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1. On the Benefits of Being Constrained When Receiving Signals

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94676-0_10  

   Su, ST.; Kempe, D.; Subramanian, V.G. (January 2022, Web and Internet Economics. WINE 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science())

   Feldman, M. (Ed.)

   We study a Bayesian persuasion setting in which the receiver is trying to match the (binary) state of the world. The sender’s utility is partially aligned with the receiver’s, in that conditioned on the receiver’s action, the sender derives higher utility when the state of the world matches the action. Our focus is on whether in such a setting, being constrained helps a receiver. Intuitively, if the receiver can only take the sender’s preferred action with smaller probability, the sender might have to reveal more information, so that the receiver can take the action more specifically when the sender prefers it. We show that with a binary state of the world, this intuition indeed carries through: under very mild non-degeneracy conditions, a more constrained receiver will always obtain (weakly) higher utility than a less constrained one. Unfortunately, without additional assumptions, the result does not hold when there are more than two states in the world, which we show with an explicit example. 

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2. Reflections and Research Advice Upon Receiving the 2019 Eckert-Mauchly Award

   https://doi.org/10.1109/MM.2019.2931345  

   Hill, Mark D. (September 2019, IEEE Micro)
3. What’s in a Name? Terminology Preferences Among Patients Receiving Methadone Treatment

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-022-07813-w  

   Gazzola, Marina Gaeta; Maclean, Emma; Beitel, Mark; Carmichael, Iain D.; Cammack, Katharine M.; Eggert, Kathryn F.; Roehrich, Teresa; Madden, Lynn M.; Jegede, Oluwole; Zheng, Xiaoying; et al (February 2023, Journal of General Internal Medicine)
4. Organic matter cycling in a model restored wetland receiving complex effluent

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-022-01002-x  

   Zhou, Xingzi; Johnston, Sarah Ellen; Bogard, Matthew J. (December 2022, Biogeochemistry)

   Abstract Wetlands have been used to treat anthropogenic effluents for decades due to their intense biogeochemical processes that transform and uptake nutrients, organic matter, and toxins. Despite these known functions, we lack generalizable knowledge of effluent-derived dissolved organic matter (DOM) cycling in wetlands. Here, we quantify the cycling of DOM in one of Canada’s more economically important wetland complexes (Frank Lake, Alberta), restored to hydrologic permanence in the 1980s using urban and agro-industrial effluents. Optical analyses and PARAFAC (parallel factor analysis) modelling showed a clear compositional change from more bioavailable and protein-like DOM at effluent input sites to more aromatic and humic-like at the wetland outflow, likely due to DOM processing and inputs from marsh plants and wetland soils. Microbial incubations showed that effluent DOM was rapidly consumed, with the half-life of DOM increasing from as low as 35 days for effluent, to 462 days at the outflow, as a function of compositional shifts toward aromatic, humic-like material. Long-term averaged dissolved organic carbon (DOC) export was low compared to many wetlands (10.3 ± 2.0 g C m⁻² yr⁻¹). Consistent with predictions based on water residence time, our mass balance showed Frank Lake was a net source of DOM across all measured years, but shifted from a source to sink among wet and drought years that respectively shortened or lengthened the water residence and DOM processing times. Overall, Frank Lake processes and transforms effluent DOM, despite being a longer-term net source of DOM to downstream environments. 

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5. Endocrine Modulation of Sending and Receiving Signals in Context-Dependent Social Communication

   https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icab074  

   Maruska, Karen P; Butler, Julie M (May 2021, Integrative and Comparative Biology)

   Abstract Animal communication requires senders to transmit signals through the environment to conspecific receivers, which then leads to context-dependent behavioral decisions. Sending and receiving sensory information in social contexts, however, can be dramatically influenced by an individual’s internal state, particularly in species that cycle in and out of breeding or other physiological condition like nutritional state or social status. Modulatory substances like steroids, peptides, and biogenic amines can influence both the substrates used for sending social signals (e.g., motivation centers, sensorimotor pathways, and muscles) as well as the peripheral sensory organs and central neural circuitry involved in the reception of this information and subsequent execution of behavioral responses. This issue highlights research from neuroethologists on the topic of modulation of sending and receiving social signals and demonstrates that it can occur in both males and females, in different senses at both peripheral sensory organs and the brain, at different levels of biological organization, on different temporal scales, in various social contexts, and across many diverse vertebrate taxa. Modifying a signal produced by a sender or how that signal is perceived in a receiver provides flexibility in communication and has broad implications for influencing social decisions like mate choice, which ultimately affects reproductive fitness and species persistence. This phenomenon of modulators and internal physiological state impacting communication abilities is likely more widespread than currently realized and we hope this issue inspires others working on diverse systems to examine this topic from different perspectives. An integrative and comparative approach will advance discovery in this field and is needed to better understand how endocrine modulation contributes to sexual selection and the evolution of animal communication in general. 

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