Competitive behavior has often been presented as the ultimate engine of economic, technological, and scientific progress. Since all such progress is likely to imply some measure of social benefit, competition has been widely praised in modern western culture. However, competition can have very negative effects on social wellbeing. An early example is known as the "tragedy of the commons." The c...

Authors of articles published in medical journals are often busy researchers who cannot afford time devoted to writing. Though they are experts in their own therapeutic area, more often than not, researchers find it difficult to actually write and publish their research. Professional medical writers with their expertise in writing clear, concise, comprehensible, and coherent content are often a...

This paper presents the effect of a robot’s whispering behavior on people’s motivation. Here, “whispering behavior” consists of a whispering cue and a small voice, which provides a natural sense of physical proximity in a context of confidentiality, thus increasing intimacy. A laboratory experiment was conducted to investigate this effect. In the experiment, a robot requested the participants t...

This investigation postulatesVygotsky’s (1978) concept of zone of proximal development (ZPD) and his related “scaffolding” metaphor as well as Norton’s (2006) principles of sociocultural identity as its theoretical foundation.Thisresearchintends to scrutinizethe socioculturally-oriented mediationalmechanisms utilized in student-student and student-teacher collaborationsin an Iranian EFL writing...

Online review has become an important repository for consumers to make online buying decisions. However, writing online reviews is a voluntary behavior lacking guidelines and it is hard to guarantee the review quality generated. How to improve online review quality has become a challenge to online retailers and review aggregators. In this study, we explore the design of review writing interface...

In " Writing and Writing Patterns," M^5 Marion Richardson has made a very valuab'e contribution to the art of teaching. Apart fro*11 setting forth an excellent method of teaching handwriting, these little books must help ^ child who uses them to develop an appreciatiojj of rhythm and beauty. One hopes they ^ inspire creative effort and that they shall not used merely as copy books. The examples...

A formal software verification system relies upon a software engineer writing mathematically precise specifications of intended behavior. Humans often introduce defects into such specifications. Techniques and tools capable of warning about common defects can help them develop correct specifications by finding subtle issues that would permit unintended behavior. New specification-checking techn...