cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Fast Linearized Coronagraph Optimizer (FALCO) IV. Coronagraph design survey for obstructed and segmented apertures

Coronagraph instruments on future space telescopes will enable the direct detection and characterization of Earth-like exoplanets around Sun-like stars for the first time. The quest for the optimal optical coronagraph designs has made rapid progress in recent years thanks to the Segmented Coronagraph Design and Analysis (SCDA) initiative led by the Exoplanet Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As a result, several types of high-performance designs have emerged that make use of dual deformable mirrors to (1) correct for optical aberrations and (2) suppress diffracted starlight from obstructions and discontinuities in the telescope pupil. However, the algorithms used to compute the optimal deformable mirror surface tend to be computationally intensive, prohibiting large scale design surveys. Here, we utilize the Fast Linearized Coronagraph Optimizer (FALCO), a tool that allows for rapid optimization of deformable mirror shapes, to explore trade-offs in coronagraph designs for obstructed and segmented space telescopes. We compare designs for representative shaped pupil Lyot and vortex coronagraphs, two of the most promising concepts for the LUVOIR space mission concept. We analyze the optical performance of each design, including their throughput and ability to passively suppress light from partially resolved stars in the presence of low-order aberrations. Our main result is that deformable mirror based apodization can suffciently suppress diffraction from support struts and inter-segment gaps whose widths are on the order of ~0.1% of the primary mirror diameter to detect Earth-sized planets within a few tens of milliarcseconds from the star.
Constructing an expanding metric for dynamical systems in one complex variable

We describe a rigorous computer algorithm for attempting to construct an explicit, discretized metric for which a polynomial map is expansive on a neighbourhood of the Julia set, J. We show that the construction of such a metric proves the map is hyperbolic. We also examine the question of whether the algorithm can be improved, and the related question of how to build a metric close to Euclidean. Finally, we give several examples generated with our implementation of this algorithm.
Schedules and the Delta Conjecture

In a recent preprint, Carlsson and Oblomkov (Affine Schubert calculus and double coinvariants. arXiv preprint 1801.09033, 2018) obtain a long sought-after monomial basis for the ring $$\mathrm{D}\!\mathrm{R}_n$$ of diagonal coinvariants. Their basis is closely related to the “schedules” formula for the Hilbert series of $$\mathrm{D}\!\mathrm{R}_n$$ which was conjectured by the first author and Loehr (Discete Math 298(1–3):189–204, 2005) and first proved by Carlsson and Mellit (A proof of the shuffle conjecture. J Amer Math Soc 31(3):661–697, 2018), as a consequence of their proof of the famous Shuffle Conjecture. In this article, we obtain a schedules formula for the combinatorial side of the Delta Conjecture, a conjecture introduced by the Haglund et al. (Trans Am Math Soc 370(6):4029–4057, 2018), which contains the Shuffle Theorem as a special case. Motivated by the Carlsson–Oblomkov basis for $$\mathrm{D}\!\mathrm{R}_n$$ and our Delta schedules formula, we introduce a (conjectural) basis for the super-diagonal coinvariant ring $$\mathrm{S}\!\mathrm{D}\!\mathrm{R}_n$$ , an $$S_n$$ -module generalizing $$\mathrm{D}\!\mathrm{R}_n$$ introduced recently by Zabrocki (a module for the Delta conjecture. arXiv preprint 1902.08966, 2019), which conjecturally corresponds to the Delta Conjecture.
Foley Music: Learning to Generate Music from Videos

In this paper, we introduce Foley Music, a system that can synthesize plausible music for a silent video clip about people playing musical instruments. We first identify two key intermediate representations for a successful video to music generator: body keypoints from videos and MIDI events from audio recordings. We then formulate music generation from videos as a motion-to-MIDI translation problem. We present a Graph−Transformer framework that can accurately predict MIDI event sequences in accordance with the body movements. The MIDI event can then be converted to realistic music using an off-the-shelf music synthesizer tool. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our models on videos containing a variety of music performances. Experimental results show that our model outperforms several existing systems in generating music that is pleasant to listen to. More importantly, the MIDI representations are fully interpretable and transparent, thus enabling us to perform music editing flexibly. We encourage the readers to watch the supplementary video with audio turned on to experience the results.
PHELP: Pixel Heating Experiment Learning Platform for Education and Research on IAI-based Smart Control Engineering

