cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Minor Disregard: The Legal Construction of the Fantasy That Gay and Lesbian Youth Do Not Exist

This article examines the nature and consequences of the social and legal denial of the existence of gay and lesbian youth. Part I of the article sets out the politically and culturally contested topography of any debate involving children and sexuality, and it considers the risks posed by the seemingly indestructible myth of “homosexual recruitment.” Part II explicates the contradictory meanings of homosexuality as both radical Otherness located in only a few individuals and as potentially latent in everyone. It explores the implications of those views for lesbian and gay youth and suggests that such views make the notion of a coherently gay adolescent inconceivable and, in the broader epistemological contest over the sexual definition of youth, provide the conceptual framework for the fantasy that gay and lesbian youth do not exist. Part III turns to an analysis of the role of the law in the construction and regulation of homosexuality and illustrates how the legal system produces (apparently) heterosexual youth in its regulation of the family and school. It suggests that the laws governing child custody, adoption, and employment of queer teachers seek essentially to protect “confused” children with latent homosexual proclivities from becoming gay and lesbian adults. The article concludes, in Part IV, with a call for the law to recognize and protect the youth who identify themselves as gay and lesbian by naming them as gay and lesbian, rather than as confused, presumptively heterosexual future adults.
Reversal of 3-day losers and continuation of 3-day winners on the NASDAQ

Abstract Using only the 200 large-cap securities that make up the NYSE 100 and NASDAQ 100, this study investigates 130 randomly selected formation periods from January 2000 through December 2012. During these formation periods, the three worst and three best performing stocks (based on excess return) are flagged. Once flagged, the subsequent 10-day holding period excess returns are calculated. Results indicate that NYSE securities demonstrate significant return reversal, but not return momentum. Conversely, the worst performing NASDAQ securities demonstrate return reversal, whereas the best performing NASDAQ securities demonstrate return momentum. Results are robust to the number of best and worst stocks that are flagged. Results are also robust to other combinations of formation and holding period lengths.
Optimal Debt with Unobservable Investments

We study financial contracting when both an entrepreneur’s investment and the resulting revenue are unobservable to an outside investor. We show that a debt contract is always optimal; repayment is induced by a liquidation threat that increases with the extent of default. Moreover, when the entrepreneur’s decision concerns the scale of his project, a contract that minimizes liquidation losses is optimal. When the decision concerns managerial effort or project risk, however, it may be optimal to write a contract with a greater threat of liquidation, to induce the entrepreneur to exert more effort or to choose a less risky project.
Product Customization and Customer Service Costs: An Empirical Analysis

We conduct a field study in a U.S. health insurance firm to examine how product customization affects the firm's cost to serve customers through its call center. In our setting, the product is a complex health insurance plan. The firm incurs substantial costs in serving the customers through its call center and in adjudicating the claims using its information systems. The firm sells either standard plans or in some instances allows customer groups to customize their plans by adding and modifying certain aspects in active collaboration with the firm. Such a collaboration process is akin to the firm cocreating products with its customers. This cocreation process should increase customers' familiarity with their coverage and improve the fit with their medical needs. Better fit and familiarity in turn, reduces customers' incentives to contact the call center for clarifications regarding the firm's product coverage. In particular, we show that customers with a customized plan call 21% less frequently than customers with a standard plan. Our results account for possible self-selection of customers to customized plans. We also show no difference in the claims adjudication cost between a standard and a customized plan exists. Overall, our results suggest customized plans may be operationally cheaper to serve than standard plans. Thus, our paper provides a link between a growing business concern (customer support cost via call centers) and a prevalent business strategy (product customization via cocreation).
Animals As Objects, or Subjects, of Rights

This chapter shows that the historical accounts of animals did not rest on any fundamental misconception as to their capacities, but on the simple but powerful proposition that the survival and advancement of human civilization depended on the domestication and use of animals. It explores the moral status of animals, and their relationship to women, children, and slaves, under the traditional synthesis of legal rights. The chapter highlights the benefits to animals that arise from the system of human ownership. It relates this history to the modern debates over the legal status of animals, and rejects the proposition that the creation of rights for animals is a logical extension of the creation of full rights for women and slaves. The chapter discusses efforts to create animal rights based on their cognitive or sentient capacity, and concludes that these help justify many past initiatives for the protection of animals, but not the more aggressive claims for animal rights.
Improving the qualifications of experts in medical malpractice cases

