cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Building collaborative institutions for government-to-government planning : The Nanwakolas Council’s involvement in Central Coast Land and Resource Management Planning
Creators: name: Barry, Janice Marie
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2011

description: This dissertation expands institutionalist approaches to the study of collaborative governance through a case study of Aboriginal-State planning arrangements in coastal British Columbia. As one of the province’s lengthiest resource planning exercises, spanning several significant court rulings, the Central Coast Land and Resource Management Planning (CCLRMP) process has emerged as a key site for examining the interface between land use planning and Aboriginal reconciliation. First Nations’ rights, title and government status were, at least partially, acknowledged through the development of new ‘government-to-government’ (G2G) structures and approaches to collaborative land use planning. This dissertation adopts a case study method and is approached through the lens of the Nanwakolas Council, the only First Nation coalition to be involved in the entire CCLRMP process. In-depth interviews and document analysis are used to identify the dimensions of institutional change. Micro and macro-level interactions are analyzed through the use and refinement of three conceptual frames: 1) historical institutionalism’s treatment of external shocks and punctuated evolution (Pierson & Skopol 2002; True et al. 1999); 2) the grammar of institutions (Crawford & Ostrom 1995); and 3) the institutional capacity development framework (Healey et al. 2003; Magalhães et al. 2002). G2G planning is found to be a result of the convergence of key changes in the internal and external environments. Changing relationships between non-governmental and corporate actors outside the official CCLRMP process combined with significant court decisions to create the impetus for change. Equally important were the ways in which these macro-level changes were interpreted and acted upon within the CCLRMP process. New strategies were enacted and more streamlined relational networks were created, which facilitated greater information exchange, increased rapport and, ultimately, allowed for the development of alternate policy frames. Emergent planning practices and relationships were formalized and expanded through five G2G protocol agreements. Beyond these more substantive research findings, the study also contributes to the growing body of literature that links planning and new institutional theory. It introduces new methodological orientations and analytical tools, while also extending existing conceptual frames to clarify the relationships between the different dimensions and drivers of institutional change.
Ambiguity, measurability and multiple priors
Creators: name: Amarante, Massimiliano
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2003
Subjects: Economics

description: The paper provides a notion of measurability which is suited for a class of Multiple Prior Models. Those characterized by nonatomic countably additive priors. Preferences generating such representations have been recently axiomatized in [12]. A notable feature of our definition of measurability is that an event is measurable if and only if it is unambiguous in the sense of Ghirardato, Maccheroni and Marinacci [8]. In addition, the paper contains a thorough description of the basic properties of the family of measurable/unambiguous sets, of the measure defined on those and of the dependence of the class of measurable sets on the set of priors. The latter is obtained by means of an application of Lyapunov's convexity theorem.
Does exporting lead to productivity spillovers in horizontal or vertical industries? Evidence from Indonesia
Creators: name: Sethupathy, Prasanna Guru
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2007
Subjects: Economics

description: This paper investigates the presence of productivity spillovers due to exporting. In particular, it examines whether productivity gains from exporting spill over upstream (to suppliers), downstream (to customers) or horizontally (to competitors). Using plant-level data on Indonesian manufacturing sectors, we find productivity gains to downstream firms of approximately 2.5-3.5% during the period 1990-1996. We do not find the presence of spillovers upstream or horizontally.
The Legacy of Katrina's Children: Estimating the Numbers of Hurricane-Related At-Risk Children in the Gulf Coast States of Louisiana and Mississippi
Creators: name: Redlener, Irwin E.
name: Abramson, David M.
name: Stehling-Ariza, Tasha
name: Fuller, Elizabeth J.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2007
Subjects: Disaster victims
Child disaster victims
Hurricane Katrina (2005)
Disasters--Social aspects

description: The 2005 hurricane season, which included hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, exacted a monumental toll on the people and infrastructure of the Gulf Coast region in the southern United States. Disaster-related losses were estimated to have exceeded $110 billion. Much has been written about the short-term effects on the local housing stock, economy, and populations. Less understood, however, are the long-term consequences on the children of the Gulf Coast who experienced first the storm, and then the displacement which uprooted so many from their homes and communities. The displacement, which for many children and families continues through the present, has resulted in households living in unfamiliar environments, far from friends and family or locally-supportive community-based organizations, faith-based institutions, and schools. More tangibly, the displacement has also led to hazardous and crowded housing conditions as families were forced to double-up, move in to small travel trailers for extended periods of time, or live in areas adjacent to environmental or construction hazards. The loss of civic infrastructure — particularly among education, health care, and criminal justice systems — has compounded the problems facing families and children as they return to their recovering communities or as they continue to live in temporary or transitional settings. The objective of this research brief is to enumerate the population of children who have been "exposed" to this post-hurricane displacement and infrastructure loss, and to consider how many of them are at elevated risk of a poor future outcome. However much the housing, roadways, and levees are rebuilt and the local economies reconstituted, the legacy of these hurricanes may endure in the lives of these "at-risk" children.
The Long-Term Impact of Job Displacement in Germany During the 1982 Recession on Earnings, Income, and Employment
Creators: name: Schmieder, Johannes F.
name: Wachter, Till M. Von
name: Bender, Stefan
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2009
Subjects: Labor economics

