cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Lattice PUF: A Strong Physical Unclonable Function Provably Secure against Machine Learning Attacks

We propose a strong physical unclonable function (PUF) provably secure against machine learning (ML) attacks with both classical and quantum computers. Its security is derived from cryptographic hardness of learning decryption functions of public-key cryptosystems. Our design compactly realizes the decryption function of the learning-with-errors (LWE) cryptosystem. Due to the fundamental connection of LWE to lattice problems, we call the construction the lattice PUF. Lattice PUF is constructed using a physically obfuscated key (POK), an LWE decryption function block, and a linear-feedback shift register (LFSR) as a pseudo-random number generator. The POK provides the secret key of the LWE decryption function; its stability is ensured by a fuzzy extractor (FE). To reduce the challenge size, we exploit distributional relaxations of space-efficient LWEs. That allows only a small challenge-seed to be transmitted with the full-length challenge generated by the LFSR, resulting in a 100X reduction of communication cost. To prevent an active challenge-manipulation attack, a self-incrementing counter is embedded into the challenge seed. We prototyped the lattice PUF with 2136 challenge-response pairs (CRPs) on a Spartan 6 FPGA, which required 45 slices for the PUF logic proper and 233 slices for the FE. Simulation-based evaluation shows the mean (std) of uniformity to be 49.98 % (1. 58%), of uniqueness to be 50.00 % (1. 58%), and of reliability to be 1. 26% (2. 88%). The LWE concrete hardness estimator guarantees that a successful ML attack of the lattice PUF will require the infeasible 2128 CPU operations. Several classes of empirical ML attacks, including support vector machine, logistic regression, and deep neural networks, are used: in all attacks, the prediction error remains above 49.76% after 1 million training CRPs.
Effects of ACT Out! Social Issue Theater on Social-Emotional Competence and Bullying in Youth and Adolescents: Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Schools increasingly prioritize social-emotional competence and bullying and cyberbullying prevention, so the development of novel, low-cost, and high-yield programs addressing these topics is important. Further, rigorous assessment of interventions prior to widespread dissemination is crucial. Objective: This study assesses the effectiveness and implementation fidelity of the ACT Out! Social Issue Theater program, a 1-hour psychodramatic intervention by professional actors; it also measures students’ receptiveness to the intervention. Methods: This study is a 2-arm cluster randomized control trial with 1:1 allocation that randomized either to the ACT Out! intervention or control (treatment as usual) at the classroom level (n=76 classrooms in 12 schools across 5 counties in Indiana, comprised of 1571 students at pretest in fourth, seventh, and tenth grades). The primary outcomes were self-reported social-emotional competence, bullying perpetration, and bullying victimization; the secondary outcomes were receptiveness to the intervention, implementation fidelity (independent observer observation), and prespecified subanalyses of social-emotional competence for seventh- and tenth-grade students. All outcomes were collected at baseline and 2-week posttest, with planned 3-months posttest data collection prevented due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: Intervention fidelity was uniformly excellent (>96% adherence), and students were highly receptive to the program. However, trial results did not support the hypothesis that the intervention would increase participants’ social-emotional competence. The intervention’s impact on bullying was complicated to interpret and included some evidence of small interaction effects (reduced cyberbullying victimization and increased physical bullying perpetration). Additionally, pooled within-group reductions were also observed and discussed but were not appropriate for causal attribution. Conclusions: This study found no superiority for a 1-hour ACT Out! intervention compared to treatment as usual for social-emotional competence or offline bullying, but some evidence of a small effect for cyberbullying. On the basis of these results and the within-group effects, as a next step, we encourage research into whether the ACT Out! intervention may engender a bystander effect not amenable to randomization by classroom. Therefore, we recommend a larger trial of the ACT Out! intervention that focuses specifically on cyberbullying, measures bystander behavior, is randomized by school, and is controlled for extant bullying prevention efforts at each school. Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT04097496; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04097496
Transport barriers to self-propelled particles in fluid flows

Invariant manifolds blocking the motion of active particles in fluid flows are identified and experimentally confirmed for swimming bacteria in a microfluidic cross-channel flow. These manifolds project to one-way barriers for swimmers in physical space. Distinct barriers are predicted for perfect smooth swimmers versus noisy swimmers in general, nonlinear flows.
Printmaking, Puzzles, and Studio Closets: Using Artistic Metaphors to Reimagine the User Interface for Designing Immersive Visualizations

