cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Wide-angle energy-momentum spectroscopy.

Light emission is defined by its distribution in energy, momentum, and polarization. Here, we demonstrate a method that resolves these distributions by means of wide-angle energy-momentum spectroscopy. Specifically, we image the back focal plane of a microscope objective through a Wollaston prism to obtain polarized Fourier-space momentum distributions, and disperse these two-dimensional radiation patterns through an imaging spectrograph without an entrance slit. The resulting measurements represent a convolution of individual radiation patterns at adjacent wavelengths, which can be readily deconvolved using any well-defined basis for light emission. As an illustrative example, we use this technique with the multipole basis to quantify the intrinsic emission rates for electric and magnetic dipole transitions in europium-doped yttrium oxide (Eu3+:Y2O3) and chromium-doped magnesium oxide (Cr3+:MgO). Once extracted, these rates allow us to reconstruct the full, polarized, two-dimensional radiation patterns at each wavelength.
Toyz: A Framework for Scientific Analysis of Large Datasets and Astronomical Images

Abstract As the size of images and data products derived from astronomical data continues to increase, new tools are needed to visualize and interact with that data in a meaningful way. Motivated by our own astronomical images taken with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) we present Toyz, an open source Python package for viewing and analyzing images and data stored on a remote server or cluster. Users connect to the Toyz web application via a web browser, making it ​a convenient tool for students to visualize and interact with astronomical data without having to install any software on their local machines. In addition it provides researchers with an easy-to-use tool that allows them to browse the files on a server and quickly view very large images (>2 Gb) taken with DECam and other cameras with a large FOV and create their own visualization tools that can be added on as extensions to the default Toyz framework.
Saturation and solvability in abstract elementary classes with amalgamation

Theorem 0.1 Let $$\mathbf {K}$$ be an abstract elementary class (AEC) with amalgamation and no maximal models. Let $$\lambda > {LS}(\mathbf {K})$$ . If $$\mathbf {K}$$ is categorical in $$\lambda $$ , then the model of cardinality $$\lambda $$ is Galois-saturated. This answers a question asked independently by Baldwin and Shelah. We deduce several corollaries: $$\mathbf {K}$$ has a unique limit model in each cardinal below $$\lambda $$ , (when $$\lambda $$ is big-enough) $$\mathbf {K}$$ is weakly tame below $$\lambda $$ , and the thresholds of several existing categoricity transfers can be improved. We also prove a downward transfer of solvability (a version of superstability introduced by Shelah): Corollary 0.2 Let $$\mathbf {K}$$ be an AEC with amalgamation and no maximal models. Let $$\lambda> \mu > {LS}(\mathbf {K})$$ . If $$\mathbf {K}$$ is solvable in $$\lambda $$ , then $$\mathbf {K}$$ is solvable in $$\mu $$ .
First order phase transition in a model of quasicrystals

We introduce a family of two-dimensional lattice models of quasicrystals, using a range of square hard cores together with a soft interaction based on an aperiodic tiling set. Along a low temperature isotherm we find, by Monte Carlo simulation, a first order phase transition between disordered and quasicrystalline phases.
Sample Preparation and Imaging Conditions Affect mEos3.2 Photophysics in Fission Yeast Cells.

Abstract Photoconvertible fluorescent proteins (PCFPs) are widely used in super-resolution microscopy and studies of cellular dynamics. However, our understanding of their photophysics is still limited, hampering their quantitative application. For example, we do not know the optimal sample preparation methods or imaging conditions to count protein molecules fused to PCFPs by single-molecule localization microscopy in live and fixed cells. We also do not know how the behavior of PCFPs in live cells compares with fixed cells. Therefore, we investigated how formaldehyde fixation influences the photophysical properties of the popular green-to-red PCFP mEos3.2 in fission yeast cells under a wide range of imaging conditions. We estimated photophysical parameters by fitting a three-state model of photoconversion and photobleaching to the time course of fluorescence signal per yeast cell expressing mEos3.2. We discovered that formaldehyde fixation makes the fluorescence signal, photoconversion rate, and photobleaching rate of mEos3.2 sensitive to the buffer conditions likely by permeabilizing the yeast cell membrane. Under some imaging conditions, the time-integrated mEos3.2 signal per yeast cell is similar in live cells and fixed cells imaged in buffer at pH 8.5 with 1 mM DTT, indicating that light chemical fixation does not destroy mEos3.2 molecules. We also discovered that 405-nm irradiation drove some red-state mEos3.2 molecules to enter an intermediate dark state, which can be converted back to the red fluorescent state by 561-nm illumination. Our findings provide a guide to quantitatively compare conditions for imaging mEos3.2-tagged molecules in yeast cells. Our imaging assay and mathematical model are easy to implement and provide a simple quantitative approach to measure the time-integrated signal and the photoconversion and photobleaching rates of fluorescent proteins in cells.
Fast Probabilistic Hosting Capacity Analysis for Active Distribution Systems

