Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Are Judges Political?: An Empirical Analysis of the Federal Judiciary

Over the past two decades, the United States has seen an intense debate about the composition of the federal judiciary. Are judges "activists"? Should they stop "legislating from the bench"? Are they abusing their authority? Or are they protecting fundamental rights, in a way that is indispensable in a free society? Are Judges Political? cuts through the noise by looking at what judges actually do. Drawing on a unique data set consisting of thousands of judicial votes, Cass Sunstein and his colleagues analyze the influence of ideology on judicial voting, principally in the courts of appeal. They focus on two questions: Do judges appointed by Republican Presidents vote differently from Democratic appointees in ideologically contested cases? And do judges vote differently depending on the ideological leanings of the other judges hearing the same case? After examining votes on a broad range of issues--including abortion, affirmative action, and capital punishment--the authors do more than just confirm that Democratic and Republican appointees often vote in different ways. They inject precision into an all-too-often impressionistic debate by quantifying this effect and analyzing the conditions under which it holds. This approach sometimes generates surprising results: under certain conditions, for example, Democrat-appointed judges turn out to have more conservative voting patterns than Republican appointees. As a general rule, ideology should not and does not affect legal judgments. Frequently, the law is clear and judges simply implement it, whatever their political commitments. But what happens when the law is unclear? Are Judges Political? addresses this vital question.
Early Silurian mafic–ultramafic and granitic plutonism in contemporaneous flysch, Magerøy, northern Norway: U–Pb ages and regional significance

The Caledonian Magerøy sequence comprises Earliest Silurian clastic metasedimentary rocks, which underwent folding and regional metamorphism and were intruded by a mafic–ultramafic complex and various granitic plutons. U–Pb ages of 438.2 ± 0.7 Ma for gabbro in the Honningsvåg Igneous Complex, 438.4 ± 0.9 Ma for an associated granite and 437.7 ± 1.6 Ma for the Finnvik granite coincide within error with the age of deposition inferred from fossils demonstrating a very rapid geological evolution. Plutons of peraluminous affinity are somewhat younger at 436.0 ± 1.0 Ma (Skarsvåg granite) and 434.5 ± 1.5 Ma (a granitic dyke in the Skarsvåg Nappe). The association of flysch deposition, folding and mafic–felsic magmatism suggests formation at a trench–ridge intersection. These Early Silurian events are the expression of a period of major magmatism in a variety of settings all along the Caledonides, probably reflecting rapid convergence and subduction during closure of the Iapetus Ocean. Re-evaluation of the palaeomagnetic signature of the Honningsvåg Igneous Complex indicates that at the time of formation the suite was located in an equatorial position, probably close to the Laurentian margin, and was subsequently translated southward by some 1350 km prior to and during emplacement onto the Baltic margin.
Does high school homework increase academic achievement?

ABSTRACT Although previous research has shown that homework improves students’ academic achievement, the majority of these studies use data on students’ homework time from retrospective questionnaires, which may be less accurate than time-diary data. We use data from the combined Child Development Supplement (CDS) and the Transition to Adulthood Survey (TA) of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to explore the effects of time spent on homework while attending high school on two measures of academic achievement: high school grade point averages and college attendance by age 20. We find that homework time has positive effects on academic achievement for boys.
Estimating Expected Losses and Liquidity Discounts Implicit in Debt Prices

This paper provides an empirical implementation of a reduced form credit risk model that incorporates both liquidity risk and correlated defaults. Liquidity risk is modeled as a convenience yield and default correlation is modeled via an intensity process that depends on market factors. Various different liquidity risk and intensity process models are investigated. Firstly, the evidence supports a non-zero liquidity premium that is firm specific, reflecting idiosyncratic and not systematic risk. Secondly, the credit risk model with correlated defaults fits the data quite well with an average R wedge 2 of . 87 and a pricing error of only 1.1 percent.
Business Cycle Properties of Selected U.S. Economic Time Series, 1959-1988

This paper catalogs the business cycle properties of 163 monthly U.S. economic time series over the three decades from 1959 through 1988. Two general sets of summary statistics are reported. The first set measures the comovement of each individual time series with a reference series representing real economic activity. These statistics focus on comovements at business cycle horizons. The second set of statistics examines the predictive content of each of the series for aggregate activity, relative to different sets of conditioning (or predictive) variables. These statistics are constructed and presented in a way that facilitates comparisons across series and across conditioning sets. They also provide new lists of leading indicators based on predictive content for overall economic activity. Some of the results confirm previously recognized empirical regularities, while others provide new or different insights into the business cycle properties of various series.
The Austrian Business Cycle in the European Context