We, as a society, need artists to help us interpret and explain science, but what does an artist’s studio look like when today’s science is built upon the language of large, increasingly complex data? This paper presents a data visualization design interface that lifts the barriers for artists to engage with actively studied, 3D multivariate datasets. To accomplish this, the interface must weave together the need for creative artistic processes and the challenging constraints of real-time, data-driven 3D computer graphics. The result is an interface for a technical process, but technical in the way artistic printmaking is technical, not in the sense of computer scripting and programming. Using metaphor, computer graphics algorithms and shader program parameters are reimagined as tools in an artist’s printmaking studio. These artistic metaphors and language are merged with a puzzle-piece approach to visual programming and matching iconography. Finally, artists access the interface using a web browser, making it possible to design immersive multivariate data visualizations that can be displayed in VR and AR environments using familiar drawing tablets and touch screens. We report on insights from the interdisciplinary design of the interface and early feedback from artists.
Wanting the Truth: Comparing Prosecutions of Investigative and Institutional Deception

Defensive dishonesty in criminal investigations has increasingly been prosecuted without standards for identifying harmful deception or other meaningful checks on prosecutorial discretion. Although they are often grouped together statistically and evaluated as comparable crimes, there is a clear distinction between investigative lies and in-court perjury. The differences between the offenses—including the standards for prosecution, the perceived victim, and the purposes of bringing charges—suggest reasons to reconsider the current approach to investigative lies such as false statements. More truth is produced, and arguably more cooperation results, when the government focuses on the quality of the information flow. The structural protections in place with regard to institutional perjury can be explained in part as truth-seeking tools, and I propose translating warning requirements and distinctions between active and passive lies into the context of investigative deception. Efforts to get accurate information could more effectively curtail evidentiary foul play than strategies designed just to get defendants. And being attentive to whether a false statement actually causes harm—a mitigating principle seemingly at work in the perjury context—might further optimize deterrence. ∗Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law. This essay stems from remarks made at the Evidence Section’s Program on “Evidentiary Foul Play: Deception, Destruction, and Just Deserts” at the January 9, 2009 meeting of the American Association of Law Schools. My thanks to Chris Sanchirico for organizing the panel, to participants in the program for their constructive comments and questions, and to Craig Callen for his editorial contributions.
Legal Treatment of Cohabitation in the United States

This article discusses the variety of ways state legal systems in the United States treat cohabitation, both by same-sex and heterosexual couples. The different approaches are described along a spectrum that ranges from one extreme, under which cohabitants have essentially no rights against one another or against third parties, to the other extreme, under which cohabitants are to be treated as though they were married under state law. Different areas of law are discussed, including the rights of cohabitants both against one another (remedies upon dissolution, inheritance) and against third parties, such as state benefits, tort claims, health-related benefits, and rights concerning children. The article concludes with speculations concerning why the remedies offered to cohabitants in the United States are so limited, as compared with other countries.
Lexical Cohesion Analysis of Political Speech

This article presents a novel automatic method of text analysis aimed at discovering patterns of lexical cohesion in political speech. The unit of analysis are groups of words with related meanings; the software is based on the results of a multiperson annotation experiment that captures reliably identified connections between words in a text. We illustrate the advantages of such a representation by juxtaposing results of a detailed hand-made analysis of Margaret Thatcher's rhetoric with analysis based on the automatically detected groups of words. We both corroborate previous findings regarding Thatcher's rhetorical tools and illuminate additional elements thereof. We suggest that lexical cohesion analysis is a promising technique to bridge the gap between quantitative and qualitative analyses of text as political material, by establishing units that are both robust enough to enable comprehensive coverage and coherent enough to support direct interpretation.
The dividend month premium

Abstract We find an asset pricing anomaly whereby companies have positive abnormal returns in months when they are predicted to issue a dividend. Abnormal returns in predicted dividend months are high relative to other companies and relative to dividend-paying companies in months without a predicted dividend, making risk-based explanations unlikely. The anomaly is as large as the value premium, but less volatile. The premium is consistent with price pressure from dividend-seeking investors. Measures of liquidity and demand for dividends are associated with larger price increases in the period before the ex-day (when there is no news about the dividend) and larger reversals afterward.
Drug Testing Students in California - Does It Violate the State Constitution?

