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People are exposed to persuasive communication across many different contexts: Governments, companies, and political parties use persuasive appeals to encourage people to eat healthier, purchase a particular product, or vote for a specific candidate. Laboratory studies show that such persuasive appeals are more effective in influencing behavior when they are tailored to individuals’ unique psychological characteristics. However, the investigation of large-scale psychological persuasion in the real world has been hindered by the questionnaire-based nature of psychological assessment. Recent research, however, shows that people’s psychological characteristics can be accurately predicted from their digital footprints, such as their Facebook Likes or Tweets. Capitalizing on this form of psychological assessment from digital footprints, we test the effects of psychological persuasion on people’s actual behavior in an ecologically valid setting. In three field experiments that reached over 3.5 million individuals with psychologically tailored advertising, we find that matching the content of persuasive appeals to individuals’ psychological characteristics significantly altered their behavior as measured by clicks and purchases. Persuasive appeals that were matched to people’s extraversion or openness-to-experience level resulted in up to 40% more clicks and up to 50% more purchases than their mismatching or unpersonalized counterparts. Our findings suggest that the application of psychological targeting makes it possible to influence the behavior of large groups of people by tailoring persuasive appeals to the psychological needs of the target audiences. We discuss both the potential benefits of this method for helping individuals make better decisions and the potential pitfalls related to manipulation and privacy.

Forest restoration requires strategies such as passive restoration to balance financial investments and ecological outcomes. However, the ecological outcomes of passive restoration are traditionally regarded as uncertain. We evaluated technical and legal strategies for balancing economic costs and ecological outcomes of passive versus active restoration in agricultural landscapes. We focused in the case of Brazil, where we assessed the factors driving the proportion of land allocated to passive and active restoration in 42 programs covering 698,398 hectares of farms in the Atlantic Forest, Atlantic Forest/cerrado ecotone and Amazon; the ecological outcomes of passive and active restoration in 2955 monitoring plots placed in six restoration programs; and the legal framework developed by some Brazilian states to balance the different restoration approaches and comply with legal commitments. Active restoration had the highest proportion of land allocated to it (78.4%), followed by passive (14.2%) and mixed restoration (7.4%). Passive restoration was higher in the Amazon, in silviculture, and when remaining forest cover was over 50 percent. Overall, both restoration approaches showed high levels of variation in the ecological outcomes; nevertheless, passively restored areas had a smaller percentage canopy cover, lower species density, and less shrubs and trees (dbh > 5 cm). The studied legal frameworks considered land abandonment for up to 4 years before deciding on a restoration approach, to favor the use of passive restoration. A better understanding of the biophysical and socioeconomic features of areas targeted for restoration is needed to take a better advantage of their natural regeneration potential.

In modern human cultures where social hierarchies are ubiquitous, people typically signal their hierarchical position through consumption of positional goods—goods that convey one’s social position, such as luxury products. Building on animal research and early correlational human studies linking the sex steroid hormone testosterone with hierarchical social interactions, we investigate the influence of testosterone on men’s preferences for positional goods. Using a placebo-controlled experiment ( N  = 243) to measure individuals’ desire for status brands and products, we find that administering testosterone increases men’s preference for status brands, compared to brands of similar perceived quality but lower perceived status. Furthermore, testosterone increases positive attitudes toward positional goods when they are described as status-enhancing, but not when they are described as power-enhancing or high in quality. Our results provide novel causal evidence for the biological roots of men’s preferences for status, bridging decades of animal behavioral studies with contemporary consumer research. Testosterone is believed to be involved in social rank-related behavior. Here, the authors show that one dose of testosterone increases men’s preference for “high status” goods and brands, suggesting a role for testosterone in modern consumer behavior in men.

The growing demands of electrification are driving research into new electronic materials. These electronic materials must have high electrical conductivity, withstand harsh environments and high temperatures, and demonstrate reliable solutions as part of complete electronic packaging solutions. This study focuses on characterizing the manufacturing process of transient liquid-phase sintering (TLPS) of alloys in a paste form as candidates for high-temperature and high-power electronic materials. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the factors and decouple the multiple cross effects occurring during the first stage of TLPS processing in order to improve the understanding of material evolution. We conduct in situ electrical resistivity tests to directly measure material properties and analyze the dynamics and different stages of the material's evolution. We explore various factors, including alloying elements, organic binders, and heating rates, to understand their effects on the formation of electrical performance in electronic materials. More specifically, we will examine the performance of Ag-In and Ag-Sn TLPS paste systems. Additionally, we examine the packing density and changes in cross section using imaging techniques and image processing to gain insights into the early formation of the material's structural backbone. This investigation not only sheds light on the material's behavior but also has implications for robust additive manufacturing (AM) applications.

We report new experimental hyperfine structure (HFS) constants of neutral and singly ionized scandium (Sc i and Sc ii). We observed spectra of Sc–Ar and Sc–Ne hollow cathode discharges in the region 200–2500 nm (50,000–4000 cm−1) using Fourier transform spectrometers. The measurements show significant HFS patterns in 1431 spectral lines fitted in our 12 spectra given in Table 1. These were fitted using the computer package Xgremlin to determine the magnetic dipole hyperfine interaction constant (A) for 185 levels in Sc i and 6 levels in Sc ii, of which 80 Sc i levels had no previous measurements. The uncertainty in the HFS A constant is between 1 × 10−4 and 5 × 10−4 cm−1.