Thermal processes are one of the most common systems in the industry, making its understanding a mandatory skill for control engineers. So, multiple efforts are focused on developing low-cost and portable experimental training rigs recreating the thermal process dynamics and controls, usually limited to SISO or low order 2×2 MIMO systems. This paper presents PHELP, a low-cost, portable, and high order MIMO educational platform for uniformity temperature control training. The platform is composed of an array of 16 Peltier modules as heating elements, with a lower heating and cooling times, resulting in a 16×16 high order MIMO system. A low-cost realtime infrared thermal camera is employed as a temperature feedback sensor instead of a standard thermal sensor, ideal for high order MIMO system sensing and temperature distribution tracking. The control algorithm is developed in Matlab/Simulink and employs an Arduino board in hardware in the loop configuration to apply the control action to each Peltier module in the array. A temperature control experiment is performed, showing that the platform is suitable for teaching and training experiences not only in the classroom but also for engineers in the industry. Furthermore, various abnormal conditions can be introduced so that smart control engineering features can be tested.
Macro-structural obstacles to firm performance : evidence from 2,640 firms in Nigeria

A recent World Bank enterprise survey identified access to finance as the top constraint to Doing Business in Nigeria. This paper (i) studies firm characteristics associated with more access to finance and export diversification; and (ii) quantifies the impact of these structural obstacles on firm performance. Results suggest that (i) larger and export-oriented firms are about 40 percentage points less likely to report access to finance as a business obstacle; and (ii) better access to finance and export diversification can help firm employment as much as 80 percent higher. Results are largely robust to different specifications and estimation methods.
Principal specializations of Schubert polynomials and pattern containment

Abstract The principal specialization ν w = S w ( 1 , … , 1 ) of the Schubert polynomial at w , which equals the degree of the matrix Schubert variety corresponding to w , has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. In this paper, we show that ν w is bounded below by 1 + p 132 ( w ) + p 1432 ( w ) where p u ( w ) is the number of occurrences of the pattern u in w , strengthening a previous result by A. Weigandt. We then make a conjecture relating the principal specialization of Schubert polynomials to pattern containment. Finally, we characterize permutations w whose RC-graphs are connected by simple ladder moves via pattern avoidance.
Low-Energy CO Scattering at the Gas–Liquid Interface: Experimental/Theoretical Evidence for a Novel Subthermal Impulsive Scattering (STIS) Channel

Molecular beams of supersonically cooled (Trot ≈ 10 K) carbon monoxide (CO) have been scattered from three low-vapor-pressure liquids (PFPE, squalane, and glycerol) over a range of surface temperat...
Exploring the Value of Personalized Word Embeddings.

In this paper, we introduce personalized word embeddings, and examine their value for language modeling. We compare the performance of our proposed prediction model when using personalized versus generic word representations, and study how these representations can be leveraged for improved performance. We provide insight into what types of words can be more accurately predicted when building personalized models. Our results show that a subset of words belonging to specific psycholinguistic categories tend to vary more in their representations across users and that combining generic and personalized word embeddings yields the best performance, with a 4.7% relative reduction in perplexity. Additionally, we show that a language model using personalized word embeddings can be effectively used for authorship attribution.
Gene family amplification facilitates adaptation in freshwater unionid bivalve Megalonaias nervosa.

Freshwater unionid bivalves currently face severe anthropogenic challenges. Over 70% of species in the United States are threatened, endangered or extinct due to pollution, damming of waterways and overfishing. These species are notable for their unusual life history strategy, parasite-host co-evolution and biparental mitochondrial inheritance. Among this clade, the washboard mussel Megalonaias nervosa is one species that remains prevalent across the Southeastern United States, with robust population sizes. We have created a reference genome for M. nervosa to determine how genome content has evolved in the face of these widespread environmental challenges. We observe dynamic changes in genome content, with a burst of recent transposable element proliferation causing a 382 Mb expansion in genome content. Birth-death models suggest rapid expansions among gene families, with a mutation rate of 1.16 × 10-8 duplications per gene per generation. Cytochrome P450 gene families have experienced exceptional recent amplification beyond expectations based on genome-wide birth-death processes. These genes are associated with increased rates of amino acid changes, a signature of selection driving evolution of detox genes. Fitting evolutionary models of adaptation from standing genetic variation, we can compare adaptive potential across species and mutation types. The large population size in M. nervosa suggests a 4.7-fold advantage in the ability to adapt from standing genetic variation compared with a low diversity endemic E. hopetonensis. Estimates suggest that gene family evolution may offer an exceptional substrate of genetic variation in M. nervosa, with Psgv = 0.185 compared with Psgv = 0.067 for single nucleotide changes. Hence, we suggest that gene family evolution is a source of 'hopeful monsters' within the genome that may facilitate adaptation when selective pressures shift. These results suggest that gene family expansion is a key driver of adaptive evolution in this key species of freshwater Unionidae that is currently facing widespread environmental challenges. This work has clear implications for conservation genomics on freshwater bivalves as well as evolutionary theory. This genome represents a first step to facilitate reverse ecological genomics in Unionidae and identify the genetic underpinnings of phenotypic diversity.
Deep Learning for Cardiologist-level Myocardial Infarction Detection in Electrocardiograms

