cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Institutions and Laws in the Labor Market

Abstract This chapter examines the impact of wage-setting institutions and government policies on wages and employment, focusing on the OECD countries. There is considerable evidence that centralized collective bargaining, minimum wages and antidiscrimination policies raise the relative wages of the low paid. Evidence of the impact of these institutions and other policies such as mandated severance pay, advance notice or unemployment insurance is more mixed with some studies finding negative employment effects while others do not. This may reflect the adoption by many OECD countries of off-setting policies, such as public employment, temporary employment contracts and active labor market programs, which, while they may have reduced the adverse relative employment effects of their less flexible labor market institutions on the low skilled, appear not to have prevented high overall unemployment. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
The Marketing and Distribution of Fast Food

Today childhood obesity is widely recognized as a global health crisis; obesity rates in children have risen dramatically in developed countries since the 1960s and in developing countries since the 1980s. Recent conferences, NGO initiatives, and academic publications testify to increasing awareness of the problem. There is an emerging consensus that the study of childhood obesity should go beyond the medical interventionist model and incorporate multiple levels of analysis. Investigators from diverse social and scientific backgrounds now argue that “obesity should be framed as a complex system in which behavior is affected by multiple individual-level and socioenvironmental factors ( 1 , p. 1),” rather than solely by individual choice.
What does the Yield Curve imply about Investor Expectations

We …nd that investors'expectations of U.S. nominal yields, at dierent maturities and forecast horizons, exhibit signi…cant time-variation during the Great Moderation. Nominal zero-coupon bond yields for the U.S. are used to …t the yield curve using a latent factor model. In the benchmark model, the VAR process used to characterize the conditional forecasts of yields has constant coe¢ cients. The alternative class of models assume that investors use adaptive learning, in the form of a constant gain algorithm and dierent en- dogenous gain algorithms, which we propose here. Our results indicate that incorporating time-varying coe¢ cients in the conditional forecasts of yields lead to large improvements in forecasting performance, at dierent maturities and horizons. These improvements are even more substantial during the Great Recession. We conclude that our results provide strong empirical motivation to use the class of adaptive learning models considered here, for modeling potential investor expectation formation in periods of low and high volatility, and the endogenous learning model leads to signi…cant improvements over the benchmark in periods of high volatility. A policy experiment, which simulates a surprise shock to the level of the yield curve, illustrates that the conditional forecasts of yields implied by the learning models do signi…cantly better at capturing the response observed in the realized yield curve, relative to the constant-coe¢ cients model. Furthermore, the endogenous learning algorithm does well at matching the time-series patterns observed in expected excess returns implied by the Survey of Professional Forecasters. JEL classi…cations: E43, E47, D83, C5
Health benefit for the child and promotion of the common good were the two most important reasons for participation in the FinIP vaccine trial

Abstract Background and aims The Finnish Invasive Pneumococcal disease (FinIP) vaccine trial was a nationwide cluster-randomised double-blind trial designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in vaccinated children and indirect effects in unvaccinated populations. Together with the parallel carriage/AOM trial, over 47,000 children were enrolled, 52% of the initial target. We conducted a questionnaire study to find out which factors affected parents’ decision on their child's study participation. Methods A questionnaire designed to evaluate parents’ attitudes to vaccine trial participation in general and the FinIP trial in particular was mailed after the trial enrolment period had ended to parents of randomly selected children: 1484 who participated in the trial and 1485 who did not participate. Results Altogether 1438 parents (48%) responded to the questionnaire. The response rate was higher among FinIP participants (65%, 965/1484) than among FinIP non-participants (32%, 473/1485). The two most important reasons for giving consent to the FinIP trial were the potential benefit of immunisation against pneumococcal diseases (75% of consenters) and the promotion of the common good and public health (11%). The reasons reported as most important for declining consent were suspicions of vaccine safety (36%) and the double-blind trial design (12%). Up to 65% of the non-consenters declared that drug and vaccine trials should not be conducted in children at all. Conclusions The expected health benefit for the child was by far the most important reason for consenting to the vaccine trial. Safety concern was the main reason for decline. Importance and necessity of clinical drug and vaccine trials among children and the rationale of the blinded studies should be thoroughly explained to the public. This may increase participation in future vaccine trials.
Assurance Payments for Multi-Unit Public Goods Provision: Experiments Motivated by Ecosystem Service Markets