In 1995 the United States Supreme Court decided that it was constitutional to drug test student athletes. Seven years later, the Court held that it was constitutional to drug test students engaged in extracurricular activities. As a result of these rulings, school districts throughout the United States adopted policies to drug test these students. The recent Bush administration supported and encouraged these programs with significant federal grants.Consequently students turned to the state courts to attack the legality of these drug testing programs. Under their respective state constitutions, the Supreme Courts of Indiana and New Jersey upheld the programs, while the Supreme Courts of Pennsylvania and Washington struck down the programs as unconstitutional. This article examines how the California Courts would review and address the issue of the constitutionality of student drug testing under the California Constitution.Part I summarizes the decisions of the United States Supreme Court on student drug testing. Part II examines state law on student drug testing. Part III focuses on student drug testing in California, addressing the state’s history of, and current status with respect to, student drug testing. The article then examines provisions of the California Constitution which apply to the subject, article I, section 1 – Right to Privacy and article I, section 13 – Right to be Free from Unreasonable Searches and Seizure. The article discusses California judicial decisions on these provisions and then analyzes whether the drug testing of students engaged in athletics and/or extracurricular activities is constitutional under the California Constitution. Part IV offers a conclusion on the issue.
Property rights and property wrongs: Why context matters in fisheries management

Like most wild living resources, fish present acomplex management challenge. Given the failure of command and control regulatory regimes to protect fisheries, scholars and practitioners have advocated the use of property rights to rectify the fisheries crisis. This meta analysis argues that property rights can be used constructively as a regulatory measure in the sustainable management of fisheries, and perhaps in other areas of resource management. However, the use of property rights to resolve resource problems is context dependent, and no single regulatory option or policy is appropriate for the multi-faceted and highly variable world of fisheries management. This paper characterizes and contrasts three regulatory regimes in fisheries management in the United States, while drawing from lessons learned worldwide about fisheries regulation. The paper defines the conditions where property rights might be used appropriately-property ‘rights’ – as well as where property rights might be used inappropriately – property ‘wrongs.’
Race, Gender, and Government Contracting: Different Explanations or New Prospects for Theory?

The U.S. Congress created the Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) and Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) programs to promote fairness in government contracting. In this article, the authors examine whether increases in racial and gender representation in federal agencies correlate with the proportion of contract dollars awarded to women- and minority-owned firms. Using the theory of representative bureaucracy as a starting point, they find evidence that increases in passive minority representation result in a larger proportion of contract dollars awarded to minority-owned firms, which comports with previous empirical research. There is no evidence, however, that female representation leads directly or indirectly to substantive benefits for women-owned small businesses. Given that the findings for women do not support representative bureaucracy, the authors provide potential alternative explanations. Specifically, they consider gender bias, social identity, and the “queen bee” phenomenon as possible explanations for why women are less inclined to advocate for other women.
Open Source Software: Competition with A Public Good

This paper looks at price and quality competition in software markets under two different forms of competition—one where two proprietary firms first choose quality and then engage in price competition, and second where a proprietary firm faces competition from an open source software (OSS) firm that allows its users to determine quality level and provides the software at zero price. We find that OSS competition never improves quality for consumers who value quality highly. However, it may provide greater quality to users with a low valuation for quality. In addition, we find that although OSS has a zero market price, the public good nature of OSS competition can lessen price competition, making the proprietary firm better-off with increased profit but leaving consumers worse-off with lower surplus.
Out of State and Out of Luck: The Treatment of Non-Custodial Parents Under the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children

The article explores the way in which the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children has been used to separate children from nonabusive parents in child protective proceedings. Despite the Supreme Court's articulation that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits the State from removing children from fit parents, parents across the country are being deprived of this right simply because they live in a different state than the one in which their child has been removed. Children are taken from these parents based on a finding by an administrative agency that the proposed placement would be contrary to the child's best interest, a standard left undefined in statutes and regulations. No finding of unfitness is adjudicated by a court, no due process is provided prior to the deprivation and no adequate recourse is available after the children are removed. Courts interpret the ICPC to delegate interstate placement decisions to administrative agencies of which they lack the jurisdiction to review. The paper argues that the Compact cannot be used to deprive parents of custody and that once a biological parent steps forward, the child must be returned to him, regardless of his residency, unless the State can prove that he is an unfit parent. Such a result will benefit children by, among other things, preserving the attachment between children and their parents, encouraging non-custodial parents to remain involved in their children's lives and alleviating the burden on an already taxed and often unresponsive child welfare system.
Digital marketing strategies that Millennials find appealing, motivating, or just annoying

With the increasing usage of digital media by consumers, more companies are using digital marketing to reach their target markets. The purpose of this study is to examine various marketing strategies that are commonly used in digital media and ascertain which ones are preferred by Millennials and are effective in influencing behavior. Millennials have been identified as a driving force behind online shopping. While there have been numerous studies about online advertising, there has been little academic research focused on what types of digital marketing strategies are preferred by Millennials and which ones influence their behavior. A survey of 571 Millennials indicated a preference for online coupons and side-panel ads; Millennials do not like pop-up advertising. Graphics are highly effective in grabbing their attention. Millennials will repeatedly visit a website that has competitive prices and good shipping rates. If given an incentive, such as a discount or reward, Millennials will write an online pr...
Price‐to‐Earnings Ratios and Option Prices

