Can names shape facial appearance?

Our given name is a social tag associated with us early in life. This study investigates the possibility of a self-fulfilling prophecy effect wherein individuals' facial appearance develops over time to resemble the social stereotypes associated with given names. Leveraging the face-name matching effect, which demonstrates an ability to match adults' names to their faces, we hypothesized that individuals would resemble their social stereotype (name) in adulthood but not in childhood. To test this hypothesis, children and adults were asked to match faces and names of children and adults. Results revealed that both adults and children correctly matched adult faces to their corresponding names, significantly above the chance level. However, when it came to children's faces and names, participants were unable to make accurate associations. Complementing our lab studies, we employed a machine-learning framework to process facial image data and found that facial representations of adults with the same name were more similar to each other than to those of adults with different names. This pattern of similarity was absent among the facial representations of children, thereby strengthening the case for the self-fulfilling prophecy hypothesis. Furthermore, the face-name matching effect was evident for adults but not for children's faces that were artificially aged to resemble adults, supporting the conjectured role of social development in this effect. Together, these findings suggest that even our facial appearance can be influenced by a social factor such as our name, confirming the potent impact of social expectations.

The positive effect of physical constraints on consumer evaluations of service providers.

Consumers tend to have negative perceptions of service providers that limit their freedom. People might therefore be expected to respond particularly negatively to service providers that physically limit their freedom of movement. Yet, we suggest that physical constraints that a service provider unapologetically imposes with no obvious logical justification (e.g., closing a door and restricting consumers to stay inside a room) may, in fact, boost consumers' evaluations of the service provider. We propose that this effect occurs because consumers perceive such constraints as creating a structured environment, which they inherently value. Six studies lend converging support to these propositions, while ruling out alternative accounts (cognitive dissonance, self-attribution theory). We further show that the positive effect of physical constraints on evaluations is reversed when consumers perceive the constraints as excessively restrictive (rather than mild). These findings suggest that service providers may benefit from creating consumption conditions that mildly restrict consumers' freedom of movement.

Can Social Support on Facebook Influence Fertility Outcomes?

Social support is known to reduce stress and increase quality of life among patients undergoing IVF. Increasing social media use introduces a social support mechanism, yet data regarding the effect of this support on IVF outcomes are scarce. This observational, retrospective cohort study included women undergoing their first IVF cycle at an academic tertiary medical center. Fertility outcomes were compared between 82 women who were active users of social media (posting on Facebook at least 3 times a week) and 83 women who did not use Facebook or any other social media platform (the control group). For the social media group, we coded all Facebook Feed activities (Posts, Comments, Likes) for each participant up to 8 weeks prior to beta hCG test. Social support was measured by average Likes and Comments per post, on fertility outcomes. The social media group included more single women than the control group (17% vs. 5%, respectively, p = 0.012) and had a shorter infertility duration (1.6 ± 0.9 years vs. 2.3 ± 1.4, respectively, p = 0.001(. We found a trend in fertilization rates between groups (social media group 58% vs. controls 50%, p = 0.07). No difference was found regarding pregnancy rate between groups (p = 0.587). The social media group had a lower miscarriage rate compared to the controls (6% vs. 25%, p = 0.042). These results were also validated in the multivariant regression analysis. Social support (via Facebook) may have a positive effect on IVF outcomes, especially regarding miscarriages rate, with minor effect regrading fertilization rate and no effect regarding pregnancy rate. Therefore, encouraging women to be active on Facebook during treatment, including OPU day, may impact treatment results.

Sustainable online communities exhibit distinct hierarchical structures across scales of size.

As humans, we are uniquely competent at incorporating ourselves into groups that scale up from a few members to millions of individuals to engage in joint activities in social circles of varying sizes. Yet, the question of how a group's survival depends on its social structure is not well understood. In an analysis of more than 10 122 real-life online communities (with a total of 134 147 members) hosted by a leading platform over periods of more than a decade, we observe a prominent structural difference between stable and unstable communities, enabling the prediction of sustainability up to a decade ahead. We find that communities that fail to maintain a typical hierarchical social structure that preserves cohesiveness across size scales do not survive, while communities that exhibit such balance prevail. This difference is observable in as early as the first 30 days of a community's lifetime, enabling prediction of community sustainability up to 10 years in the future. We theorize that communities comprising distinct social structures that balance global and local factors across scales of sizes are more likely to maintain sustainability.

We look like our names: The manifestation of name stereotypes in facial appearance.