For decades, judges and legal scholars have recognized the problem of physicians testifying beyond their expertise in medical malpractice cases. This paper discusses the traditional liberal standards for qualifying medical experts, and why those standards arose. Next, this paper reviews and critiques recent legislative and judicial innovations that have tightened the standards for qualifying medical experts. Finally, this paper proposes a new ‘reasonable patient’ rule for qualifying experts in medical malpractice cases that balances the need to ensure that plaintiffs with worthy claims are able to procure expert testimony with methods of assuring that only competent experts will testify.
Unsettledness in Delaware Corporate Law: Business Judgment Rule, Corporate Purpose

This Article revisits two fundamental issues in corporate law. One—the central role of the business judgment rule in fiduciary litigation—involves a great deal of seemingly settled law, while the other—is there a mandated corporate purpose—has very little law. Using the emergent question of whether the business judgment rule should be used in analyzing officer and controlling shareholder fiduciary duties, the latter issue having recently been addressed by Chancellor Strine in the widely-heralded MFW decision, this Article proposes a fundamental rethinking of the rule’s analytical preeminence. For a variety of reasons, it is suggested that fiduciary duties should be made more prominent and the business judgment rule should be dramatically deemphasized. The policy rationales for the rule are sound, but they have no relevance for shareholders and introduce needless complexity. For directors, those rationales do not apply in the loyalty setting, and in the care setting, can be achieved by recalling simply that there is no substance to judicial review in that context. As to corporate purpose, the Article advocates that Delaware law permit a pluralistic approach in the for-profit corporate sector. Long agnostic about ultimate corporate objective, Delaware law may have turned unnecessarily toward a strict shareholder primacy focus in the 2010 eBay decision. To bring clarification and to foster flexibility, Professor Johnson recommends a legislative default provision, with an opt-out feature. This feature should be in the business corporation statute itself. Delaware’s new benefit corporation law laudably advances the goal of institutional pluralism, but does so at the ironic risk This Article is adapted from the 28 Annual Francis G. Pileggi Distinguished Lecture in Law, delivered at Widener University School of Law and at the DuPont Hotel, on November 9, 2012. The Author wishes to thank the Pileggi family for supporting this lecture and all those at Widener University who assisted in making necessary arrangements, and the judges, lawyers, professors, and students who attended, asked tough questions and provided helpful comments. Robert O. Bentley Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law; LeJeune Distinguished Chair in Law, University of St. Thomas (Minneapolis) School of Law. The Frances Lewis Law Center at Washington and Lee University School of Law and the University of St. Thomas (Minneapolis) provided financial support for Professor Johnson.
Trade Policy, Trade Volumes, and Plant-Level Productivity in Colombian Manufacturing Industries

Fernandes explores Colombian trade policy from 1977-91, a period of substantial variation in protection across industries, to examine whether increased exposure to foreign competition generates plant-level productivity gains. Using a large panel of manufacturing plants, she finds a strong positive impact of tariff liberalization on consistent productivity estimates, controlling for plant and industry heterogeneity. This result is not driven by the endogeneity of protection nor by plant exit. The impact of tariff liberalization on productivity is stronger for large plants and for plants in less competitive industries. Qualitatively similar results are obtained when using effective rates of protection and import penetration ratios as measures of protection
Does behavioral treatment of social phobia lead to cognitive changes

Little is known about specific effects of behavioral and cognitive treatment methods. The goal of this study was to examine the effect of a “pure” performance-based exposure treatment (i.e., without cognitive intervention) on the anxiety-related cognitions of subjects with social phobia (public speaking anxiety). Thirty-six such persons were recruited. Pairs of subjects matched by age, sex, and severity of phobia were randomly assigned to either a treatment or waiting-list control group. Eighteen people received a purely behavioral treatment for 8 sessions over a period of 8 weeks; 18 served as the wait-list control group. Before and after treatment, subjective, cognitive, and behavioral measures of anxiety were taken. Results showed that a purely behavioral treatment led to improvement in measures of behavioral, subjective, and cognitive anxiety. This research adds to the literature on cognitive or behavioral treatment of social phobia showing that cognitive restructuring can occur without specific cognitive treatment, and that interventions for phobia are not necessarily mode specific.
Plastic Trees and Gladiators: Liberalism and Aesthetic Regulation

The hallmark of modern liberalism is its embrace of the Millian harm principle and its antipathy to legal moralism. In this article I consider whether aesthetic regulations can be justified under the harm principle as that principle has been elaborated by Joel Feinberg. I conclude that aesthetic and other regulations that most liberals regard as unproblematic are actually instances of legal moralism.
The Constitutionality of State and Local Laws Targeting Immigrants

