cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Frequency-based Multi Task learning With Attention Mechanism for Fault Detection In Power Systems

The prompt and accurate detection of faults and abnormalities in electric transmission lines is a critical challenge in smart grid systems. Existing methods mostly rely on model-based approaches, which may not capture all the aspects of these complex temporal series. Recently, the availability of data sets collected using advanced metering devices, such as Micro-Phasor Measurement units (µ PMU), which provide measurements at microsecond timescale, boosted the development of data-driven methodologies. In this paper, we introduce a novel deep learning-based approach for fault detection and test it on a real data set, namely, the Kaggle platform for a partial discharge detection task. Our solution adopts a Long-Short Term Memory architecture with attention mechanism to extract time series features, and uses a 1D-Convolutional Neural Network structure to exploit frequency information of the signal for prediction. Additionally, we propose an unsupervised method to cluster signals based on their frequency components, and apply multi task learning on different clusters. The method we propose outperforms the winner solutions in the Kaggle competition and other state of the art methods in many performance metrics, and improves the interpretability of analysis.
An empirical evaluation of the physician offsetting response

Using data on office visits for Medicare-treating physicians, this study examines the effects of several policy changes that reduced real reimbursement for some, but not all physicians, from 2012 t...
Do institutional norms affect behavioral preferences: A view from gender bias in the intra-household expenditure allocation in Iran

Abstract This paper fills a gap in the literature of gender bias in household expenditure by analyzing how institutional norms affect behavioral preferences in the context of Iran’s household expenditure allocation. Although Iran’s institutional norms and culture show gender bias in various forms, there is no information about gender bias in household expenditure. Using descriptive statistics, Engel Curve method and Tobit method with Household Income and Expenditure Survey data from 1987 to 2007, the paper examines the presence of gender bias in Iran’s household expenditure. Findings show that women and girls suffer bias in food expenditure, an important determinant of female health outcomes such as fertility, prenatal and neonatal conditions. However, other expenditure allocations mostly work favorably for them. These findings are significant for policy prescriptions designed for generating equity in the allocation of household expenditure to foster economic development and creating a template for countries where girls and women face similar constraints.
Molecular structure of a prevalent amyloid-β fibril polymorph from Alzheimer's disease brain tissue

Amyloid-β (Aβ) fibrils exhibit self-propagating, molecular-level polymorphisms that may contribute to variations in clinical and pathological characteristics of Alzheimer's disease (AD). We report the molecular structure of a specific fibril polymorph, formed by 40-residue Aβ peptides (Aβ40), that is derived from cortical tissue of an AD patient by seeded fibril growth. The structure is determined from cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM) images, supplemented by mass-per-length (MPL) measurements and solid-state NMR (ssNMR) data. Previous ssNMR studies with multiple AD patients had identified this polymorph as the most prevalent brain-derived Aβ40 fibril polymorph from typical AD patients. The structure, which has 2.8-A resolution according to standard criteria, differs qualitatively from all previously described Aβ fibril structures, both in its molecular conformations and its organization of cross-β subunits. Unique features include twofold screw symmetry about the fibril growth axis, despite an MPL value that indicates three Aβ40 molecules per 4.8-A β-sheet spacing, a four-layered architecture, and fully extended conformations for molecules in the central two cross-β layers. The cryoEM density, ssNMR data, and MPL data are consistent with β-hairpin conformations for molecules in the outer cross-β layers. Knowledge of this brain-derived fibril structure may contribute to the development of structure-specific amyloid imaging agents and aggregation inhibitors with greater diagnostic and therapeutic utility.
Sensitive Detection of Target-Vehicle-Motion using Vision Only

For safe driving in parking lots, differentiating the few moving vehicles from the many parked is essential but also challenging. Vehicles tend to move at slow speeds in parking areas and, therefore, low-cost sensors including cameras and radars cannot detect their motion using conventional object-localization and speed-measurement methods. This paper presents a novel method of detecting motion of a target vehicle by equating it to rotation of the vehicle's wheels. Using a monocular 2MP camera, the algorithm is demonstrated to detect motion as slow as 0.1 mph at distances of up to 30 meters away while the host vehicle itself moves at speeds up to 15 mph. Test results also promise an easy and cost-effective path to further increasing the range of the algorithm.
Nocturnal hypertension associated with stroke and silent cerebral infarcts in children with sickle cell disease

