cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Do the diversification choices of individual investors influence stock returns

Abstract This paper shows that the diversification choices of individual investors influence stock returns. A zero-cost portfolio that takes a long (short) position in stocks with the least (most) diversified individual investor clientele generates an annual, risk-adjusted return of 5–9%. This spread reflects the combined effects of sentiment-induced mispricing, narrow risk framing, and asymmetric information, where the sentiment effect is the strongest. Furthermore, the influence on returns is stronger among smaller, low institutionally owned, and hard-to-arbitrage stocks. These results are robust to concerns about relatively short sample size, improper factor model specification, slow information diffusion, and high transactions costs.
Do takeover laws matter? Evidence from five decades of hostile takeovers

Abstract This study evaluates the relation between hostile takeovers and 17 takeover laws from 1965 to 2014. Using a data set of largely exogenous legal changes, we find that certain takeover laws, such as poison pill and business combination laws, have no discernible impact on hostile activity, while others such as fair price laws have reduced hostile takeovers. We construct a Takeover Index from the laws and find that higher takeover protection is associated with lower firm value, consistent with entrenchment and agency costs. However, conditional on a bid, firms with more protection achieve higher premiums, consistent with increased bargaining power.
Governance, Media and the Quality of Environmental Disclosure

Abstract Given the rising emphasis on environmental disclosures and the expressed importance of ‘good’ governance in determining the extent of information disclosure in general, we examine the relation between specific aspects of governance and media coverage and the quality of voluntary environmental disclosure (VED). Using a sample of 127 firms over a 6-year period (2000–2005), we empirically test characteristics of governance and media in relation to VED. Our results suggest that VED quality is positively associated with environmental media coverage, negative environmental media and board attributes of independence, diversity, and expertise. Results from supplemental analysis suggest that institutional investors exert influence over managerial decisions on environmental reporting only in the face of negative environmental media. Additionally, results from longitudinal analyses indicate that the quality of environmental disclosures increases over time. Our conclusion discusses the implications of these findings.
Synchronous, distributed collaborative writing for policy agenda setting using Collaboratus, an Internet-based collaboration tool

Collaborative writing (CW) in policy agenda setting and grant development is an important aspect of community development. However, solutions need to be found to better deal with distributed CW. The paper establishes a basis for improving distributed CW for policy agenda setting, and similar efforts, by using an Internet-based collaborative tool. This work utilizes key research to better understand the constructs and potential outcomes of CW. Findings include that using Collaboratus for distributed CW can provide significant improvements over traditional methods, potentially benefiting those involved in distributed rural community development initiatives and similar efforts.
Covariation Assessments with Costly Information Collection in Audit Planning: An Experimental Study

SUMMARY: In this paper we report the results of two experiments that investigate auditing covariation‐estimate revisions when there are countervailing incentives for effectiveness and efficiency. Covariation estimates assess the degree of association between a “Clue” that auditors might observe, and its potentially associated “Condition.” We find that when participants choose which information to obtain from a contingency table (i.e., Cell Choice), they obtain too few cells of information in predictable patterns. Second, we find that when covariation estimation biases occur, they do so more due to this insufficient information collection rather than improper processing of collected information. Third, when participants collect information randomly and cannot choose particular cells (i.e., Sample‐Size Choice), covariation estimation biases are significantly reduced. Finally, when participants are sensitized to the importance of all four cells of information, they collect more cells in subsequent Cell Choic...
Disappearing Claims and the Erosion of Substantive Law