Interconnection studies for distributed energy resources (DERs) can currently take months since they entail simulating a large number of power flow scenarios. If DERs are to be actively controlled, probabilistic hosting capacity analysis (PHCA) studies become more time-consuming since they require solving multiple optimal power flow (OPF) tasks. PHCA is expedited here by leveraging the powerful tool of multiparametric programming (MPP). Using an approximate grid model, optimal DER setpoints are decided by a quadratic program, which depends on analysis and uncertain parameters in a possibly nonlinear fashion. By reformulating this program, feasible and infeasible OPF instances alike are handled in a unified way to uniquely reveal the location, frequency, and severity of feeder constraint violations. The effect of voltage regulators is also captured by novel approximate models. Upon properly extending MPP to PHCA, we were able to find the exact minimizers for 518,400 OPF instances on the IEEE 123-bus feeder by solving only 6,905 of them, and 86,400 instances on a 1,160-bus feeder by solving only 2,111 instances. This accelerated PHCA by a factor of 10. Thus, a utility can promptly infer grid statistics using real-world data without a probabilistic characterization of uncertain parameters.
GENERAL THEORY FOR INTERACTIONS IN SUFFICIENT CAUSE MODELS WITH DICHOTOMOUS EXPOSURES.

The sufficient-component cause framework assumes the existence of sets of sufficient causes that bring about an event. For a binary outcome and an arbitrary number of binary causes any set of potential outcomes can be replicated by positing a set of sufficient causes; typically this representation is not unique. A sufficient cause interaction is said to be present if within all representations there exists a sufficient cause in which two or more particular causes are all present. A singular interaction is said to be present if for some subset of individuals there is a unique minimal sufficient cause. Empirical and counterfactual conditions are given for sufficient cause interactions and singular interactions between an arbitrary number of causes. Conditions are given for cases in which none, some or all of a given set of causes affect the outcome monotonically. The relations between these results, interactions in linear statistical models and Pearl’s probability of causation are discussed.
Remote Sensor Design for Visual Recognition With Convolutional Neural Networks

While deep learning technologies for computer vision have developed rapidly since 2012, modeling of remote sensing systems has remained focused around human vision. In particular, remote sensing systems are usually constructed to optimize sensing cost-quality tradeoffs with respect to human image interpretability. While some recent studies have explored remote sensing system design as a function of simple computer vision algorithm performance, there has been little work relating this design to the state of the art in computer vision: deep learning with convolutional neural networks. We develop experimental systems to conduct this analysis, showing results with modern deep learning algorithms and recent overhead image data. Our results are compared to standard image quality measurements based on human visual perception, and we conclude not only that machine and human interpretability differ significantly but also that computer vision performance is largely self-consistent across a range of disparate conditions. This paper is presented as a cornerstone for a new generation of sensor design systems that focus on computer algorithm performance instead of human visual perception.
Non-Gaussianity from excited initial inflationary states

We study squeezed limit f NL generation by excited initial inflationary states in a model independent way. We restrict “excited” to mean a Bogoliubov transformation of the Bunch Davies state. We simultaneously impose the constraints that the observable power spectrum is nearly scale invariant over at least three decades and that the observable modes today be subhorizon at the beginning of inflation while not causing significant back-reaction. We show that most excited initial inflationary states for single field inflationary models with negligible superhorizon evolution do not produce an observable squeezed limit f NL. The case in which one mode is in the Bunch Davies state while the other two modes are in an excited state with 0.01 < |βk| ≤ 0.1 may generate a squeezed limit f NL which is detectable with future experiments.
Linear stability of Schwarzschild spacetime: Decay of metric coefficients

In this paper, we study the theory of linearized gravity and prove the linear stability of Schwarzschild black holes as solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations. In particular, we prove that solutions to the linearized vacuum Einstein equations centered at a Schwarzschild metric, with suitably regular initial data, remain uniformly bounded and decay to a linearized Kerr metric on the exterior region. We employ Hodge decomposition to split the solution into closed and co-closed portions, respectively identified with even-parity and odd-parity solutions in the physics literature. For the co-closed portion, we extend previous results by the first two authors, deriving Regge–Wheeler type equations for two gauge-invariant master quantities without the earlier paper’s need of axisymmetry. For the closed portion, we build upon earlier work of Zerilli and Moncrief, wherein the authors derive an equation for a gauge-invariant master quantity in a spherical harmonic decomposition. We work with gauge-invariant quantities at the level of perturbed connection coefficients, with the initial value problem formulated on Cauchy data sets. With the choice of an appropriate gauge in each of the two portions, decay estimates on these decoupled quantities are used to establish decay of the metric coefficients of the solution, completing the proof of linear stability. Our result differs from that of Dafermos–Holzegel–Rodnianski, both in our choice of gauge and in our identification and utilization of lower-level gauge-invariant master quantities.
Genera of knots in the complex projective plane