Background Strokes and silent cerebral infarcts (SCIs) lead to significant morbidity and mortality in children with sickle cell disease (SCD). Higher systolic blood pressures increase risk for stroke and SCIs; however, patients with SCD often have lower clinic blood pressures than the general population. Twenty-four-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) allows for more robust examination of blood pressures. This study evaluated associations between abnormal ABPM measurements with stroke and SCIs. Procedure A cross-sectional study was performed. Children with SCD completed 24-hour ABPMs. Children with a documented magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain within a year of the ABPM were included in the analysis. Bivariate analyses were performed to identify associations between ABPM parameters with cerebrovascular outcomes. Results Forty-two children with a median age of 13 years (10, 17) were included in the analysis. Seven (17%) had history of stroke and seven (17%) had SCIs. Nocturnal hypertension, elucidated via 24-hour ABPM, was noted in 25% of subjects. The presence of nocturnal hypertension was significantly higher in the SCI/stroke group (55% vs 12%, P = .01). Sensitivity analyses were performed during which stroke patients were removed from analysis. Nocturnal hypertension remained significantly associated with the presence of SCIs (P = .006). Conclusions This study reveals an association between nocturnal hypertension and a higher prevalence of SCI and stroke in children with SCD. Larger, prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings and evaluate the contributory nature of blood pressure abnormalities to cerebrovascular events in children with SCD.
Approximate Optimal Control for Safety-Critical Systems with Control Barrier Functions

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have become a popular tool for enforcing set invariance in safety-critical control systems. While guaranteeing safety, most CBF approaches are myopic in the sense that they solve an optimization problem at each time step rather than over a long time horizon. This approach may allow a system to get too close to the unsafe set where the optimization problem can become infeasible. Some of these issues can be mitigated by introducing relaxation variables into the optimization problem; however, this compromises convergence to the desired equilibrium point. To address these challenges, we develop an approximate optimal approach to the safety-critical control problem in which the cost of violating safety constraints is directly embedded within the value function. We show that our method is capable of guaranteeing both safety and convergence to a desired equilibrium. Finally, we compare the performance of our method with that of the traditional quadratic programming approach through numerical examples.
Experiences of Women Who Gave Birth in US Hospitals During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The purpose of this study was to describe the experiences of women who gave birth in a US hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. Women who gave birth between March and July 2020 completed a survey ...
What is middle class about the middle classes around the world

We expect a lot from the middle classes. Jim Frederick, writing in Time magazine in 2002, stated: “China's burgeoning middle class holds the key to the future of the country.” In a more academic vein, Easterly (2001) concludes, based on a comparison of a large number of countries, that countries that have a larger middle class tend to grow faster, at least if they are not too ethnically diverse. In another article, Birdsall, Graham, and Pettinato (2000) rue the shrinking of the middle class—“the backbone of both the market economy and of democracy in most advanced societies”—in the face of burgeoning globalization. The economic historian David Landes, writing about The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (1998), explains England's early ascendancy in terms of “the great English middle class” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Of course, there is nothing new about this faith in the middle class—it follows a long line of theorizing going back, at least, to Max Weber (1905). At least three distinct arguments are traditionally made. In one, new entrepreneurs armed with a capacity and a tolerance for delayed gratification emerge from the middle class and create employment and productivity growth for the rest of society (for a formalization of this argument, see Acemoglu and Zilibotti, 1997). In a second, perhaps more conventional view, the middle class is primarily a source of vital inputs for the entrepreneurial class: it is their “middle class values”—their emphasis on the accumulation of human capital and savings—that makes them central to the process of capitalist accumulation (for example, Doepke and Zilibotti, 2005, 2007). The third view, a staple of the business press, emphasizes the middle class consumer, the consumer who is willing to pay a little extra for quality. In this view, the middle class demand for quality consumer goods feeds investment in production and marketing, which in turn raises income levels for everyone (Murphy, Shleifer, and Vishny, 1989).1 This essay asks what we should make of these arguments in the context of today's developing countries. Starting from data on patterns of consumption and investment by the middle class, we look for what is distinct about the global middle class, especially when compared to the global poor— defined as those whose per capita daily consumption, valued at purchasing power parity exchange rates, is below $2 a day—who were the subject of a previous essay in this journal (Banerjee and Duflo, 2007b). In particular, is there anything special about the way the middle class spend their money, earn their incomes, or bring up their children?
Is an Exhaustible Resource Economy Sustainable

The paper focuses on two alternative concepts of sustainability dominating the literature: (i) maximum permanently maintainable consumption level (Fisherian income) and (ii) the amount of consumption that leaves total value of wealth intact (Hicksian income). In the context of a pure exhaustible resource economy, the author derives an explicit relationship between the two sustainability criteria and shows that while such an economy is not sustainable in the former sense, it is in the latter sense provided social preferences are represented by a logarithmic utility function. The implications of the two concepts for greening of national income are derived. Finally, the paper shows the range of values of the parameters of the model for which the utilitarian optimal path can be close to paths satisfying the alternative sustainability criteria, suggesting that such outcomes are less likely for very poor resource-dependent countries than for the rich ones.
Speculation Under the Random Walk Hypothesis