In May of 1997, in the midst of the Internet bubble, the average month end P/E ratio for the software industry was 44. However, the 5-year historical average was 31. In this study, we examine the effect of this industry value fluctuation on the effects of option prices. We examine the relationship between the level of relative valuation and option pricing via deviations in put-call parity and a two-factor option pricing model incorporating relative valuation. We find support that the increase in relative industry valuation Granger causes put-call parity deviations, implying investors price options with greater expectation of downward movement. Additionally, we develop a model and find support that the two-factor option pricing model that incorporates relative industry valuation prices options better than the standard Black–Scholes (1973) model. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 35:738–752, 2015
Achieving Cooperation Under Privacy Concerns

Two players choose whether to cooperate on a project. Each of them is endowed with some evidence, and if both possess a sucient amount
The Impact of the Tax Revolt Era State Fiscal Caps: A Research Update

Fiscal caps, the most common form of fiscal limit adopted during the tax revolt era, are again on the agendas of state government. In this article, we evaluate the claims made by cap supporters and opponents by examining the impacts of caps adopted during the tax revolt. Updating Lowery and Cox's (1990) analysis of the impact of state fiscal caps through 1991 using a comparative state, interrupted time-series design, we find some evidence—albeit very weak—that fiscal caps may have modestly reduced the size of government and no evidence that they have been evaded through budget end-runs.
Should It Be A Free for All? The Challenge of Extending Trade Dress Protection to the Look and Feel of Web Sites in the Evolving Internet

Introduction 1234 I. Overview of Trade Dress Law 1236 II. The Challenges of the Internet Environment on Look and Feel of Internet Sites 1241 III. Addressing the Internet Challenges: Making Look and Feel Protectable 1245 A. The Paradox of Being the Coolest Site 1246 B. All Computers, Their Screens, and Modem Speed Are Not Created Equal 1250 C. Not All Users Have the Same Browser 1251 D. Defining the Trade Dress of a Web Site in the Land of Links 1253 IV. Inherently Distinctive Look and Feel Web Sites? 1255 V. The Quest for Secondary Meaning of the Look and Feel of a Web Site 1259 VI. The Uniformity Syndrome and Functionality 1264 VII. Infringement of Protectable Look and Feel of a Web Site: Likelihood of Confusion 1269
Limits on Agency Discretion to Choose Between Rulemaking and Adjudication: Reconsidering Patel v. INS and Ford Motor Co. v. FTC

A case can be "underrated" for several reasons. One type of underrated case is the "big" case that the conventional wisdom considers to have been wrongly decided. In constitutional law, for example, some scholars might consider Lochner v. New York1 to be underrated, in that they believe the case to be correct, or at least not as wrong as the conventional wisdom has it. But right or wrong, the case is "big" in that it has come to stand for a fundamental principle of law even though there is disagreement as to what that fundamental principle is.2 Under this theory, underratedness is measured by "correctness," with the case's importance taken as a given.
Private Sector Union Density and the Wage Premium: Past, Present, and Future

This paper examines the relationship between private sector union density and the wage premium, identifying where we have been and where we may go. The starting point is that labor unions are in decline and now represent a small proportion of the private sector workforce. This trend poses a dilemma for society, workers, and public policy. Although the effects of unions in the workplace vary enormously, the evidence suggests that on balance unions are detrimental to company performance and economic efficiency. But union representation and collective bargaining provide workers with varying degrees of workplace democracy, collective voice, monitoring of working conditions, protection from discrimination, and enforcement of contractual provisions. For the 90% of private sector workers not unionized, effective worker voice and participation may be provided at less than optimal levels, with substantial reliance instead on governmental regulation, workplace mandates, and a litigious enforcement process. There are a variety of reasons why unions are in decline. In this paper, we focus on the link between what is surely one of unions' principal functions, raising wages and other forms of compensation, and the consequent decline in their membership and coverage. We conclude that unions (and society) are caught in a paradox. As long as the U.S. remains a competitive open economy with a decentralized, partially organized collective bargaining system, the attempt by unions to acquire and maintain high wages ensures that the union sector will remain small. Similar to Freeman and Medoff, we argue that the "monopoly" face of unions is putting organized labor out of business, resulting in too little "collective voice." From society's point of view, the monopoly face should be blunted and the voice face emphasized. Tweaking the current system of labor law is unlikely to accomplish to a satisfactory degree the "less monopoly/more voice" outcome. Rather, we discuss the desirability of a more fundamental shift involving "conditional deregulation" and/or a change in the default workplace governance structure. The goal of such fundamental reform is to enhance collective voice in the largely nonunion private sector, while at the same time constraining those forms of worker rent seeking deleterious to economy-wide economic performance.
Political Determinants of Competition in the Mobile Telecommunication Industry