Research demonstrates that facial appearance affects social perceptions. The current research investigates the reverse possibility: Can social perceptions influence facial appearance? We examine a social tag that is associated with us early in life-our given name. The hypothesis is that name stereotypes can be manifested in facial appearance, producing a face-name matching effect, whereby both a social perceiver and a computer are able to accurately match a person's name to his or her face. In 8 studies we demonstrate the existence of this effect, as participants examining an unfamiliar face accurately select the person's true name from a list of several names, significantly above chance level. We replicate the effect in 2 countries and find that it extends beyond the limits of socioeconomic cues. We also find the effect using a computer-based paradigm and 94,000 faces. In our exploration of the underlying mechanism, we show that existing name stereotypes produce the effect, as its occurrence is culture-dependent. A self-fulfilling prophecy seems to be at work, as initial evidence shows that facial appearance regions that are controlled by the individual (e.g., hairstyle) are sufficient to produce the effect, and socially using one's given name is necessary to generate the effect. Together, these studies suggest that facial appearance represents social expectations of how a person with a specific name should look. In this way a social tag may influence one's facial appearance. (PsycINFO Database Record

Edge removal balances preferential attachment and triad closing.

Most network formation analysis studies are centered on edge addition. However, edges in real world networks often have a rapid turnover with a large number of edges added and removed between each node addition or removal steps. In such a case, quasiequilibrium is obtained between edge addition and deletion. Edges have been shown to be added to nodes with a high degree and between pairs of nodes with a high number of common neighbors. If not balanced by a degree dependent edge removal, the preference for high degree nodes and node pairs with many common neighbors is expected to increase the average degree of high degree nodes and their clustering coefficient until very large cliques will be formed. Since such large cliques are not formed in real world networks, we conclude that the edge removal probability around high degree nodes and between node pairs with many common neighbors should be higher than around other nodes. We here show the existence of such a balancing mechanism through the relation between the future edge removal probability around nodes and their degree and a similar relation between the edge removal probability and the number of common neighbors of node pairs. In some networks, this preferential detachment process represents an explicit saturation process, and in others, it represents a random deletion process accompanied by a sublinear edge preferential attachment process. A more complex mechanism emerges in directed networks where the preferential detachment can be proportional to the in and out degrees of the nodes involved. In such networks, preferential detachment is stronger for the incoming edges than for the outgoing edges. We hypothesize multiple possible mechanisms that could explain this phenomenon.

Successful treatment of doxorubicin and cisplatin resistant hepatoblastoma in a child with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome with high dose acetaminophen and N-acetylcysteine rescue.

High dose acetaminophen (HDAC) with N-acetylcysteine (NAC) has been effective in adults with advanced malignancies. We report HDAC with NAC in a child with progressive hepatoblastoma, confirmed at biopsy of an unresectable hepatic mass. Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) increased despite four courses of doxorubicin and one course of cisplatin, 5-flurouracil, and vincristine. Following HDAC with NAC, AFP markedly decreased. A continued response without toxicity was observed during four subsequent courses of HDAC with NAC and cisplatin. The residual necrotic tumor was resected. The child is now over 8 years disease free. HDAC and NAC are effective and well tolerated for progressive hepatoblastoma.

Finding your innovation sweet spot.

Most new product ideas are either uninspired or impractical. So how can developers hit the innovation sweet spot--far enough from existing products to attract real interest but close enough that they are feasible to make and market? They can apply five innovation patterns that manipulate existing components of a product and its immediate environment to come up with something both ingenious and viable, say the authors. The subtraction pattern works by removing product components, particularly those that seem desirable or indispensable. Think of the legless high chair that attaches to the kitchen table. The multiplication pattern makes one or more copies of an existing component, then alters those copies in some important way. For example, the Gillette double-bladed razor features a second blade that cuts whiskers at a slightly different angle. By dividing an existing product into its component parts--the division pattern--you can see something that was an integrated whole in an entirely different light. Think of the modern home stereo--it has modular speakers, tuners, and CD and tape players, which allow users to customize their sound systems. The task unification pattern involves assigning a new task to an existing product element or environmental attribute, thereby unifying two tasks in a single component. An example is the defrosting filament in an automobile windshield that also serves as a radio antenna. Finally, the attribute dependency pattern alters or creates the dependent relationships between a product and its environment. For example, by creating a dependent relationship between lens color and external lighting conditions, eyeglass developers came up with a lens that changes color when exposed to sunlight.

World-size global markets lead to economic instability.

Economic and cultural globalization is one of the most important processes humankind has been undergoing lately. This process is assumed to be leading the world into a wealthy society with a better life. However, the current trend of globalization is not unprecedented in human history, and has had some severe consequences in the past. By applying a quantitative analysis through a microscopic representation we show that globalization, besides being unfair (with respect to wealth distribution), is also unstable and potentially dangerous as one event may lead to a collapse of the system. It is proposed that the optimal solution in controlling the unwanted aspects and enhancing the advantageous ones lies in limiting competition to large subregions, rather than making it worldwide.