Local and distributed cortical markers of effort expenditure during sustained goal pursuit

The adaptive adjustment of behavior in pursuit of desired goals is critical for survival. To accomplish this complex feat, individuals must weigh the potential benefits of a given course of action against time, energy, and resource costs. Prior research in this domain has greatly advanced understanding of the cortico-striatal circuits that support the anticipation and receipt of desired outcomes, characterizing core aspects of subjective valuation at discrete points in time. However, motivated goal pursuit is not a static or cost neutral process and the brain mechanisms that underlie individual differences in the dynamic updating of effort expenditure across time remain unclear. Here, 38 healthy right-handed participants underwent functional MRI (fMRI) while completing a novel paradigm to examine their willingness to exert physical effort over a prolonged trial, either to obtain monetary rewards or avoid punishments. During sustained goal pursuit, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) response scaled with trial-to-trial differences in effort expenditure as a function of both monetary condition and eventual task earnings. Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) searchlights were used to examine relations linking prior trial-level effort expenditure to subsequent brain responses to feedback. At reward feedback, whole-brain searchlights identified signals reflecting past effort expenditure in dorsal and ventral mPFC, encompassing broad swaths of frontoparietal and dorsal attention networks. These results suggest a core role for mPFC in scaling effort expenditure during sustained goal pursuit, with the subsequent tracking of effort costs following successful goal attainment extending to incorporate distributed brain networks that support executive functioning and externally oriented attention.Significance StatementHistorically, much of the research on subjective valuation has focused on discrete points in time. Here, we examine brain responses associated with willingness to exert physical effort during the sustained pursuit of desired goals. Our analyses reveal a distributed pattern of brain activity encompassing aspects of ventral mPFC that tracks with trial-level variability in effort expenditure. Indicating that the brain represents echoes of effort at the point of feedback, searchlight analyses revealed signals associated with past effort expenditure in broad swaths of dorsal and medial PFC. These data have important implications for the study of how the brain’s valuation mechanisms contend with the complexity of real-world dynamic environments with relevance for the study of behavior across health and disease.

What’s past is prologue: history, current status and future prospects of library development in Bhutan

Purpose This paper aims to outline the history of libraries in Bhutan, to describe the current state of library development and to recommend priority areas for library enhancement. Design/methodology/approach The authors have worked extensively as library professionals in Bhutan and share factual details derived from their personal experience. They review the published literature, particularly the fieldwork of two scholars who studied Bhutan’s libraries and library workers. The authors use their own experience to interpret those findings and make suggestions for future development. Findings The paper briefly traces the evolution of print culture and the history of libraries, exploring monastic, school, college, public and national libraries. The paper examines government policies regarding education and libraries and discusses the acknowledgment of the value of libraries and the lack of actual support. Originality/value There is limited study of the history of reading culture or libraries in Bhutan. The authors document their first-hand experiences and efforts to implement systems for library resource sharing and professional development. The authors hope that this record will serve to illuminate past effort, to describe the unique information environment in Bhutan and to guide future decision-making. The authors recommend many future avenues for study, including reading habits, information-seeking behavior and attitudes toward libraries and librarians.

Timing of Communication

Using an experiment, we demonstrate that a communication regime in which a worker communicates about his intended effort is less effective in: (i) soliciting truthful information; and (ii) motivating effort than one in which he communicates about his past effort. Our experiment uses a real-effort task, which additionally allows us to demonstrate the effects of communication on effort over time. We show that the timing of communication affects the dynamic pattern of work. In both treatments, individuals are most co-operative closest to the time of communication. Our results reveal that the timing of communication is a critical feature that merits attention in the design of mechanisms for information transmission in strategic settings.

Career Concerns and the Nature of Skills

I examine how career concerns are shaped by the nature of productive actions taken by workers. A worker’s skills follow a Gaussian process with an endogenous component reflecting human-capital accumulation. Effort and skills are substitutes both in the output process (as in Holmström 1999) and in the skills technology. The focus is on deterministic equilibria by virtue of Gaussian learning. When effort and skills are direct inputs to production and skills are exogenous, effort can be inefficiently high in the beginning of a career. In contrast, when skills are the only input to production but accumulate through past effort choices, the worker always underinvests in skill acquisition. At the center of the discrepancy are two types of ex post errors that arise at interpreting output due to an identification problem faced by the market. Finally, the robustness of the underinvestment result is explored via variations in the skill-accumulation technology and in the information structure, and policy implications are discussed. (JEL D83, I26, J24, J31)

Treatment of Civilian Alien Enemies

A large-scale problem for the principal belligerents in the present war is that of the treatment of civilians of enemy nationality in their respective jurisdictions. Measured in terms of the number of human beings involved, national safety considerations, and the possibly unfortunate effect at home of mishandling it, the problem assumes far-reaching importance. There is need for clear law as well as positive action. There is need for perspective. In relation to international law, the distinctiveness of the classification of “civilian alien enemy,” past effort looking to the construction of internationally binding rules prescribing treatment, and practice in the current war, merit attention.

Clauses Relating to Reference of Disputes in Obligatory Arbitration Treaties

The shaping of agreements which are to impose new obligations upon states requires regard for political experience as well as high technical skill. The record of past effort seems to show that this is particularly true of treaties for pacific settlement. Among the problems incident to the construction of treaties for the arbitral settlement of future disputes, perhaps none is more central than that of the form in which the right actually to initiate arbitral proceedings is set forth. It is obvious that academic schemes which would disregard the dignity of public entities and suddenly abolish the distinction between states and individuals as parties litigant, leave much to be desired. On the other hand, the object of a treaty may be defeated by subtle preservatives of the full freedom of ction by the parties, or by what has been called a “misguided passion for juristic definition” on the part of draftsmen. It has long been recognized that unless the part of a general agreement covering the method of referring disputes is adequate, a strict construction of the instrument may leave it little more than the expression of a noble wish. Evasion or frank disregard may easily follow.