We study how political factors shape competition in the mobile telecommunication sector. We show that the way a government designs the rules of the game has an impact on concentration, competition, and prices. Pro-competition regulation reduces prices, but does not hurt quality of services or investments. More democratic governments tend to design more competitive rules, while more politically connected operators are able to distort the rules in their favor, restricting competition. Government intervention has large redistributive effects: U.S. consumers would gain $65bn a year if U.S. mobile service prices were in line with German ones and $44bn if they were in line with Danish ones.
What drives inflation expectations in Brazil? An empirical analysis

This study examines the macro-economic determinants of survey inflation expectations in Brazil since the adoption of inflation targeting in 1999. The results suggest that the inflation-targeting framework has helped anchor expectations, with the dispersion of inflation expectations declining considerably, particularly during periods of high uncertainty. We also find that apart from the inflation target, the stance of fiscal policy, as proxied by the ratio of the consolidated primary surplus to GDP, has been instrumental in shaping expectations. The importance of past inflation in determining expectations appears to be relatively low, and the overall empirical evidence does not suggest the presence of substantial inertia in the inflation process.
Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods

Abstract In this article, we consider identification, estimation, and inference procedures for treatment effect parameters using Difference-in-Differences (DiD) with (i) multiple time periods, (ii) variation in treatment timing, and (iii) when the “parallel trends assumption” holds potentially only after conditioning on observed covariates. We show that a family of causal effect parameters are identified in staggered DiD setups, even if differences in observed characteristics create non-parallel outcome dynamics between groups. Our identification results allow one to use outcome regression, inverse probability weighting, or doubly-robust estimands. We also propose different aggregation schemes that can be used to highlight treatment effect heterogeneity across different dimensions as well as to summarize the overall effect of participating in the treatment. We establish the asymptotic properties of the proposed estimators and prove the validity of a computationally convenient bootstrap procedure to conduct asymptotically valid simultaneous (instead of pointwise) inference. Finally, we illustrate the relevance of our proposed tools by analyzing the effect of the minimum wage on teen employment from 2001–2007. Open-source software is available for implementing the proposed methods.
Explanatory Parentheticals Can Pack a Persuasive Punch

IV. SEVEN GUIDELINES FOR DRAFTING EFFECTIVE PARENTHETICALS 281 A. Guideline No. 1: Most Parentheticals Should Begin with a Present Participle and a Lowercase Letter and End Without Punctuation ........ 281 B. Guideline No. 2: Some Parentheticals May Begin with Something Other Than a Present Participle 283 C. Guideline No. 3: Parentheticals May Start with a Present Participle and Include Quoted Material 285 D. Guideline No. 4: Parentheticals May Contain Two Clauses 286 E. Guideline No. 5: Parentheticals Should Not Contain Hidden Rules ..... 286 F. Guideline No. 6: Parentheticals Should Not Be Redundant 287 G. Guideline No. 7: Parentheticals Should Not Ramble 289
THE STRUCTURE OF CORPORATE OWNERSHIP IN PRIVATIZED UTILITIES

Shareholder dispersion may be valuable because a credible commitment by shareholders not to interfere allows managers to benefit from their initiatives. A tougher regulatory regime for investors decreases the value of the commitment not to interfere implicit in a more dispersed ownership structure. Deregulation, captured through increasing monitoring costs, also has the
Lapses of Attention in Medical Malpractice and Road Accidents

A doctor who lapses and injures her patient, and a driver who lapses and causes an accident, are liable under negligence law for the harm done. But lapse is not necessarily negligence, since reasonable people lapse from time to time. We show that tort liability for “reasonable” lapses distorts doctors’, drivers’, and manufacturers’ incentives to take care. Furthermore, such liability provides potential injurers with incentives to substitute activities which are less prone to lapses with activities which are more prone to lapses, even if such substitution is inefficient. We propose several solutions to the inefficiencies that result from liability for lapses, and argue that under certain circumstances injurers should be entitled to invoke a “lapse defense.”
Power spectrum of electronic heat current fluctuations

