How animals use sensory information to weigh the risks vs. benefits of behavioral decisions remains poorly understood. Inter-male aggression is triggered when animals perceive both the presence of an appetitive resource, such as food or females, and of competing conspecific males. How such signals are detected and integrated to control the decision to fight is not clear. For instance, it is unclear whether food increases aggression directly, or as a secondary consequence of increased social interactions caused by attraction to food. Here we use the vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to investigate the manner by which food influences aggression. We show that food promotes aggression in flies, and that it does so independently of any effect on frequency of contact between males, increase in locomotor activity or general enhancement of social interactions. Importantly, the level of aggression depends on the absolute amount of food, rather than on its surface area or concentration. When food resources exceed a certain level, aggression is diminished, suggestive of reduced competition. Finally, we show that detection of sugar via Gr5a+ gustatory receptor neurons (GRNs) is necessary for food-promoted aggression. These data demonstrate that food exerts a specific effect to promote aggression in male flies, and that this effect is mediated, at least in part, by sweet-sensing GRNs.

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Successful delivery of a photosensitizer into the skin is an important factor for effective photodynamic therapy (PDT). The effective method to increase drug penetration within short incubation time overcoming skin barrier have been investigated. This study was performed to analyze and compare the effectiveness of ablative fractional laser (FXL) pretreatment and/or sonophoresis for enhancing the penetration of 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) into human skin in vivo. Twenty-four identical 1 × 1 cm treatment areas were mapped on the backs of ten healthy male subjects. Each area received FXL pretreatment and/or sonophoresis with different energy settings and ALA incubation times. After treatments, porphyrin fluorescence reflecting the ALA penetration were measured. Application of ablative CO FXL pretreatment resulted to higher fluorescence intensities than the non-treatment group. Incubation times were positively correlated with the increments of ALA penetration. However, increasing pulse energy or combining with sonophoresis did not show additional positive effects on ALA penetration. Ablative CO FXL pretreatment effectively facilitated ALA penetration in human skin in vivo. Ablative CO FXL alone without sonophoresis setting pulse energy of 10 and 20 mJ with more than 60 min of ALA incubation time could be an ideal setting for ALA penetration.

Our study aims to deepen the understanding of personalized digital nudges by evaluating their effects on energy‐saving behavior. We conducted a field experiment with a leading smart metering company in South Korea to investigate whether customers save more energy when a personalized goal and feedback are provided, and how the impacts of nudges vary according to the types of misperception. Specifically, we focused on the behavior of customers who underestimate or overestimate their past electricity usage compared to their actual consumption. We merged daily energy consumption with a pre‐experiment survey for the customers. We found that goal‐setting and feedback mechanisms have a markedly different impact on each type of misperception. Underestimating customers reduced energy consumption only under the “goal‐setting with feedback" treatment. Conversely, overestimating customers reduced energy consumption even under the “goal‐setting without feedback" condition. The underlying mechanism is suggested as updating biased beliefs toward goal achievement. Overall, the results demonstrate that personalized nudges lead to heterogeneous behavioral responses and that service providers and policymakers can use these signals to enrich their planning of behavioral nudges.

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