This paper addresses current immigration issues across the country, specifically in Arkansas, and how lawyers can seek to achieve social justice for immigrants. There currently has been a lot of activity and discussion surrounding state and local laws targeting immigrants. Central to this discussion has been whether states and localities are constitutionally permitted to enact immigration laws and whether state and local actions upset the current immigration system and how, if at all, their actions affect documented and undocumented immigrants' rights. When states and localities pass immigration related laws, the main concern is whether federal, state or local governments are the proper level of government to regulate immigration. The goal of this paper is to challenge the position that states and localities should play a central role in immigration enforcement and regulation. To support this contention, part I provides a brief overview of the historical roles of federal, state, and local governments in regulating and enforcing immigration. In particular, the first section focuses on the most recent state and local laws targeting immigrants. These laws pointedly deny essential services of employment, housing, and welfare benefits to immigrants often forcing them to relocate or self-deport. Part II analyzes current case law and the federal circuit split on the constitutionality of state and local laws. This section focuses on two pioneers in the passage of laws targeting immigrants: Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and the State of Arizona. Part III discusses the implications of state and local laws targeting immigrants.
Thoughts on Competency Integration in Accounting Education

ABSTRACT: The paper follows up on Lawson et al. (2014), which reported on the work of a joint task force sponsored by the Management Accounting Section (MAS) of the American Accounting Association (AAA) and the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) charged with the responsibility of developing curricular recommendations for accounting education. The current paper extends the discussion by examining possibilities for integrating foundational competencies and broad management competencies into the accounting curriculum, and for integrating across various accounting competencies. The paper provides a detailed example to illustrate its recommendations. The paper also discusses two implementation challenges related to curriculum integration and offers some thoughts for productively responding to them. Finally, the paper includes three appendices that contain an additional example and list additional resources for instructors to support curricular-integration initiatives in accounting.
Firm Valuation Effects of the Expatriation of U.S. Corporations to Tax‐Haven Countries

U.S. corporations that reorganize in tax‐haven countries claim to save many millions of dollars in future U.S. corporate income taxes. However, because these “inversion” transactions may involve significant nontax costs, it is not obvious how they affect share value. We use Monte Carlo sampling to analyze the statistical significance of each inverting firm's abnormal returns around the date that it initially announced its intentions and board of director approval of an inversion transaction. We find that five of the 20 single‐company expatriations in our analysis have significant negative announcement period returns and only two show significant positive returns. The remaining 13 inversions show no statistically significant market reaction in the announcement period. The average return in the announcement period across all 20 firms is negative, but not significantly different from zero. Overall, we do not detect obvious shareholder benefits from expatriations.
The Parable of the Seeds: Interpreting the Plant Variety Protection Act in Furtherance of Innovation Policy

Among drivers of evolution, two forces tower above all others. One of them is food. The other is sex. The seed is both. Information embedded in seed is amenable to various forms of proprietary protection. In the abstract, the Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) provides an attractive alternative to utility patents on plants and to the protection of hybrid crops as trade secrets. In practice, the PVPA has failed to become the preeminent form of intellectual property in plants. This Article explores some of the reasons for this apparent statutory shortcoming. First, this Article outlines the case for a substantive canon of statutory interpretation derived from the Constitution's requirement that federal intellectual property laws advance the Progress of Science and useful Arts. Second, this Article applies this canon to the PVPA. In particular, it addresses the PVPA's controversial crop and research exemptions. Third, this Article discusses the statutory requirement that applicants for plant variety protection deposit reproductive material in a public repository. Fourth, this Article assesses the practice of seed-wrap licensing as a contractual response to reproductive breeding, brown-bag sales, and other activities putatively conducted under the PVPA's crop and research exemptions. This Article concludes by defending its constitutionally informed approach to interpreting the PVPA, which appears to be a rare instance in the annals of contemporary intellectual property law in which proprietary protection is not excessive, but rather insufficiently robust.
How Product Order Affects Market Identity Repertoire Ordering in the U.S. Opera Market

In this study, we view market identities as interfaces between organizations and their external audiences and examine how the perceived market appeal of organizations can be influenced by the order in which the products or product features that determine their market identities are offered. We theorize that when audiences have different product preferences, organizations may increase their perceived appeal to some or all audiences by making certain features more or less salient through different orderings without making substantive changes to their products or product portfolios. We find strong support for our arguments in statistical analyses of the market identities of U.S. opera companies from 1995 to 2005. When opera companies group unconventional operas together, their market appeal decreases among season-ticket holders, an audience for whom unconventional opera is less appealing, but increases among opera critics, an audience for whom unconventional opera is more appealing.
The State Secrets Privilege and Separation of Powers