Under the random walk hypothesis this paper derives simple decision rules for owning and selling a stock. Two scenarios are considered, first, a ‘blue chip’ security with low volatility (as measured by the variance of stock price changes per time interval)paying a fixed dividend a and, second, a stock of high volatility and no dividends with a (low)price at which it can be sold back to the company.
Changes in Corporate Governance Associated with the Revelation of Internal Control Material Weaknesses and Their Subsequent Remediation

The revelation of material negative events about a firm, including issues such as fraud, restatements, or internal control material weaknesses (ICMWs), may destabilize the firm’s corporate governance equilibrium as it works to remediate the event or effects thereof. Prior research investigates the association between the revelation of fraud and restatements and both board and management turnover. We extend that research, proposing and testing a conceptual model of the process that firms use to remediate negative events in general and ICMWs specifically, with a focus on the role of governance structure changes. Using a sample of 733 firms revealing an ICMW compared to 3,602 firms with unqualified internal control reports, results reveal a positive association between disclosure of ICMWs and subsequent turnover of members of boards of directors, audit committees, and top management. Focusing on the ICMW sample and comparing the 511 firms that remediate their ICMWs to the 222 firms that do not, results illustrate a positive association between remediation of ICMWs and improvements in the characteristics of boards of directors, audit committees, and top management. Data Availability: Data are publicly available from sources identified in the paper.
Market demand for conservative analysts

Abstract Sell-side analysts, on balance, have incentives to emphasize good company news and downplay the bad, resulting in inefficient forecasts. We conjecture that this behavior generates a demand for forecasts from conservative analysts who unwind this pattern, at least in part, resulting in more efficient forecasts. To investigate, we introduce a measure of analyst conservatism and assess the market reaction to analysts’ forecast revisions conditioned on their past levels of conservatism. We find a stronger market reaction to forecast revisions by more conservative analysts, and that this result is heightened for companies with greater institutional investor following.
Inter vivos transfers and intended bequests

Abstract Empirical work on intergenerational transfers has focused on distinguishing between altruistic and exchange motivated behavior. However, these two models are unable to explain the strong tendency for inter vivos transfers to be negatively related to the income of the recipient, while bequests bear no relationship to income. This paper presents a new framework for analyzing transfers from parents to children that is more consistent with observed behavior than are the altruistic and exchange models alone. In particular the model developed here predicts differing behavior with respect to inter vivos transfers and bequests due to liquidity constraints and uncertainty about the recipient's permanent income. The empirical work uses data from the Health and Retirement Study and the Asset and Health Dynamics Study. The patterns observed in these data are consistent with earlier findings that inter vivos transfers go disproportionately to less well-off children, while bequests are divided equally across children. Further, the results support the predictions of the model in that differences in inter vivos transfers arise from differences in current income, while differences in bequests result when indicators of the children's permanent incomes differ.
On a stakeholder model of corporate governance

Rationales for a stakeholder model of corporate governance are based on enlightened self-interest, moral imperative, and/or externalities. Of these, the externalities rationale holds the most promise to justify a stakeholder focus. Recent evidence, however, indicates that the benefits of a stakeholder focus are limited because the social costs of many corporate activities already are internalized. Potential benefits also must be weighed against the costs, which include increased potential for conflict, waste, and managerial self-dealing. I conclude by advocating for the traditional governance model based on shareholder interests, with allowance for managers to deviate from this model in limited circumstances when the external impacts on other stakeholders are large. To constrain managerial opportunism, such deviations should be defended with a new type of double bottom line reporting, which augments traditional financial reporting with a statement of the social benefits of any deviations from shareholder value maximization.
Firm Valuation with Long-Run Business Cycles

Pro forma analysis is often performed with the idea that a firm’s cash flows are cyclic. Yet, after forecasting cash flows following a cyclic pattern, the remaining cash flows are calculated using a constant growth perpetuity calculation as a “terminal value.” Such a calculation for the terminal value is inconsistent with the nature of cyclic cash flows that do not grow at a constant rate. In this article, a method is developed for calculating the terminal value that incorporates the cyclic nature of cash flows into perpetuity. The method is easily incorporated into a “closed-form” valuation technique in Excel that is very amenable to Excel’s data table and “spinner” features, as well as Monte Carlo software packages for extensive sensitivity analysis.
When Are Contrarian Profits Due to Stock Market Overreaction