Dating business cycle turning points is still an important task for economic policy decisions. This study does this for the Austrian economy for the period between 1976 and 2005, using only quarterly national accounts data of Austria, Germany and the euro area. Three different filtering methods are applied: first-order differences, the Hodrick-Prescott filter, and the Baxter-King filter. To all of them, two different methods of determining the business cycle are applied: the ad-hoc determination of the business cycle and a dynamic factor model, taking into account the common variations of Austria, the euro area and the German business cycle movements. The results of both methods are dated by the Bry-Boschan algorithm in order to locate peaks and troughs of the cycle. The results are interpreted and compared to already exiting studies on the euro area and the Austrian business cycle.
Toward School-Based Management: Uncertainty, Meaning, Opportunity, and Development

Numerous innovations and efforts were made in the 1 960s and 1 970s to promote new curricula and new teaching approaches, but the results often seemed to be not so satisfactory. In view of the success of modem management in industrial and commercial organiza­ tions in the 1 980s, people began to believe that, in or­ der to improve education quality, it would be neces­ sary to reform the structural system and management style of schools. Based on this belief, there have been various school reform movements initiated in many parts of the world (Cheng, 1 996a) . Since the late 1 980s, school-based management has become the cen­ tral topic and strategy in educational reform in differ­ ent parts of the world (Caldwell, 1 990; Caldwell and Spinks, 1 988 ; Cheng, 1 996b; David, 1 989; Dimmock, 1 993 ; Mohrman and Wohlstetter, 1 994) . In the past decades, Hong Kong has also undergone different educational reforms. In the 1 970s and 1 980s, much effort was put to increase school places and ex­ pand education systems; educational reform was con­ fined to input of resources and improvement of teach­ ing or learning facilities, such as remedial teaching, student counseling, and some teacher refresher training programs (Education Commission, 1 988 , 1 990) . How­ ever, the effort was insufficient for successful school improvement (Cheng, 1 995) . Knowing that " . the success of individual quality improvement measures will be limited if schools are not able to draw effec­ tively on the skills, energy, and commitment of every member of the school community" (Education and Manpower Branch and Education Department, 1 99 1 , p . 1 ) , the policymakers o f Hong Kong planned to set a
Fixed Income Securities: Valuation, Risk, and Risk Management

Preface. Acknowledgments. PART I: BASICS. 1 An Introduction to Fixed Income Markets. 2 Basics of Fixed Income Securities. 3 Basics of Interest Rate Risk Management. 4 Basic Refinements in Interest Rate Risk Management. 5 Interest Rate Derivatives: Forwards and Swaps. 6 Interest Rate Derivatives: Futures and Options. 7 Inflation, Monetary Policy, and the Federal Funds Rate. 8 Basics of Residential Mortgage Backed Securities. PART II: TERM STRUCTURE MODELS: TREES. 9 One Step Binomial Trees. 10 Multi-Step Binomial Trees. 11 Risk Neutral Trees and Derivative Pricing. 12 American Options. 13 Monte Carlo Simulations on Trees. PART III: TERM STRUCTURE MODELS: CONTINUOUS TIME. 14 Interest Rate Models in Continuous Time. 15 No Arbitrage and the Pricing of Interest Rate Securities. 16 Dynamic Hedging and Relative Value Trades. 17 Risk Neutral Pricing and Monte Carlo Simulations. 18 The Risk and Return of Interest Rate Securities. 19 No Arbitrage Models and Standard Derivatives. 20 The Market Model for Standard Derivatives. 21 Forward Risk Neutral Pricing and the LIBOR Market Model. 22 Multifactor Models. References. Index.
Higher atrophy rate of entorhinal cortex than hippocampus in AD

Objectives: To determine if atrophy rates were higher for entorhinal cortex (ERC) than for hippocampus in Alzheimer disease (AD), to determine the relationship between hippocampal atrophy rate and memory impairment, and to compare atrophy rates of ERC and hippocampus in differentiating between patients with AD and cognitively normal (CN) controls. Methods: Twenty patients with AD and 25 CN subjects had MRI scans and clinical evaluations twice approximately 1.9 years apart. ERC volumes were measured manually and hippocampal volumes were measured semiautomatically on volumetric T1-weighted MR images. Results: In AD, the atrophy rate of ERC (7.1 ± 3.2%/year) was higher (p < 0.02) than that of hippocampus (5.9 ± 2.4%/year). Furthermore, memory deficit in mild AD, measured with the Delayed List Verbal Recall test, correlated significantly with atrophy rates of both ERC (r = −0.61) and hippocampus (r = −0.59). Atrophy rates of ERC and hippocampus were comparable in differentiating between AD and CN. Using atrophy rates of ERC or hippocampus to detect a 20% treatment effect with 90% power (p < 0.05) would require about 100 completed patients per arm in a 2-year study. Conclusion: The finding in AD that the atrophy rate in the entorhinal cortex is higher than in the hippocampus is consistent with the view that AD pathology begins in the entorhinal cortex.
Taxation and Corporate Investment: The Impact of the 1991 Swedish Tax Reform