Our goal is to systematically compute the ℂP2-genus of as many prime knots up to 8-crossings as possible. We obtain upper bounds on the ℂP2-genus via coherent band surgery. We obtain lower bounds b...
A Bayesian marked spatial point processes model for basketball shot chart

The success rate of a basketball shot may be higher at locations where a player makes more shots. For a marked spatial point process, this means that the mark and the intensity are associated. We propose a Bayesian joint model for the mark and the intensity of marked point processes, where the intensity is incorporated in the mark model as a covariate. Inferences are done with a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. Two Bayesian model comparison criteria, the Deviance Information Criterion and the Logarithm of the Pseudo-Marginal Likelihood, were used to assess the model. The performances of the proposed methods were examined in extensive simulation studies. The proposed methods were applied to the shot charts of four players (Curry, Harden, Durant, and James) in the 2017–2018 regular season of the National Basketball Association to analyze their shot intensity in the field and the field goal percentage in detail. Application to the top 50 most frequent shooters in the season suggests that the field goal percentage and the shot intensity are positively associated for a majority of the players. The fitted parameters were used as inputs in a secondary analysis to cluster the players into different groups.
The Beginning of the Nuclear Age

The birth of nuclear physics in the 1920s and its culmination in the 1940s which changed human history forever is reviewed in broad touches. I briefly mention further developments of nuclear physic...
Polyp bailout and reattachment of the abundant Caribbean octocoral Eunicea flexuosa

Anthozoans exhibit great plasticity in their responses to stressful conditions, including decreasing individual size, detaching from the substratum and relocating, and releasing endosymbiotic microalgae. Another response to stress used by some colonial anthozoans is polyp bailout, in which the coenenchyme breaks down and individual polyps detach from the colony. We observed polyp bailout in the common Caribbean gorgonian Eunicea flexuosa after 8 h of aerial exposure. After 9 days, 28% of bailed-out polyps reattached, although none opened to resume feeding. Polyp bailout is a costly and high-risk escape response, but reattachment indicates that this can be a genet-saving behavior in cases where whole-colony mortality is likely. While it has been described in two octocorals, several species of scleractinians, and one black coral, we still do not know how widespread this behavior is in anthozoans.
Wasserstein Embedding for Graph Learning

We present Wasserstein Embedding for Graph Learning (WEGL), a novel and fast framework for embedding entire graphs in a vector space, in which various machine learning models are applicable for graph-level prediction tasks. We leverage new insights on defining similarity between graphs as a function of the similarity between their node embedding distributions. Specifically, we use the Wasserstein distance to measure the dissimilarity between node embeddings of different graphs. Unlike prior work, we avoid pairwise calculation of distances between graphs and reduce the computational complexity from quadratic to linear in the number of graphs. WEGL calculates Monge maps from a reference distribution to each node embedding and, based on these maps, creates a fixed-sized vector representation of the graph. We evaluate our new graph embedding approach on various benchmark graph-property prediction tasks, showing state-of-the-art classification performance while having superior computational efficiency.
Hilbert series in the category of trees with contractions

We consider Hilbert series associated to modules over various categories of trees. Using the technology of Sam and Snowden (J Am Math Soc 30(1): 159–203, 2017) we show that these Hilbert series must be algebraic. We then apply these technical theorems to prove facts about certain natural generating functions associated to trees.
The Supreme Court's Increased Attention to the Law of Lawyering: Mere Coincidence or Something More?