If returns on some stocks systematically lead or lag those of others, a portfolio strategy that sells "winners" and buys "losers" can produce positive expected returns, even if no stock's returns are negatively autocorrelated as virtually all models of overreaction imply. Using a particular contrarian strategy, the authors show that, despite negative autocorrelation in individual stock returns, weekly portfolio returns are strongly positively autocorrelated and are the result of important cross-autocorrelations. The authors find that the returns of large stocks lead those of smaller stocks, and present evidence against overreaction as the only source of contrarian profits. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.
The Tobit model with a non‐zero threshold

Summary The standard Tobit maximum likelihood estimator under zero censoring threshold produces inconsistent parameter estimates, when the constant censoring threshold γ is nonzero and unknown. Unfortunately, the recording of a zero rather than the actual censoring threshold value is typical of economic data. Non-trivial minimum purchase prices for most goods, fixed cost for doing business or trading, social customs such as those involving charitable donations, and informal administrative recording practices represent common examples of nonzero constant censoring threshold where the constant threshold is not readily available to the econometrician. Monte Carlo results show that this bias can be extremely large in practice. A new estimator is proposed to estimate the unknown censoring threshold. It is shown that the estimator is superconsistent and follows an exponential distribution in large samples. Due to the superconsistency, the asymptotic distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator of other parameters is not affected by the estimation uncertainty of the censoring threshold.
Percentiles of Modern Height Standards for Use in Historical Research

(1996). Percentiles of Modern Height Standards for Use in Historical Research. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History: Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 157-166.
Reconsidering the empirical evidence on the Grossman-Helpman model of endogenous protection

. The emergence of the Grossman and Helpman (1994) model of endogenous protection as the preeminent model in the political economy of trade literature has been significantly advanced by the finding that its predictions about the cross-industry pattern of protection are broadly consistent with the data. However, in their empirical implementation of the Grossman-Helpman model, researchers have assumed the presence of multiple policy instruments and extraneous political factors. We argue that incorporating these assumptions into the theory significantly changes its predictions about the cross-industry pattern of protection. JEL classification: F1 L'emergence du modele de protection endogene de Grossman-Helpman en tant que modele le plus important dans la litterature sur l'economie politique du commerce international a ete confirmee de maniere significative quand on a decouvert que ses predictions quant au pattern de protection a travers les industries se trouvaient generalement confirmees par les donnees. Cependant, dans leur verification empirique du modele de Grossman-Helpman, les chercheurs ont postule la presence de multiples instruments de politique publique et de certains facteurs politiques. On suggere que l'ajout de ces postulats change de maniere significative les predictions du modele quant au pattern de protection dans les divers secteurs.
The Search for Truth: In Appreciation of James J. Heckman

The single most important advance in the social sciences in the last 25 years has been the enormous improvements in the ability to analyze microdata in order to identify and quantify causal relationships. Some of these gains have come from technological progress, as the vast increases in computing power have enabled the analysis of larger data sets using more sophisticated statistical techniques. Some of these gains have been organizational, as government and private entities have funded the collection of an extensive array of data sets that provide fertile grounds for academic researchers. But the most intellectually intriguing developments have been scientific, as the tools and methods of statistical analysis have been developed and sharpened. The immensely broad range and value of the applications of these tools across all empirical branches of social science, as well as in medicine, mandated recognition of this momentous scientific advance
Does a Cartel Aim Expressly? Trusting Calder Personal Jurisdiction when Antitrust Goes Global?

In recent years, plaintiffs have stepped up their use of the effects test from the 1984 Supreme Court case of Calder v. Jones to obtain personal jurisdiction over antitrust defendants. Under this theory, defendants may be haled into a forum, despite a lack of traditional contacts, because of anticompetitive effects that they expressly aimed at that forum. A review of the caselaw shows that although this theory works well with some types of antitrust allegations, the Calder analogy weakens when charges of broad-based anticompetitive conduct collide with the long-arm statutes of particular states. While at least one case attacking international price-fixing contains ample allegations of express aiming sufficient to satisfy the effects test, the Vitamins Antitrust litigation showed that the heightened requirements of various states' long-arm statutes precluded findings of Calder jurisdiction. The Note concludes with a review of public policy arguments that support a broader application of Calder to antitrust cases. The Note was the unanimous winning entry of the 2008-2009 Student Writing Competition sponsored by the American Bar Association's Section of Antitrust Law.
Affect of film thickness on the blue photoluminescence from ZnO