The Supreme Court’s arbitration jurisprudence from the last five years represents the culmination of a three-decade-long expansion of the use of private arbitration as an alternative to court adjudication in the resolution of disputes of virtually every type of justiciable claim. Because privatizing disputes that would otherwise be public may well erode public confidence in public institutions and the judicial process, many observers have linked this decadeslong privatization of dispute resolution to an erosion of the public realm. Here, I argue that the Court’s recent arbitration jurisprudence undermines the substantive law itself. While this shift from dispute resolution in courts—the public realm—to dispute resolution in arbitration—the private realm—initially undermined values and mechanisms of adjudication, the shift from public lawsuits to private arbitration now also threatens values and mechanisms of lawmaking. This new threat to the lawmaking function stems from a fundamental theoretical shift in the Court’s arbitration jurisprudence, cemented in its 2013 decision in American Express v. Italian Colors. As this piece explains, in Italian Colors, the Supreme Court subtly, but definitively, abandoned its descriptive and normative premise that freedom of contract was justified in the arbitration context because it would result in more cost-effective procedures for resolving disputes, and, accordingly, enforcement of federal statutory regimes. In its place, the Court adopted a reductionist vision of arbitration as any set of private dispute resolution procedures chosen by the parties, no matter how onerous or inefficient, and it held that the Federal Arbitration Act required courts to enforce whatever terms the parties chose. Particularly given a pronounced reliance in the United States upon private litigants to enforce statutory directives, the Court’s recent arbitration jurisprudence now threatens the substantive law itself. Through private arbitration contracts, private parties can effectively rewrite substantive law by rendering a host of legal claims mere nullities. What’s more, private parties can exercise this quasi-lawmaking power almost entirely outside of public view, through rarely read and little-understood provisions in contracts of adhesion subject to scant public scrutiny or regulatory oversight. The largely unchecked power of private entities to recalibrate their legal obligations, now recognized by the Court, leaves little to stop an erosion of substantive law. author. Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. I would like to thank Bert Huang, Justice Goodwin Liu, David Luban, David Super, Alan Trammell, David Vladeck and participants at the Columbia Law School Courts and the Legal Process Colloquium for insightful comments. I would also like to thank Elizabeth Chao and the editors of the Yale Law Journal for their careful work throughout the editing process. Emily Merki, Logan Dwyer, and TJ McCarrick provided excellent research assistance. disappearing claims and the erosion of substantive law 3053 feature contents
Do Price Discreteness and Transactions Costs Affect Stock Returns? Comparing Ex-Dividend Pricing before and after Decimalization

By the end of January 2001, all NYSE stocks had converted their price quotations from 1/8s and 1/16s to decimals. This study examines the effect of this change in price quotations on ex-dividend day activity. We find that abnormal ex-dividend day returns increase in the 1/16 and decimal pricing eras, relative to the 1/8 era, which is inconsistent with microstructure explanations of ex-day price movements. We also find that abnormal returns increase in conjunction with a May 1997 reduction in the capital gains tax rate, as they should if relative taxation of dividends and capital gains affects ex-day pricing
The 12C/13C Isotopic Ratio in Photodissociated Gas in M42

We have observed the 158 μm2P3/2 ←2P1/2 fine-structure line of 12C II simultaneously with the F = 2 ← 1 and F = 1 ← 0 hyperfine components of this transition in 13C II in the Orion photodissociation region near θ1C. The line profiles were fully resolved using a heterodyne spectrometer with 0.5 km s-1 resolution. The relative intensities of these lines give a12C/13C isotopic ratio of R = 58(−5+6) for the most probable 12C II peak optical depth τ = 1.3. The constrained range of τ(12C II) between 1.0 and 1.4 corresponds to a range of 12C/13C between 52 and 61. The most probable value of 58 agrees very well with the value obtained from a relationship between the isotopic ratio and Galactocentric distance derived from CO measurements, but it is lower than the specific value, 67 ± 3, obtained for Orion from CO data. An isotopic ratio as low as 43, as previously suggested based on optical absorption measurements of the local interstellar medium, is excluded by the C II data at about the 2 σ level.
Joint ventures and technology adoption: A Chinese industrial policy that backfired

Abstract To spur technology transfer, emerging market policymakers often require foreign firms to form joint ventures (JVs) with domestic firms. Through knowledge spillovers, JVs may reduce technology acquisition costs for domestic firms. Yet domestic firm rents from JVs could discourage innovation through a cannibalization effect. Which force dominates is an empirical question. I address it with novel data on China's auto sector. In response to fuel economy standards requiring firms to upgrade technology or sacrifice quality, firms with JVs reduced quality and price relative to their counterparts. Consistent with cannibalization, firms with JVs drive the negative effect.
Applicant reactions and their consequences: review, advice, and recommendations for future research

Recent years have seen an abundance of research addressing applicant reactions to personnel recruitment and standard selection procedures. However, most of this research focuses on isolating the determinants of these reactions rather than on their consequences. For example, just because an individual perceives a selection procedure as unfair, does this actually have any impact on the organization? In an attempt to fill this void in the literature, the current paper focuses on the outcomes and consequences of applicant reactions to personnel selection procedures. Specifically, the current paper (1) reviews the extant research on the consequences of applicant reactions, (2) advances a summative model of existing theory and research, (3) provides recommendations to organizational leaders who are concerned about the impact of applicant reactions to their personnel selection procedures, and (4) discusses directions for future research that will better substantiate these recommendations given to organizational leaders.
How and When Alphanumeric Brand Names Affect Consumer Preferences