In provision point mechanism, the cost threshold for provision introduces incentives for individuals to contribute toward the public good and, in general, the Pareto efficient outcome is a subset of equilibrium outcomes. However, the threshold cannot eliminate the pure free-rider equilibrium unless refinements are used. In this paper, we examine a set of assurance payment schemes for multi-unit public good provision using individualized price auction (IPA). We find assurance payment significantly eliminates non-provision equilibria, and reduces the multiplicity of provision equilibria suffered by most discrete public good provision games, especially in a multi-unit setup. The assurance payments could be useful in establishing markets for a previously non-marketable good, and thus improve the efficiency regarding the provision of various types of public good currently funded only by government or through traditional non-profit donations.
Adversary Games in Secure/Reliable Network Routing

In this paper, we consider security aspects of network routing in a game-theoretic framework where an attacker is empowered with an ability for intrusion into edges of the network; on the other hand, the goal of designer is to choose routing paths.
Ascl1 Expression Defines A Subpopulation Of Lineage-restricted Progenitors In The Mammalian Retina

The mechanisms of cell fate diversification in the retina are not fully understood. The seven principal cell types of the neural retina derive from a population of multipotent progenitors during development. These progenitors give rise to multiple cell types concurrently, suggesting that progenitors are a heterogeneous population. It is thought that differences in progenitor gene expression are responsible for differences in progenitor competence (i.e. potential) and, subsequently, fate diversification. To elucidate further the mechanisms of fate diversification, we assayed the expression of three transcription factors made by retinal progenitors: Ascl1 (Mash1), Ngn2 (Neurog2) and Olig2. We observed that progenitors were heterogeneous, expressing every possible combination of these transcription factors. To determine whether this progenitor heterogeneity correlated with different cell fate outcomes, we conducted Ascl1- and Ngn2-inducible expression fate mapping using the CreER™/LoxP system. We found that these two factors gave rise to markedly different distributions of cells. The Ngn2 lineage comprised all cell types, but retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) were exceedingly rare in the Ascl1 lineage. We next determined whether Ascl1 prevented RGC development. Ascl1-null mice had normal numbers of RGCs and, interestingly, we observed that a subset of Ascl1+ cells could give rise to cells expressing Math5 (Atoh7), a transcription factor required for RGC competence. Our results link progenitor heterogeneity to different fate outcomes. We show that Ascl1 expression defines a competence-restricted progenitor lineage in the retina, providing a new mechanism to explain fate diversification.
Invited review: combining forecasts - twenty years later

The combination of forecasts is a simple, pragmatic and sensible way to possibly produce better forecasts. Simple extensions of the original idea involve the use of various available "forecasts" even if some are rather inefficient. Some unsolved questions relate to combining forecasts with horizons longer than one period. More complicated extensions are associated with "encompassing" and the combination of confidence intervals or quantiles. The relevance of information sets is emphasized in both the underlying theory and the interpretation of combinations.
Biokinetic Parameters of a Photosynthetic Waste Stabilization Process

Biokinetic parameters, characteristic of an innovative/alternative wastewater treatment process, were determined in order to demonstrate economical wastewater stabilization and the simultaneous generation of useful biomass. The Algal Bacterial Clay Treatment (ABCT) reactor was designed to be coupled with a mollusc filter feeder clarifier. Michaelis-Menten and Monod models were characterized experimentally for the ABCT reactor under varying conditions of mixing rate, aeration rate, light intensity, temperature, presence or absence of clay particles, and initial substrate concentrations under batch conditions in order to simulate a plug flow reactor. A final two-week continuous flow “steady state,” complete mix experiment was also conducted. Under the latter condition, data acquired for pH, CO 2 , and O 2 diurnal fluctuations, using a data acquisition system and PC attached to the biostat reactor, documented the periodic CO 2 limitation and O 2 limitation. The lack of severe effects due to the diurnal limitations indicated that the ABCT strategy is efficient and potentially productive of useful biomass.
Welfare analysis of rent control with side payments: a natural experiment in Cairo, Egypt

Abstract Anecdotal evidence suggests that bribery is a common means of obtaining rent controlled apartments. Increased tenant maintenance is a less often noted, but potentially important, phenomenon in controlled markets. Previous empirical studies of the effects of rent control have neglected these side payments, presumably for lack of data. This paper presents evidence on their size and incidence for the controlled market of Cairo, Egypt, as well as estimates of effects such side payments have on welfare gains and losses from controls.
Ownership Domains: Separating Aliasing Policy from Mechanism

Ownership types promise to provide a practical mechanism for enforcing stronger encapsulation by controlling aliasing in object-oriented languages. However, previous ownership type proposals have tied the aliasing policy of a system to the mechanism of ownership. As a result, these proposals are too weak to express many important aliasing constraints, yet also so restrictive that they prohibit many useful programming idioms.
Topological superconductivity and Majorana fermions in metallic surface states