In 1990, the government of Sweden introduced a major tax reform to take effect in 1991. The Swedish system prior to the legislation was so complex that the size and magnitude of the likely effects of the reform on incentives to invest were unknown. In this paper, we draw on Sodersten (1989) and Auerbach and Hassett (1992) and derive an expression for the user cost of capital that captures the essential features of the Swedish tax code both before and after the reform. We estimate the model for investment in equipment and find that the responsiveness of Swedish firms to the user cost is quite similar to that found for the U.S. Finally, we employ our model and estimates to assess the effects of the 1991 reform. We find that the impact of the reform on investment is likely to have been minor and had little to do with the contemporaneous sharp drop in investment.
Flexible Supply of Apprenticeship in the British Industrial Revolution

In this paper we explore the response of the supply of human capital to changes in demand in the British Industrial Revolution. We use annual information from the Stamp Tax registers on apprentices in England between 1710-1803 and examine the response of tuitions to changes in the annual number of apprentices employing two methods, a two stage instrumental variable procedure to estimate a static market system and a Vector Autoregression framework (VAR) to test the short-run and long-run responses. Our findings show that the standard supply elasticity was high in the sense that the tuition increased only slightly in response to increases in the number of apprentices and that tuitions rose in the short run while returning to their equilibrium level in the long run. Furthermore, we find that this efficiency was characteristic of the system as a whole and not particular to specific trades. These findings underpin the belief that effectiveness and adaptability of the British economy in supplying highly skilled workers played an important role in the Industrial Revolution.
Vulnerability of Older Adults in Disasters: Emergency Department Utilization by Geriatric Patients After Hurricane Sandy

ABSTRACT Objective Older adults are a potentially medically vulnerable population with increased mortality rates during and after disasters. To evaluate the impact of a natural disaster on this population, we performed a temporal and geospatial analysis of emergency department (ED) use by adults aged 65 years and older in New York City (NYC) following Hurricane Sandy’s landfall. Methods We used an all-payer claims database to analyze demographics, insurance status, geographic distribution, and health conditions for post-disaster ED visits among older adults. We compared ED patterns of use in the weeks before and after Hurricane Sandy throughout NYC and the most afflicted evacuation zones. Results We found significant increases in ED utilization by older adults (and disproportionately higher in those aged ≥85 years) in the 3 weeks after Hurricane Sandy, especially in NYC evacuation zone one. Primary diagnoses with notable increases included dialysis, electrolyte disorders, and prescription refills. Secondary diagnoses highlighted homelessness and care access issues. Conclusions Older adults display heightened risk for worse health outcomes with increased ED visits after a disaster. Our findings suggest the need for dedicated resources and planning for older adults following a natural disaster by ensuring access to medical facilities, prescriptions, dialysis, and safe housing and by optimizing health care delivery needs to reduce the burden of chronic disease. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:184–193)
The Impact of National Currency Instability and the World Financial Crisis in the Credit Risk. The Case of Albania

My research paper aims at analyzing the relationship which exists between macroeconomic situation and the indicators that measure the quality of the credits in the Albanian bank system for the period 2002-2010. The results of the research work have proved the raised hypothesis that the instability of the national currency, in relation to Euro and the American Dollar, and the world financial crisis have influenced upon the systematic credit risk in Albania. First, we would like to express our evaluation about the credit portfolio characteristics and the tendency of the credit risks in our bank system, evidencing some very important moments which have affected sensibly the tendency of problematic credits. Further, we have investigated the relationship between the credit risk, which is measured by the ratio non-performing loans to total loans and some of the main macroeconomic indicators.
The Role of the Elementary Principal in the Instructional Leadership of Special Education.

The purpose of this study was to explore, understand, and analyze principals' perceptions of their role as the instructional leader with special education teachers. Both surveys and follow-up telephone interviews were utilized for data collection. Findings indicate that principals holding a state special education teaching certi cate reported higher knowledge and involvement with special education teachers than any other identi ed group, indicating that they were better prepared to support their special education programs and teachers. Concerns were noted with other subgroups who reported areas of higher involvement than knowledge, indicating that these principals were engaging in some activities with special education teachers without having appropriate understanding. Finally, recommendations were o ered for institutions of higher learning, school districts, superintendents, and principals on how to increase the likelihood of elementary principals providing e ective instructional leadership with special
On the Quantitative Effects of Unconventional Monetry Policies in Small Open Economies