We analyze the fluctuations of an electronic thermal current across an idealized molecular junction. The focus here will be on the spectral features of the resulting heat fluctuations. By use of the Green function method we derive an explicit expression for the frequency-dependent power spectral density of the emerging energy fluctuations. The complex expression simplifies considerably in the limit of zero frequency, yielding the noise intensity of the heat current. The spectral density for the electronic heat fluctuations still depends on the frequency in the zero-temperature limit, assuming different asymptotic behaviors in the low- and high-frequency regions. We further address subtleties and open problems from an experimental view point for measurements of frequency-dependent power spectral densities. Sketch of a molecular junction setup used in the text. The average heat flow is generated by electrons moving from a hot electrode TL across the molecular junction towards a neighboring cold electrode TR. The inter-electrode electronic level e{lunate}0 can be tuned continuously.
Rationing Legal Services

There is a deepening crisis in the funding of legal services in the USA with cut backs in Legal Services Corporation and Interest on Lawyers Trust Account funding, rendering more visible the fact that there is and always will be persistent scarcity in the availability of both criminal and civil legal assistance. This article examines how existing Legal Service Providers (LSPs), both civil and criminal, should ration their services when they cannot help everyone. I draw on the bioethics literature on the allocation of medical goods (organs, ICU beds, vaccine doses, etc.) to illuminate the problems facing LSPs and the potential rationing principles they might adopt.
Rating the ratings: How good are commercial governance ratings?

Proxy advisory and corporate governance rating firms (such as RiskMetrics/Institutional Shareholder Services, GovernanceMetrics International, and The Corporate Library) play an increasingly important role in U.S. public markets. They rank the quality of firm corporate governance, advise shareholders how to vote, and sometimes press for governance changes. We examine whether commercially available corporate governance rankings provide useful information for shareholders. Our results suggest that they do not. Commercial ratings do not predict governance-related outcomes with the precision or strength necessary to support the bold claims made by most of these firms. Moreover, we find little or no relation between the governance ratings provided by RiskMetrics with either their voting recommendations or the actual votes by shareholders on proxy proposals.
An Analysis of Change-of-Terms Provisions as Used in Consumer Service Contracts of Adhesion

Imagine entering into a year-long contract for cable service with an advertised monthly fee of fifty dollars. Then, after just a few months into the contract, the cable company sends out a notice that the new rate is sixty dollars a month for the remainder of the contract. To add insult to injury, they are also reducing the channel lineup. According to the cable company, the subscriber agreement contains a provision stating: "We reserve the right to change the terms of the contract at any time, including the price and extent of service, as long as we send out notice of the change." In the event you do not agree to the change, you must cancel the contract, which in turn triggers an early termination fee. Does this change-of-terms provision effectively allow the cable company to modify the monthly rate under a contract of fixed length?At first blush, it may seem that the answer is in fact yes. By consenting to the contract, which reserved this right to the cable company, it would appear that the increased price complied with the terms. Then again, just how valid is a promise to be bound to unknown terms? Do consumer protection laws prevent or allow such questionable business practices? What about the common law concepts of unconscionability and reasonable expectations? Does it matter that cancellation fees apply in the event that the consumer does not agree to the new terms? Clearly, it seems that numerous questions exist ...
Socioeconomic Rights and Theories of Justice

This paper considers the relation between theories of justice (like John Rawls’s theory) and theories of socio-economic rights. In different ways, these two kinds of theory address much the same subject-matter. But they are quite strikingly different in format and texture. Theories of socio-economic rights defend particular line-item requirements: a right to this or that good or opportunity (e.g., housing, health care, education, social security). Theories of justice tend to involve a more integrated normative account of a society’s basic structure (though they differ considerably among themselves in their structure). So how exactly should we think about their relation? The basic claim of the paper is that we should strive to bring these two into closer relation with one another, since it is only in the context of a theory of justice that we can properly assesses the competition that arises between claims of socio-economic right and other claims on public and private resources.
Bayesian estimation of random‐coefficients choice models using aggregate data

This article discusses the use of Bayesian methods for estimating logit demand models using aggregate data. We analyze two different demand systems: independent samples and consumer panel. Under the first system, there is a different and independent random sample of N consumers in each period and each consumer makes only a single purchase decision. Under the second system, the same N consumers make a purchase decision in each of T periods. Interestingly, there exists an asymptotic link between these two systems, which has important implications for the estimation of these demand models. The proposed methods are illustrated using simulated and real data. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The New Political Economy of Natural Resources in Latin America