Heavy metals, such as Au, Ag, and Pb, often have sharp surface states that are split by strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The strong spin-orbit coupling and two-dimensional nature of these surface states make them ideal platforms for realizing topological superconductivity and Majorana fermions. In this paper we further develop a proposal to realize Majorana fermions at the ends of quasi-one-dimensional metallic wires. We show how superconductivity can be induced on the metallic surface states by a combination of proximity effect, disorder, and interactions. Applying a magnetic field along the wire can drive the wire into a topologically nontrivial state with Majorana end states. Unlike the case of a perpendicular field, where the chemical potential must be fine-tuned near the Rashba band crossing, the parallel field allows one to realize Majorana fermions for an arbitrarily large chemical potential. We then show that, despite the presence of a large carrier density from the bulk metal, it is still possible to effectively control the chemical potential of the surface states by gating. The simplest version of our proposal, which involves only an Au(111) film deposited on a conventional superconductor, should be readily realizable.
Polarization, politics and property rights: Links between inequality and growth *

Most efforts to trace the effects of income inequality on growth have focused on redistribution. However, empirical investigation has not substantiated either the positive association of income inequality with redistribution or the negative association of redistribution with economic growth. The authors analyze the effects of inequality in the broader context of social polarization. They argue that social polarization, whether rooted in income inequality or in ethnic tension, makes large changes in current policies (including those guaranteeing the security of contract and property rights) more likely under a wide range of institutional arrangements. The resulting uncertainties in the policy and contractual environment hinder growth. They find strong empirical support for both parts of this argument. The policy implications of their argument are quite distinct from those of arguments that inequality reduces growth by increasing pressures for redistribution. If redistributive policies per se were to blame for the low growth resulting from inequality, governments that seek to mitigate income inequality must inevitably confront a tradeoff between equity and growth. If, on the other hand, the insecurity of property rights slows growth in unequal or otherwise polarized societies, governments that commit over the long run to particular redistributive policies incur less risk of slowing economic growth. Fiscal redistribution that reduces inequality may actually increase growth by reducing the risks of political uncertainty.
Mantel's theorem for random graphs

For a graph G, denote by tG resp. bG the maximum size of a triangle-free resp. bipartite subgraph of G. Of course tGi¾?bG for any G, and a classic result of Mantel from 1907 the first case of Turan's Theorem says that equality holds for complete graphs. A natural question, first considered by Babai, Simonovits and Spencer about 20 years ago is, when i.e., for what p=pn is the "Erdi¾?s-Renyi" random graph G=Gn,p likely to satisfy tG=bG? We show that this is true if p>Cn-1/2logi¾?1/2n for a suitable constant C, which is best possible up to the value of C. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 47, 59-72, 2015
The Case Beyond Time

but only at the discretion of the board as deemed consistent with the attainment of corporate goals. Such a conclusion would not have been possible without first decisively locating authority over the totality of corporate affairsincluding the formulation of corporate goals-with directors rather than share-
Real Flexibility and Financial Structure: An Empirical Analysis

I examine the empirical relation between real flexibility and financial structure. I test whether real flexibility increases debt capacity by lowering default risk and making assets more marketable or decreases debt capacity by facilitating risk shifting and asset substitution. I measure real flexibility as the sensitivity of marginal production and investment decisions to variations in the economic environment. I find that financial leverage is negatively related to production flexibility but positively related to investment flexibility. This split in results suggests that although asset substitution facilitated by investment flexibility can be prevented contractually, risk shifting facilitated by production flexibility is intractable. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.
Business Cycles and Endogenous Uncertainty

Recessions are times of increased uncertainty and volatility at the micro level. This widely documented empirical pattern has been interpreted as the effect of uncertainty shocks, mediated by various frictions, on aggregate economic activity. We explore the hypothesis that the causation runs the opposite way: first moment shocks induce risky behavior, which in turn raises observed cross-sectional dispersion and time series volatility of individual economic outcomes. Specifically, we study the cyclical pattern of the dispersion of price changes, and the resulting changes in sales and employment at the firm-level. We formulate an imperfect information version of the standard model of monopolistic competition. The elasticity of demand differs across products, and firms are not sure about the elasticity of the demand they face, but learn it from their volume of sales. Due to a fixed operation cost, information is valuable to decide whether to exit the market. Idiosyncratic demand shocks impair learning. The model is fully microfounded and can be aggregated to study general equilibrium. Deviations from average prices are costly to the firm in terms of forgone profits, but the response of sale volumes is informative about market power. Bad economic times are the best times to price-experiment, as the opportunity cost of price mistakes is lower and exit looms large. Following a negative aggregate shock to nominal spending, firms at first keep their prices relatively high, in order to learn whether the demand for their product is sufficiently inelastic and resilient to survive, and then change them further by an amount that depends on what they have learned.
Start-ups, Spin-offs, and Internal Projects