description: We show that workers displaced from their stable jobs during mass-layoffs in 1982 recession in Germany suffered permanent earnings losses of 10-15% lasting at least 15 years. These estimates are obtained using data and methodology comparable to similar studies for the United States. Exploiting advantages of the German data, we also show that while reduction and recovery in time worked plays a role in explaining earnings losses during the first ten years, the majority of the long-run loss is due to a decline in wages. We also show that even the generous German unemployment insurance system replaced only a small fraction of the total earnings loss. These findings suggest that job displacements can lead to large and lasting reductions in income even in labor markets with tighter social safety nets and lower earnings inequality.
Relay Selection for Two-way Relaying with Amplify-and-Forward Protocols
Creators: name: Song, Lingyang
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Information Theory (cs.IT)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: In this paper, we propose a relay selection amplify-and-forward (RS-AF) protocol in general bi-directional relay networks with two sources and $N$ relays. In the proposed scheme, the two sources first transmit to all the relays simultaneously, and then a single relay with a minimum sum symbol error rate (SER) will be selected to broadcast the received signals back to both sources. To facilitate the selection process, we propose a simple sub-optimal Min-Max criterion for relay selection, where a single relay which minimizes the maximum SER of two source nodes will be selected. Simulation results show that the proposed Min-Max selection has almost the same performance as the optimal selection with lower complexity. We also present a simple asymptotic SER expression and make comparison with the conventional all-participate amplify-and-forward (AP-AF) relaying scheme. The analytical results are verified through simulations. To improve the system performance, optimum power allocation (OPA) between the sources and the relay is determined based on the asymptotic SER. Simulation results indicate that the proposed RS-AF scheme with OPA yields considerable performance improvement over an equal power allocation (EPA) scheme, specially with large number of relay nodes.
description: 19 pages, 6 figures
What Are Special About Ground-Level Events? Flares, CMEs, Active Regions And Magnetic Field Connection
Creators: name: Nitta, N. V.
name: Liu, Y.
name: DeRosa, M. L.
name: Nightingale, R. W.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Ground level events (GLEs) occupy the high-energy end of gradual solar energetic particle (SEP) events. They are associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and solar flares, but we still do not clearly understand the special conditions that produce these rare events. During Solar Cycle 23, a total of 16 GLEs were registered, using ground-based neutron monitor data. We first ask if these GLEs are clearly distinguishable from other SEP events observed from space. Setting aside possible difficulties in identifying all GLEs consistently, we then try to find observables which may unmistakably isolate these GLEs by studying the basic properties of the associated eruptions and the active regions (ARs) that produced them. It is found that neither the magnitudes of the CMEs and flares nor the complexities of the ARs give sufficient conditions for GLEs. It is possible to find CMEs, flares or ARs that are not associated with GLEs but that have more extreme properties than those associated with GLEs. We also try to evaluate the importance of magnetic field connection of the AR with Earth on the detection of GLEs and their onset times. Using the potential field source surface (PFSS) model, a half of the GLEs are found to be well-connected. However, the GLE onset time with respect to the onset of the associated flare and CME does not strongly depend on how well-connected the AR is. The GLE onset behavior may be largely determined by when and where the CME-driven shock develops. We could not relate the shocks responsible for the onsets of past GLEs with features in solar images, but the combined data from the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) have the potential to change this for GLEs that may occur in the rising phase of Solar Cycle 24.
description: 25 pages, 9 figures, accepted by Space Science Reviews
Default Tips
Creators: name: Haggag, Kareem
name: Paci, Giovanni
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2013
Subjects: Economics

description: We examine the role of defaults in high-frequency, small-scale choices using unique data on over 13 million NYC taxi rides. We exploit a shift in the set of default tip suggestions presented to customers prior to payment, as the base fare changes from below $15 to above $15. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that default suggestions have a large impact on tip amounts. These results are supported by a secondary analysis that uses the quasi-random assignment of customers to different cars to examine default effects on all fares above $15. Finally, we highlight a potential cost of setting defaults too high, as a higher proportion of customers opt to leave no credit card tip when presented with the higher suggested amounts.
Roundtable: How Do You Make a Decision When the Legal Answer is "Maybe"?
Creators: name: Besek, June M.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2010
Subjects: subject: Law--Decision making
subject: Decision making--Moral and ethical aspects
subject: Conference papers and proceedings
subject: Law
subject: FOS: Law