The United States Supreme Court considered seventeen cases raising issues related to the role of attorneys and the practice of law during the 2009 Term. This body of cases represents a substantial departure from dockets in recent history, where typically the Court took up less than a handful of cases involving regulation of the legal profession. While some might consider the increased number of cases addressing the law of lawyering a mere coincidence, this article contends that something more is occurring. The Court’s decision to devote so much of its limited time to these matters is noteworthy not only for the individual issues resolved, but also for the cases’ existence, indeed dominance, on the docket. This article is the first to present a comprehensive overview of the Supreme Court’s newest lawyering cases. Broadly speaking, the cases fall into two categories: access to sound lawyering and protection from bad lawyering. The first group of cases addresses access to legal advice, questioning First Amendment protection of attorney advice and advertising, the application of feeshifting statutes to encourage legal representation for meritorious cases, and the availability of an immediate appeal to preserve attorney-client privilege in the face of a court order to disclose protected materials. The second group of cases involves harms caused by lawyers. These cases include prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective assistance of counsel claims where a criminal defense attorney lacks the requisite experience, offers insufficient mitigation evidence during sentencing, delivers a poor closing argument, gives faulty advice, misses an essential filing deadline, or fails to request a limiting instruction. Part I of this article examines the cases individually and highlights the ways each case presents critical issues related to the practice of law and the regulation of lawyers. Part II turns to a collective reading of the cases, reflecting on the Court’s heightened interest in affairs of the legal profession, and suggesting insights that might be drawn by viewing these cases as part of a larger picture, rather than standing alone. Though the full measure of these cases’ impact on professional responsibility jurisprudence will be realized only with the passing of time, this article offers three preliminary observations. First, when read together, the cases reveal a troubling pattern of limits on access to legal advice as well as harms caused by bad lawyering. Second, the cases offer fundamental lessons for those involved in future regulation of the legal profession. Third, the cases illustrate the importance of constitutional considerations to the field of lawyer ethics.
Do Mandatory Hedge Disclosures Discourage or Encourage Excessive Speculation

In order to shed some light on the desirability of hedge disclosures, I investigate the consequences of hedge disclosures on a firm’s risk management strategy. Several major results emerge from this analysis. First, greater transparency about a firm’s derivative activities is not necessarily a panacea for imprudent risk management strategies. I show that such transparency actually induces the firm to take excessive speculative positions in the derivative market. Second, I show that the firm may choose a prudent risk management strategy in the absence of hedge disclosures. However, the selection of a prudent risk management comes at a cost. The firm’s production policy is distorted in the absence of hedge disclosures. These findings suggest that regulators must carefully investigate the trade-offs between production distortions and risk management distortions in evaluating the desirability of mandatory hedge disclosures for all firms.
New Atomic Data for Trans-Iron Elements and Their Application to Abundance Determinations in Planetary Nebulae

Investigations of neutron(n)-capture element nucleosynthesis and chemical evolution have largely been based on stellar spectroscopy. However, the recent detection of these elements in several planetary nebulae (PNe) indicates that nebular spectroscopy is a promising new tool for such studies. In PNe, n-capture element abundance determinations reveal details of s-process nucleosynthesis and convective mixing in evolved low-mass stars, as well as the chemical evolution of elements that cannot be detected in stellar spectra. Only one or two ions of a given trans-iron element can typically be detected in individual nebulae. Elemental abundance determinations thus require corrections for the abundances of unobserved ions. Such corrections rely on the availability of atomic data for processes that control the ionization equilibrium of nebulae (e.g., photoionization cross sections and rate coefficients for various recombination processes). Until recently, these data were unknown for virtually all n-capture eleme...
Crime's Impact on the Survival Prospects of Young Urban Small Businesses:

The authors investigate the empirical link between prevailing levels of crime and the viability of small businesses. Using confidential microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau's Characteristics of Bu...
Beyond Bailouts: Federal Tools for Preventing State Budget Crises

More than two years after the official end of the Great Recession, state governments still face significant budget deficits that cannot be addressed without further drastic spending cuts or substantial revenue increases. The structural origins of the ongoing state fiscal crisis are well known. Excessively procyclical revenue structures, combined with spending obligations that increase with economic downturns, have resulted in a budget dynamic for the states that is not sustainable over the long term. The consensus solution to this problem is for states to save money during boom times (via budget stabilization or “rainy day” funds) and to draw on those savings during recessions. Unfortunately, numerous studies have shown that states do not save anywhere close to an adequate amount for this to be an effective strategy. As a result, during each of the past several downturns, states have turned to the federal government for fiscal assistance—often derisively termed “bailouts”—to address fiscal imbalances. Yet these bailouts have their own problems, including creating an incentive for states not to establish adequate rainy day funds, which in turn increases the likelihood of future bailout demands. To escape from this vicious cycle, we propose a set of federal policy reforms to facilitate state savings. We offer a menu of policy options, rather than a single solution, because we argue that existing evidence does not clearly explain why states do not save. Therefore, we first analyze the possible sources of failure and then tailor a number of remedies for each; in nearly all cases, it is clear that states would be unable to overcome the problem on their own, making federal intervention particularly apt.
Brain Drain Taxation as Development Policy

This article examines the potential use of taxation to generate development funds in connection with the immigration of skilled immigrants from developing to developed countries, known as the “brain drain,” if designed according to the principles of the new development agenda. It explains that a tax on the brain drain that has been discussed for several decades, yet considered impossible to administer, may be administratively and legally implementable within the framework of the current international tax regime. It argues that designing such a tax according to the principles of the new development agenda, tying together the collection and use of the revenue functions, is essential for the tax to be justifiable and effective. The article proceeds to set the parameters for its design. * Professor of Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law. I thank Sarah Zuckerman Collins and Meytal Albo for their assistance, and the participants in the Saint Louis University Law Journal’s Sanford E. Sarasohn Memorial Conference on Critical Issues in International & Comparative Taxation, in the Washburn University School of Law’s tax workshop, and a University of Florida Levin College of Law faculty workshop for their useful comments. All mistakes or inaccuracies are mine. SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 222 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 55:221
Responses to peer commentaries on "Shared health governance".