We examine the incentive problem confronting a firm and employee when the employee privately discovers a significant invention and faces a choice between keeping the invention private and leaving the firm to form a new company (start-up), or transferring knowledge and attempting to gain compensation from the firm (spin-off). We focus on inventions that require little start-up capital and for which property rights are either missing or very weak. In such settings, the employee will sometimes form a new company even though joint profits would have been greater had the invention been developed with the original firm. We also identify when the firm has an incentive to pay a substantial sum to the employee via a spin-off, thereby deterring a start-up. Finally, the basic analysis is applied to examine several issues including specific versus general innovations, trade secret laws, and legal "shop rights." Copyright 1995 by Oxford University Press.
Enterprise Cockpit for Business Operation Management

The area of business operations monitoring and management is rapidly gaining impor-tance both in the industry and in the academia. This is demonstrated by the large number of performance reporting tools that have been developed. Such tools essen-tially leverage system monitoring and data warehousing applications to perform online analysis of business operations and produce fancy charts, from which users can get the feeling of what is happening in the system. While this provides value, there is still a huge gap between what is available today and what users would ideally like to have: Business analysts tend to think of the way business operations are performed in terms of high level business processes, that we will call abstract in the following. There is no way today for analyst to draw such abstract processes and use them as a metaphor for analyzing business operations. Defining metrics of interest and reporting against these metrics requires a signifi-cant coding effort. No system provides, out of the box, the facility for easily defin-ing metrics over process execution data, for providing users with explanations for why a metric has a certain value, and for predicting the future value for a metric. There is no automated support for identifying optimal configurations of the busi-ness processes to improve critical metrics. There is no support for understanding the business impact of system failures.
Schauder a priori estimates and regularity of solutions to boundary-degenerate elliptic linear second-order partial differential equations

Abstract We establish Schauder a priori estimates and regularity for solutions to a class of boundary-degenerate elliptic linear second-order partial differential equations. Furthermore, given a C ∞ -smooth source function, we prove C ∞ -regularity of solutions up to the portion of the boundary where the operator is degenerate. Boundary-degenerate elliptic operators of the kind described in our article appear in a diverse range of applications, including as generators of affine diffusion processes employed in stochastic volatility models in mathematical finance [10] , [25] , generators of diffusion processes arising in mathematical biology [3] , [11] , and the study of porous media [7] , [8] .
Exploiting locality in searching the web

Published experiments on spidering the Web suggest that, given training data in the form of a (relatively small) subgraph of the Web containing a subset of a selected class of target pages, it is possible to conduct a directed search and find additional target pages significantly faster (with fewer page retrievals) than by performing a blind or uninformed random or systematic search, e.g., breadthfirst search. If true, this claim motivates a number of practical applications. Unfortunately, these experiments were carried out in specialized domains or under conditions that are difficult to replicate. We present and apply an experimental framework designed to reexamine and resolve the basic claims of the earlier work, so that the supporting experiments can be replicated and built upon. We provide high-performance tools for building experimental spiders, make use of the ground truth and static nature of the WT10g TREC Web corpus, and rely on simple well understand machine learning techniques to conduct our experiments. In this paper, we describe the basic framework, motivate the experimental design, and report on our findings supporting and qualifying the conclusions of the earlier research.
Retrieving NASA Problem Reports with Natural Language

A system that retrieves problem reports from a NASA database is described. The database is queried with natural language questions. Part-of-speech tags are first assigned to each word in the question using a rule-based tagger. A partial parse of the question is then produced with independent sets of deterministic finite state automata. Using partial parse information, a look up strategy searches the database for problem reports relevant to the question. A bigram stemmer and irregular verb conjugates have been incorporated into the system to improve accuracy. The system is evaluated by a set of fifty five questions posed by NASA engineers. A discussion of future research is also presented.
Congressional review of national problems in drug abuse and its control

The addition of a psychologist to its staff provided the United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control with an opportunity to add survey technology to its traditional oversight information gathering armamentarium. Surveys of state and local drug abuse program managers, law enforcement and prosecutorial officials, state attorneys general, and members of congress itself provided the Select Committee with information that supplemented that obtained by hearings and congressionally sponsored conferences. Answers to different questions in the different surveys were in general agreement with each other and with information obtained through hearings, providing a rough measure of the reliability and utility of the technique for oversight purposes. Survey results were incorporated in committee reports and are credited with providing information necessary to sustain the Select Committee's recommendations for drug abuse and control to the Congress. Language: en
Characterization of extrasolar terrestrial planets from diurnal photometric variability