description: "We wanted to conclude the day by focusing on how you move forward and make a decision when the legal answer is unclear, as it often is. We’ve touched on this throughout the day; I know that [he] talked about it a little bit on his panel and everybody alluded to it at various points. How do you make a decision? How can you move forward on some level if you’re not absolutely certain of where you stand as a legal matter?"
An Observational Study on the Role of Surgery in Autoimmune Condition of Thyroid in Department of Surgery in National Institute of Medical Sciences & Research, Jaipur
Creators: name: Saransh G.
name: Arun K. M.
name: R.K Mathur
name: Vineet C.
name: Prateek R. V.
name: Jaydeep M.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023

description: BACKGROUND: Autoimmune conditions of thyroid are frequent causes of thyroiditis. Hashimoto's thyroiditis is the most common cause of hypothyroidism and grave's disease is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism. These diseases are diagnosed clinically with a detailed history and physical examination, biochemically using laboratory autoimmune antibody levels or radiographically. Although an operation is not always the primary consideration for treatment, certain situation make surgery essential to the management of these diseases. METHODS: Patients with thyroid disease are clinically examined and evaluated with biochemical investigations and further FNAC is done in required cases. Patient is managed either medically or surgically. Various conclusions were drawn. RESULT: Patients younger than age 40 have much lower remission rates with medical treatment for Graves' disease. While in children, thyroidectomy is recommended as the first-line therapy. Up to 80% of children fail medical therapy and experience a high rate of recurrence or hypothyroidism with RAI. CONCLUSION: Patients with thyroid disease is managed medically mostly and surgical management is required for specific indications. The surgical management of Hashimoto and Grave's disease will render patient hypothyroid but ultimately is able to provide symptomatic relief safely under experienced surgeon.
Unemployment insurance and the role of self-insurance
Creators: name: Abdulkadiroglu, Atila
name: Kuruscu, Burhanettin
name: Sahin, Aysegul
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2002
Subjects: Economics

description: This paper employs a dynamic general equilibrium model to design and evaluate long-term unemployment insurance plans (plans that depend on workers' unemployment history) in economies with and without hidden savings. We show that optimal benefit schemes and welfare implications differ considerably in these two economies. Switching to long-term plans can improve welfare significantly in the absence of hidden savings. However, welfare gains are much lower when we consider hidden savings. Therefore, we argue that switching to long-term plans should not be a primary concern from a policy point of view.
The 2008 American Preparedness Project: Why Parents May Not Heed Evacuation Orders and What Emergency Planners, Families and Schools Need to Know
Creators: name: Redlener, Irwin E.
name: Grant, Roy F.
name: Abramson, David M.
name: Johnson, Dennis G.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2008
Subjects: Emergency management
Emergency management--Public opinion
Emergency management--Citizen participation

description: Since 2002, the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, and The Children's Health Fund (CHF), have conducted annual surveys of public attitudes and personal preparedness in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Produced in collaboration with the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion (MIPO), each is a random-dial telephone survey of approximately 1,300 - 1,500 adults stratified according to US Census 2000 data. Current and trend data from these surveys reveal a disjuncture between Americans' awareness and sensitivity to possible natural and man-made threats and their consistently low levels of personal preparedness. Each survey, including the current, have included trended questions as well as "one-off" questions appropriate to the given time period. Trended questions ask about confidence in government; willingness and ability to evacuate; personal and family preparedness plans; personal sacrifice; community preparedness; and perceptions and engagement of all-hazard preparedness. All questions are cross-tabulated with a variety of demographic characteristics including race, age, gender, income, and region, size of community, political affiliation, and education. Further, select questions establishing a division of respondent (e.g. those having personal and family preparedness plans vs. those who do not) are cross-tabulated with other selected questions to observe correlations (e.g. awareness of community preparedness plans). The surveys are developed by NCDP and CHF investigators in conjunction with MIPO, who administers the survey, codes the data, and produces the frequency tables.
Tractability of quasilinear problems. II: Second-order elliptic problems
Creators: name: Werschulz, Arthur G.
name: Wozniakowski, Henryk
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2005
Subjects: Computer science