Matz, Kosinski, Nave and Stillwell point out that the optimization algorithms of Facebook's advertising platform constitute a potential confound of campaign outcomes. They agree, in general, that such algorithms could pose a threat to the validity of field studies since they introduce unintended variance across the target audiences. However, as they demonstrate, it is unlikely that such confounds account for the pattern of results presented in their original research. Taken together, they believe that their findings provide robust evidence for the effectiveness of real-life psychological targeting. Having said that, they encourage other researchers to replicate and further generalize our findings and to conduct additional rigorous tests by leveraging some of the recently introduced Facebook features that allow for unbiased A/B testing of advertisements.

Objective Possible pleiotropic effects of apolipoprotein E4 (APOE E4) in individuals with congenital brain malformations are relatively unknown. Our goal was to determine if neurodegeneration‐linked brain region volumes differ significantly between E4 carriers and noncarriers in young adults with spina bifida (SB). Methods Eleven individuals ( > 18 years), genotyped for APOE, underwent neuroimaging and neurocognitive evaluation. Primary analysis: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from 10 a priori neurodegeneration‐risk regions of interest were compared between E4 carriers and noncarriers, adjusting for age, sex, and total intracranial volume (FDR‐adjusted p < 0.05). Secondary analyses: Age‐adjusted neurocognitive standard scores were compared between groups (p < 0.05). Post hoc analyses of NeuroQuant‐derived regional brain volumes were examined for combined group differences in young adults with SB. Results Comparison of a priori risk region volumes revealed significantly lower left amygdala volumes (FDR‐adjusted p = 0.04) in young adult E4 carriers (n = 4) relative to noncarriers (n = 7). Neurocognitive data were not significantly different between the groups. A possible trend was detected for enlarged parietal volumes in E4 carriers (p = 0.07), while volumetric extremes ( > 95% or < 5%) were detected for the anterior cingulate (100% of cases; p = 0.001), frontal cortices (90% of cases), hippocampus (80% of cases), and entorhinal cortices (70% of cases). Interpretation Early left amygdala volumetric reduction was found in E4 carriers; combined group volume comparisons revealed frontal and temporal lobe differences in young adults with SB relative to age‐ and sex‐matched volumetric estimates. This pilot investigation does not appear to support E4 conferring a pleiotropic benefit in young adults with SB but rather supports further investigation of MRI volumetrics as a possible biomarker for this population.

Measurement of forage mass is critical to the management of forage allowance in grazing systems. The rising plate meter (RPM) was developed to monitor forage mass quickly and easily; however, it must be calibrated to provide reliable calculations of forage mass and the calibration coefficients may vary across seasons. Our objective was to investigate seasonal patterns in calibrations of the RPM for estimating forage mass in six cool-season grass swards in Ohio. The RPM reading was highly significant (P < 0.01) in explaining variation in forage mass across sites and weeks; however, the RPM × week, RPM × site, and RPM × week × site interactions (P < 0.01) for forage mass indicated the relationship between RPM reading and forage mass varied among sites and over time. At one site, the RPM to forage mass relationship was investigated for three cool-season grass species, but the RPM × species and RPM × week × species interactions were not significant (P > 0.05). Although there was variation among and within sites for the slope coefficients of forage mass regressed on RPM reading, a broadly similar seasonal pattern was found at most sites. The slope coefficients were usually high in early spring, decreased rapidly during the first weeks of the growing season, and then increased from early summer to the autumn. We concluded the RPM should be calibrated at least monthly over the growing season to define the seasonal pattern and changes in the slope coefficients for forage mass regressed on RPM readings.

Soil organic matter (SOM) in managed grasslands have economic and environmental benefits. This experiment evaluated a stockpiled winter grazing system with two summer management treatments (grazing or hay harvest) and three forage species treatments: tall fescue (TF, Schedonorus arundinaceus Schreb.), switchgrass (SG, Panicum virgatum L.), and mixed big bluestem–Indiangrass [BBIG, Andropogon gerardii Vitman–Sorghastrum nutans (L.) Nash]. Soil was sampled on 18 dates (January 2016–July 2017) at two depths (0–5 and 5–15 cm) in 15 paddocks in central Tennessee. Total organic carbon and total nitrogen concentrations in 0–5‐cm samples were greater in grazed paddocks relative to hay harvest, and greater in TF relative to BBIG and SG. Summer grazing also resulted in greater 0–5‐cm permanganate‐oxidizable carbon (POXC) and 5–15 cm hot‐water extract ultraviolet absorbance at 254 nm (A254). Hot‐water extractable carbon, A254, and POXC concentrations were reduced in SG soils compared with TF and BBIG. Summer hay harvests, compared with grazing, reduced hot‐water extractable C/N in both soil horizons in TF. The interactions between management and plant species suggests contrasting nutrient cycling associated with TF and the morphologically different native grasses BBIG and SG. This study represents the first observations of soil impacts within stockpiled grazing systems and the first observations of grazed native grass species in the southeastern United States.