Abstract This research develops a taxonomy of alphanumeric brand names (ABs) based on the alignment between the brand names and their links to products and attributes. Five empirical studies reveal that ABs have systematic effects on consumers' product choices, moderated by consumers' need for cognition, the availability of product attribute information, and the taxonomic category of the AB. In an identical choice set, the choice share of a product option whose brand name takes a higher versus lower numeric portion (e.g., X-200 versus X-100) increases, and it is preferred more even when it is objectively inferior to other choice alternatives. Consumers with low need for cognition use “the higher, the better” heuristic to select options labeled with ABs and choose brands with higher numeric portions. Consumers with high need for cognition process ABs more systematically and make inferences about attribute values based on brand name–attribute correlations. The effects of ABs on consumer preferences are prev...
Energy Revolution and Disaster Response in the Face of Climate Change

Nuclear meltdown in Japan and civil society strife across the Middle East highlight the degree to which resilience is core to international peace and security. This article considers the means by which communities can become increasingly resilient through shared best practices across a range of climate change measures.
Shifting the Conversation: Disability, Disparities and Health Care Reform

In keeping with the theme of this symposium, I would like to invite you to consider health care reform as a political shift in our thinking about the barriers and inequalities experienced by people with disabilities in our health care system. Traditionally, when these issues have been addressed, the predominant approach has been through a civil rights framework, specifically the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). Now, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) 3 offers a new approach. This essay will outline the barriers to health and health care experienced by people with disabilities, drawing upon my ongoing research into the impact of inaccessible medical equipment. I will then examine the role of civil rights law and of health care reform in addressing those disparities, and recommend the development of these as complementary, rather than competing, approaches.
Self-Help and the Rules of Engagement

Self-help is a ubiquitous, yet understudied, concept. To the degree it has been examined, both courts and commentators have cited the prospect of violence as the central motivation for the law’s limitations on the ability to exercise self-help rights. But the literature lacks a theoretical framework for self-help that can evaluate this motivation to curb violence in concert with the other variables that matter in debates over self-help. This Article fills this gap and, in so doing, shows that the common citation to the potential for violence does not play the central role that courts and commentators have assigned to it. Rather, the rules and their structure reflect the goal of funneling mistake-prone cases to state authorities for resolution. Where legal rights are clear, the law often permits self-help even at the expense of some violence. If the use of selfhelp can lead to these undesirable effects, the law will often seek to minimize this harm by calibrating appropriate rules of engagement instead of prohibiting the use of self-help altogether. This central claim—that forcing investments in accuracy drives much of the law of self-help—harmonizes the theory of selfhelp with the different ways it has been implemented and restricted. By so doing, this Article helps to clarify the dynamics of the law of self-help, while also suggesting that one of the most important roles that mandatory process plays in private law is to facilitate coordination and prevent the waste of resources in close cases.
The Dignity Of Voters - A Dissent

Since the waning days of the Burger Court, the federal judiciary has developed a generally well-deserved reputation for hostility to constitutional claims of individual right. This predisposition has manifested itself in several well-known ways: a profound reluctance to recognize new rights; an antipathy toward many previously recognized rights, some of which have from time to time received a fairly severe pruning; and a corresponding healthy new interest in constitutional structure as the proper basis for resolving constitutional disputes, particularly in the areas of federalism and separation of powers. In the field of democratic process, however, things stand very differently. First, the Supreme Court has in the last two decades affirmed, defended, and even in some instances expanded the applications of previously recognized rights. The Court has, for example, continued to stand by earlier decisions pressing to the limit the Fourteenth Amendment right to equally weighted voting under the one-person, one-vote
The Resilience of Computationalism

Computationalism—the view that cognition is computation—has always been controversial. It faces two types of objection. According to insufficiency objections, computation is insufficient for some cognitive phenomenon X. According to objections from neural realization, cognitive processes are realized by neural processes, but neural processes have feature Y, and having Y is incompatible with being (or realizing) computations. In this article, I explain why computationalism has survived these objections. To adjudicate the dispute between computationalism and its foes, I will conclude that we need a better account of computation.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: A Five Year Retrospective

This paper provides a 5 year review of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which is part (title X) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The CFPB is one of the most controversial parts of the Dodd-Frank Act. It has been argued (mostly by the banking industry) that the CFPB imposes a regulatory burden on banks without any measurable benefits for those it is designed to protect. It is also one of the first regulatory policies that embraces elements of Behavioral Economics. It does this with a regulatory framework that discourages the supply of certain financial products that are potentially toxic to the financial health of less than fully rational households. We find that CFPB as a regulatory policy conflicts with other government policies designed to encourage home ownership and access to financial products among the poor. One possible solution to this contradiction in conflicting government policies is to carry out the social goal of housing for the poor within a government sponsored enterprise much like the Federal Farm Credit System.
Water Use and Conservation in Manufacturing: Evidence from U.S. Microdata