We have investigated the photoluminescence (PL) properties of ZnO grown on sapphire substrates via the thermal oxidation of Zn-metal films at various temperatures and having various thicknesses. PL spectra indicate four emission bands: excitonic ultraviolet (UV), blue, and deep-level green and yellow emission. The ratio of deep-level green emission to UV excitonic emission was observed to decrease with decreasing annealing temperature from 1200 to 300 °C, which is attributed to the generation of fewer oxygen vacancies () and interstitial oxygen ions () in the bulk. As film thickness decreased from approximately 600 to 200 nm, we observed the emergence of blue emission and a significant red shift (0.15 eV) in the bandgap. The emergence of blue emission and the corresponding decrease in emission associated with bulk defects when depletion width grows relative to the bulk suggests that the origin of the blue emission is related to the charged zinc interstitials () found within the deletion region near the interface.
Terms-of-trade shocks and optimal investment: another look at the Laursen-Metzler effect

Conventional analyses of the effect of terms-of-trade shocks provide a misleading view of their impact on investment and the current account, because capital goods imports are excluded from the analytical framework. The author argues that such an exclusion is both arbitrary and unrealistic. The author reexamines the consequences of permanent and transitory changes in terms of trade in a rational-expectations model of a small open economy with intertemporally optimizing agents, and with trade in both consumption and capital goods. In this framework, the responses to a permanent terms of trade improvement in unambiguous: the long-run capital stock, and thus investment, must rise, and the current account must deteriorate -- exactly the opposite of the Laursen-Metzler effect. A transitory improvement in the terms of trade raises saving but has an uncertain effect on investment. So, the impact on the current account is generally ambiguous and is shown to depend on three factors: the import contents on consumption and investment, the duration of the windfall, and the degree of intertemporal substitutability in both consumption and investment.
Making Nuisance Ecological

Common law nuisance doctrine has the reputation of having provided much of the strength and content of environmental law prior to the rise of federal statutory regimes in the 1970s, but since then has taken a back seat to regulatory law with respect to the environment. In particular, whereas nuisance doctrine has been criticized - many say too harshly - as being inadequate for dealing with the demands of modern pollution control, it has never been considered as having much at all to do with management of ecological concerns. Yet nuisance law evolves with changed circumstances and new knowledge. This article examines one such evolutionary force - new knowledge of the economic value of natural capital, such as coastal wetlands, and the ecosystem services that flow from it, such as mitigation of storm surges.Part I of the Article outlines the prima facie case of an ecosystem services nuisance, showing that the conventional doctrine of private and public nuisance is aptly suited to engaging situations when one landowner manages his or her property so as to deprive another of economically valuable ecosystem services. Temporal, spatial, and cumulative effects may complicate such cases, but do not shift this form of injury outside the scope of nuisance. Part II examines the advantages and disadvantages of relying on nuisance law in this context. The primary advantages are the local focus of nuisance law and its information-producing effects, whereas the disadvantages normally associated with common law claims are not strongly operative. Part III argues that the ecosystem services nuisance theory of liability should be pursued alongside statutory regimes designed to manage natural capital and ecosystem services, so as to promote legitimacy of the statutory program and to help insulate it from regulatory takings claims. On the other hand, Part III also argues against a more expansive common law theory designed to encompass moral, ethical, and scientific harms to our sense of ecological integrity.
De novo banks and lending to small businesses: An empirical analysis

Abstract Recent widespread consolidation in the banking industry has elicited concern that lending to small businesses will be reduced by the banking industry. The consolidation, though, has stimulated an upsurge in new bank charters. This study compares the lending by de novo banks to small businesses with the lending by similarly sized incumbent banks for the years 1987–1994. We find that the portfolios of de novo banks consistently contain a substantially higher percentage of small business loans than do the portfolios of similar incumbents. These results indicate that de novo banks can be part of the solution to the problems that consolidation may create.
The Tort Entitlement to Physical Security as the Distributive Basis for Environmental, Health, and Safety Regulations

In a wide variety of contexts, individuals face a risk of being physically harmed by the conduct of others in the community. The extent to which the government protects individuals from such harmful behavior largely depends on the combined effect of administrative regulation, criminal law, and tort law. Unless these different departments are coordinated, the government cannot ensure that individuals are adequately secure from the cumulative threat of physical harm. What is adequate for this purpose depends on the underlying entitlement to physical security. What one has lost for purposes of legal analysis depends on what one what was entitled to in the first instance. Consequently, any mode of safety regulation that requires an assessment of losses or costs ultimately depends on a prior specification of entitlements. For reasons of history and federalism, the entitlement in the United States can be derived from the common law of torts. In addition to establishing how costs should be measured, the tort entitlement also quantifies any distributive inequities that would be created by a safety standard and shows how they can be redressed within the safety regulation. When applied in this manner, the tort entitlement to physical security promotes substantive consistency across the different departments of law by serving as the distributive basis for environmental, health, and safety regulations that operate entirely outside of the tort system.
Breast cancer and socio-economic factors