Since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has repeatedly invoked the state secrets privilege in cases challenging executive conduct in the war on terror, arguing that the very subject matter of these cases must be kept secret to protect national security. The executive's recent assertion of the privilege is unusual, in that it is seeking dismissal, pre-discovery, of all challenges to the legality of specific executive branch programs, rather than asking for limits on discovery in individual cases. This essay contends that the executive's assertion of the privilege is therefore akin to a claim that the courts lack jurisdiction to hear and decide such cases.The executive's recent invocation of the privilege raises a concern that has been largely overlooked thus far - the impact of the privilege on legislative power to assign jurisdiction to the federal courts. The U.S. Constitution grants to Congress, and not the President, near-plenary authority to craft federal jurisdiction. Furthermore, when Congress assigns federal courts to hear cases challenging the legality of executive action, it is enlisting the judiciary as its partner in policing executive conduct. The executive's recent use of the privilege disrupts that constitutional collaboration, leaving the executive potentially unchecked by any branch of government. The Essay then discusses how courts should incorporate the concern for legislative power and executive oversight into its analysis of the state secrets privilege. It concludes by suggesting that courts refuse to dismiss these cases until Congress has indicated a willingness to take back the task of executive oversight that it had delegated to the courts through the original jurisdictional grant.
Infrastructure project finance and capital flows : a new perspective

The success with which middle-income indebted developing countries have gained access to private international finance in the 1990s is a tribute to their own domestic economic performance, international policy in dealing with the debt crisis of the 1980s, and innovation in international financial markets. Emphasizing the role of private infrastructure investment as a vehicle for attracting foreign capital to developing countries in the 1990s, the authors develop an analysis model to examine what determines the credit-risk premium on infrastructure projects in the country-risk environment of developing countries. They also provide tentative quantitative evidence of the importance of macroeconomic and project-specific attributes of project risk. Their key finding is that the market seems to impose a high-risk premium on loans to countries with high inflation and to projects in the road sector.
"Simplify You, Classify You": Stigma, Stereotypes and Civil Rights in Disability Classification Systems

2 In this paper I consider the question of the extent to which sanism and pretextuality the factors that contaminate all of mental disability law do or do not equally contaminate the special education process, and the decision to label certain children as learning disabled. The thesis of this paper is that the process of labeling of children with intellectual disabilities implicates at least five conflicts and clusters of policy issues: 1. The need to insure that all children receive adequate education 2. The need to insure that the cure is not worse than the illness (that is, that the labeling of a child as being in need of special education services doesn't insure that the child will forever be seen as a second-class citizen) 3. The need to consider the ultimate impact this decision may have if the child eventually winds up in the criminal justice system, 4. The need to consider the relationship between the decision-making in this system and issues of gender, social class, and race, and 5. The need to consider the public's attitude that a learning disability label is an advantage to a child competing for admission to a prestigious university or graduate school. This paper traces the history of American federal legislation and special education law reform in the American courts; considers some of the real life problems that create pitfalls in the implementation and enforcement of those laws; looks at the meanings of sanism and pretextuality, in an effort to illuminate the insidious ways that stereotyping drives decision-making; considers issues of race and social class, looking specifically at the connection between these issues, sanism and pretextuality, and the implications of that connection for the purposes of this inquiry; considers the unique relationship between special education labeling and the criminal justice system; and looks at the way that special education labeling is seen as somehow different from other types of labeling, noting that some upper-middle class and upper class families sometimes view the label as a strategic or tactical advantage.
New Ranking of Decision-Making Subject Areas for Corporate Real Estate Executives

This study is among the first to uncover specific concepts and skills critical to the general corporate real estate executive. The research targeted a broad range of U.S. and international corporate real estate executives in positions to know the requirements for their assignment. The results rank the three most important current subject areas critical to corporate real estate decision making as real estate market interpretation, general tools of analysis as opposed to specific tools and relationships with other personnel and the public. An additional area, lease analysis, was also found to be a part of the required concepts and skills.
The Baby Doe Rules and Texas's "Futility Law" in the NICU

The applicability in the NICU of the futility provision of Texas's Advance Directives Act and its relationship to the Baby Doe rules are reasonably straightforward. Nonetheless, many comments have been written about Texas's so-called “futility law,” some of them complimentary and others, not so much. The most serious critiques of the Texas futility provision, however, are based upon assumptions that result from a fundamental misreading of the law. After a brief discussion of the futility provision and its principal features, this Essay examines the misunderstandings that plague many critiques of the law and then offers a list of proposed amendments to the law that address some of the actual deficiencies in the futility provision.
Financial Distress and the Cross Section of Equity Returns