Water can be a scarce resource, particularly in certain places at certain times. Understanding both water use and conservation efforts can help ensure that limited supplies can meet the demands of a growing population and economy. This paper examines water use and recirculation in the U.S. manufacturing sector, using newly recovered microdata from the Survey of Water Use in Manufacturing, merged with establishment-level data from the Annual Survey of Manufactures and the Census of Manufactures. Results suggest that water use per unit of output is largest for larger establishments, in part because larger establishments use water for more purposes. Larger establishments are also found to recirculate water more — satisfying demand (water use) without necessarily increasing water intake. Various costs also appear to play a role in water recirculation. In particular, the water circulation rate is found to be higher when water is purchased from a utility. Relatively low (internal) prices for self-supplied water could suppress the incentive to invest in recirculation. Meanwhile, establishments with higher per-gallon intake treatment costs also recirculate more, as might be expected. The cost associated with water discharge – due to regulation or otherwise – also increases circulation rates. The aridity of a locale is found to have little effect on circulation rates.
Network effects: Do they warm or chill a budding product?

Goldenberg, Libai, and Muller (2010) argue that network effects may slow the takeoff and growth in sales of a new product as adopters wait for sufficient others (threshold) to adopt. They call this the chilling effects of network externalities. They carry out a cellular automata experiment to examine how changes in certain parameter values affect profits due to this effect. They also adapt the Bass model to compute the chilling effect in five markets. Goldenberg et al. (2010) have produced a fine piece of research on the role of network effects in new product growth. Their adaptation of the Bass model is clever and their results appealing. However, their works seem to echo a persistent theme in the economics literature, that network effects have negative effects that can lead to inefficient and perverse markets (e.g., Church & Gandal, 1993; Farrell & Saloner, 1986; Katz & Shapiro, 1986, 1992). With due respect to their rigorous analysis, our research seems to suggest just the opposite — that network effects enhance the efficiency of markets (Tellis, Yin, & Niraj, 2009a,b). To show this effect, I will point to two issues, omitted variables and an enhanced perspective of network effects.
Spatial Dimensions of the Easterlin Hypothesis: Fertility Variations in Italy

The paper re–evaluates the Easterlin hypothesis in a multiregional context by conceptually and methodologically accounting for two processes of spatial interdependence in an open subnational demo–economic system: diffusion of fertility norms and values across space, and movements between labor markets. The empirical analysis estimates pooled cross–sectional, time–series models using data for 18 Italian regions from 1952 to 1995. The results suggest that accounting for spatial interdependencies is necessary to avoid model misspecifications. Moreover, the models lead to space–time landscapes of fertility elasticities that suggest, for the majority of space–time units, an inverse Easterlin effect for the diffusion component but support of the Easterlin hypothesis due to labor movements across space.
Social network analysis of the genealogy of strawberry: retracing the wild roots of heirloom and modern cultivars.

The widely recounted story of the origin of cultivated strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) oversimplifies the complex interspecific hybrid ancestry of the highly admixed populations from which heirloom and modern cultivars have emerged. To develop deeper insights into the three-century-long domestication history of strawberry, we reconstructed the genealogy as deeply as possible-pedigree records were assembled for 8,851 individuals, including 2,656 cultivars developed since 1775. The parents of individuals with unverified or missing pedigree records were accurately identified by applying an exclusion analysis to array-genotyped single-nucleotide polymorphisms. We identified 187 wild octoploid and 1,171 F. × ananassa founders in the genealogy, from the earliest hybrids to modern cultivars. The pedigree networks for cultivated strawberry are exceedingly complex labyrinths of ancestral interconnections formed by diverse hybrid ancestry, directional selection, migration, admixture, bottlenecks, overlapping generations, and recurrent hybridization with common ancestors that have unequally contributed allelic diversity to heirloom and modern cultivars. Fifteen to 333 ancestors were predicted to have transmitted 90% of the alleles found in country-, region-, and continent-specific populations. Using parent-offspring edges in the global pedigree network, we found that selection cycle lengths over the past 200 years of breeding have been extraordinarily long (16.0-16.9 years/generation), but decreased to a present-day range of 6.0-10.0 years/generation. Our analyses uncovered conspicuous differences in the ancestry and structure of North American and European populations, and shed light on forces that have shaped phenotypic diversity in F. × ananassa.
Japanese and US Trade with China: A Comparative Analysis

