopic origin of this phenomenon is under debate, and trivial explanations based on heating effects given by the negligible electron leakage from the gates should be excluded. Here, we demonstrate the control of the supercurrent in fully suspended superconducting nanobridges. Our advanced nanofabrication methods allow us to build suspended superconducting Ti-based supercurrent transistors which show ambipolar and monotonic full suppression of the critical current for gate voltages of VGC ≃ 18 V and for temperatures up to ∼80% of the critical temperature. The suspended device architecture minimizes the electron-phonon interaction between the superconducting nanobridge and the substrate, and therefore, it rules out any possible contribution stemming from charge injection into the insulating substrate. Besides, our finite element method simulations of vacuum electron tunneling from the gate to the bridge and thermal considerations rule out the cold-electron field emission as a possible driving mechanism for the observed phenomenology. Our findings promise a better understanding of the field effect in superconducting metals.

Transboundary Emission Under Stochastic Differential Game

In this study we provide a more robust transboundary industrial pollution reduction strategy for global emission collaborations. We consider the dynamics of each country’s quantity of pollution as a Brownian motion with Jumps to capture the systematic jumps caused by surprise effects arising from policy uncertainties within the economy. When the output of each country’s domestic consumption good production is proportional to the level of pollution emissions, we apply optimal control theory to find the Nash noncooperative, cooperative and Stackelberg optimal emission paths. To formulate this problem we allow each country’s discounted stream of net revenues to be maximized via a Stochastic Differential Game (SDG). We then articulate the Nash noncooperative equilibria, cooperative equilibria and Stackelberg equilibria via a feedback control strategy. We show that the outcome of the game depends on the parameters of the game and the type of equilibrium one considers. Furthermore, in this continuous-time differential game paradigm model we show that the feedback Stackelberg equilibrium will not coincide with the feedback Nash noncooperative equilibrium. In this setting, if the first mover advantage of the leader (Player I) disappears then both equilibria coincide.