We explicitly consider financial leverage in a simple equity valuation model and study the cross-sectional implications of potential shareholder recovery upon resolution of financial distress. Our model is capable of simultaneously explaining lower returns for financially distressed stocks, stronger book-to-market effects for firms with high default likelihood, and the concentration of momentum profits among low credit quality firms. The model further predicts (i) a hump-shaped relationship between value premium and default probability, and (ii) stronger momentum profits for nearly distressed firms with significant prospects for shareholder recovery. Our empirical analysis strongly confirms these novel predictions. FINANCIAL DISTRESS IS FREQUENTLY INVOKED to justify the existence of “anoma
Testing the transparency benefits of inflation targeting: Evidence from private sector forecasts

Abstract Using inflation forecast data for 11 IT adoption countries, IT adoption is found to promote convergence in forecast errors, suggesting that it enhances transparency. This result, which is subjected to several robustness checks and found to be robust, supports Morris and Shin's (2002) contention that better public information is most beneficial for forecasters with bad private information. However, it does not support their hypothesis that better public information could make private forecasts less accurate.
Error or Fraud? The Effect of Omissions on Management's Fraud Strategies and Auditors' Evaluations of Identified Misstatements

Using experiments with 58 corporate managers and 215 auditors, we examine whether managers attempt to reduce the perceived intentionality of their fraudulent misstatements by perpetrating fraud via...
Credible Collusion in Spatially Separated Markets

In an infinitely repeated game, sellers employ a trigger strategy of mutual forbearance from invasion of each other's markets, stabilized against invasion by the threat of Bertrand pricing. Contrary to conventional static models, this article shows stability for a wide range of transportation costs and present value parameters, and that increases in transportation costs tend to destabilize the collusive agreement.
TOP-MODELER©: Supporting Complex Strategic and Operational Decisionmaking

Senior managers frequently make difficult strategic decisions that affect their entire organization.i¾ i¾ To do this, they often must rely on management experience and intuition.i¾ i¾ A growing arsenal of tools can be used to ensure that experience and intuition are appropriately applied and even enhanced by industry-wide best-practice knowledge, a comprehensive understanding of the firm's strengths and weaknesses, and an analytic assessment of how to prioritize implementation activities.i¾ i¾ This paper describes the use, development and evaluation of a tool called TOP-MODELER.i¾ i¾ We discuss the foundations of TOP-MODELER and the process of developing and validating its comprehensive knowledgebase.i¾ i¾ We also illustrate how TOP-MODELER has been applied to help streamline and clarify strategic and operations decisions for a wide array of strategists, designers, and managers in manufacturing (and other) organizations.
DOMINATION & DISSATISFACTION: PROSECUTORS AS SENTENCERS

The federal sentencing system we have in 2004 would have been unimaginable to the Congress in 1984, and would not have received the broad support that the Sentencing Reform Act (SRA) received. The federal sentencing guidelines system has so changed since its original statutory conception that the system now is fundamentally different, in form and purpose, than the system Congress created in the SRA. This article suggests the success of the federal guideline system (or other sentencing systems) be measured by the opinion of key actors. Evidence that the federal sentencing system is failing comes from the fact that most actors hate the system and that one set of actors - policy-making federal prosecutors at the Department of Justice - love it. The failure illuminated by the actors is an unwise allocation of sentencing authority. Certain allocations of authority are dangerous or worse. Policy-making prosecutors at the United States Department of Justice love the guidelines because they dominate the federal sentencing process. The solution to this failure comes from a return to general principles of American government. The quintessential response to the threat of excess power is to design checks and balances into the system. This article highlights the need to apply these broad principles of American government to the allocation of sentencing authority.
Bayesian Geodesic Regression on Riemannian Manifolds.

Geodesic regression has been proposed for fitting the geodesic curve. However, it cannot automatically choose the dimensionality of data. In this paper, we develop a Bayesian geodesic regression model on Riemannian manifolds (BGRM) model. To avoid the overfitting problem, we add a regularization term to control the effectiveness of the model. To automatically select the dimensionality, we develop a prior for the geodesic regression model, which can automatically select the number of relevant dimensions by driving unnecessary tangent vectors to zero. To show the validation of our model, we first apply it in the 3D synthetic sphere and 2D pentagon data. We then demonstrate the effectiveness of our model in reducing the dimensionality and analyzing shape variations of human corpus callosum and mandible data.
Neural Representations of Covert Attention across Saccades: Comparing Pattern Similarity to Shifting and Holding Attention during Fixation