description: In a previous paper, we developed a general framework for establishing tractability and strong tractability for quasilinear multivariate problems in the worst case setting. One important example of such a problem is the solution of the Helmholtz equation −Δu + qu = f in the d-dimensional unit cube, in which u depends linearly on f , but nonlinearly on q. Here, both f and q are d-variate functions from a reproducing kernel Hilbert space with finite-order weights of order ω. This means that, although d can be arbitrary large, f and q can be decomposed as sums of functions of at most ω variables, with ω independent of d. In this paper, we apply our previous general results to the Helmholtz equation, subject to either Dirichlet or Neumann homogeneous boundary conditions. We study both the absolute and normalized error criteria. For all four possible combinations of boundary conditions and error criteria, we show that the problem is tractable. That is, the number of evaluations of f and q needed to obtain an ε- approximation is polynomial in ε −1 and d, with the degree of the polynomial depending linearly on ω. In addition, we want to know when the problem is strongly tractable, meaning that the dependence is polynomial only in ε −1 , independently of d. We show that if the sum of the weights defining the weighted reproducing kernel Hilbert space is uniformly bounded in d and the integral of the univariate kernel is positive, then the Helmholtz equation is strongly tractable for three of the four possible combinations of boundary conditions and error criterion, the only exception being the Dirichlet boundary condition under the normalized error criterion.
A Modern Standard Arabic Closed-Class Word List
Creators: name: Salloum, Wael Sameer
name: Habash, Nizar Y.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2012
Subjects: Computer science
Artificial intelligence

description: This document describes a list of Modern Standard Arabic closed-class words, which can be used as a stop list for a variety of natural language processing applications. The list contains 740 inflected words and clitics in the Arabic Treebank (ATB) tokenization scheme (Maamouri et al., 2004; Habash, 2010). The inflected words are based on 309 lemmas from the Standard Arabic Morphological Analyzer, SAMA (Graff et al., 2009). To get a copy of the full list, please contact the authors.
The Nature of Double-Peaked [O III] Active Galactic Nuclei
Creators: name: Fu, Hai
name: Yan, Lin
name: Myers, Adam D.
name: Stockton, Alan
name: Djorgovski, S. G.
name: Aldering, G.
name: Rich, Jeffrey A.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with double-peaked [O III] lines are suspected to be sub-kpc or kpc-scale binary AGNs. However, pure gas kinematics can produce the same double-peaked line profile in spatially integrated spectra. Here we combine integral-field spectroscopy and high-resolution imaging of 42 double-peaked [O III] AGNs from Sloan Digital Sky Survey to investigate the constituents of the population. We find two binary AGNs where the line-splitting is driven by the orbital motion of the merging nuclei. Such objects account for only ~2% of the double-peaked AGNs. Almost all (~98%) of the double-peaked AGNs were selected because of gas kinematics; and half of those show spatially resolved narrow-line regions that extend 4-20 kpc from the nuclei. Serendipitously, we find two spectrally unresolved binary AGNs where gas kinematics produced the double-peaked [O III] lines. The relatively frequent serendipitous discoveries indicate that only ~1% of binary AGNs would appear double-peaked in Sloan spectra and 2.2_{-0.8}^{+2.5}% of all Sloan AGNs are binary AGNs. Therefore, the double-peaked sample does not offer much advantage over any other AGN samples in finding binary AGNs. The binary AGN fraction implies an elevated AGN duty cycle (8_{-3}^{+8}%), suggesting galaxy interactions enhance nuclear accretion. We illustrate that integral-field spectroscopy is crucial for identifying binary AGNs: several objects previously classified as "binary AGNs" with long-slit spectra are most likely single AGNs with extended narrow-line regions. The formation of extended narrow-line regions driven by radiation pressure is also discussed.
description: Updated to ApJ accepted version. emulateapj style, 19 pages, 4 tables, 9 figures
DotSlash: Providing Dynamic Scalability to Web Applications with On-demand Distributed Query Result Caching
Creators: name: Zhao, Weibin
name: Schulzrinne, Henning G.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2005
Subjects: Computer science

description: Scalability poses a significant challenge for today's web applications, mainly due to the large population of potential users. To effectively address the problem of short-term dramatic load spikes caused by web hotspots, we developed a self-configuring and scalable rescue system called DotSlash. The primary goal of our system is to provide dynamic scalability to web applications by enabling a web site to obtain resources dynamically, and use them autonomically without any administrative intervention. To address the database server bottleneck, DotSlash allows a web site to set up on-demand distributed query result caching, which greatly reduces the database workload for read mostly databases, and thus increases the request rate supported at a DotSlash-enabled web site. The novelty of our work is that our query result caching is on demand, and operated based on load conditions. The caching remains inactive as long as the load is normal, but is activated once the load is heavy. This approach offers good data consistency during normal load situations, and good scalability with relaxed data consistency for heavy load periods. We have built a prototype system for the widely used LAMP configuration, and evaluated our system using the RUBBoS bulletin board benchmark. Experiments show that a DotSlash-enhanced web site can improve the maximum request rate supported by a factor of 5 using 8 rescue servers for the RUBBoS submission mix, and by a factor of 10 using 15 rescue servers for the RUBBoS read-only mix.
Dendrocoris humeralis
Creators: name: Thomas, D. B. Jr.
name: H. Brailovsky
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 1999
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Pentatomidae
Dendrocoris
Dendrocoris humeralis