Anthony Bebbington and Jeffrey Bury, eds., Subterranean Struggles: New Dynamics of Mining, Oil, and Gas in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. Photographs, maps, figures, tables, abbreviations, bibliography, index, 361 pp.; hardcover $60, paperback $30. Noel Maurer, The Empire Trap: The Rise and Fall of U.S. Intervention to Protect American Property Overseas, 1893–2013. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013. Illustrations, map, tables, figures, notes, bibliography, index, 568 pp.; hardcover $39.50; ebook available. Michael L. Ross, The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Illustrations, tables, abbreviations, appendixes, bibliography, index, 312 pp.; paperback $22.95, ebook available. Elana Shever, Resources for Reform: Oil and Neoliberalism in Argentina. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012. Map, figures, notes, bibliography, index, 231 pp.; hardcover $70, paperback $22.95, ebook $22.95.
The Enforcement of the Canada Health Act

The commitment to comprehensive and universal health care, as reflected in the Canada Health Act, is often regarded as a defining characteristic of our country. Today, Medicare in Canada faces a number of challenges which pose a serious threat to its survival. The increasing financial pressure placed on heath-care budgets has led to cost-cutting measures which may contravene the fundamental principles of Medicare, as spelled out by the Act. Overlooked in the political debate about the future of Medicare has been the potential to achieve social justice through the existing statutory framework of the Act. The author examines whether the basic criteria laid down in the C.H.A. are capable of giving rise to legal liability and proposes a legal strategy for enforcing the terms of the Act. To this end, the feasibility of a legal claim against both federal and provincial governments is examined in turn. The author discusses the many hurdles that must be overcome in order for an individual to successfully bring a claim against the government. The author concludes that the C.H.A. can function as both a political and a legal document. In terms of legally enforcing the C.H.A.'s criteria, liability is likely to be restricted to the federal government, since the Act is probably not enforceable against the provinces. A successful claim would have the effect of inducing greater vigilance with respect to meeting the criteria of the C.H.A. Ultimately, however, it is argued that regardless of whether an individual legal claim is successful, it is the political value of litigation that could make a challenge worthwhile. The result of such litigation would be to raise public awareness of the challenges facing Medicare and, thus, lead to political change. In this way, the C.H.A. can serve a dual purpose and prove to be an effective tool for ensuring the integrity of the Medicare system.
Radner equilibrium in incomplete Lévy models

We construct continuous-time equilibrium models based on a finite number of exponential utility investors. The investors’ income rates as well as the stock’s dividend rate are governed by discontinuous Levy processes. Our main result provides the equilibrium (i.e., bond and stock price dynamics) in closed-form. As an application, we show that the equilibrium Sharpe ratio can be increased and the equilibrium interest rate can be decreased (simultaneously) when the investors’ income streams cannot be traded.
Which workers get insurance within the firm

Abstract Industry-level time series data suggest that low-skilled workers get less insurance within the firm than high-skilled workers. In particular, wages respond relatively more to productivity shocks in low-skilled industries than high-skilled industries. Our theory is that low-skilled workers get relatively less insurance from their firms because they have relatively lower displacement costs. Under limited commitment, lower displacement costs make the workers' outside options more attractive, and hence decrease the amount of risk sharing sustainable within the firm. Evidence on average displacement costs by industry support the theory's predictions.
Calculating Value-at-Risk

The market risk of a portfolio refers to the possibility of financial loss due to the joint movement of systematic economic variables such as interest and exchange rates. Quantifying market risk is important to regulators in assessing solvency and to risk managers in allocating scarce capital. Moreover, market risk is often the central risk faced by financial institutions. The standard method for measuring market risk places a conservative, one-sided confidence interval on portfolio losses for short forecast horizons. This bound on losses is often called capital-at-risk or value-at-risk (VAR), for obvious reasons. Calculating the VAR or any similar risk metric requires a probability distribution of changes in portfolio value. In most risk management models, this distribution is derived by placing assumptions on (1) how the portfolio function is approximated, and (2) how the state variables are modeled. Using this framework, we first review four methods for measuring market risk. We then develop and illustrate two new market risk measurement models that use a second-order approximation to the portfolio function and a multivariate GARCH(l,1) model for the state variables. We show that when changes in the state variables are modeled as conditional or unconditional multivariate normal, first-order approximations to the portfolio function yield a univariate normal for the change in portfolio value while second-order approximations yield a quadratic normal. Using equity return data and a hypothetical portfolio of options, we then evaluate the performance of all six models by examining how accurately each calculates the VAR on an out-of-sample basis. We find that our most general model is superior to all others in predicting the VAR. In additional empirical tests focusing on the error contribution of each of the two model components, we find that the superior performance of our most general model is largely attributable to the use of the second-order approximation, and that the first-order approximations favored by practitioners perform quite poorly. Empirical evidence on the modeling of the state variables is mixed but supports usage of a model which reflects non-linearities in state variable return distributions. This paper was presented at the Financial Institutions Center's October 1996 conference on "
Does trading anonymously enhance liquidity