We can focus visuospatial attention by covertly attending to relevant locations, moving our eyes, or both simultaneously. How does shifting versus holding covert attention during fixation compare with maintaining covert attention across saccades? We acquired human fMRI data during a combined saccade and covert attention task. On Eyes-fixed trials, participants either held attention at the same initial location ("hold attention") or shifted attention to another location midway through the trial ("shift attention"). On Eyes-move trials, participants made a saccade midway through the trial, while maintaining attention in one of two reference frames: the "retinotopic attention" condition involved holding attention at a fixation-relative location but shifting to a different screen-centered location, whereas the "spatiotopic attention" condition involved holding attention on the same screen-centered location but shifting relative to fixation. We localized the brain network sensitive to attention shifts (shift > hold attention), and used multivoxel pattern time course (MVPTC) analyses to investigate the patterns of brain activity for spatiotopic and retinotopic attention across saccades. In the attention shift network, we found transient information about both whether covert shifts were made and whether saccades were executed. Moreover, in this network, both retinotopic and spatiotopic conditions were represented more similarly to shifting than to holding covert attention. An exploratory searchlight analysis revealed additional regions where spatiotopic was relatively more similar to shifting and retinotopic more to holding. Thus, maintaining retinotopic and spatiotopic attention across saccades may involve different types of updating that vary in similarity to covert attention "hold" and "shift" signals across different regions.
Differentiable Molecular Simulations for Control and Learning

Molecular dynamics simulations use statistical mechanics at the atomistic scale to enable both the elucidation of fundamental mechanisms and the engineering of matter for desired tasks. The behavior of molecular systems at the microscale is typically simulated with differential equations parameterized by a Hamiltonian, or energy function. The Hamiltonian describes the state of the system and its interactions with the environment. In order to derive predictive microscopic models, one wishes to infer a molecular Hamiltonian that agrees with observed macroscopic quantities. From the perspective of engineering, one wishes to control the Hamiltonian to achieve desired simulation outcomes and structures, as in self-assembly and optical control, to then realize systems with the desired Hamiltonian in the lab. In both cases, the goal is to modify the Hamiltonian such that emergent properties of the simulated system match a given target. We demonstrate how this can be achieved using differentiable simulations where bulk target observables and simulation outcomes can be analytically differentiated with respect to Hamiltonians, opening up new routes for parameterizing Hamiltonians to infer macroscopic models and develop control protocols.
Maximizing what? The effect of maximizing mindset on the evaluation of product bundles

Abstract In this research, we address the question of whether and how a maximizing mindset influences product-bundle evaluations. We identify and test two routes of processing when maximizers evaluate product bundles: One route focuses on perceived value of the whole bundle, and one route focuses on the scrutiny of individual products in the bundle. The former route enhances the bundle preference whereas the latter decreases it. The positive effect of a maximizing mindset on bundle preference is primarily driven by the perception of savings. However, when it is explicit that there is no monetary savings (Study 1), or the implicit perception of savings is controlled for (Study 2), or the discount is framed in a way that promotes separation of bundle elements (i.e., discount on focal product; Study 3), or the products in the bundle are low on complementarity (Study 4), the negative effect through product scrutiny becomes significant.
Observations of several new transitions of interstellar HCO

Four new transitions of the interstellar formyl radical, HCO have been detected. Five transitions are now known for interstellar HCO, and thus its identification is secure. The column density found by assuming NGC 2024 is an extended source is N subT(HCO) = (8.5 + or - 4.0) x 10 to the 12th/sq cm. This gives a fractional abundance (abundance relative to hydrogen) for NGC 2024 which agrees quite well with some theoretical predictions. Several unidentified lines were detected and are reported here. Tentative identification for some of the unidentified lines are suggested. 47 references.
A nonuniform Littlewood–Offord inequality for all norms

Abstract Let v i be vectors in R d and { e i } be independent Rademacher random variables. Then the Littlewood–Offord problem entails finding the best upper bound for sup x ∈ R d P ( ∑ e i v i = x ) . Generalizing the uniform bounds of Littlewood–Offord, Erdős and Kleitman, a recent result of Dzindzalieta and Juskevicius provides a non-uniform bound that is optimal in its dependence on ‖ x ‖ 2 . In this short note, we provide a simple alternative proof of their result. Furthermore, our proof demonstrates that the bound applies to any norm on R d , not just the l 2 norm. This resolves a conjecture of Dzindzalieta and Juskevicius.
Accurate and fast modeling of scattering from random arrays of nanoparticles using the discrete dipole approximation and angular spectrum method.