This paper quantitatively evaluates the effects of several unconventional monetary policies for small open economies. In particular, a New Keynesian model is extended to include a liquidity premium, deviations from uncovered interest rate parity, and a premium in the term structure of interest rates, allowing the central bank to choose, in addition to its policy rate, the size and composition of its balance sheet. The model is calibrated to the case of Chile. We find that policies affecting the liquidity channel can potentially have large effects, but these depend on expectations about the future policy rate. On the other hand, alternatives working through the term premium have smaller effects, but they are less dependent on the expected path of the reference rate. We also study the possibility of undoing the unconventional policy as a possible exit strategy, with results indicating that this alternative may induce a significant slowdown, particularly if it is anticipated. Finally, we also consider the alternative of driving down the policy rate to its lower bound and maintaining it there for a prolonged period. While this policy can also be greatly expansionary, particularly after contractionary shocks, credibility issues regarding the promise of keeping the rate low for some time can severely undermine these effects.
Teachers' navigation of policy context: Plotting the course for balance between conviction and reform

This study examined an aspect of educational policy that has on the whole, been neglected in the extensive sum of research conducted on the topic. Specifically, it sought to investigate the ways in which elementary teachers navigate and negotiate the policy context in which they work and teach. The framework for this study examined the mediated constructs of teacher practices in politically restrictive environments through the theoretical lenses of symbolic interactionism and critical pedagogy. Symbolic interactionism was used to interpret the actions, both individual and social, of the participants as they discussed the ways in which they cope with educational policies and the impact on them as individuals and as educators. Critical pedagogy was employed to investigate issues of power, and how this power affected those navigating educational policies. (Freire, 1970). The participants in this study were three early childhood teachers; all with a vast
A MODEL OF ASSET TRADING UNDER THE ASSUMPTION OF SEQUENTIAL INFORMATION

SUPPOSE AN ASSET MARKET exists where individuals receive information sequentially and in random order. Start with an initial equilibrium where they all possess an identical set of information. Then allow a single piece of news to be generated. As each individual receives it, he reacts by shifting his demand curve. Finally, when all individuals have received the news, they once again possess an identical set of information and a new equilibrium is established. This paper analyzes asset trading in a world with sequential information arrival. The equilibrium adjustment process is unlike t&tonnement because it examines the many possible incomplete equilibria between the initial and final equilibria where individuals have identical sets of information. It is unlike stochastic demand analysis because the magnitude and direction of demand curve shifts are known. Only the order of shifting is unknown. If there are N people, each with a different shift, then there are N factorial possible orderings of sequential information arrival. In a world with sequential information arrival the price change between the initial and final equilibria is known with certainty (The same is true with tatonnement). However, the price adjustment paths as well as the total volume of trading are shown to be random variables. In particular, the model which is developed uses probability theory (see section IIIC) to express the expected number of trades generated by a given piece of new information. The expected number of trades is related to the absolute value of price changes. ' It is shown to depend on the number of individuals in the market, the number of shares of the asset, the strength of the new information, and the percentage of individuals who react by shifting their demand curves upward.
Direct observations on the contacts made between Ia afferent fibres and alpha‐motoneurones in the cat's lumbosacral spinal cord.

1. The enzyme horseradish peroxidase was injected into identified lumbosacral alpha‐motoneurones and Group Ia afferent fibres in cats anaesthetized with chloralose and paralysed with gallamine triethiodide. Subsequent histological examination allowed the determination of (a) the extent of the motoneuronal dendritic trees, (b) the number and location of Ia synapses upon the motoneurones. 2. alpha‐motoneurones had seven to eighteen primary dendrites and each produced daughter branches up to the fourth to the sixth order. At dendritic bifurcations Rall's 3/2 Power Law was obeyed. There was little or no dendritic tapering up to about 800 micrometers from the soma. Beyond this distance, however, there was considerable tapering. 3. Horseradish peroxidase injections revealed that motoneuronal dendrites are much longer than previously thought. Individual dendrites could be traced for up to 1600 micrometers from the soma and dendritic trees were usually 2‐3 mm from tip to tip. Nearly all the motoneurones had dendrites that entered the white matter of the cord. Dendrites could also reach as far dorsally as laminae V and VI. 4. Ia synapses upon motoneuronal somata were examined in cords counterstained with cresyl violet or methylene green. About 10% of Ia boutons in lamina IX were on somata and each Ia collateral terminated on 3.66 motoneuronal somata or the most proximal (30 micrometer) dendrites, with on average about two contacts per motoneurone. 5. Ten Ia afferent fibre‐motoneurone pairs were injected with horseradish peroxidase. The following conclusions were drawn: (i) only one collateral of any given Ia axon makes contact with a motoneurone even though other collaterals from the same axon might pass through the dendritic tree, (ii) usually all contacts made between a Ia fibre and a motoneurone are at about the same geometrical distance from the soma, even when on different dendrites, (iii) between two and five contacts are made upon the dendritic tree (average 3.4) at distances of between 20 and 820 micrometers from the soma. 6. The results are discussed in relation to previous anatomical and electrophysiological work.