Is liquidity better when a trade counterparty’s brokerage firm is unknown (anonymous) or known (transparent)? We examine a quasinatural experiment where some firms switched from transparent to anonymous trading and then, 1 year later, switched back. Our results for inside spread, price impact, and limit order book depth suggest that liquidity improves when anonymous post-trade reporting is introduced and liquidity worsens when anonymous post-trade reporting is reversed.
Thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch star models and globular cluster planetary nebulae – I. The model

Thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch models of globular cluster stars are calculated using a synthetic model with the goal of reproducing the chemical composition, core masses and other observational parameters of the four known globular cluster planetary nebulae as well as roughly matching the overall cluster properties. The evolution of stars with an enhanced helium abundance (Y) and blue stragglers are modelled. New pre-thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch mass losses for red giant branch and early asymptotic giant branch stars are calculated from the Padova stellar evolution models. The new mass losses are calculated to get the relative differences in mass losses due to enhanced helium abundances. The global properties of the globular cluster planetary nebula are reproduced with these models. The metallicity, mass of the central star, overall metallicities, helium abundance and the nebular mass are matched to the observational values. Globular cluster planetary nebulae JaFu 1 and JaFu 2 are reproduced by assuming progenitor stars with masses near the typical main-sequence turn-offs of globular clusters and with enhanced helium abundances very similar to the enhancements inferred from fitting isochrones to globular cluster colour–magnitude diagrams. The globular cluster PN GJJC-1 can be roughly fitted by a progenitor star with very extreme helium enhancement (Y ≈ 0.40) near the turn-off producing a central star with the same mass as inferred by observations and a very low nebular mass. The abundances and core mass of planetary nebula Ps 1 and its central star (K648) are reproduced by a blue straggler model. However, it turned out to be impossible to reproduce its nebular mass, and it is concluded some kind of binary scenario may be needed to explain K648.
Friedman Redux: External Adjustment and Exchange Rate Flexibility

Milton Friedman argued that flexible exchange rates facilitate external adjustment. Recent studies find surprisingly little robust evidence that they do. We argue that this is because they use composite (‘multilateral’) exchange rate regime classifications, which often mask heterogeneous bilateral relationships between countries. Constructing a novel bilateral exchange rate regimes data set for 181 countries over 1980–2011, we find a statistically strong relationship between exchange rate flexibility and the speed of external adjustment. Our results are supported by several ‘natural experiments’ of exogenous changes in bilateral exchange rate regimes, and by Monte Carlo simulations, which show that tests based on standard multilateral regime classifications tend to have low statistical power.
Foreign Direct Investment in Post-War Iraq: An Investor's Introductory Guide to the Legal Framework

In spite of its troubled past and ongoing internecine violence, Iraq today stands at the threshold of economic opportunity in ways that few developing states — much less war-torn states like Iraq — could imagine. The Iraq National Investment Commission reported, for example, that in 2010, 178 companies filed for investment licenses totaling $10.5 billion. Currently, the primary foreign participants in Iraq’s post-war economic expansion are sophisticated multinational corporations (MNC), many of which have experience investing in politically and economically unstable markets, including those in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. In their efforts to capitalize on Iraq’s unrivalled natural resources and nascent economic development, these MNCs rely on expert in-house counsel, experienced local counsel, and an expanding group of international law firms to navigate Iraq’s unique legal landscape. “Smaller” and less experienced foreign investors, including some small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), sense the opportunities in Iraq and want a seat at the table. Yet, unlike their larger MNC counterparts, many of these SMEs have limited experience conducting business in the MENA region, are wary of the ongoing political and economic instability in Iraq, and often do not have the financial flexibility to retain expert counsel from large international law firms. Although various think tanks, government agencies, and international organizations have provided useful information regarding the legal framework governing foreign direct investment (FDI) in post-War Iraq, the literature remains fragmented and, at times, outdated. This Article is intended to provide SMEs, theorists, and practitioners an up-to-date, introductory overview of the legal framework governing FDI in post-War Iraq with an eye towards facilitating a greater awareness among SMEs and non-MNC foreign investors of the benefits and challenges attending FDI in post-War Iraq. Specifically, this article briefly explains the broader legal system within which FDI in Iraq takes place and outlines in more detail several common legal issues — such as setting up a business, tax matters, banking, and repatriation of funds — that foreign investors are likely to encounter when preparing for and conducting business activity in Iraq. Additionally, this Article provides investors with practical insights into some of the non-legal issues that accompany investment in post-War Iraq, including sociocultural and security issues. This Article is intended to function as a preliminary, scholarly supplement to professional legal advice.