Responses to Peer Commentaries on Jennifer P. Ruger's “Shared Health Governance” American Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 11, No. 7, pp. 32-45, 2011.
Active Protein Neddylation or Ubiquitylation is Dispensable for Stress Granule Dynamics

Stress granule (SG) formation is frequently accompanied by alterations of the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) and accumulation of ubiquitylated proteins. Ubiquitin and UPS components have been reported to co-localize with SGs, but the relationship between the ubiquitin pathway and SGs has not been systematically characterized. Using ubiquitin-specific proteomics we show that ~35% of ubiquitylated peptides change significantly in abundance in response to sodium arsenite treatment and that chemical inhibition of ubiquitin-activating enzyme (UAE) results in the rapid near-complete loss of ubiquitylation regardless of chain type. Critically, neither inhibition of UAE, nor the NEDD8-activating enzyme (NAE), significantly affected SG formation or disassembly, indicating that neither active protein ubiquitylation nor neddylation is required for SG dynamics. Using antibodies with varying preference for free vs. poly-ubiquitin in combination with UAE inhibition, we show that SGs accumulate primarily unconjugated ubiquitin rather than polyubiquitylated proteins. These findings clarify the role of ubiquitin in SG biology and suggest that free ubiquitin may alter SG protein interactions.
The Role of Shocks and Institutions in the Rise of European Unemployment: the Aggregate Evidence

Two key facts about European unemployment must be explained: the rise in unemployment since the 1960s, and the heterogeneity of individual country experiences. While adverse shocks can potentially explain much of the rise in unemployment, there is insufficient heterogeneity in these shocks to explain cross-country differences. Alternatively, while explanations focusing on labour market institutions explain current heterogeneity well, many of these institutions pre-date the rise in unemployment. Based on a panel of institutions and shocks for 20 OECD nations since 1960 we find that the interaction between shocks and institutions is crucial to explaining both stylised facts.
Have Financial Statements Become Less Informative? Evidence from the Ability of Financial Ratios to Predict Bankruptcy

Using a hazard model, we examine secular changes in the ability of financial statement data to predict bankruptcy from 1962 to 2002. We identify three trends in financial reporting that could influence predictive ability with respect to bankruptcy: FASB standards, the perceived increase in discretionary financial reporting behavior, and the increase in unrecognized assets and obligations. A parsimonious three-variable model provides significant explanatory power throughout the time period, with only a slight deterioration in predictive power from the first to the second time period. The striking feature of the results is the robustness of the predictive models over a forty-year period.
Bridging the Divide? Theories for Integrating Competition Law and Consumer Protection

(2010). Bridging the Divide? Theories For Integrating Competition Law and Consumer Protection. European Competition Journal: Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 7-45.
Mutual fund flows and investor returns: An empirical examination of fund investor timing ability

We examine the timing ability of mutual fund investors using cash flow data at the individual fund level. Over 1991–2004 equity fund investor timing decisions reduce fund investor average returns by 1.56% annually. Underperformance due to poor timing is greater in load funds and funds with relatively large risk-adjusted returns. In particular, the magnitude of investor underperformance due to poor timing largely offsets the risk-adjusted alpha gains offered by good-performing funds. Investors in both actively managed funds and index funds exhibit poor investment timing. We demonstrate that our empirical results are consistent with investor return-chasing behavior.
Analyses of baby name popularity distribution in U.S. for the last 131 years

We examine the complete dataset of baby name popularity collected by U.S. Social Security Administration for the last 131 years (1880–2010). The ranked baby name popularity can be fitted empirically by a piecewise function consisting of Beta function for the high-ranking names and power-law function for low-ranking names, but not power-law (Zipf's law) or Beta function by itself. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity, 2012 © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
KEEPING A BUTTERFLY AND AN ELEPHANT IN A HOUSE OF CARDS: THE ELEMENTS OF EXCEPTIONAL SUCCESS*

The paper is a case study of an extremely successful law firm. The paper explains why one must study examples of extreme success in order to learn the factors that make exceptional success possible. In this case, success appears to have resulted from some unusual leaders, who learned from experiences and converted their individual abilities into an organizational system. In a way, the firm became a post-graduate course in how to succeed in solving very difficult problems.
The Three-Act Argument: How to Write a Law Article that Reads Like a Good Story