The detection of massive planets orbiting nearby stars has become almost routine, but current techniques are as yet unable to detect terrestrial planets with masses comparable to the Earth's. Future space-based observatories to detect Earth-like planets are being planned. Terrestrial planets orbiting in the habitable zones of stars-where planetary surface conditions are compatible with the presence of liquid water-are of enormous interest because they might have global environments similar to Earth's and even harbour life. The light scattered by such a planet will vary in intensity and colour as the planet rotates; the resulting light curve will contain information about the planet's surface and atmospheric properties. Here we report a model that predicts features that should be discernible in the light curve obtained by low-precision photometry. For extrasolar planets similar to Earth, we expect daily flux variations of up to hundreds of per cent, depending sensitively on ice and cloud cover as well as seasonal variations. This suggests that the meteorological variability, composition of the surface (for example, ocean versus land fraction) and rotation period of an Earth-like planet could be derived from photometric observations. Even signatures of Earth-like plant life could be constrained or possibly, with further study, even uniquely determined.
Competing with Costco and Sam's Club: Warehouse Club Entry and Grocery Prices

Prior research shows that grocery stores reduce prices to compete with Walmart Supercenters. This study finds evidence that the competitive effects of two other big-box retailers�Costco and Walmart-owned Sam's Club�are quite different. Using city-level panel grocery price data matched with a unique data set on Walmart and warehouse club locations, we find that Costco entry is associated with higher grocery prices at incumbent retailers and that the effect is strongest in cities with small populations and high grocery store densities. This is consistent with incumbents competing with Costco along nonprice dimensions, such as product quality or quality of the shopping experience. We find no evidence that Sam's Club entry affects grocery stores' prices, consistent with Sam's Club's focus on small businesses instead of consumers.
Solar Simulation for the Crest Preflight Thermal-Vacuum Test at B-2

In June 2011, the multi-university sponsored Cosmic Ray Electron Synchrotron Telescope (CREST) has undergone thermal-vacuum qualification testing at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC), Plum Brook Station, Sandusky, Ohio. The testing was performed in the B-2 Space Propulsion Facility vacuum chamber. The CREST was later flown over the Antarctic region as the payload of a stratospheric balloon. Solar simulation was provided by a system of planar infrared lamp arrays specifically designed for CREST. The lamp arrays, in conjunction with a liquid-nitrogen-cooled cold wall, achieved the required thermal conditions for the qualification tests. The following slides accompanied the presentation of the report entitled Solar Simulation for the CREST Preflight Thermal-Vacuum Test at B-2, at the 27th Aerospace Testing Seminar, October 2012. The presentation described the test article, the test facility capability, the solar simulation requirements, the highlights of the engineering approach, and the results achieved. The presentation was intended to generate interest in the report and in the B-2 test facility.
Inequalities in health in developing countries - swimming against the tide?

Inequalities in health have recently started to receive a good deal of attention in the developing world. But how large are they? And how large are the differences across countries? Recent data from a 42-country study show large but varying inequalities in health across countries. Wagstaff explores the reasons for these intercountry differences and concludes that large inequalities in health are not apparently associated with large inequalities in income or with small shares of publicly financed health spending. But they are associated with higher per capita incomes. Evidence from trends in health inequalities - in both the developing and the industrial world - supports the notion that health inequalities rise with rising per capita incomes. The association between health inequalities and per capita incomes is probably due in part to technological change going hand-in-hand with economic growth, coupled with a tendency for the better-off to assimilate new technology ahead of the poor. Since increased health inequalities associated with rising per capita incomes is a bad thing and increased average health levels associated with rising incomes are a good thing, Wagstaff outlines a way of quantifying the tradeoff between health inequalities and health levels. He also suggests that successful anti-inequality policies can be devised, but that their success cannot be established simply by looking at "headline" health inequality figures, since these reflect the effects of differences and changes in other variables, including per capita income. Wagstaff identifies four approaches that can shed light on the impacts of anti-inequality policies on health inequalities: cross-country comparative studies, country-based before-and-after studies with controls, benefit-incidence analysis, and decomposition analysis. The results of studies based on these four approaches do not give as many clear-cut answers as one might like on how best to swim against the tide of rising per capita incomes and their apparent inequality-increasing effects. But they ought at least to help us build our stock of knowledge on the subject. This paper - a product of Public Services, Development Research Group, and the Health, Nutrition, and Population Team, Human Development Network - as part of a larger effort in the Bank to investigate the links between poverty and health. The author may be contacted at awagstaff@worldbank.org.
A long-run, short-run, and politico-economic analysis of the welfare costs of inflation