description: Dendrocoris humeralis (Uhler 1877)
(Figure 8)
Diagnosis. Vertex of head flat. Juga contiguous before tylus. Cicatrices concolorous with pronotal disk. Anterolateral pronotal margins strongly, angulately concave in dorsal view, calloused, with narrow, pale, impunctate, inframargin. Humeral angles prominent. Legs immaculate. Abdominal spiracles concolorous with venter or sometimes narrowly darkened. Tubercle present a t base of abdomen in females, absent in males. Veins of hemelytral membrane simple or furcate, not reticulate. Mesial emargination of pygophore not attended by small, black, teeth. Paramere bidigitate (Fig. 8).
Distribution.USA: Arkansas, California, Colorado,Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusettes, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia. MEXICO: Coahuila, Nuevo Leon.
Remarks. Uhler (1877) reported this species on oaks andhiclrory. Van Duzee (1904), Froeschner (1941) and McPherson (1982) all cite oak as the host. Nelson (1955) collected it on black oak and cited records for oak and pine. Stoner (1920) cites oak, hickory and hazel.
description: Published as part of Thomas, D. B. Jr. & H. Brailovsky, 1999, Review of the genus Dendrocoris Bergroth with descriptions of new species (Pentatomidae: Heteroptera), pp. 1-9 in Insecta Mundi 13 on page 7
Kinetic Equations for Baryogenesis via Sterile Neutrino Oscillation
Creators: name: Asaka, Takehiko
name: Eijima, Shintaro
name: Ishida, Hiroyuki
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We investigate baryogenesis in the $ν$MSM (neutrino Minimal Standard Model), which is the MSM extended by three right-handed neutrinos with masses below the electroweak scale. The baryon asymmetry of the universe can be generated by the mechanism via flavor oscillation of right-handed (sterile) neutrinos which are responsible to masses of active neutrinos confirmed by various experiments. We present the kinetic equations for the matrix of densities of leptons which describe the generation of asymmetries. Especially, the momentum dependence of the matrix of densities is taken into account. By solving these equations numerically, it is found that the momentum distribution is significantly distorted from the equilibrium one, since the production for the modes with lower momenta $k \ll T$ ($T$ is the temperature of the universe) is enhanced, while suppressed for higher modes. As a result, the most important mode for the yields of sterile neutrinos as well as the baryon asymmetry is $k \simeq 2 T$, which is smaller than < k > inferred from the thermal average. The comparison with the previous works is also discussed.
description: 22 pages, 19 figures
Pediatric Preparedness for Disasters, Terrorism and Public Health Emergencies: A National Consensus Conference: Executive Summary and Final Report
Creators: name: Markenson, David
name: Redlener, Irwin E.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2007
Subjects: Emergency management--Planning
Disaster medicine--Planning
Pediatrics
Child disaster victims
Children and terrorism

description: In 2003, we convened experts from the multiple areas of expertise and disciplines involved in the planning for and care of children during times of disaster and terrorist events. The goals of this unprecedented meeting were to: 1) Build collaboration among individuals with expertise in emergency management, including disaster medicine, disaster planning, pediatric emergency medicine, pediatric critical care, pediatric surgery, and emergency management, management, and response; 2) Review and summarize the existing data on the needs of children in disasters, including planning, preparation, and response; 3) Develop consensus on the needs of persons with disabilities in disasters; 4) Create a research agenda to address knowledge gaps based on the limited data that exist on the needs of children in disasters. The 2003 conference led to the pediatric consensus document that established the first national guidelines and recommendations for pediatric preparedness. These guidelines then served to advance pediatric preparedness by allowing all those involved in emergency preparedness, including emergency management, public health, law enforcement, fire service, EMS, and hospital systems, to begin preparing to deal with children in disaster situations. These guidelines also served as the basis for discussion by the National Advisory Committee on Children and Terrorism.
Information-Constrained State-Dependent Pricing
Creators: name: Woodford, Michael
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2008
Subjects: Economics

