This paper examines whether a human is aware of slight prosodic differences in a computer voice and changes his/her behaviors accordingly through interaction, when the prosodic difference carries informational significance. We conduct a route selection experiment, in which subjects were asked to find a route in a computer generated 3-D maze. The maze system occasionally provides a confirmation ...

We consider whether Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries are mainly poor because they are governed worse than other countries, as suggested by recent studies on the supremacy of institutions. Our empirical results show that the supremacy of institutions does not hold. SSA countries appear to face specific development problems in addition to weak institutions. Given their geographic and economic ...

where Q is an indefinite quadratic form on Z, f(m,n) is a doubly periodic function on Z such that the sums of f(m,n)q over all vertical and all horizontal lines in Z vanish. Some of these series appeared as coefficients in univalued triple Massey products on elliptic curves computed via homological mirror symmetry in [3]. In particular, in this context the condition of vanishing of sums over ve...

where Q is an indefinite quadratic form on Z, f(m,n) is a doubly periodic function on Z such that the sums of f(m,n)q over all vertical and all horizontal lines in Z vanish. Some of these series appeared as coefficients in univalued triple Massey products on elliptic curves computed via homological mirror symmetry in [3]. In particular, in this context the condition of vanishing of sums over ve...

A set of central themes, constituting both a method and an approach, demonstrated in the “Problems of...” conference series over the last quarter century, are extracted from the work of Gerard de Zeeuw. These themes are based in a consideration of and concern for improvement, and an attempt to reduce the frequently negative side-effects of attempts at improvement by creating “high quality obser...

Streptomyces graminofaciens BA14348, isolated from a soil sample, was found to produce new specific inhibitors of estrogen binding to its receptor. Five related substances, BE-14348A approximately E, were isolated, and their structures were determined by analyses of spectral properties. Of these substances, A was identical with the known flavanone, naringenin. On the other hand, B, C, D and E w...

THEODORE J. WEIMAN On July 22, 2004, the House of Representatives passed the Marriage Protection Act of 2004, a bill that would strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over cases challenging the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. Two months later, the House passed a similar bill that would curtail federal court jurisdiction for challenges to the constitutionality of the Ple...

With the end of the Supermarket Revolution in the 1970s, new forms of horizontal, vertical, and geographic competition have appeared to chaflenge the supremacy of the supermarket format. New retail formats like warehouse stores, supercenters, and fast-food outlets appear to affect local retail supermarket prices. Slotting allowances, coupons, and electronic data gathering have intensified retai...

This article examines political party behaviour around the referendums on the EU Constitutional Treaty in 2005. Starting from the presumption that this behaviour needs to be analysed in the light of the domestic government–opposition dynamics, a set of hypotheses on the causes and consequences of party behaviour in EU Treaty referendums is developed and reviewed for the EU member states in whic...