The long-run, short-run, and politico-economic welfare implications of inflation are assessed in a Bewley model of money demand. All agents produce and consume every period, and hold money to self-insure against idiosyncratic risk. The model is calibrated so the equilibrium monetary distribution shares features with US data. The long-run welfare costs of inflation are shown to be large because inflation reduces the ability of money to mitigate risk. However, the beneficial redistributive effect of inflation is magnified along the short-run transition and reduces the overall costs. These short-run benefits result in a majority-rule inflation rate above the Friedman Rule.
Climate reconstruction using ‘Pseudoproxies’

[1] We test the performance of proxy-based climate field reconstruction methods using sets of synthetic proxy climate indicators. ‘Pseudoproxies’ are constructed through the degradation of instrumental surface temperature data by additive noise with variable statistical properties. Experiments are performed using pseudoproxy networks of varying spatial and seasonal representation and with varying noise attributes. Implications for sampling strategies for improved paleoclimate reconstructions are discussed. INDEX TERMS: 1620 Global Change: Climate dynamics (3309); 1694 Global Change: Instruments and techniques; 3309 Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Climatology (1620); 3344 Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Paleoclimatology
Bradley, Ralph A†

Ralph Bradley's contributions to the world of statistics fall under two headings: his statistical research (especially the Bradley–Terry test used extensively in taste-testing experiments) and his professional leadership role in statistical science, as evidenced by his development of statistical programs, by his presidency (1981) of the American Statistical Association, and by his editorial efforts. Keywords: Bradley–Terry test; paired comparison; trend-free block design; blocking; ASA
PARRONDO GAMES AS LATTICE GAS AUTOMATA

Parrondo games are coin flipping games with the surprising property that alternating plays of two losing games can produce a winning game. We show that this phenomenon can be modelled by probabilistic lattice gas automata. Furthermore, motivated by the recent introduction of quantum coin flipping games, we show that quantum lattice gas automata provide an interesting definition for quantum Parrondo games.
On the Energy-Momentum Tensor of the Scalar Field in Scalar–Tensor Theories of Gravity

We study the dynamical description of gravity, the appropriate definition of the scalar field energy-momentum tensor, and the interrelation between them in scalar-tensor theories of gravity. We show that the quantity which one would naively identify as the energy-momentum tensor of the scalar field is not appropriate because it is spoiled by a part of the dynamical description of gravity. A new connection can be defined in terms of which the full dynamical description of gravity is explicit, and the correct scalar field energy-momentum tensor can be immediately identified. Certain inequalities must be imposed on the two free functions (the coupling function and the potential) that define a particular scalar-tensor theory, to ensure that the scalar field energy density never becomes negative. The correct dynamical description leads naturally to the Einstein frame formulation of scalar-tensor gravity which is also studied in detail.
Designing financial safety nets to fit country circumstances

The author explains how differences in the informational and contracting environments of countries affect the optimal design of their financial safety nets and their optimal strategies for managing financial crises. He explains how to design and operate safety nets at minimum cost to taxpayers and well-managed banks in countries whose informational and contracting technologies differ. His basic premise is that optimal regulation is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. A country's safety net should be transparent, deterrent to too much risk-taking, and accountable, but the author shows large differences across countries in the transparency and deterrence banks afford their depositors, highlighting why the design of safety nets must allow for differences in the enforceability of private contracts. The weaker a country's informational, ethical, and corporate governance environment, the more a wholly governmental system of explicit deposit guarantees is apt to undermine bank safety and stability. How a country's safety net evolves depends on the ability of the private and public sectors to value banks, discipline risk-taking, and resolve financial difficulties promptly. And political accountability is essential if the public part of these tasks is to evolve effectively and efficiently. As a rule of thumb, safety-net managers should avoid either subsidizing or taxing bank risk-taking, says the author. Even if analysts could formulate a beneficial tax or subsidy rule, it is unlikely that channeling the effect through a government-run deposit insurance system that fails to account publicly for the size of taxpayers' stake could improve upon more straightforward arrangements.
The association between medical education accreditation and the examination performance of internationally educated physicians seeking certification in the United States

The purpose of this study was to investigate the performance of graduates of international medical schools who seek Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates certification based on accreditation of their medical education programmes. For the self-selected population who took United States Medical Licensing Examinations during the study period (2006–2010), accreditation was associated with higher first-attempt pass rates on some examinations, especially for international medical graduates from schools located in the Caribbean region. In addition, certain essential accreditation standards were associated with better performance on all examinations. This study lends support to the value of medical education accreditation.
Adaptive importance sampling for estimation in structured domains