Myocardial infarction is the leading cause of death worldwide. In this paper, we design domain-inspired neural network models to detect myocardial infarction. First, we study the contribution of various leads. This systematic analysis, first of its kind in the literature, indicates that out of 15 ECG leads, data from the v6, vz, and ii leads are critical to correctly identify myocardial infarction. Second, we use this finding and adapt the ConvNetQuake neural network model—originally designed to identify earthquakes—to attain state-of-the-art classification results for myocardial infarction, achieving 99.43% classification accuracy on a record-wise split, and 97.83% classification accuracy on a patient-wise split. These two results represent cardiologist-level performance level for myocardial infarction detection after feeding only 10 s of raw ECG data into our model. Third, we show that our multi-ECG-channel neural network achieves cardiologist-level performance without the need of any kind of manual feature extraction or data pre-processing.
Reconfigurable Distribution Automation and Control Laboratory: Solar Microgrid Experiments

Renewable distributed resources, energy storage systems, and improved load control options are introducing new challenges in electric power distribution. It is necessary to integrate such smart grid concepts into formal power engineering curricula. To help meet this need, solar microgrid experiments are being developed at Drexel University. This work presents: first, an overview of the laboratory-scale microgrid equipment at Drexel; second, upgrades to the distribution energy management system in the Reconfigurable Distribution Automation and Control Laboratory; third, a detailed educational microgrid experiment; and fourth, corresponding pre- and post-laboratory assignments. In the experiment, students analyze a microgrid network in grid-powered, grid-interactive, and island modes with a renewable source that is not electrically (or physically) co-located with the utility supply. Students will observe power flow characteristics in each mode. In island mode, students will make network or load control decisions in order to satisfy the operating constraints, and then connect the renewable source to the node of their choice.
Robust Stabilization and Collision Avoidance through Minimizing Open-Loop Velocity Uncertainty

Driving a vehicle to the limits of the tires while maintaining stability is a challenging task. Models can provide a sense of what regions of the state space are stabilizable, but computing such stability limits for a physical vehicle is elusive due to a variety of unknown disturbances and modeling simplifications: it is difficult to predict exactly how hard a controller can push the vehicle until rotation becomes an unrecoverable spin or slide. We propose a method for simultaneously planning trajectories that avoid obstacles and that are minimally sensitive to disturbances, realized by minimizing open-loop velocity uncertainty. This allows the controller to take risks when necessary without being overly constrained by a conservative bound. We present experimental results that demonstrate the improvement of this approach over a baseline.
The uncertainty principle: Variations on a theme

We show how a number of well-known uncertainty principles for the Fourier transform, such as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the Donoho--Stark uncertainty principle, and Meshulam's non-abelian uncertainty principle, have little to do with the structure of the Fourier transform itself. Rather, all of these results follow from very weak properties of the Fourier transform (shared by numerous linear operators), namely that it is bounded as an operator $L^1 \to L^\infty$, and that it is unitary. Using a single, simple proof template, and only these (or weaker) properties, we obtain some new proofs and many generalizations of these basic uncertainty principles, to new operators and to new settings, in a completely unified way. Together with our general overview, this paper can also serve as a survey of the many facets of the phenomena known as uncertainty principles.
The United States and the International Criminal Court Post-Bush: A Beautiful Courtship but an Unlikely Marriage

This Article critiques the changing U.S. approach toward the International Criminal Court (ICC). It begins by isolating those aspects central to prior U.S. opposition to the ICC. It then assesses the relevance of these concerns in light of the Court’s work to date. This Article also considers the outcome of the 2010 ICC Review Conference. It analyzes the amendments made to the Court’s Statute regarding the controversial crime of aggression and explains why these new provisions are not likely to create significant concerns for the United States. As its final area of inquiry, this Article examines the early work of the ICC in order to determine whether the institution is in fact fulfilling its mission to act as a “court of last resort.” Determining that the ICC’s present approach to case admissibility neither provides evidence that the Court is on a path that assures its anti-impunity goal nor comports with the U.S. preference to see justice performed at the national level, this Article concludes by noting the changes that will have to be made before U.S. accession can become a possibility
Achievement and Behavior in Charter Schools: Drawing a More Complete Picture

Abstract I use a long panel with broad grade coverage to establish whether charter schools affect cognitive and noncognitive skill formation. Schools that begin as charters generate large improvements in discipline and attendance but not test scores, with the exception of math in middle schools. This suggests improvements in noncognitive but not cognitive skills, although these improvements do not persist if students return to regular public schools. Charters that convert from regular public schools have little impact on either skill type. These results are robust to potential biases from selection off of precharter trends, attrition, and persistence.
Securities Intermediaries and the Separation of Ownership from Control