The paper provides a simple comparative analysis of Japanese and US trade with China. In recent years, Japanese exports to China had been growing faster than US exports, but Japanese imports from China had been growing more slowly. A large amount of US and Japanese exports were first shipped to Hong Kong, and then re-exported to China. In 1994, Japan's largest export item to China was general machinery, while US largest export item to China was transportation equipment. According to the rivalry index constructed in the paper, competition in 1994 between US and Japanese firms was most intense in the chemical goods sector.
Administration and "The Democracy": Administrative Law from Jackson to Lincoln, 1829-1861

Jacksonian America was a country in rapid transition. Intensified sectional divisions, exponential increases in urbanization and immigration, the rise of factory production, and repeated cycles of economic boom and bust helped to fuel an anxious desire for political reform. For Jacksonian Democrats the answer to this popular yearning was the reconstruction of American democracy—including a broadened electorate, offices open to all, and the elimination of monopoly and other special privileges. Government at the national level was to be kept small and returned to the people. But as is often the case, the institutionalization of democracy demanded a corresponding increase in governmental capacities. Destroying the power of the “Monster Bank” gave new powers and capacities to the Treasury for the management of monetary policy and fiscal transfers. Offices open to all through the new system of “rotation in office” created the need for bureaucratic systems of control that replaced status-based restraints and personal loyalties. And the side effects of technological development, in particular the human carnage that accompanied the rapid expansion of steamboat travel, generated public demand for protection that prompted the creation of a recognizably modern system of health and safety regulation. “The Democracy” established by the Jacksonians both furthered the building of an American administrative state and solidified an emerging nineteenth-century model of American administration law. In that model administrative accountability was preeminently a matter of (1) political oversight and direction and (2) internal hierarchical control. Judicial control of administration featured a cramped vision of mandamus review combined with almost unlimited personal liability of officials for erroneous action. Although administrative law structured in this fashion seems peculiar, indeed almost invisible, to the twenty-first-century legal imagination, it fit comfortably within Jacksonian democratic ideology. author. Sterling Professor of Law and Management, Yale University. My thanks to Josh Berman and Ethan Davis for splendid and cheerful research assistance, to colleagues far and wide who commented on earlier drafts, to Patricia Page for her usual excellent manuscript preparation, to the Yale Law School for financial support, to Theresa Cullen for marvelously efficient bibliographic assistance, and to Anne MacClintock for saving me from excessive use of the passive voice and for much else. 1568.MASHAW.1693.DOC 9/21/2008 10:27 PM ADMINISTRATION AND “THE DEMOCRACY” 1569 article contents
Mission Possible: A Paradigm for Analysis of Contractual Impossibility at Regent University

Regent University School of Law is a religiously affiliated institution. Members of its faculty must subscribe to a broadly stated statement of faith. This article addressed how one committed to the truths of that statement of faith might engage in the analysis of contract doctrine.
Twenty-five years of Social Science in Law

In this essay, we take the publication of the seventh edition of the casebook Social Science in Law (2010) as an opportunity to reflect on continuities and changes that have occurred in the application of social science research to American law over the past quarter-century. We structure these reflections by comparing and contrasting the original edition of the book with the current one. When the first edition appeared, courts' reliance on social science was often confused and always contested. Now, courts' reliance on social science is so common as to be unremarkable. What has changed--sometimes radically--are the substantive legal questions on which social science has been brought to bear.
Potential Pitfalls for the Purchasing‐Power‐Parity Puzzle? Sampling and Specification Biases in Mean‐Reversion Tests of the Law of One Price

The PPP puzzle is based on empirical evidence that international price differences for individual goods (LOOP) or baskets of goods (PPP) appear highly persistent or even nonstationary. The present consensus is these price differences have a half-life that is of the order of five years at best, and infinity at worst. This seems unreasonable in a world where transportation and transaction costs appear so low as to encourage arbitrage and the convergence of price gaps over much shorter horizons, typically days or weeks. However, current empirics rely on a particular choice of methodology, involving (i) relatively low-frequency monthly, quarterly, or annual data, and (ii) a linear model specification. In fact, these methodological choices are not innocent, and they can be shown to bias analysis towards findings of slow convergence and a random walk. Intuitively, if we suspect that the actual adjustment horizon is of the order of days, then monthly and annual data cannot be expected to reveal it. If we suspect arbitrage costs are high enough to produce a substantial “band of inaction,” then a linear model will fail to support convergence if the process spends considerable time random-walking in that band. Thus, when testing for PPP or LOOP, model specification and data sampling should not proceed without consideration of the actual institutional context and logistical framework of markets.
Accounting in and for the Subprime Crisis

