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

加州社会科学实验实验室（CASSEL）可能是世界上致力于社会科学实验工作的最先进的研究实验室。CASSEL一直并将继续被加州大学洛杉矶分校（经济、政治科学和人类学系、安德森管理研究生院、法学院）和加州理工学院（人文和社会科学系）以及许多其他远近机构（包括布朗大学、克莱蒙特中心、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社会科学系长期致力于支持CASSEL，提供空间、维护和运营资金。在该提案中，PI要求NSF提供资金用于主要设备升级（服务器，课题计算机和辅助设备），以继续和扩大CASSEL在社会科学实验工作中的重要作用。CASSEL的设备需要升级的原因有很多：1)由于计算机接近其正常使用寿命的结束，因此需要更换计算机（目前的主题计算机和服务器速度不够快，无法进行一些实验所需的计算）；2)为了进行大型实验，需要加快受试者注册和支付的方法（为此，实验室需要建立电子注册和支付系统）；3)现有设备不允许对受试者之间的通信进行监控或对此类通信进行监控；4)卡塞尔吗?需要加强外展能力，以便可以远程运行实验；5) CASSEL的附属设备，包括投影仪、复印机等已达到或超过其正常使用寿命。智力择优实验被用来发展和改善私人和公共机构的组织和绩效。所请求的资金将产生高投资回报，因为正如项目描述中详细记录的那样，CASSEL被来自各种机构的大量学生和研究人员广泛使用。拟议的改进将保持和扩大CASSEL的可用性，为广泛的研究人员和教育工作者提供服务，这些社区远远超出了我们的机构，使其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”原则组织的。它提供了一个用户友好的设施，使没有实验室访问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。它既是跨学科的，也是大学间的设施。在过去的两年里，超过50%的使用是由非加州大学洛杉矶分校的研究人员提供的，这表明了实验室的扩展。在卡塞尔进行的研究拓宽了我们对决策、市场和制度的理解。这项研究导致了理论模型的进步，以及这些模型与经验数据的联系，以及实验方法的进步。此外，CASSEL是研究生研究人员的重要训练基地，并举办了大量使用实验方法的新生研讨会。最后，CASSEL在开发和测试新的实验软件（如Multistage和jMarkets）和招聘/调度软件方面发挥着重要作用，这些软件在许多其他实验实验室中使用，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.