The Modern Corporation & Private Property is a paradigmshifting analysis of the modern corporation. The book is perhaps best known for the insights of Berle and Means about the separation of ownership from control and the consequences of that separation for the allocation of power within the corporation. The Berle and Means story focuses on the shareholder as the owner of the corporation. Berle and Means saw the mechanism of centralized management—in which the shareholder retains the economic interest but not the control rights associated with ownership—as threatening the conception of shareholder interests in terms of property rights. In particular, they viewed the shareholder’s role as evolving from that of a traditional owner to that of a “supplier of capital, a risk-taker pure and simple.” Financial innovation has enhanced this evolution. As Professor Tamar Frankel explains, new financial instruments enable investors to decouple the “bundle of rights” historically represented by a financial asset, such as a share of stock, into multiple components in which risk, economic interest, and control rights need not be proportional to each
The International Persistence and Resilience of Solitary Confinement

Drawing on a combination of legal analysis and fieldwork conducted with prisoners and administrators in both Denmark and the United States, this article interrogates how solitary confinement has been defined and constrained – or not – in the context of U.S., European, and international law over time. Solitary confinement has existed consistently in prisons across the world, since the first prisons opened. Solitary has been surprisingly predictable over its long history: resilient to criticism, subject to ongoing debates about just how detrimental it is, and repeatedly producing instances of extreme and de-humanizing brutality. This consistency and predictability suggests substantial limitations inherent in the newest barrage of critiques leveled by courts, scholars, international human rights bodies, and professional associations against the practice of solitary confinement. Indeed, this reveals that many critiques of solitary confinement have failed because they have promoted reformist rather than non-reformist (or abolition) agendas – a distinction articulated by Mathiesen (1974/2014). Partiendo de una combinacion de analisis de leyes y trabajo de campo, este articulo investiga como se ha definido y limitado -o no- el regimen de aislamiento en los codigos legales. El aislamiento carcelario ha sido una constante en todo el mundo, produciendo ejemplos de brutalidad extrema, suscitando discusiones sobre su impacto psicologico y eludiendo las criticas fundadas en pruebas. La ininterrupcion y predecibilidad del aislamiento carcelario indican que hay limitaciones sustanciales en la nueva ola de criticas por parte de juzgados, academicos, organizaciones de derechos humanos y asociaciones profesionales. Lo cierto es que muchas de las criticas han errado porque han promovido la reforma en lugar de la abolicion, distincion explicada por Mathiesen (1974/2014). Available from: https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-0930
L^p operator algebras with approximate identities I

We initiate an investigation into how much the existing theory of (nonselfadjoint) operator algebras on a Hilbert space generalizes to algebras acting on L^p spaces. In particular we investigate the applicability of the theory of real positivity, which has recently been useful in the study of L^2-operator algebras and Banach algebras, to algebras of bounded operators on Lp spaces.
Judge Jack Weinstein and the World of Tort: Institutional and Historical Perspectives

In this Article, I offer four representative illustrations of Judge Jack Weinstein’s creative efforts to recast traditional tort concepts in a fashion responsive, by his lights, to accident law claims that pressed against the boundaries of the conventional interpersonal tort law process. In the first of these cases, dealing with a cluster of blasting cap injuries to minors, Judge Weinstein addressed the puzzle of the indeterminate defendant. In the second, war veterans’ claims from Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam, he wrestled with indeterminacy of both defendants and plaintiffs. In the third, the handgun cases, the mass claims dimension so evident in Agent Orange was less salient than the public safety perspective that animated his doctrinal creativity. And finally, in the tobacco punitive damages class action, he returned to a concern for reaching closure in a seemingly intractable public health controversy that served as an underlying theme in Agent Orange, as well. Each of these cases, in its own way, served as a vehicle for Judge Weinstein to realign enterprise liability theory to give priority to risk spreading over risk allocation as an expression of his distinctive commitment to redress of injury victims. In a final section of this Article, I discuss how these judicial strategies mesh with Judge Weinstein’s published efforts in the academic sphere to articulate his vision of the role of tort law.
A tale of two seasons : Participation and medal counts at the summer and winter Olympic Games

Objectives. This article examines all postwar Summer and Winter Olympic Games in order to investigate the economic and political determinants of participation and medal-winning success. Methods. Using newly compiled data, regression analysis gives intuitive results with surprisingly accurate predictions beyond the historical sample. We also estimate the rise in income per capita required to send an extra participant, and the “cost” in GDP per capita of an extra medal. Results. Compared to the Summer Games, Winter participation levels are driven more by income and less by population, have less host nation bias, and a greater effect of climate. Single-party and communist regimes win more medals in both seasons. Conclusion. Although their effects differ with the season of the Games, socioeconomic variables explain Olympic participation and success remarkably well.
Access and the Public Domain