Sampling is an important tool for estimating large, complex sums and integrals over high-dimensional spaces. For instance, importance sampling has been used as an alternative to exact methods for inference in belief networks. Ideally, we want to have a sampling distribution that provides optimal-variance estimators. In this paper, we present methods that improve the sampling distribution by systematically adapting it as we obtain information from the samples. We present a stochastic-gradient-descent method for sequentially updating the sampling distribution based on the direct minimization of the variance. We also present other stochastic-gradient-descent methods based on the minimization of typical notions of distance between the current sampling distribution and approximations of the target, optimal distribution. We finally validate and compare the different methods empirically by applying them to the problem of action evaluation in influence diagrams.
The power operation structure on Morava E-theory of height 2 at the prime 3

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2013. Major: Mathematics. Advisor: Tyler Lawson. 1 computer file (PDF); ii, 102 pages, appendices A.
Thermomechanical behavior of plasma-sprayed ZrO2-Y2O3 coatings influenced by plasticity, creep, and oxidation

Thermocycling of ceramic-coated turbomachine components produces high thermomechanical stresses that are mitigated by plasticity and creep but aggravated by oxidation, with residual stresses exacerbated by all three. These residual stresses, coupled with the thermocyclic loading, lead to high compressive stresses that cause the coating to spall. A ceramic-coated gas path seal is modeled with consideration given to creep, plasticity, and oxidation. The resulting stresses and possible failure modes are discussed.
Experimental quantum annealing: case study involving the graph isomorphism problem.

Quantum annealing is a proposed combinatorial optimization technique meant to exploit quantum mechanical effects such as tunneling and entanglement. Real-world quantum annealing-based solvers require a combination of annealing and classical pre- and post-processing; at this early stage, little is known about how to partition and optimize the processing. This article presents an experimental case study of quantum annealing and some of the factors involved in real-world solvers, using a 504-qubit D-Wave Two machine and the graph isomorphism problem. To illustrate the role of classical pre-processing, a compact Hamiltonian is presented that enables a reduced Ising model for each problem instance. On random N-vertex graphs, the median number of variables is reduced from N2 to fewer than N log2 N and solvable graph sizes increase from N = 5 to N = 13. Additionally, error correction via classical post-processing majority voting is evaluated. While the solution times are not competitive with classical approaches to graph isomorphism, the enhanced solver ultimately classified correctly every problem that was mapped to the processor and demonstrated clear advantages over the baseline approach. The results shed some light on the nature of real-world quantum annealing and the associated hybrid classical-quantum solvers.
PHOTOEMISSION FROM SOLIDS: THE TRANSITION FROM SOLID-STATE TO ATOMIC PHYSICS

Interactions between solid-state and atomic physics are potentially very valuable, yet little studied as yet. Nowhere is this more true than in photoelectron spectroscopy, which has been developed quite independently in its applications to atomic and solid-state physics. In recent years, however, several phenomena attending photoemission have been specifically addressed in relation to their occurrence in both atoms and solids. Kunz and co-workers at DESY have compared total absorption in atoms and condensed phases, finding strong similarities and interesting differences. Focussing more explicitly on core-level photoemission per se, two groups at SSRL—Lindau, Spicer, et al., and our own—have found that total photoelectric cross-sections of core electrons in solids show interesting atomic behavior, including Cooper minima. Figure 1 illustrates this behavior.1–3
Geometry-based estimation of stability region for a class of structure preserving power grids

The increasing development of the electric power grid, the largest engineered system ever, to an even more complicated and larger system requires a new generation of stability assessment methods that are computationally tractable and feasible in real-time. In this paper we first extend the recently introduced Lyapunov Functions Family (LFF) transient stability assessment approach, that has potential to reduce the computational cost on large scale power grids, to structure-preserving power grids. Then, we introduce a new geometry-based method to construct the stability region estimate of power systems. Our conceptual demonstration shows that this new method can certify stability of a broader set of initial conditions compared to the minimization-based LFF method and the energy methods (closest UEP and controlling UEP methods).
The Weak Reading of Authority in Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law