ABSTRACT: This essay describes implications of the subprime crisis for accounting. First, I overview the institutional and market aspects of subprime lending with the greatest accounting relevance. Second, I discuss the critical aspects of FAS No. 157’s fair value definition and measurement guidance and explain the practical difficulties that have arisen in applying this definition and guidance to subprime positions during the crisis. I also raise a potential issue regarding the application of FAS No. 159’s fair value option. Third, I discuss issues that have arisen regarding sale accounting for subprime mortgage securitizations under FAS No. 140 and consolidation of securitization entities under FIN No. 46(R) associated with mortgage foreclosures and modifications. Fourth, I indicate ways that accounting academics can address the implications of the subprime crisis in their research and teaching.
Free Banking and Bank Entry in Nineteenth-Century New York

Previous studies of entry under New York's free banking law of 1838 have generated conflicting results. This article shows that different measures of entry lead to different conclusions about the competitive effects of the law. Measured by the entry of new banks, New York's free banking law led to increased rates of entry relative to other states. Free banking did not, however, lead to significant increases in capital accumulation in the industry. This paradoxical outcome resulted from the regulatory features of free banking, especially the bond security feature, which reduced profitability and incentives to invest in banking.
The Disclosure of Non-GAAP Earnings Information in the Presence of Transitory Gains

ABSTRACT: We examine the disclosure of non-GAAP earnings information in quarters containing transitory gains to investigate whether the primary motivation for these managers to disclose non-GAAP earnings is to inform or mislead. In this setting, non-GAAP earnings are more informative than GAAP earnings, even though they are lower than GAAP earnings. Thus, managers motivated to inform stakeholders about sustainable earnings will disclose non-GAAP earnings information excluding the gain, whereas managers motivated to report higher earnings will obscure the transitory nature of the gain by focusing on GAAP earnings. We find evidence that managers' disclosure choices vary widely across firms, and these choices affect investors' perceptions of core operating earnings. We then contrast how the same firm discloses non-GAAP earnings in the presence of transitory losses to provide additional evidence on the motives of individual firms' disclosures. We conclude that the most pervasive motivation to disclose non-GAA...
Advertising and Voter Data in Asymmetric Political Contests

Abstract We study a political contest where two candidates advertise on a platform to persuade voters to vote in their favor. Voters a priori favor one of the candidates. The extent of a candidate’s favorability can be ascertained by a data intermediary who can decide to sell this information to one, both or neither of the candidates. We contrast the intermediary’s incentives for selling information with the platform’s incentives for maximizing candidates’ advertising expenditures, and show that the two are always at conflict. Our findings suggest that tensions may exist between social-media platforms, which often generate data that an intermediary may collect, and an intermediary whose data sale choice can lower the platform’s profit from advertisements. We characterize conditions under which the intermediary can influence the outcome of the contest.
Knowledge processes and learning options in networks: Evidence from telecommunications

This paper articulates a network approach to knowledge processes and information systems in organizations. It pro- poses that cross-business-unit knowledge processes and the learning role of information systems are embedded within a network of relationships that link business units. Exploratory evidence from a large telecommunications firm shows that relationships have strategic learning option value. Learning processes are often informal and emergent thus information systems should provide a flexible infrastructure enabling the evolution of learning processes. The paper identifies important feedback loops that can be leveraged by knowledge managers, who should be seen as cultivators of knowledge processes, rather than omnipotent planners and designers.
Authority and Commitment: Why Universities, Like Legislatures, Are Not Organized as Firms

This paper explores the functions and limitations of democratic governance by analyzing the allocation of decision-making authority in colleges and universities. Contrary to the conventional perception that large numbers and heterogeneity of voters and issues undermine the efficiency of democratic decision making, data on the allocation of authority for thirty-one decision areas in 826 US colleges and universities show democratic governance to be more prevalent in larger, “full-service” research universities than in smaller liberal arts colleges and special-curriculum institutions. State- and church-affiliated institutions, meanwhile, tend to be governed more like firms. The results overall are consistent with economic theories of political organization that view democratic governance primarily as a means of enhancing the credibility of commitments rather than as a method of aggregating preferences. “Educational systems, like governments, apparently can never be rational, never a logical and economical means to a definite end. Rather must they be always makeshifts.” —J.P. Munroe (1899) “Never did a dean lack legitimate reasons by which to color his bad faith” —Machiavelli, The Dean (1513)
A Primer on the Doctrine of Federal Sovereign Immunity