Lens-free microscopes can utilize holographic reconstruction techniques to recover the image of an object from the digitally recorded superposition of an unperturbed plane wave and a wave scattered by the object. Image reconstruction most commonly relies on the scalar angular spectrum method (ASM). While fast, the scalar ASM can be inaccurate for nanoscale objects, either because of the scalar approximation, or more generally, because it only models field propagation and not light-matter interaction, including inter-particle coupling. Here we evaluate the accuracy of the scalar ASM when combined with three different light-matter interaction models for computing the far-field light scattered by random arrays of gold and polystyrene nanoparticles. Among the three models—a dipole-matched transmission model, an optical path length model, and a binary amplitude model—we find that which model is most accurate depends on the nanoparticle material and packing density. For polystyrene particles at any packing density, there is always at least one model with error below 20%, while for gold nanoparticles with 40% or 50% surface coverage, there are no models that can provide errors better than 30%. The ASM error is determined in comparison to a discrete dipole approximation model, which is more computationally efficient than other full-wave modeling techniques. The knowledge of when and how the ASM fails can serve as a first step toward improved resolution in lens-free reconstruction and can also be applied to other random nanoparticle array applications such as lens-based super-resolution imaging, sub-diffraction beam focusing, and biomolecular sensing.
Dense CNN With Self-Attention for Time-Domain Speech Enhancement

Speech enhancement in the time domain is becoming increasingly popular in recent years, due to its capability to jointly enhance both the magnitude and the phase of speech. In this work, we propose a dense convolutional network (DCN) with self-attention for speech enhancement in the time domain. DCN is an encoder and decoder based architecture with skip connections. Each layer in the encoder and the decoder comprises a dense block and an attention module. Dense blocks and attention modules help in feature extraction using a combination of feature reuse, increased network depth, and maximum context aggregation. Furthermore, we reveal previously unknown problems with a loss based on the spectral magnitude of enhanced speech. To alleviate these problems, we propose a novel loss based on magnitudes of enhanced speech and a predicted noise. Even though the proposed loss is based on magnitudes only, a constraint imposed by noise prediction ensures that the loss enhances both magnitude and phase. Experimental results demonstrate that DCN trained with the proposed loss substantially outperforms other state-of-the-art approaches to causal and non-causal speech enhancement.
The ChiS family DNA-binding domain contains a cryptic helix-turn-helix variant

ABSTRACT Sequence-specific DNA-binding domains (DBDs) are conserved in all domains of life. These proteins carry out a variety of cellular functions, and there are a number of distinct structural domains already described that allow for sequence-specific DNA binding, including the ubiquitous helix-turn-helix (HTH) domain. In the facultative pathogen Vibrio cholerae, the chitin sensor ChiS is a transcriptional regulator that is critical for the survival of this organism in its marine reservoir. We recently showed that ChiS contains a cryptic DBD in its C terminus. This domain is not homologous to any known DBD, but it is a conserved domain present in other bacterial proteins. Here, we present the crystal structure of the ChiS DBD at a resolution of 1.28 A. We find that the ChiS DBD contains an HTH domain that is structurally similar to those found in other DNA-binding proteins, like the LacI repressor. However, one striking difference observed in the ChiS DBD is that the canonical tight turn of the HTH is replaced with an insertion containing a β-sheet, a variant which we term the helix-sheet-helix. Through systematic mutagenesis of all positively charged residues within the ChiS DBD, we show that residues within and proximal to the ChiS helix-sheet-helix are critical for DNA binding. Finally, through phylogenetic analyses we show that the ChiS DBD is found in diverse proteobacterial proteins that exhibit distinct domain architectures. Together, these results suggest that the structure described here represents the prototypical member of the ChiS-family of DBDs. IMPORTANCE Regulating gene expression is essential in all domains of life. This process is commonly facilitated by the activity of DNA-binding transcription factors. There are diverse structural domains that allow proteins to bind to specific DNA sequences. The structural basis underlying how some proteins bind to DNA, however, remains unclear. Previously, we showed that in the major human pathogen Vibrio cholerae, the transcription factor ChiS directly regulates gene expression through a cryptic DNA-binding domain. This domain lacked homology to any known DNA-binding protein. In the current study, we determined the structure of the ChiS DNA-binding domain (DBD) and found that the ChiS-family DBD is a cryptic variant of the ubiquitous helix-turn-helix (HTH) domain. We further demonstrate that this domain is conserved in diverse proteins that may represent a novel group of transcriptional regulators.
Internal pair formation

The electron-positron angular correlation and total conversion coefficient are calculated for internal pair formation and for arbitrary multipole order of the electric and magnetic radiation fields. The Born approximation is used and in the region of greatest experimental interest, $Z\ensuremath{\lesssim}40$ and gamma-ray energyg2.5 Mev, the consequent error should be negligible. Numerical results are given for multipole fields of order ${2}^{l}$ with $l=1$ through 5 inclusive.
Principal manifold estimation via model complexity selection