Purpose: The aim of this study is twofold – on the one hand, to analyze the relationship between incidence of breast cancer, income per capita and medical equipment across countries; after that, the study here discusses the drivers of the incidence of breast cancer across countries in order to pinpoint differences and similarities. Methods: The indicators used are incidence of breast cancer based on Age-standardized rate (ASW); Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by purchasing power parity (current international $); computed tomography (CT) for cancer diagnosis. Data include 52 countries. The statistical analysis is carried out by correlation, ANOVA and an econometric modeling based on a multiple regression model of the breast cancer incidence on two explanatory variables. Results: Partial correlation is higher: rbreast cancer, GDP  CT=60.3% (sign.0.00). The estimated relationship shows an expected incidence of breast cancer increase of approximately 0.05% for a GDP increase of 1% and an expected incidence of breast cancer increase of approximately 3.23% for a CT increase of 1%. ANOVA confirms that incidence of breast cancer is higher across richer countries, ceteris paribus. Conclusions: Empirical evidence shows that the breast cancer tends to be higher across richer countries, measured by GDP per capita and number of Computed Tomography. The main determinants of these findings can be due to several socio-economic factors, mainly localized in richer countries. In addition, this research may provide an alternative interpretation to the theory of Oh et al. (2010) on the influence of latitude on breast cancer, focusing on socio-economic factors rather than biologic root causes.
Conserved Virulence-Linked Metabolic Reprogramming in Clostridioides Difficile Identified Through Genome-Scale Metabolic Network Analysis

The bacterial pathogen Clostridioides difficile causes a toxin-mediated diarrheal illness and is now the leading cause of hospital-acquired infection in the US. Due to growing threats of antibiotic resistance and recurrent infection, targeting components of metabolism presents a novel approach to combat this infection. Analyses of bacterial genome-scale metabolic network reconstructions (GENREs) have identified new therapeutic targets and helped uncover properties that drive cellular behaviors. We sought to leverage this approach and thus constructed highly-curated C. difficile GENREs for a hyper-virulent isolate (R20291) as well as a historic strain (630). Growth simulations of carbon source usage revealed significant correlations between in silico and experimentally measured values ( p -values ≤ 0.002, PPV ≈ 95%), and single-gene deletion analysis showed accuracies of >89% compared with transposon mutant libraries. Contextualizing these models with in situ omics datasets revealed conserved patterns of elevated proline, leucine, and valine fermentation that corresponded with significant increases in expression of multiple virulence factors during infection. Collectively, our results support that C. difficile utilizes distinct metabolic programs as infection progresses and highlights that GENREs can reveal the underpinnings of bacterial pathogenesis.
ICANN 2.0: Meet the New Boss

A commentary on three Symposium articles regarding how to reform the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) and the domain name system.
Interpersonal Pathoplasticity in Individuals With Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Recent theories of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) have emphasized interpersonal and personality functioning as important aspects of the disorder. We examined heterogeneity in interpersonal problems in 2 studies of individuals with GAD (n = 47 and n = 83). Interpersonal subtypes were assessed with the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems-Circumplex (Alden, Wiggins, & Pincus, 1990). Across both studies, individuals with GAD exhibited heterogeneous interpersonal problems, and cluster analyses of these patients' interpersonal characteristics yielded 4 replicable clusters, identified as intrusive, exploitable, cold, and nonassertive subtypes. Consistent with our pathoplasticity hypotheses, clusters did not differ with GAD severity, anxiety severity, or depression severity. Clusters in Study 2 differed on rates of personality disorders, including avoidant personality disorder, further providing support for the validity of interpersonal subtypes. The presence of interpersonal subtypes in GAD may have important implications for treatment planning and efficacy.
The impact of institutional quality on initial public offerings

Abstract Country-level institutional quality is positively correlated with the underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs). The association is strong for IPOs issued in developed markets, but absent for emerging-market IPOs. We hypothesize that extra-legal institutions, including financial reporting practices, law enforcement, public trust, and outside monitoring affect the availability and value of private benefits of control accessible to entrepreneurs, which in turn shapes the relation between institutional quality and IPO underpricing. Evidence on the relation between underpricing and post-IPO ownership dispersion is consistent with prior studies that suggest that underpricing is motivated, at least in part, by entrepreneurs’ desire for post-IPO control.
Platform Competition and Endogenous Switching Costs