description: I present a generalization of the standard (full-information) model of state-dependent pricing in which decisions about when to review a firm's existing price must be made on the basis of imprecise awareness of current market conditions. The imperfect information is endogenized using a variant of the theory of "rational inattention" proposed by Sims (1998, 2003, 2006). This results in a one-parameter family of models, indexed by the cost of information, which nests both the standard state-dependent pricing model and the Calvo model of price adjustment as limiting cases (corresponding to a zero information cost and an unboundedly large information cost respectively). For intermediate levels of the information cost, the model is equivalent to a "generalized Ss model" with a continuous "adjustment hazard" of the kind proposed by Caballero and Engel (1993a, 1993b), but provides an economic motivation for the hazard function and very specific predictions about its form. For high enough levels of the information cost, the Calvo model of price-setting is found to be a reasonable approximation to the exact equilibrium dynamics, except in the case of (infrequent) large shocks. When the model is calibrated to match the frequency and size distribution of price changes observed in microeconomic data sets, prices are found to be much less flexible than in a full-information state-dependent pricing model, and only about 20 percent more flexible than under a Calvo model with the same average frequency of price adjustment.
Isoline retrieval: An optimal sounding method for validation of advected contours
Creators: name: Mills, Peter
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph)
subject: Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability (physics.data-an)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The study of chaotic mixing is important for its potential to improve our understanding of fluid systems. Contour advection simulations provide a good model of the phenomenon by tracking the evolution of one or more contours or isolines of a trace substance to a high level of precision. The most accurate method of validating an advected contour is to divide the tracer concentration into discrete ranges and perform a maximum likelihood classification, a method that we term, "isoline retrieval." Conditional probabilities generated as a result provide excellent error characterization. In this study, a water vapour isoline of 0.001 mass-mixing-ratio is advected over five days in the upper troposphere and compared with high-resolution AMSU (Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit) satellite retrievals. The goal is to find the same fine-scale, chaotic mixing in the isoline retrievals as seen in the advection simulations. Some of the filaments generated by the simulations show up in the conditional probabilities as areas of reduced probability. By rescaling the probabilities, the filaments may be revealed in the isoline retrievals proper with little effect on the overall accuracy. Limitations imposed by the specific context, i.e. water-vapour retrieved with AMSU in the upper troposphere, are discussed. Nonetheless, isoline retrieval is shown to be a highly effective technique for atmospheric sounding, showing good agreement with both ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts) assimilation data and radiosonde measurements. Software for isoline retrieval can be found at: http://isoret.sourceforge.net
Search for cold gas in strong MgII absorbers at 0.5
Creators: name: Gupta, N.
name: Srianand, R.
name: Petitjean, P.
name: Bergeron, J.
name: Noterdaeme, P.
name: Muzahid, S.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We report 4 new detections of 21-cm absorption from a systematic search of 21-cm absorption in a sample of 17 strong (Wr(MgII 2796)>1A) intervening MgII absorbers at 0.5100 km/s are mainly seen towards the quasars with extended radio morphology at arcsecond scales. However, we do not find any correlation between the integrated 21-cm optical depth or DeltaV with the LS measured from the milliarcsecond scale images. All this can be understood if the absorbing gas is patchy with a typical correlation length of ~30-100 pc. We show that within the measurement uncertainty, the 21-cm detection rate in strong MgII systems is constant over 0.5
description: 28 pages, 14 figures, 9 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Rateless Codes with Progressive Recovery for Layered Multimedia Delivery
Creators: name: Chen, Zhao
name: Yin, Liuguo
name: Xu, Mai
name: Lu, Jianhua
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Information Theory (cs.IT)
subject: Multimedia (cs.MM)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: This paper proposes a novel approach, based on unequal error protection, to enhance rateless codes with progressive recovery for layered multimedia delivery. With a parallel encoding structure, the proposed Progressive Rateless codes (PRC) assign unequal redundancy to each layer in accordance with their importance. Each output symbol contains information from all layers, and thus the stream layers can be recovered progressively at the expected received ratios of output symbols. Furthermore, the dependency between layers is naturally considered. The performance of the PRC is evaluated and compared with some related UEP approaches. Results show that our PRC approach provides better recovery performance with lower overhead both theoretically and numerically.
Can news shocks account for the business-cycle dynamics of inventories?
Creators: name: Crouzet, Nicolas
name: Oh, Hyunseung
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2012
Subjects: Economics