We propose a framework of principal manifolds to model high-dimensional data. This framework is based on Sobolev spaces and designed to model data of any intrinsic dimension. It includes principal component analysis and principal curve algorithm as special cases. We propose a novel method for model complexity selection to avoid overfitting, eliminate the effects of outliers, and improve the computation speed. Additionally, we propose a method for identifying the interiors of circle-like curves and cylinder/ball-like surfaces. The proposed approach is compared to existing methods by simulations and applied to estimate tumor surfaces and interiors in a lung cancer study.
The First Liability Insurance Cartel in America, 1896-1906

This article studies the rise and fall of the first liability insurance cartel in the United States. In 1886, insurance companies in America began selling liability insurance for personal injury accidents, primarily to cover business tort liability for employee accidents at work and non-employee injuries occasioned by their business operations. 1 In 1896, the leading liability insurers agreed to fix premium rates and share information on policyholder losses. In 1906, this cartel fell apart. Although largely forgotten until now, the rise and fall of this cartel confirms the expectations of both cartel theory and past studies of insurance cartels, largely in fire insurance, showing how insurers engaged in unstable price-fixing efforts and shared information to better estimate future claims costs. 2 Moreover, this liability insurance cartel offers a
The unequal impact of natural light on crime

This paper studies the relationship between ambient light and criminal activity. I develop a Becker-style crime model that shows that a sudden increase in ambient light produces a larger reduction in crime in areas with less public lighting. Daylight savings time (DST), the natural experiment used, induces a sharp increase in natural light during crime-intense hours. Using geolocated data on crime and public lighting for the city of Montevideo in Uruguay, regression discontinuity estimates identify a strong and statistically significant decrease in robbery of 17%. The decrease is larger in poorly lit areas. Computing the level of public lighting at which DST has no effect on crime reduction, I identify the minimum level of public lighting that an area should target.
Asymptotic confidence regions for density ridges

We develop large sample theory including nonparametric confidence regions for r-dimensional ridges of probability density functions on Rd, where 1≤r<d. We view ridges as the intersections of level sets of some special functions. The vertical variation of the plug-in kernel estimators for these functions constrained on the ridges is used as the measure of maximal deviation for ridge estimation. Our confidence regions for the ridges are determined by the asymptotic distribution of this maximal deviation, which is established by utilizing the extreme value distribution of nonstationary χ-fields indexed by manifolds.
Experimental Evaluation of Individualized Treatment Rules

The increasing availability of individual-level data has led to numerous applications of individualized (or personalized) treatment rules (ITRs). Policy makers often wish to empirically evaluate IT...
Cavity quantum electrodynamics design with single photon emitters in hexagonal boron nitride

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), a prevalent insulating crystal for dielectric and encapsulation layers in two-dimensional (2D) nanoelectronics and a structural material in 2D nanoelectromechanical systems, has also rapidly emerged as a promising platform for quantum photonics with the recent discovery of optically active defect centers and associated spin states. Combined with measured emission characteristics, here we propose and numerically investigate the cavity quantum electrodynamics scheme, incorporating these defect-enabled single photon emitters (SPEs) in h-BN microdisk resonators. The whispering-gallery nature of microdisks can support multiple families of cavity resonances with different radial and azimuthal mode indices simultaneously, overcoming the challenges in coinciding a single point defect with the maximum electric field of an optical mode both spatially and spectrally. The excellent characteristics of h-BN SPEs, including exceptional emission rate, considerably high Debye–Waller factor, and Fourier transform limited linewidth at room temperature, render strong coupling with the ratio of coupling to decay rates g/max(γ, κ) predicated as high as 500. This study not only provides insight into the emitter–cavity interaction, but also contributes toward realizing h-BN photonic components, such as low-threshold microcavity lasers and high-purity single photon sources, critical for linear optics quantum computing and quantum networking applications.
Voluntary disclosure when private information and disclosure costs are jointly determined

Classical models of voluntary disclosure feature two economic forces: the existence of an adverse selection problem (e.g., a manager possesses some private information) and the cost of ameliorating the problem (e.g., costs associated with disclosure). Traditionally these forces are modelled independently. In this paper, we use a simple model to motivate empirical predictions in a setting where these forces are jointly determined––where greater adverse selection entails greater costs of disclosure. We show that joint determination of these forces generates a pronounced non-linearity in the probability of voluntary disclosure. We find that this non-linearity is empirically descriptive of multiple measures of voluntary disclosure in two distinct empirical settings that are commonly thought to feature both private information and proprietary costs: capital investments and sales to major customers.