This paper considers intra-platform technologies that allow a consumer’s content and preferences to carryover across platform generations. In many platform industries, content consumed on a platform’s previous generation can be used on the platform’s new generation. Naturally, a consumer with more content incurs a greater cost to switch platforms. Instead of discounting the first-period consumer price (the standard result), I find that a platform subsidizes content procurement. This still provides a bargain to first-period consumers in the form of more content, but it also generates a more extensive second-period markup to consumers. To further highlight the usefulness of the model, data from the video game market is used to provide additional insights on consumer primitives and to explain how Sony generated endogenous switching costs which allowed them to dominate the video game market in the early 2000s.
Mens Rea, Criminal Responsibility, and the Death of Freddie Gray

Who (if anyone) is criminally responsible for the death of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old African-American man who died from injuries suffered while in the custody of Baltimore police? This question has been at the forefront of the extensive coverage of Gray’s death, which has inspired a national discussion about law enforcement’s relationship with black communities. But it is also a question that may never be fairly resolved for reasons wholly unrelated to the topic of community policing, with which Gray’s death has become synonymous. What may ultimately hamper the administration of justice in the prosecution of the police officers involved in the events surrounding Gray’s death is a textbook problem of substantive criminal law: Maryland’s law of homicide suffers from, as Justice Jackson famously phrased it, “variety, disparity and confusion” surrounding “definitions of the requisite but elusive mental element.”1 As this Essay explains, Maryland law on the mens rea governing the two most significant homicide charges alleged in the indictment, second degree depraved heart murder and involuntary manslaughter, is stunningly vague. The statutes from which these charges originate are silent on the culpability requirement applicable to each offense, and the interstitial policies the Maryland courts have created to fill in the resulting gaps are a case study in opacity, having been variously described by the state’s own judges as “treacherously ambiguous,” “perplexing,” and akin to “pornography” in that they defy clear definition.2 But the lack of clarity in this area of law is no mere juridical infelicity; it has the potential to negatively affect the proceedings against the officers by substantially increasing the risk that arbitrary and discriminatory factors influence judicial and jury deliberations over the homicide charges. This Essay addresses the significance of the problem in two parts. Part I discusses the important role that the mens rea governing the offenses of
The treatment of operational risk under the New Basel framework: Critical issues

The move of international banking supervision away from rigid controls towards market discipline, prudential oversight and risk-based capital guidelines has widened the scope of regulation and has steered much attention to operational risk, which has a greater potential to transpire in more harmful ways than many other sources of risk. This paper provides a selective discussion of critical constraints on the consistent and cohesive implementation of the existing capital rules under the New Basel Capital Accord. We explain the working concept of the current regulatory treatment of operational risk. In particular, we show how the characteristics of operational risk and flexible operational risk measurement influences the consistency of risk-sensitive capital rules. The implications of our findings offer advice for a more effective regulatory framework.
Topics in Finance Part VII--Dividend Policy.

This series inspects the major topics in finance, reviewing the roles of stockholder wealth maximization, the risk-return tradeoff, and agency conflicts.The current article, devoted to dividend policy, also reviews the topic as presented in textbooks and the literature.
The renewal of venture capital: Toward a counter-cyclical model

A counter-cyclical model of venture capital is proposed to remedy the dilemma of a private venture capital industry subject to the vicissitudes of the business cycle. A mix of private, public, university, corporate, and foundation venture capitals have the potential to create an industry that is active in all phases of the cycle and at all stages of the firm formation trajectory, thus fulfilling the original venture capital vision of creating economic growth through start-ups based on advanced technology, often developed in universities.
Illiquidity and Stock Returns: A Revisit

This paper explains and extends my 2002 paper. It presents a return factor of illiquid-minus-liquid stocks (IML), which provides a time-series of the illiquidity premium. The risk-adjusted expected return on IML is positive and significant in the last 63 years and while it is lower in the period that follows my 2002 paper it remains positive and significant. IML also has the predicted response to market illiquidity shocks. In particular, the relation between illiquidity shocks and stock returns is more negative for illiquid stocks even after my study period.
Punishing Pregnancy: Race, Incarceration, and the Shackling of Pregnant Prisoners