One of the constitutive notions of intellectual property is the public domain. These are the ideas, notions and works that are usable by all where no person can invoke a right to block use by another. I am interested in the mechanics of accessing the public domain and the consequences of the choices that we make about the operational effectiveness of various tools available for controlling access to the public domain. That matters both for the extent of access but also importantly for the scale and scope of competition in the provision of the public domain. This takes us to contract and terms of use; to the core of copyright in what it means to be original and also what it means to copy; to copyright’s periphery in the form of the deposit requirement; to the DMCA and its tools of distant control; and to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and its restrictions on accessing materials and objects under local control. With the emergence of major digital scanning projects for works in the public domain, we are at a point of possibly unparalleled practical access to the public domain. But the decisions we make about the tools just described will have a strong effect on the scope of the actual access to the public domain that emerges and in the extent of competition on the provision and use of the public domain.We think of the public domain as open to all and in that sense owned by no one (or owned by all). But that ignores the question of how the public domain is actually accessed. We have many tools that control that access and in that sense, through those tools, we re-establish a shadow control regime for the public domain. And we are at the early stages of architecting competition in digital libraries and one piece of that process will be assessing the mechanisms for controlling access to the public domain.Section I of the paper sketches out the emerging public domain. Section II considers three conceptual questions for structuring use of the public domain focusing on the extent to which the public domain should be viral; on whether we should insist that the public domain be accessed only through the original artifacts embodying it; and on whether private appropriability incentives for distribution of public domain scans match overall social interests. Section III turns to the tools for restricting use of the public domain, to copyright, contract, the DMCA and the CFAA. Each of these matters for access to the public domain and for competition over it. Section IV considers one narrow question regarding the relationship between copyright’s deposit requirement and a truly public public domain, while the last section briefly concludes the paper.
MOCVD synthesis of compositionally tuned topological insulator nanowires

Device applications involving topological insulators (TIs) will require the development of scalable methods for fabricating TI samples with sub-micron dimensions, high quality surfaces, and controlled compositions. Here we use Bi-, Se-, and Te-bearing metalorganic precursors to synthesize TIs in the form of nanowires. Single crystal nanowires can be grown with compositions ranging from Bi2Se3 to Bi2Te3, including the ternary compound Bi2Te2Se. These high quality nanostructured TI compounds are suitable platforms for on-going searches for Majorana Fermions.
The Adverse Impact of Truth-in-Sentencing on Wisconsin's Efforts to deal with Low-Level Drug Offenders

In 1998, Wisconsin passed a so-called Truth in Sentencing (“TIS”) law. This paper explores how the TIS law come to be enacted and what effect it has had, particularly on low level drug offenders. The paper concludes that the law was passed largely to advance the career ambitions of a number of Wisconsin political figures and that it has had an extremely harmful impact on the state and on its capacity to deal effectively with low level drug offenders. TIS has led to an enormous increase in the costs of Wisconsin’s correctional system and has had a particularly harsh impact on the African-American community concentrated in Milwaukee.
The Return of Noncongruent Equal Protection

© 2014, Fordham University School of Law. All rights reserved. Contemporary equal protection doctrine touts the principle of congruence: the notion that equal protection means the same thing whether applied to state or to federal laws. The federalism-tinged equal protection analysis at the heart of Justice Kennedy's opinion in United States v. Windsor, however, necessarily violates the congruence principle. Commentators and courts - especially those deciding how Windsor's federalism should affect the ever-growing number of state same-sex marriage cases - have so far failed to account for Windsor's noncongruent equal protection, much less ask whether noncongruence is generally desirable, and if so, what form it should take. This Article draws answers to those questions from the Supreme Court's alienage discrimination cases, which offer three distinct models of noncongruence, each of which is reflected in Windsor. The alienage cases show that instead of applying different levels of scrutiny to federal and state laws, a better understanding of noncongruence would allow different levels of government to assert different interests in defending their laws. By reconstructing and evaluating the ways that structure and rights intersect in the alienage cases, this Article considers for the first time what the return of noncongruent equal protection could mean both for cases that follow Windsor and for equal protection doctrine more broadly.
LIAR'S LOAN? EFFECTS OF ORIGINATION CHANNEL AND INFORMATION FALSIFICATION ON MORTGAGE DELINQUENCY

This paper presents an analysis of mortgage delinquency between 2004 and 2008 using a loan-level data set from a major national mortgage bank. Our analysis highlights two problems underlying the mortgage crisis: a reliance on mortgage brokers who tend to originate lower-quality loans and a prevalence of low-documentation loans—known in the industry as “liar's loans”—that result in borrower information falsification. While over three-quarters of the difference in delinquency rates between bank and broker channels can be attributed to observable loan and borrower characteristics, the delinquency difference between full- and low-documentation mortgages is due to unobservable heterogeneity, about half of it potentially due to income falsification.
Capital Structure and the Ex-Dividend Day Return