Why do so many law articles—my own included—leave readers cold? One reason may be that they lack fundamental elements that make up a good story. They lack tension. They lack narrative arc. Over my years teaching seminars and exchanging drafts with colleagues, I’ve developed a recipe that helps me organize ideas into a form that better engages the reader. I’ve also found it to be conducive to a richer, more generative writing process. The recipe is inspired by guides on dramatic plot.1 It has three parts: exposition, confrontation, and resolution. The exposition introduces the conflict. In many instances, this conflict is personified through a hero and a villain. We learn about the stakes, and we appreciate the formidable obstacles that our hero must overcome to reach his goal.2 Of course, what appear as obstacles to our hero are advantages to our villain, so the exposition can also be thought of as the villain’s day in the sun.
Aligning Biomedical Informatics with Clinical and Translational Science

Clinical and Translational Science (CTS) rests largely on information flowing smoothly at multiple levels, in multiple directions, across multiple locations. Hence, Biomedical Informatics (BI) is seen as a backbone that can help to manage the information flows for the process of translation. However, the two concepts may end up being applied incongruently, if uncoordinated. This paper summarizes the objectives for CTS and BI, and provides a mechanism to harmonize their different objectives and guide the design of BI architectures for CTS.
Jack of all trades or a master of one? Specialization, trade, and money

We consider a model of decentralized exchange where individuals choose the set of goods they produce. Specialization involves producing a smaller set of goods and doing it more proficiently. In doing so, agents reduce production costs, but also reduce the ease of trading their output. We derive the equilibrium degree of specialization and examine how it is affected by underlying fundamentals. Due to the existence of a hold-up problem, individuals specialize too little relative to the social optimum. Introducing money leads to more specialization relative to barter and increases welfare.
Power Laws in Real Estate Prices? Some Evidence

Abstract Power law distributions have previously been observed in data like city-size distributions (Zipf’s Law), income distributions, and financial asset prices. In this paper, we explore the distribution of real estate prices in Charleston County, South Carolina. We fit power law, lognormal and exponential distributions to the data and compare the goodness of fit among the distributions. We find that the best fit distribution lies somewhere between the lognormal and power law distributions. We estimate how the power law exponent changes over time and find a potential relationship between the shape of the power law distribution and the bursting of the real estate bubble in 2007.
To Judge Leviathan: Sovereign Credit Ratings, National Law, and the World Economy

Recent decades have witnessed the remarkable rise of a kind of market authority almost as centralized as the state itself – two credit rating agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's. These agencies derive their influence from two sources. The first is the information content of their ratings. The second is both more profound and vastly more problematic: Ratings are incorporated into financial regulations in the United States and around the world. In this article we clarify the role of credit rating agencies in global capital markets, describe the host of problems that arise when their ratings are given the force of law, and outline the alternatives to the public policy dilemmas created when ratings receive a public imprimatur. We conclude that agencies designated for regulatory purposes should be required to provide more nuanced ratings exposing their perceptual and ideological underpinnings (especially for sovereigns), and facilitating consideration of alternatives to ratings-dependent regulation.
Returning to Hazelwood's Core: A New Approach to Restrictions on School-Sponsored Speech

2002; B.A., Yale University, 1999. Law Clerk to the Honorable Robert A. Katzmann, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 2005–2006; Law Clerk to the Honorable William G. Young, United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, 2002–2003. I thank Don Doernberg, Ben Gershman, Kent Greenawalt, Jill Gross, Eloise Pasachoff, and Paul Secunda for their helpful comments on this Article. 1. 484 U.S. 260 (1988). 2. Id. at 273.
Testing Option Pricing Models with Stochastic Volatility, Random Jumps and Stochastic Interest Rates

In this paper, we propose a parsimonious GMM estimation and testing procedure for continuous-time option pricing models with stochastic volatility, random jump and stochastic interest rate. Statistical tests are performed on both the underlying asset return model and the risk-neutral option pricing model. Firstly, the underlying asset return models are estimated using GMM with valid statistical tests for model specification. Secondly, the preference related parameters in the risk-neutral distribution are estimated from observed option prices. Our findings confirm that the implied risk premiums for stochastic volatility, random jump and interest rate are overall positive and varying over time. However, the estimated risk-neutral processes are not unique, suggesting a segmented option market. In particular, the deep ITM call (or deep OTM put) options are clearly priced with higher risk premiums than the deep OTM call (or deep ITM put) options. Finally, while stochastic volatility tends to better price long-term options, random jump tends to price the short-term options better, and option pricing based on multiple risk-neutral distributions significantly outperforms that based on a single risk-neutral distribution.
Rights Beyond Borders