The shackling of pregnant women prisoners during labor and childbirth is endemic within women’s penal institutions in the United States. This article interrogates the factors that account for the pervasiveness of this practice and suggests doctrinal innovations that may be leveraged to prevent its continuation. At a general level, it asserts that we cannot understand the persistence of shackling without understanding how historical constructions of race and gender operate structurally to both motivate and mask its use. More specifically, this article contends that the shackling of pregnant prisoners during labor and childbirth can best be understood through an analysis that centers Black women and foregrounds the historical devaluation, regulation and punishment of Black women’s exercise of reproductive capacity in the context of slavery, convict leasing and chain gangs in the South. The regulation and punishment of Black women within these oppressive systems reinforced and reproduced stereotypes of Black women as deviant and dangerous, and these images in turn animate harsh practices against all women prisoners. Moreover, this article asserts that current jurisprudence concerning the Eighth Amendment, which is the primary constitutional vehicle for challenging conditions of confinement, is insufficient to combat this problem at the structural level. This is so because of its focus on the subjective intentions of prison officials at the individual level and because of its omission of any consideration of how race underlies institutional practices. Instead, this article suggests an expanded reading of the Eighth Amendment and the 'evolving standards of decency' language that undergirds the 'cruel and unusual punishments' clause. This expanded reading, which this article refers to as the 'antisubordination approach,' draws upon Justice Harlan’s oft-cited dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson and his underappreciated reading of the Thirteenth Amendment therein to argue that conditions of confinement which result from or are related to repudiated mechanisms of racial domination should be deemed cruel and unusual punishment.
Are All Summary Indicators of the Stance of Fiscal Policy Misleading

Two recent criticisms of summary fiscal indicators are appraised: first, that they and the conventionally measured public sector balances from which they are derived are not sufficiently broadly defined; second, that they are meaningless because they do not reflect changes in the distribution of wealth between generations. The paper concludes that the defects of summary fiscal indicators have been exaggerated. It is not feasible to include all changes in public sector net worth in the deficit, and the existence of liquidity constraints and aversion to indebtedness imply that conventionally measured public sector deficits are not irrelevant.
An Economic Analysis of the Private and Social Costs of the Provision of Cybersecurity and other Public Security Goods

This paper examines the incentives of private actors to invest in cybersecurity. Prior analyses have examined investments in security goods, such as locks or safes, that have the characteristics of private goods. The analysis in this paper extends this analysis to examine expenditures on security goods, such as information, that have the characteristics of public goods. In contrast to the private goods case, where individual uncoordinated security expenditures can lead to an overproduction of security, the public goods case can result in the under-production of security expenditures, and incentives to free ride. Thus, the formation of collective organizations may be necessary to facilitate the production of public security goods, and the protection of information produced by the collective organization should be a central feature of such organizations.
Reflections on Calgary’s Spatial Structure: An Urban Economist’s Critique of Municipal Planning in Calgary

Affordable housing and a manageable commute are central to the well-being of Calgarians. Yet among larger Canadian metropolitan areas today, Calgary already has close to the most expensive housing, and the average journey-to-work time, close to 30 minutes, is as high today as it was in Los Angeles in 2000, when Los Angeles had a population 10 times larger. Decisions around how Calgary grows are based on the policies within The City’s Municipal Development Plan and the Calgary Transportation Plan, which together provide a blueprint for Calgary’s spatial development and transportation system. These plans— and therefore, their assumptions about future effects on congestion and rents — are based around a population forecast that does not reflect the historical growth pattern of the city and legitimizes spatial containment. The shortcomings in these plans, both adopted in 2009, are likely to result in longer commuting times and even more expensive real estate prices. These will be well beyond what The City has prepared citizens to expect and accept, as planners plow ahead with proposals to further entrench the downtown as the dominant employment centre. Calgarians need to be levelled with about the realities that come with pursuing a plan that calls for spatial containment and intensification centred on a single, dominant central business district. The plans present a vision of the “Good Urban Life,” and propose to enforce it through a particular choice of transportation system, through land-use regulation, and through a downtown parking freeze, with little regard to economics. The cost of this vision will in turn discourage new firms and new people from moving to Calgary. Calgarians should be informed about future transportation costs – for mass transit and automobiles – in congestion, time, and funding. And they must be informed about the effects this will all have on the cost of property for families and businesses. Only then can citizens properly consider their options and choose their city’s future. Without that Calgarians may find their quality of life diminished in ways they were never prepared to expect.
Querying Edith Windsor, Querying Equality

In this short essay, I express skepticism about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in United States v. Windsor, and especially the vision of equality articulated by it. Kennedy's vision of equality is one endorsed by many mainstream American LGB organizations as well. Yet, as this article explores, queer theorists, activists, and citizens have many reasons to be concerned by this articulation of equality, as well as the plaintiffs who instigate its expression. In this essay, then, after first problematizing the conceptions of equality circulating in the Windsor litigation, I try to conjure a queer politics of marriage and, simultaneously, a queer Edith Windsor. The hope is that by imagining this kind of plaintiff, a more queer — and more human(e) — articulation of equality might emerge from American courts and their resolutions of various same-sex marriage controversies.