On the (Mis)Use of Deception in Web-Based Research

The deception of research participants remains a controversial issue in the behavioral sciences. Current ethics codes consistently limit the use of deception to cases in which non-deceptive alternatives are unfeasible and, crucially, require that participants subjected to deception be debriefed correspondingly along with an option to withdraw their data after learning about the deception. These conditions pose a particular challenge in the context of web-based research because participants can typically discontinue a study unilaterally (i.e., dropout by simply closing the browser window) in which case full debriefing and an option to withdraw one’s data are no longer available. As a consequence, the study would no longer be compatible with ethical standards. Based on recent meta-analytical data, we provide an existence proof of this problem, showing that deception is used in web-based research with little to no indication of safeguards ensuring full debriefing and subsequent data withdrawal options. We close by revisiting recommendations for the (non-)use of deception in web-based research and offer solutions to implement such safeguards in case deception is truly unavoidable.

The early bonobo gets the juice? The evolutionary roots of pre-crastination in bonobos (Pan paniscus)

This paper is to appear in Animal Behavior and Cognition. ----- Pre-crastination refers to the propensity to initiate tasks at the earliest possible moment. Research with human adults has found that some individuals consistently chose to transport a nearby object a further distance rather than delay initiation of the transport to select an object closer to the target. This phenomenon has never been tested in animals using analogous methods. Consequently, we tested bonobos – the species most closely related to humans - using two versions of a comparable transport task. Overall, we found that all five bonobos tended to select the first object they encountered to transport to the goal. Unlike humans, the bonobos sometimes transported both available objects. Two of the five bonobos consistently pre-crastinated, a similar proportion to that found in human experiments. However, if the pre-crastination choice was non-functional, the bonobos chose the motorically efficient choice. In sum, our findings provide an existence proof for pre-crastination tendencies in some bonobos, akin to the distribution of this trait in humans. We discuss the possibility that the pre-crastination choice represents an automatic response triggered by the affordances of the objects encountered.

Construction of excited multi-solitons for the 5D energy-critical wave equation

For the 5D energy-critical wave equation, we construct excited [Formula: see text]-solitons with collinear speeds, i.e. solutions [Formula: see text] of the equation such that [Formula: see text] where for [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] is the Lorentz transform of a non-degenerate and sufficiently decaying excited state, each with different but collinear speeds. The existence proof follows the ideas of Martel–Merle [Construction of multi-solitons for the energy-critical wave equation in dimension 5, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 222(3) (2016) 1113–1160] and Côte–Martel [Multi-travelling waves for the nonlinear Klein–Gordon equation, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 370(10) (2018) 7461–7487] developed for the energy-critical wave and nonlinear Klein–Gordon equations. In particular, we rely on an energy method and on a general coercivity property for the linearized operator.

Classification of $ \mathbf{(3 \!\mod 5)} $ arcs in $ \mathbf{ \operatorname{PG}(3,5)} $

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>The proof of the non-existence of Griesmer <inline-formula><tex-math id="M3">\begin{document}$ [104, 4, 82]_5 $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>-codes is just one of many examples where extendability results are used. In a series of papers Landjev and Rousseva have introduced the concept of <inline-formula><tex-math id="M4">\begin{document}$ (t\mod q) $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>-arcs as a general framework for extendability results for codes and arcs. Here we complete the known partial classification of <inline-formula><tex-math id="M5">\begin{document}$ (3 \mod 5) $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>-arcs in <inline-formula><tex-math id="M6">\begin{document}$ \operatorname{PG}(3,5) $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> and uncover two missing, rather exceptional, examples disproving a conjecture of Landjev and Rousseva. As also the original non-existence proof of Griesmer <inline-formula><tex-math id="M7">\begin{document}$ [104, 4, 82]_5 $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>-codes is affected, we present an extended proof to fill this gap.</p>

Nonstandard micro-inertia terms in the relaxed micromorphic model: well-posedness for dynamics

We study the existence of solutions arising from the modelling of elastic materials using generalized theories of continua. In view of some evidence from physics of metamaterials, we focus our effort on two recent nonstandard relaxed micromorphic models including novel micro-inertia terms. These novel micro-inertia terms are needed to better capture the band-gap response. The existence proof is based on the Banach fixed-point theorem.

Exact computation for existence of a knot counterexample

Previously, numerical evidence was presented of a self-intersecting Bezier curve having the unknot for its control polygon. This numerical demonstration resolved open questions in scientic visualization, but did not provide a formal proof of self-intersection. An example with a formal existence proof is given, even while the exact self-intersection point remains undetermined.

Mass-conserving solutions to the Smoluchowski coagulation equation with singular kernel

Global weak solutions to the continuous Smoluchowski coagulation equation (SCE) are constructed for coagulation kernels featuring an algebraic singularity for small volumes and growing linearly for large volumes, thereby extending previous results obtained in Norris (1999) and Cueto Camejo & Warnecke (2015). In particular, linear growth at infinity of the coagulation kernel is included and the initial condition may have an infinite second moment. Furthermore, all weak solutions (in a suitable sense) including the ones constructed herein are shown to be mass-conserving, a property which was proved in Norris (1999) under stronger assumptions. The existence proof relies on a weak compactness method in L1 and a by-product of the analysis is that both conservative and non-conservative approximations to the SCE lead to weak solutions which are then mass-conserving.