Five-year-olds understand fair as equal in a mini-ultimatum game.

In studies of children's resource distribution, it is almost always the case that "fair" means an equal amount for all. In the mini-ultimatum game, players are confronted with situations in which fair does not always mean equal, and so the recipient of an offer needs to take into account the alternatives the proposer had available to her or him. Because of its forced-choice design, the mini-ultimatum game measures sensitivity to unfair intentions in addition to unfair outcomes. In the current study, we gave a mini-ultimatum game to 5-year-old children, allowing us to determine the nature of fairness sensitivity at a period after false belief awareness is typically passed and before formal schooling begins. The only situation in which responders rejected offers was when the proposer could have made an equal offer. But unlike adults, they did not employ more sophisticated notions of fairness that take into account the choices facing the proposer. Proposers, in their turn, were also not adult-like in that they had a very poor understanding that responders would reject unequal offers when an equal one was available. Thus, preschool children seem to understand "fair=equal" in this task, but not much more, and they are not yet skillful at anticipating what others will find fair beyond 50/50 splits.

Failure of a short-term antibiotic therapy for human brucellosis using ciprofloxacin. A study on in vitro susceptibility of Brucella strains.

BACKGROUND: Human brucellosis is characterized byfocal complications, chronic courses, and therapeutic failures. METHODS: In a relapsed case of brucellosis after short-term antibiotic therapy using doxycycline and ciprofloxacin two Brucella strains were isolated, before and after treatment. In vitro susceptibilities of both isolates were determined by E tests including a great variety of antibiotics. In a killing rate experiment the bactericidal activities of doxycycline, streptomycin, rifampin and ciprofloxacin as single agents and in combinations were determined. RESULTS: Lowest MIC values were measured for doxycycline and ciprofloxacin. MICs did not change under therapy. Streptomycin alone exhibited the most effective killing within 6 h, whereas the other single agents did not show bactericidal activity. Doxycycline plus ciprofloxacin was the most active combination in vitro. CONCLUSION: Routine susceptibility testing of Brucellae is not obligatory as most of the 'traditional' anti-Brucella antibiotics are active in vitro and bactericidal efficacy may differ in vivo.