We apply an option-pricing framework to the ex-dividend behavior of common stocks. The framework explains the observed behavior of positive returns on the ex-dividend day and predicts that ex-dividend day returns will be higher for firms with greater financial leverage. Empirical testing supports the prediction. In contrast to prior studies, we find that dividendcapture activity has no significant impact on ex-dividend behavior, and we offer an explanation based on the importance of tick intervals.
Does mass immigration destroy institutions? 1990s Israel as a natural experiment

Abstract The relaxation of emigration restrictions in the Soviet Union and the State’s subsequent collapse led to a large exogenous shock to Israel’s immigrant flows because Israel allows unrestricted immigration for world-wide Jews. Israel’s population increased by 20% in the 1990s due to immigration from the former Soviet Union. These immigrants did not bring social capital that eroded the quality of Israel’s institutional environment. We find that economic institutions’ improved substantially over the decade. Our synthetic control methodology indicates that it is likely that the institutions improvement would not have occurred to the same degree without the mass migration. Our case study indicates that immigrant participation in the political process is the main mechanism through which the migration caused institutional change.
Constitutional Coup? The Case that Promulgated a New Constitution for Montana

This Article examines one of the most important state court cases ever decided. In Montana ex rel. Cashmore v. Anderson, the Montana Supreme Court exercised its original jurisdiction by a 3-2 margin to order that the state’s original constitution be replaced with a new one that likely had failed of ratification. In doing so, the court yielded to interest groups that favored replacing the original state constitution with an instrument based on radically different premises. Political threats may have caused the swing justice to vote for the new constitution, but even if that did not occur, the case represents a striking example of the failure of the rule of law. The Article also proposes reforms that may reduce the chances of a recurrence.
Markovian equilibrium in infinite horizon economies with incomplete markets and public policy

Abstract We develop an isotone recursive approach to the problem of existence, computation, and characterization of nonsymmetric locally Lipschitz continuous (and, therefore, Clarke-differentiable) Markovian equilibrium for a class of infinite horizon multiagent competitive equilibrium models with capital, aggregate risk, public policy, externalities, one sector production, and incomplete markets. The class of models we consider is large, and examples have been studied extensively in the applied literature in public economics, macroeconomics, and financial economics. We provide sufficient conditions that distinguish between economies with isotone Lipschitz Markov equilibrium decision processes (MEDPs) and those that have only locally Lipschitz (but not necessarily isotone) MEDPs. As our fixed point operators are based upon order continuous and compact nonlinear operators, we are able to provide sufficient conditions under which isotone iterative fixed point constructions converge to extremal MEDPs via successive approximation. We develop a first application of a new method for computing MEDPs in a system of Euler inequalities using isotone fixed point theory even when MEDPs are not necessarily isotone. The method is a special case of a more general mixed monotone recursive approach. We show MEDPs are unique only under very restrictive conditions. Finally, we prove monotone comparison theorems in Veinott’s strong set order on the space of public policy parameters and distorted production functions.
Linking Regional Science and Urban Economics: Long-Run Interactions among Preferences for Amenities and Public Goods

The linked nature of long-term patterns of urban deconcentration and regional change (from rustbelt to sunbelt in the U.S., but with similar phenomena increasingly world-wide) is analyzed in a framework that emphasizes heterogeneous human preferences. The focus is on the important interactions that exist between local and regional amenities, whether exogenous or endogenous. The central thesis is that persistent exogenous amenity variation among regions provides an underlying pattern of regional growth and decline. However, inappropriate provision of local public goods in central cities is seen to lead both to non-optimally large levels of suburbanization and to rates of regional change that are also non-optimally large.
Incorporating Direct Marketing Activity into Latent Attrition Models

When defection is unobserved, latent attrition models provide useful insights about customer behavior and accurate forecasts of customer value. Yet extant models ignore direct marketing efforts. Response models incorporate the effects of direct marketing, but because they ignore latent attrition, they may lead firms to waste resources on inactive customers. We propose a parsimonious model that allows direct marketing to impact three relevant behaviors in latent attrition models---the frequency with which customers conduct transactions, the size of the transactions, and the duration for which customers remain active. Our model also accounts for how the organization targets its direct marketing across individuals and over time. Using donation data from a nonprofit organization, we find that direct marketing increases donation incidence for active donors. However, our analysis also shows that direct marketing has the potential to shorten the length of a donor's relationship. We find that our proposed model offers superior predictive performance compared with models that ignore the impact of direct marketing activity or latent attrition. We demonstrate the managerial applicability of our modeling approach by estimating the impact of direct marketing on donation behavior and identifying those donors most likely to conduct transactions in the future.
The Emergence of the London Stock Exchange as a Self- Policing Club