description: The procyclicality of inventory investment is a central feature of US business cycles. As such, it provides a test for the recent literature on news shocks, which argues that anticipated changes in fundamentals are important sources of aggregate fluctuations. We show that, in a range of inventory models, anticipated shocks to fundamentals generate booms of a peculiar kind: consumption and investment increase, but inventories fall persistently. During these booms, production and inventory investment are dominated by intertemporal substitution, as firms satisfy sales out of inventory stock and delay production until the realization of the anticipated shock. This mechanism is surprisingly difficult to overturn. We derive analytical parameter restrictions which guarantee procyclical inventory dynamics in response to news shocks, and show that standard calibrations considered in the literature do not come close to satisfying the restrictions. Furthermore, the introduction of the frictions studied by the news literature, such as variable capacity utilization and adjustment costs, is not sufficient to restore the procyclicality of inventories. We use the models' restrictions on the comovement of sales and inventories to identify news shocks in postwar US data. We find that the identified shock leads to a diffusion in TFP, but has a short implementation lag and accounts for a small fraction of long-run movements in TFP, inventories and sales.
Cooperative Self-Propulsion of Active and Passive Rotors
Creators: name: Fily, Yaouen
name: Baskaran, Aparna
name: Marchetti, M. Cristina
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Using minimal models for low Reynolds number passive and active rotors in a fluid, we characterize the hydrodynamic interactions among rotors and the resulting dynamics of a pair of interacting rotors. This allows us to treat in a common framework passive or externally driven rotors, such as magnetic colloids driven by a rotating magnetic field, and active or internally driven rotors, such as sperm cells confined at boundaries. The hydrodynamic interaction of passive rotors is known to contain an azimuthal component \sim 1/r^2 to dipolar order that can yield the recently discovered "cooperative self-propulsion" of a pair of rotors of opposite vorticity. While this interaction is identically zero for active rotors as a consequence of torque balance, we show that a \sim 1/r^4 azimuthal component of the interaction arises in active systems to octupolar order. Cooperative self-propulsion, although weaker, can therefore also occur for pairs of active rotors.
description: 9 pages, 5 figures
Mechanism design with tacit collusion
Creators: name: Abdulkadiroglu, Atila
name: Chung, Kim-Sau
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2002
Subjects: Economics

description: In the mechanism design literature, collusion is often modelled as agents signing side contracts. This modelling approach is in turn implicitly justified by some unspecified repeated-interaction story. In this paper, we first second-guess what kind of repeated-interaction story these side-contract theorists (would admit that they) are having in mind. We then show that, within this repeated-interaction story, there is a big difference between communicative and tacit collusion. While communicative collusion hurts the mechanism designer, tacit collusion is exploitable.
Voice over TCP and UDP
Creators: name: Zhang, Xiaotang
name: Schulzrinne, Henning G.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2004
Subjects: Computer science

description: We compare UDP and TCP when transmitting voice data using PlanetLab where we can do experiments globally. For TCP, we also do experiments using TCP NODELAY which sends out requests immediately. We compare the performance of different protocols by their 90th percentile delay and jitter. The performance of UDP is better than that of TCP NODELAY and the performance TCP NODELAY is better than that of TCP. We also explore the relation between TCP delay time minus the transmission time and the packet loss rate and find there is a linear relationship between them.
A far-infrared survey of bow shocks and detached shells around AGB stars and red supergiants
Creators: name: Cox, N. L. J.
name: Kerschbaum, F.
name: van Marle, A. -J.
name: Decin, L.
name: Ladjal, D.
name: Mayer, A.
name: Groenewegen, M. A. T.
name: van Eck, S.
name: Royer, P.
name: Ottensamer, R.
name: Ueta, T.
name: Jorissen, A.
name: Mecina, M.
name: Meliani, Z.
name: Luntzer, A.
name: Blommaert, J. A. D. L.
name: Posch, Th.
name: Vandenbussche, B.
name: Waelkens, C.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Far-infrared Herschel/PACS images at 70 and 160 micron of a sample of 78 Galactic evolved stars are used to study the (dust) emission structures, originating from stellar wind-ISM interaction. In addition, two-fluid hydrodynamical simulations of the coupled gas and dust in wind-ISM interactions are used to compare with the observations. Four distinct classes of wind-ISM interaction (i.e. "fermata", "eyes", "irregular", and "rings") are identified and basic parameters affecting the morphology are discussed. We detect bow shocks for ~40% of the sample and detached rings for ~20%. De-projected stand-off distances (R_0) -- defined as the distance between the central star and the nearest point of the interaction region -- of the detected bow shocks ("fermata" and "eyes") are derived from the PACS images and compared to previous results, model predictions and the simulations. All observed bow shocks have stand-off distances smaller than 1 pc. Observed and theoretical stand-off distances are used together to independently derive the local ISM density. Both theoretical (analytical) models and hydrodynamical simulations give stand-off distances for adopted stellar properties that are in good agreement with the measured de-projected stand-off distance of wind-ISM bow shocks. The possible detection of a bow shock -- for the distance limited sample -- appears to be governed by its physical size as set roughly by the stand-off distance. In particular the star's peculiar space velocity and the density of the ISM appear decisive in detecting emission from bow shocks or detached rings. Tentatively, the "eyes" class objects are associated to (visual) binaries, while the "rings" generally appear not to occur for M-type stars, only for C or S-type objects that have experienced a thermal pulse.
description: 29 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A
Gender Needs Assessment for Kaduna Metropolis, Nigeria
Creators: name: Olisemeka, Chinwe F.
name: Salim, Ahmed
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2011
Subjects: Women's rights
Women--Social conditions
Women--Economic conditions
Regional planning