Authority qua empowerment is theweak reading of authority in Hans Kelsen's writings.On the one hand, this reading appears to beunresponsive to the problem of authority as we know itfrom the tradition. On the other hand, it squares withlegal positivism. Is Kelsen a legal positivist?Not without qualification. For he defends anormativity thesis along with the separation thesis,and it is at any rate arguable that the normativitythesis mandates a stronger reading of authority thanthat modelled on empowerment. I offer, in the paper,a prima facie case on behalf of a stronger reading ofauthority in Kelsen. I go on to argue, however, thatthe textual evidence weighs heavily in favour of theweak reading. Both nomostatics and nomodynamics arepervasive points of view in the Pure Theory of Law,and both reflect species of empowerment as theendpoint of Kelsen's reconstructions.
Monetary Policy Spillovers and the Trilemma in the New Normal: Periphery Country Sensitivity to Core Country Conditions

Abstract We investigate why and how the financial conditions of developing and emerging market countries (peripheral countries) can be affected by the movements in the center economies – the U.S., Japan, the Eurozone, and China. We apply a two-step approach. First, we estimate the sensitivity of countries' financial variables to the center economies [policy interest rate, stock market prices, and the real effective exchange rates (REER)] while controlling for global and domestic factors. Next, we examine the association of the estimated sensitivity coefficients with the macroeconomic conditions, policies, real and financial linkages with the center economies, and the level of institutional development. In the last two decades, for most financial variables, the strength of the links with the center economies have been the dominant factor while the movements of policy interest rate also appear sensitive to global financial shocks around the emerging market crises of the late 1990s and since the global financial crisis of 2008. While certain macroeconomic and institutional variables are important, the arrangement of open macropolicies such as the exchange rate regime and financial openness are also found to have direct influence on the sensitivity to the center economies. An economy that pursues greater exchange rate stability and financial openness faces a stronger link with the center economies through policy interest rates and real effective exchange rate (REER) movements. We also find that exchange market pressure (EMP) in peripheral economies is sensitive to the movements of the center economies' REER and EMP during and after the global financial crisis. Open macro policy arrangements, especially exchange rate regimes, also have indirect effects on the strength of financial linkages, interacting with other macroeconomic conditions. Thus, trilemma policy arrangements, including exchange rate flexibility, continue to affect the sensitivity of developing countries to policy changes and shocks in the center economies.
Limitations of a morphological criterion of adaptive inference in the fossil record.

Experimental analyses directly inform how an anatomical feature or complex functions during an organism's lifetime, which serves to increase the efficacy of comparative studies of living and fossil taxa. In the mammalian skull, food material properties and feeding behaviour have a pronounced influence on the development of the masticatory apparatus. Diet-related variation in loading magnitude and frequency induce a cascade of changes at the gross, tissue, cellular, protein and genetic levels, with such modelling and remodelling maintaining the integrity of oral structures vis-a-vis routine masticatory stresses. Ongoing integrative research using rabbit and rat models of long-term masticatory plasticity offers unique insight into the limitations of functional interpretations of fossilised remains. Given the general restriction of the palaeontological record to bony elements, we argue that failure to account for the disparity in the hierarchical network of responses of hard versus soft tissues may overestimate the magnitude of the adaptive divergence that is inferred from phenotypic differences. Second, we note that the developmental onset and duration of a loading stimulus associated with a given feeding behaviour can impart large effects on patterns of intraspecific variation that can mirror differences observed among taxa. Indeed, plasticity data are relevant to understanding evolutionary transformations because rabbits raised on different diets exhibit levels of morphological disparity comparable to those found between closely related primate species that vary in diet. Lastly, pronounced variation in joint form, and even joint function, can also characterise adult conspecifics that differ solely in age. In sum, our analyses emphasise the importance of a multi-site and hierarchical approach to understanding determinants of morphological variation, one which incorporates critical data on performance.
Cached sufficient statistics for efficient machine learning with large datasets

This paper introduces new algorithms and data structures for quick counting for machine learning datasets. We focus on the counting task of constructing contingency tables, but our approach is also applicable to counting the number of records in a dataset that match conjunctive queries. Subject to certain assumptions, the costs of these operations can be shown to be independent of the number of records in the dataset and loglinear in the number of non-zero entries in the contingency table. We provide a very sparse data structure, the ADtree, to minimize memory use. We provide analytical worst-case bounds for this structure for several models of data distribution. We empirically demonstrate that tractably-sized data structures can be produced for large real-world datasets by (a) using a sparse tree structure that never allocates memory for counts of zero, (b) never allocating memory for counts that can be deduced from other counts, and (c) not bothering to expand the tree fully near its leaves. We show how the ADtree can be used to accelerate Bayes net structure finding algorithms, rule learning algorithms, and feature selection algorithms, and we provide a number of empirical results comparing ADtree methods against traditional direct counting approaches. We also discuss the possible uses of ADtrees in other machine learning methods, and discuss the merits of ADtrees in comparison with alternative representations such as kd-trees, R-trees and Frequent Sets.