CI-ADDO-EN: Enhancement and Operation of the California Social Science Experimental Laboratory - CASSEL

加州社会科学实验室（CASSEL）也许是世界上最先进的研究实验室，致力于社会科学的实验工作。 CASSEL已经并将继续被加州大学洛杉矶分校（经济学系、政治学系和人类学系、安德森管理研究生院、法学院）和加州理工学院（人文与社会科学系）以及附近和远处的许多其他机构（包括布朗大学、克莱蒙中心、加州大学欧文分校和北京大学）的教师和研究生用于研究和培训。 加州大学洛杉矶分校的社会科学部门长期致力于支持CASSEL，提供空间，维护和运营资金。在这项提案中，PI要求NSF为主要设备升级（服务器，主题计算机和辅助设备）提供资金，以继续和扩大CASSEL在社会科学实验工作中的重要作用。 CASSEL的设备需要升级，原因如下：1）计算机的正常使用寿命即将结束，需要更换（当前的受试者计算机和服务器速度不够快，无法执行进行某些实验所需的计算）; 2）为了运行大型实验，受试者注册和支付的方法需要加快（要做到这一点，实验室需要建立电子注册和支付系统）; 3）目前的设备不允许监测受试者之间的通信或监测此类通信; 4）CASSEL？5）CASSEL中的辅助设备，包括投影仪、复印机等，正在达到或已经超过其正常使用寿命。知识产权实验用于发展和改善私营和公共机构的组织和绩效。 所要求的资金将产生很高的投资回报，因为正如项目说明中详细记载的那样，CASSEL被来自各种机构的大量学生和研究人员广泛使用。 建议的增强将保持和扩大CASSEL的可用性，为广泛的研究人员和教育工作者社区，远远超出我们的机构，使它成为世界上首屈一指的社会科学研究实验室。更广泛的影响CASSEL是围绕“共享资源”的原则组织的。 它提供了一个方便用户的设施，使无法进入实验室的研究人员能够参与实验研究，并使所有研究人员能够从事大规模实验。 它既是一个跨学科和大学间的设施。 该实验室的推广的一个迹象是，在过去两年中，超过50%的使用是由非加州大学洛杉矶分校的研究人员。 在CASSEL进行的研究拓宽了我们对决策，市场和机构的理解。 这项研究导致理论模型的进步，并在这些模型的经验数据的连接，并在实验方法的进步。 此外，CASSEL是研究生研究人员的重要培训基地，并使用实验方法举办大量新生研讨会。 最后，CASSEL在开发和测试新的实验软件（如Multistage和jMarkets）和招聘/调度软件方面发挥了重要作用，这些软件在许多其他实验室中使用，并有助于促进社会科学的实验研究。

The California Social Science Experimental Laboratory (CASSEL) is perhaps the world's most advanced research laboratory devoted to experimental work in the Social Sciences. CASSEL has been and continues to be used for research and training by faculty and graduate students from UCLA (Departments of Economics, Political Science and Anthropology, Anderson Graduate School of Management, School of Law) and Caltech (Division of Humanities and Social Sciences) and many other institutions both nearby and far away, including Brown University, Claremont Center, UC Irvine, and the University of Beijing. The Division of Social Sciences at UCLA has made a long-term commitment to support CASSEL, providing space, maintenance, operating funds. In this proposal the PI is asking NSF to provide funds for major equipment upgrades (server, subject computers, and ancillary equipment) in order to continue and expand CASSEL's vital role in experimental work in the Social Sciences. Equipment in CASSEL is in need of upgrade for a number of reasons: 1) Computers are due for replacement as they are close to the end of their normal useful lives (current subject computers and servers are not fast enough to carry out the computation necessary to conduct some experiments); 2) In order to run large experiments, the method of subject signup and payment needs to be expedited (to do this, the lab needs to set up electronic signup and payment systems); 3) Current equipment does not permit monitoring of communications between subjects or the monitoring of such communications; 4) CASSEL?s outreach capabilities need to be enhanced so that experiments can be run remotely; and 5) Ancillary equipment in CASSEL including projectors, copiers, etc. is reaching or has already exceeded its normal useful life.Intellectual MeritExperiments are used to develop and improve the organization and performance of private and public institutions. The requested funds will yield a high return on investment because, as documented in detail in the Project Description, CASSEL is extensively used by a large number of students and researchers from a wide range of institutions. The proposed enhancement will maintain and expand the usability of CASSEL for broadly-based communities of researchers and educators that extend well beyond our institution, so that it becomes the premier social science research laboratory in the world.Broader ImpactCASSEL is organized around the "shared resource" principle. It provides a user-friendly facility enabling researchers without laboratory access to become involved in experimental research, and enabling all researchers to engage in large-scale experiments. It is both an interdisciplinary and an inter-university facility. One indication of the lab's outreach is that in the last two years over 50% of the usage was by non-UCLA researchers. Research conducted at CASSEL broadens our understanding of decision-making, markets and institutions. This research leads to advances in theoretical models and in the connection of those models to empirical data, and to advances in experimental methodology. In addition, CASSEL is an important training ground for graduate student researchers, and hosts large numbers of freshmen seminars using experimental methods. Finally, CASSEL plays an important role in developing and testing of new experimental software (such as Multistage and jMarkets) and recruiting/scheduling software that is used in many other experimental laboratories and serves to facilitate experimental research in social science.