description: Kaduna Metropolis is located in northern Nigeria and serves as the country's trade and transportation hub. It is the capital city of Kaduna State, the fourth largest city in the country and is one of the most populous Millennium Cities. Women in Kaduna face many challenges that prevent them from being guaranteed gender equality and empowerment. Girls in the city have had limited access to secondary school education, with poverty and early marriages often forcing them to forgo their education. Unsafe abortions and limited access to family planning prevent safe sexual and reproductive health. A number of women are unaware of their inheritance rights and freedom to purchase land due to inconsistent religious interpretations concerning these rights. Significant gaps exist in the employment sector demonstrated by income disparities and limited female representation in the private sector. Lastly, women have been unable to make significant legislative changes to overcome these challenges. The problems women face in the city are significant and will require comprehensive investment by the people and government. This needs assessment seeks to provide a roadmap that can put effective strategies in motion to achieve the third Millennium Development Goal (MDG 3)--promoting gender equality and empowering women--with specific interventions that include: A mass media campaign targeting families and religious leaders about the benefits of sending girls to secondary school, implemented in tandem with a university workshop for secondary school girls; Provide comprehensive family planning education in secondary schools; A public service announcement on women's and girls' property and inheritance rights that debunks misinformation about property rights and religious interpretations concerning inheritance rights. Increase legal representation for women dealing with property and inheritance cases; Vocational training focusing on ways women can run their own private businesses and a sensitization workshop that provides human resource administrators strategies to recruit qualified female employees; Workshops for female politicians and activists on how to campaign during elections and how to implement effective grassroots strategies. With an average annual investment of $3 per capita between 2011 and 2015, MCI believes Kaduna Metropolis can effectively promote gender equality and empower women. This needs assessment has four sections. Section One offers background information on Kaduna Metropolis as well as an overview of the objectives and limitations of the needs assessment and the major gender issues facing women and girls. Section Two provides a detailed data analysis, delving into some of the priority areas of MDG 3 in the city. Section Three discusses proposed interventions and their costs, and Section Four concludes with the study's findings and recommendations.
Speculatively Constrained Optimal Commodity Policies
Creators: name: McLaren, John
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 1997
Subjects: Economics

description: Governments store primary commodities for redistributive reasons, or to deal with missing risk markets. For either reason, interactions between public and private storage make it difficult to compute and optimal storage policy: Any announced policy rule will induce equilibrium private responses, in general at each date; accounting for this makes searching for an optimal policy prohibitively complex. Here, a method is developed that permits computation of the optimum in a wide range of cases, by mapping the problem into a far simpler one, a form of dynamic program, without loss of generality. Among the findings are that for a non trivial portion of the parameter space, the optimal policy pegs that price to a function of the current harvest alone; and that commodity price stabilization per se is more attractive as a way of assisting producers, the less risk averse the producers are.
Joint Relay Selection and Analog Network Coding using Differential Modulation in Two-Way Relay Channels
Creators: name: Song, Lingyang
name: Guo, Hong
name: Jiao, Bingli
name: Debbah, Merouane
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Information Theory (cs.IT)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: In this paper, we consider a general bi-directional relay network with two sources and N relays when neither the source nodes nor the relays know the channel state information (CSI). A joint relay selection and analog network coding using differential modulation (RS-ANC-DM) is proposed. In the proposed scheme, the two sources employ differential modulations and transmit the differential modulated symbols to all relays at the same time. The signals received at the relay is a superposition of two transmitted symbols, which we call the analog network coded symbols. Then a single relay which has minimum sum SER is selected out of N relays to forward the ANC signals to both sources. To facilitate the selection process, in this paper we also propose a simple sub-optimal Min-Max criterion for relay selection, where a single relay which minimizes the maximum SER of two source nodes is selected. Simulation results show that the proposed Min-Max selection has almost the same performance as the optimal selection, but is much simpler. The performance of the proposed RS-ANC-DM scheme is analyzed, and a simple asymptotic SER expression is derived. The analytical results are verified through simulations.
description: 20 pages, 7 figures