In the early stock market in London there were substantial risks of non-payment and fraud. (Mortimer, 1801) According to Hobbesian theory, we would expect stock markets to develop only after government has implemented rules and regulations to eliminate these problems. The historical account, however, provides evidence that solutions to these problems did not come from the state. This article outlines the emergence of the London Stock Exchange, which was created by eighteenth century brokers who transformed coffeehouses into private clubs that created and enforced rules. Rather than relying on public regulation to enforce contracts and reduce fraud, brokers consciously found a way to solve their dilemmas by forming a self-policing club.
The Constitutional Challenge to Teacher Tenure

Reformers argue that ineffective teaching is the linchpin of educational inequality and failure. Starting in 2010, they successfully sought important changes in teacher evaluation systems at the state and federal levels. But tenure, a fundamental source of teachers’ strength to resist more aggressive reform, remained in place. Thus, in 2012, reformers theorized a novel constitutional strategy to eliminate tenure. They argued that tenure leads to the retention of ineffective teachers, and that ineffective teaching deprives students of the constitutional right to education embedded in state constitutions. This theory immediately caught hold, with a California trial court striking down tenure in 2014 and litigation commencing in other states weeks thereafter.
Flights of fancy: Corporate jets, CEO perquisites, and inferior shareholder returns

Abstract This paper studies perquisites of CEOs, focusing on personal use of company planes. For firms that have disclosed this managerial benefit, average shareholder returns underperform market benchmarks by more than 4% annually, a severe gap far exceeding the costs of resources consumed. Around the date of the initial disclosure, firms’ stock prices drop by an average of 1.1%. Regression analysis finds no significant associations between CEOs’ perquisites and their compensation or percentage ownership, but variables related to personal CEO characteristics, especially long-distance golf club memberships, have significant explanatory power for personal aircraft use.
California Banking in the Nineteenth Century: The Art and Method of the Bank of A. Levy

An 1890s loan book of the Bank of A. Levy permits a detailed examination of the lending operations of a private bank in California during the National Banking Era (1864–1914). This period has been intensively analyzed at the national and state level, but there are few studies of banks at the firm level. This unregulated bank was integrated into money markets and lent to a broad cross section of the community. Although the bank appeared to adhere to the real bills doctrine, it provided businesses with medium-term, uncollateralized financing. The bank priced risk carefully, offering rates equal to the lowest in the country to its best customers while charging extraordinarily high rates to borrowers deemed risky. In the absence of modern accounting, the bank's close scrutiny of borrowers' businesses and personal lives enabled it to fulfill a special intermediary role.
State Sentencing Policy and New Prison Admissions

As the academy's focus has turned to sentencing in the wake of Blakely v. Washington and United States v. Booker, most commentators have continued their benign neglect of actual sentencing practices as they occur in state courts, not to mention whether and how such policies are effective in achieving the goals of criminal justice. This Note examines trends in state sentencing policies and prison populations from the perspective of a would-be state reformer hoping to decrease her state's prison budget. Economic pressures, efficiency arguments, and social justice claims have combined to cause some states to desire lower prison populations, but few empirical studies exist of how states actually go about reducing their prison costs. This Note begins with an examination of twenty years of prison admissions data, tracking the trends of new admissions into state prison systems. After identifying outlier states - those states whose low admissions defied national and regional trends - the Note presents three state case studies evaluating the policy choices contributing to the lower admissions. Next, recommendations are made for would-be reformers based on these results. In addition to incarceration alternatives, special focus is placed on North Carolina's fiscal note program, which, coupled with computer modeling of expected prison populations, has helped the state conduct informed debate about criminal sentencing. In the wake of sentencing reforms, the state has moved from having the nation's top incarceration rate to a place in the middle of the pack, an impressive result given the continued priority of tough sentences for violent offenders.
The Protected Profits Benchmark: Responses to Comments

I am pleased to have this opportunity to respond to the thoughtful comments by Professor Richard Gilbert,1 Dr. Su Sun,2 and Dr. Timothy Tardiff3 on my article4 on refusals to deal and price squeezes. In my article in this Journal, I sought to clarify the proper price standard for determining whether or not a vertically integrated monopolist (VIM)5 is engaged in a refusal to deal or price squeeze in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The determination of the legal price standard for anticompetitive refusal to deal and price squeeze allegations is an important issue and one that has become seriously contorted in light of the Supreme Court’s opinion in linkLine.6
Green Clubs: Collective Action and Voluntary Environmental Programs

Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) are institutions that encourage participating actors to produce environmental public goods beyond the requirements of government law. Drawing on the club approach to the study of VEPs, we identify four collective action challenges facing VEPs. First, sponsoring actors must be motivated to invest resources to create a VEP despite incentives to free ride on the efforts of others. Second, VEPs need to be designed to offer firms sufficient excludable incentives to join them. Third, VEPs need monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to ensure that participants adhere to program obligations and do not free ride on the efforts of other participants. Fourth, VEPs and their sponsors need to motivate stakeholders to compensate firms for producing environmental public goods. The literature reveals considerable variability in how these challenges are addressed, suggesting that successful VEPs need to fit their institutional contexts.
Does Eco-labeling of Services Matter? Evidence from Higher Education

Eco-labeling of services has become increasingly common, yet little empirical evidence exists concerning its effectiveness. We address this gap in the literature by analyzing a highly visible eco-label, the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), in the sector of higher education. We match information about the ACUPCC to the US Department of Education IPEDS database to examine the impact of signing on student applications, admissions, and enrollment. We mainly utilize a difference-in-difference approach to identify the effects of interest but confirm results with an interrupted time series model. We find that signing the ACUPCC increases applications and admitted students by 2.5–3.5 %. However, the evidence regarding enrollment is weaker with only some specifications finding increases of around 1–2 %. Overall, there is considerable heterogeneity across sectors and selectivity of the institutions. These results show that, at the minimum, voluntary and information-based approaches (VIBAs) for services can be effective in generating visibility and influencing less-costly consumer behavior.
Reading the tea leaves: Model uncertainty, robust forecasts, and the autocorrelation of analysts’ forecast errors☆

Abstract We put forward a model in which analysts are uncertain about a firm’s earnings process. Faced with the possibility of using a misspecified model, analysts issue forecasts that are robust to model misspecification. We estimate that this mechanism explains approximately 60% of the autocorrelation in analysts’ forecast errors. The remainder stems from the cross-sectional variation in mean forecast errors and in analysts’ estimation errors of the persistence of earnings growth shocks. Consistent with our model, we find that analysts learn about some features of the earnings process but not others, and this learning reduces, but does not eliminate, the autocorrelation of forecast errors as firms age. Other potential explanations for the autocorrelation of analyst forecast errors are rejected. Our model of robust forecasting applies not only to analysts’ forecasts but also to all model-based forecasts.
Promoting Marriage Experimentation: A Class Act?

For nearly sixty years, the federal government maintained a policy of preventing or discouraging receipt of welfare by two-parent families. In its massive overhaul of welfare in 1996, Congress reversed course and declared its new policy was to promote marriage for welfare recipients. With great fan fare, the Bush Administration pledged $1.5 billion to support a healthy marriage initiative for recipients of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. As Professor Nice reveals, however, the marriage promotion policy is not what it seems to be. For example, in the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act, Congress quietly reinstated a marriage penalty by authorizing sanctions against states that failed to meet a thirty-five hour weekly work requirement on 90% of two-parent families as compared to the more lenient 50% work rate for other families. Moreover, most marriage promotion funding has not been allocated toward direct incentives for welfare recipients to marry but instead has supported cheaper advertising and educational campaigns designed to persuade poor Americans to marry and stay married. Professor Nice argues that spending funds on promoting marriage is exactly not what is needed, however, especially considering social science data such as the important study by sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas that found poor women already aspire to marry but feel they cannot afford marriage. Professor Nice further demonstrates that social science data regarding marriage and poverty are insufficient to justify the marriage promotion experiment due to serious weaknesses in methodology of past studies and current gaps in knowledge. She concludes that such flawed experimentation affecting the private lives of welfare recipients is tolerated precisely because of their class.
Measuring a “Spiritual Stake”: How to Determine Injury-in-Fact in Challenges to Public Displays of Religion

This Note analyzes the unique standing problem introduced by a particular set of Establishment Clause cases: those concerning nontaxpayer-based challenges to alleged “public displays” of religious symbols. This injury-in-fact problem arises due to the nature of the specific type of harm recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in the context of religious displays: the public endorsement of religion. Due to this unusually subjective harm, it is unclear how the courts should evaluate this threshold injury-in-fact inquiry. This Note analyzes the legal conflict arising from the attempt to remain faithful to both the traditional injury-infact standing requirements and the endorsement test generally applied to the merits in Establishment Clause challenges. This Note interprets Supreme Court precedent and proposes a tailored, multifactor test, articulating a specific injury-in-fact burden for public display challengers. The proposed test attempts to take into account the entirety of the unique injury. In particular, this test considers the display in context, rather than as a mere “snapshot.” This standard, while unique, is fully reconcilable with the Court’s current standing jurisprudence and addresses the various policy implications confronted by the lower courts.