The central question of whether, and when, a country’s domestic rights regime constrains government action beyond national borders has largely escaped comparative analysis. This Article seeks to fill that gap. Part I provides a typology of basic approaches to rights beyond borders, which I label country, compact, and conscience. Country-based reasoning takes a strictly territorial approach to regulating the government’s actions outside the national territory, even vis-a-vis citizens. Compact-based reasoning focuses on the entitlement of a given individual to assert rights against the government based on his or her status as one of the governed, regardless of territorial location. Conscience-based reasoning holds that a government should act the same way beyond its borders as it does within them. Part II uses this framework to analyze the evolving jurisprudence of extraterritorial rights in three common law jurisdictions: the United States under the U.S. Constitution, Canada under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the United Kingdom under the U.K. Human Rights Act. This comparative analysis reveals the continued tenacity of country-based reasoning, which privileges the role of territory in conceptualizing domestic rights, even in an age of “globalization.” In the end, the most generative source of more expansive readings of domestic rights provisions might not be any comprehensive theory about the extraterritorial reach of rights, but rather individual judges’ own sense of fundamental fairness and the perceived need for a minimum set of judicially enforceable legal constraints on the action of the political branches. To date, such judicially enforceable constraints continue to be provided by domestic, rather than international, rights guarantees.
Testing Minority Preferences in Broadcasting

The United States government has several policies and programs designed to increase the number of broadcasting stations owned by racial minorities. Increasing the number of minority-owned broadcasting stations, the government claims, will diversify the content of broadcast programs by increasing the amount of minority-oriented programming. Minority owners will program their stations differently than white owners, the government claims. In this paper we present the first econometric test of these propositions about minority ownership of broadcasting stations as well as a number of other related propositions. We conclude that increasing the number of minority-owned broadcasting stations increases the amount of minority-oriented programming. We also conclude that increasing the number of female-owned stations-a policy that has been ruled unconstitutional would be just as effective at increasing minority-oriented programming.
Humanity & National Security: The Law of Mass Atrocity Response Operations

As the world watches civilian slaughter in Syria, the United States is refining a whole of government approach to prevent and respond to genocide and other atrocity crimes. Military intervention under the recently developed concept of Mass Atrocity Response Operations (MARO) will certainly be included as part of any planning contingency, following diplomatic, economic, and multilateral actions. The current state of international law, however, only permits the use of force, to prevent atrocity crimes or for any other reason, if authorized by the UN Security Council (UNSC) or in self-defense. When the UNSC fails to act — as it has so often in the past — any MARO action taken by a State or group of States without a self-defense justification will be highly contentious and likely unlawful. As a result, political paralysis ensues and mass atrocities continue apace. Witness Assad’s massacre. This article argues that individual States or groups of States must have the authority to intervene to halt atrocity crimes, even without UNSC approval. Initially, the historical State-centric legal regime, including the UN framework, has proven incapable of effectively dealing with widespread human rights violations. As a result, the international community is embarking on a civilian centric approach, including the concept of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which has contributed to the erosion of State sovereignty and fostered the legitimacy — if not legality — of unilateral action. In order to overcome legal obstacles to protecting civilians from slaughter, U.S. decision-makers must take the lead in developing norms that will effectively halt ongoing atrocities through a discursive process at the international and domestic level, and, if necessary, through transgression of existing law. Besides outlining steps to develop a positive or customary legal norm, this article prescribes a principled threshold for MARO application, which will lead to greater international acceptance of this strategy and, ultimately, the effective arrest of ongoing atrocities.
Mind Which Gap? The Selective Concern Over Statistical Sex Disparities

The theme of this conference is that there are “gaps” that require attention. According to the conference materials, “vast disparities in compensation, power, and titles persist between the sexes today.” The question raised in this symposium is “how can this gap be explained and rectified?” This question assumes that the “gap” should be rectified regardless of its cause. Although the workplace is the primary focus of this conference, I would like to put the workplace into a broader context and look at other “gaps” that exist, as well. The sexes differ in a number of respects that do not favor men. Men die at a younger age than women; they are more likely to be victimized by crime; they are more likely to be imprisoned (and for longer times); they are, according to many, disfavored in the domestic-relations arena; and they do less well by many measures in the educational system. Far fewer people tend to be concerned about these “gaps,” or even to characterize them as such, presumably because they are hard to characterize as victimization of women.
Corporate governance and default risk of firms cited in the SEC’s Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases

We examine the relationship between corporate governance and default risk for a sample of firms cited in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAERs). Using hazard analysis of actual default incidence and OLS regressions of a continuous variable capturing a firm’s “closeness to default,” we document changes in the relationships between various governance characteristics and default risk from the pre-AAER period to the post-AAER period. Specifically, smaller board size, greater board independence, greater gender diversity of the board, and lower concentration of institutional ownership are all shown to have a more favorable effect on lowering default risk in the post-AAER period relative to the pre-AAER period. Our comparative analysis of a group of firms with accounting restatements (but not cited in the AAERs) does not show similar changes in the relationships between the various corporate governance characteristics and default risk from the pre-restatement to the post-restatement period. This suggests that the regulatory sanctions experienced by AAER firms may have prompted creditor reevaluation of the firms’ information environment and the perceived efficacy of various corporate governance mechanisms in mitigating default risk.
Brain mapping of psychological processes with psychometric scales: an fMRI method for social neuroscience.

article i nfo Introduction: The functional neuroimaging literature has used many stimuli (e.g., games, pictures, sounds) in fMRI studies to induce activation in brain areas related to psychological processes. To improve the link among psychological processes and their brain mapping, this study integrates the theory of measurement in the social sciences with the functional neuroimaging literature to propose a simple method that localizes the neural correlates of psychological processes using psychometric scales as stimuli to induce brain activation. Materials and methods: Two fMRI studies were performed to illustrate this method with 30 subjects who responded to psychometric scales for four psychological processes on 7-point Likert-type anchors while their brains were being scanned in an fMRI. The first study examined two psychological processes-trust and distrust-whose neural correlates are known. The second study examined two psychological processes specific to technology use context-perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use-whose neural correlates are still unknown. Results: Results from the first fMRI study confirmed the neural correlates of trust in the caudate nucleus, putamen, anterior paracingulate cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex and of distrust in the amygdala and insular cortex, thus confirming the literature. The second fMRI study identified the neural correlates of perceived usefulness in the anterior cingulate cortex, caudate nucleus, and insular cortex and perceived ease of use in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which are consistent with the technology use literature. Discussion: The proposed brain mapping method with psychometric scales can inform the neurological nature of psychological processes, challenge existing measurement assumptions, and help advance brain mapping.
The Dangers of Decoupling: The Relationship Between Compliance Programs, Legitimacy Perceptions, and Institutionalized Misconduct

This theory-building analysis spotlights a dynamic that occurs between decoupling, legitimacy, and institutionalized misconduct. Using data gathered from a case study of widespread deceptive sales ...
The Dynamics of Ambivalence

This article explores the dynamics of candidate ambivalence over the course of a presidential campaign. Candidate ambivalence tends to decrease as a campaign unfolds, although the rate of ambivalence decay is not constant across time or individuals. Two alternative theories of ambivalence change are considered and tested. Consistent with a motivational account, the results indicate that partisan reasoning contributes to the diminution of ambivalence over time. Consistent with an informational account, the results suggest that exposure to heterogeneous information heightens ambivalence. Ambivalence is least likely to decline among people who are exposed to cross-cutting information, politically sophisticated individuals with weak partisan attachments, and, during the general election phase of the campaign, those who live in homogenous areas with little political competition.
Retrospective Economic Voting and the Intertemporal Dynamics of Electoral Accountability in the American States

How durable are politicians’ policymaking reputations with the electorate? A theory of reputation depreciation is advanced to explain why the electorate’s capacity to hold former officeholders accountable for prior economic stewardship is weakening not only in the time elapsed between prior elective office and seeking subsequent elective office, but also diminishing at a greater rate as the evaluative window for making retrospective economic assessments widens. Aggregate electoral data on ex-governors in the American states suggests that while prior economic stewardship evaluated over entire tenure in office for ex-governors offer the strongest initial retrospective economic attributions, it also yields the greatest rate of reputation depreciation for ex-governors seeking future elective office. Reputational slippage transpires with the passage of time between prior elective office and returning to the electoral arena, whereby voters experience increasing difficulty when it comes to rewarding competent ex...
The Transparency President? The Obama Administration and Open Government

President Obama has trumpeted transparency as a major part of his agenda, promising “unprecedented” openness throughout the federal government. Although Obama benefits politically from the contrast with his predecessor's reputation for secrecy, in the long run an excessive emphasis on fishbowl governance can raise unrealistic expectations and ultimately backfire. After all, at some point transparency has its costs, such as when disclosure dampens internal deliberation or undermines privacy. The real issue, then, is how much transparency and what type. Despite its rhetoric, the Obama Administration has placed limits on transparency and will likely continue to do so. Yet members of the public and open government activists are unlikely to appreciate the need for such limits, leading to disappointment and charges of hypocrisy. It remains unclear whether Barack Obama will earn the mantle of the “transparency president”—or whether the hopes he has raised will, when unfulfilled, only reinforce public cynicism.