GOVERNMENT (4th ed., ALI-ABA 2006), where it appears as Chapter 2. Some of this material is also adapted from GREGORY C. SISK, LITIGATION WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: CASES AND MATERIALS (Foundation Press 2000 & Supp. 2004). ** Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minneapolis) (gcsisk@stthomas.edu). 1. Christopher J.W. Zorn, U.S. Government Litigation Strategies in the Federal Appellate Courts 1 (1997) (unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Ohio State University) (on file with Main Library, Ohio State University). 2. For the first three years of the new century, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (www.uscourts.gov) reports that the federal government was a plaintiff or defendant in 23.1% (2001), 20.7% (2002), and 18.8% (2003) of civil cases commenced in the United States District Courts. See statistics at http://www.uscourts.gov/judiciary2003/dectables/ C01Dec03.pdf (2003); http://www.uscourts.gov/judiciary2002/dectables/c01dec02.pdf (2002); http://www.uscourts.gov/judiciary2001/dectables/c01dec01.pdf (2001). In addition, in certain specialized federal courts, most particularly the United States Court of Federal Claims and the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, the federal government is a party to every case on the docket. 3. Zorn, supra note 1, at 2.
Privacy and Information Sharing in the War on Terrorism

ince the attacks of September 11, 2001, many voices have supported much greater information sharing to protect national security. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report emphasized this point repeatedly.1 For instance, the Report criticized the lack of information sharing between law enforcement and intelligence agencies,2 between immigration databases and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),3 among first responders4 and between domestic and international collections of information.5 The Report called for a major shift in philosophy, from the old “need to know” approach to a new culture of “need to share.”6 As discussed in this Article, the need for greater information sharing has been emphasized by President Bush, the Congress and expert groups such as the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age.7 S
Give Me Equity or Give Me Death - The Role of Competition and Compensation in Building Silicon Valley

In this essay, I argue that the preeminence of Silicon Valley as an incubator of technology companies is attributable to equity compensation. Ronald Gilson, relying on the work of AnnaLee Saxenian and others who have noted the tendency of Silicon Valley employees to job hop, has suggested that California law prohibiting the enforcement of non-compete agreements was a major factor in the rise of Silicon Valley (and the demise of Route 128). I extend this line of thought by suggesting that California employers may have relied on equity compensation as a substitute way to bind employees. I argue further that equity compensation (in its many forms) is a superior way to assure the loyalty of employees. First, equity compensation induces employees to focus on how their efforts will contribute to the success of the business. Second, equity compensation saves cash for the startup firm and permits firms to compete for talent without offering more cash. Third, equity compensation forces the company to seek and plan for liquidity. Fourth, equity compensation induces employees to consider the prospects of the employer firm and thus induces employer firms to consider the ideas of employees. In addition, equity compensation may induce employees to exit unpromising ventures sooner rather than later thus allocating resources more efficiently. Fifth, equity compensation induces firms to maintain an efficient size. If a firm grows too large, too diversified, or too unfocused, equity compensation will become less attractive for employees. Thus, equity compensation will tend to induce spin-offs and other divisive transactions. Finally, equity compensation may be an efficient substitute for more intrusive forms of dispute resolution such as fiduciary duty. Employees will be less tempted to cut and run if they must give up bird-in-hand equity. Moreover, equity compensation is more fine-tuned than non-compete agreements. Whereas most non-compete agreements have a specified duration, equity compensation will effectively bind an employee only as long as necessary to assure the success of the venture.
A qualitative approach to Markovian equilibrium in infinite horizon economies with capital

Abstract Using lattice programming and order theoretic fixpoint theory, we develop a new class of monotone iterative methods that provide a qualitative theory of Markovian equilibrium decision processes for a large class of infinite horizon economies with capital. The class of economies includes models with public policy, valued fiat money, monopolistic competition, production externalities, and various other nonconvexities in the production sets. The results can be adapted to construct symmetric Markov equilibrium in models with many agents and market incompleteness. As the methods are constructive, they provide the foundations for a rigorous analysis of numerical approximation schemes that study extremal Markovian equilibrium. Equilibrium comparative statics results relative to the space of economies are available. Of independent interest, we provide new conditions for preserving complementarity under maximization, and new generalized envelope theorems for nonconcave dynamic programming problems. Our fixed point algorithms are sharp, and are able to distinguish sufficient conditions under which Markovian equilibrium form a complete lattice of Lipschitz continuous, uniformly continuous and semicontinuous monotone functions as well as unique continuously differentiable equilibrium.
RSGSA: a Robust and Stable Gene Selection Algorithm

Nowadays we are observing an explosion of gene expression data with phenotypes. It enables researchers to efficiently identify genes responsible for certain medical condition as well as classify them for drug target. Like any other phenotype data in medical domain, gene expression data with phenotypes also suffers from being very underdetermined system. In a very large set of features but a very small sample size domain (e.g. DNA microarray, RNA-seq data, GWAS data, etc.), it is often reported that several different spurious feature subsets may yield equally optimal results. This phenomenon is known as instability. Considering these facts, we have developed robust and stable supervised gene selection algorithm to select the most discriminating non-spurious set of genes from the gene expression datasets with phenotypes. Stability and robustness is ensured by class and instance level perturbations, respectively. We have performed rigorous experimental evaluations using 10 real gene expression microarray datasets with phenotypes. It revealed that our algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms with respect to stability and classification accuracy.
Achieving Linear Speedup with Partial Worker Participation in Non-IID Federated Learning

Federated learning (FL) is a distributed machine learning architecture that leverages a large number of workers to jointly learn a model with decentralized data. FL has received increasing attention in recent years thanks to its data privacy protection, communication efficiency and a linear speedup for convergence in training (i.e., convergence performance increases linearly with respect to the number of workers). However, existing studies on linear speedup for convergence are only limited to the assumptions of i.i.d. datasets across workers and/or full worker participation, both of which rarely hold in practice. So far, it remains an open question whether or not the linear speedup for convergence is achievable under non-i.i.d. datasets with partial worker participation in FL. In this paper, we show that the answer is affirmative. Specifically, we show that the federated averaging (FedAvg) algorithm (with two-sided learning rates) on non-i.i.d. datasets in non-convex settings achieves a convergence rate O(1mKT+1T) for full worker participation and a convergence rate O(1nKT+1T) for partial worker participation, where K is the number of local steps, T is the number of total communication rounds, m is the total worker number and n is the worker number in one communication round if for partial worker participation. Our results also reveal that the local steps in FL could help the convergence and show that the maximum number of local steps can be improved to T/m. We conduct extensive experiments on MNIST and CIFAR-10 to verify our theoretical results.
Large enhancement of thermopower at low magnetic field in compensated semimetals

Dirac and Weyl semimetals are promising candidates for high-efficiency thermoelectrics due to their gapless spectrum and high mobility. Recent experiments have shown that the thermopower of Dirac and Weyl materials can be enormously enhanced by a magnetic field, especially when the material exhibits nearly-complete compensation of electron and hole carriers. Here the authors study theoretically the thermopower of compensated conductors, and they show that a strong increase of thermopower with magnetic field arises generically in compensated systems even at relatively low field values. The full field dependence exhibits a number of different regimes, which are mapped out in detail.
Approximate Bayesian Uncertainties on Deep Learning Dynamical Mass Estimates of Galaxy Clusters

We study methods for reconstructing Bayesian uncertainties on dynamical mass estimates of galaxy clusters using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). We discuss the statistical background of Bayesian Neural Networks and demonstrate how variational inference techniques can be used to perform computationally tractable posterior estimation for a variety of deep neural architectures. We explore how various model designs and statistical assumptions impact prediction accuracy and uncertainty reconstruction in the context of cluster mass estimation. We measure the quality of our model posterior recovery using a mock cluster observation catalog derived from the MultiDark simulation and UniverseMachine catalog. We show that Bayesian CNNs produce highly accurate dynamical cluster mass posteriors. These model posteriors are log-normal in cluster mass and recover $68\%$ and $90\%$ confidence intervals to within $1\%$ of their measured value. We note how this rigorous modelling of dynamical mass posteriors is necessary for using cluster abundance measurements to constrain cosmological parameters.
Early indicators of scientific impact: Predicting citations with altmetrics

Abstract Identifying important scholarly literature at an early stage is vital to the academic research community and other stakeholders such as technology companies and government bodies. Due to the sheer amount of research published and the growth of ever-changing interdisciplinary areas, researchers need an efficient way to identify important scholarly work. The number of citations a given research publication has accrued has been used for this purpose, but these take time to occur and longer to accumulate. In this article, we use altmetrics to predict the short-term and long-term citations that a scholarly publication could receive. We build various classification and regression models and evaluate their performance, finding neural networks and ensemble models to perform best for these tasks. We also find that Mendeley readership is the most important factor in predicting the early citations, followed by other factors such as the academic status of the readers (e.g., student, postdoc, professor), followers on Twitter, online post length, author count, and the number of mentions on Twitter, Wikipedia, and across different countries.