cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Do Bright-Line Earnings Surprises Really Affect Stock Price Reactions?

Several influential studies have concluded that earnings surprises just to the right or to the left of a hypothesized bright line produce distinct price reactions compared with surrounding earnings surprises because they convey special meaning. In this study, we examine whether previous inferences of asymmetric stock price reactions to bright-line surprises are observed when empirical tests are designed to be consistent with a rational expectations equilibrium. Focusing on a small range of earnings surprises around hypothesized bright lines, we find no evidence of asymmetric price reactions once investors’ ex ante expectation of bias in earnings surprises is controlled. Results from additional tests yield support for the external validity of the theoretical framework underlying our bright-line pricing tests. Our findings suggest simple refinements to traditional bins-comparison and regression tests for asymmetric price reactions to bright-line earnings surprises, which account for necessary conditions imp...
The Statement and Account Clause as a National Security Freedom of Information Act

The amount of the aggregate annual appropriations for the civilian and military intelligence programs is the only aspect of intelligence spending that is publicly disclosed. As a consequence, a great deal of information about how public funds are spent remains secret, potentially insulating from ordinary processes of political accountability not only waste, inefficiency, and abuse, but also what the public may regard as unwarranted intrusions on its privacy. This Article offers a constitutional vehicle for greater transparency—the Constitution’s Statement and Account Clause, which provides that “a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.” The scholarly literature contains no comprehensive treatment of the clause; Part I fills that gap, and contends that at least presumptively, information that is material to the public’s assessment of the manner in which the intelligence community spends public funds must be annually disclosed. Part II turns to the question of judicial enforcement, widely thought unavailable since the Supreme Court’s 1974 holding in United States v. Richardson that a lawsuit asserting taxpayer standing to obtain information about the CIA’s budget was nonjusticiable. Part II demonstrates that jurisprudential developments since Richardson limit its scope and suggest that it does not bar lawsuits brought by voters to enforce the Statement and Account Clause. Richardson poses no obstacle to suits seeking disclosure of information about intelligence spending under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), even if they
A Constitution for Europe? Some Hard Choices

The Convention on the Future of Europe is likely to produce a constitutional prototype for Europe. In this article I focus on five hard constitutional choices which Europe will face: the constitutional significance of enlargement; the ‘pure’ constitutional issue, namely the significance of form; the issue of Europe’s social solidarity as a defining identity marker and the question of whether it should, therefore, be constitutionalized thereby taking it out of day–to–day politics; the issue of policing rather than defining the demarcation of competences between the Union and Member States; and, finally, the tricky issue of a human rights policy for Europe.
Clock time vs. event time: Temporal culture or self-regulation?

Cross-cultural research documented two types of temporal culture governing the way individuals schedule tasks over time: clock-time, where individuals let an external clock dictate when tasks begin/end; and event-time, where tasks are planned relative to other tasks and individuals transition between them when they internally sense that the former task is complete. In contrast with this prior literature - that credits culture as the reason for variation in temporal norms - we show in two experiments that individuals choose clock- vs. event-time as a self-regulation strategy to achieve a regulatory goal (efficiency vs. effectiveness). A third experiment shows that this strategy enhances confidence and performance on a task. Participants solved significantly more math problems when their task scheduling (clock- vs. event-time) matched their regulatory state (promotion vs. prevention). Since clock-/event-time may both lead to superior performance, clock-time is not the single best way to organize productive activities in industrial societies--a result that counters a foundational principle of modern economics.
Aggregate earnings and asset prices

A principal-components analysis demonstrates that common earnings factors explain a substantial portion of firm-level earnings variation, implying earnings shocks have substantial systematic components and are not almost fully diversifiable as prior literature has concluded. Furthermore, the principal components of earnings and returns are highly correlated, implying aggregate earnings risks and return risks are related. In contrast to previous studies, the correlation we report between the systematic components of earnings and returns is stable over time. We also show that the earnings factors are priced, in the sense that the sensitivities of securities' returns to the earnings factors explain a significant portion of the cross-sectional variation in returns, even controlling for return risk. This suggests earnings performance is an underlying source of priced risk. Our evidence that the information sets of returns and earnings are jointly determined implies cash flow risk and return risk are not fully separable, and raises the possibility that it is the common variation of earnings and returns that is priced.
The Micro and Macro Causes of Prison Growth

John F. Pfaff Over the past four decades, prison populations in the United States have exploded. As Figure 1 1 demonstrates, from the 1920s (when reliable statistics first become available) through the mid-1970s, the incarceration rate hovered around 100 per 100,000 people. These rates were so stable that a leading criminologist argued in 1979 that political pressures would continue to keep the rate around 100 per 100,000. Thus, the subsequent quintupling of the incarceration rate over the next forty years, with the prison population growing by over 1.3 million inmates, was an unexpected and unprecedented development. Moreover, this boom was unique to the United States. While home to only about 5% of the world’s population, the United States currently contains nearly 25% of the world’s prisoners. 5
The Risk and Return of Venture Capital

Abstract This paper measures the mean, standard deviation, alpha, and beta of venture capital investments, using a maximum likelihood estimate that corrects for selection bias. The bias-corrected estimation neatly accounts for log returns. It reduces the estimate of the mean log return from 108% to 15%, and of the log market model intercept from 92% to - 7 % . The selection bias correction also dramatically attenuates high arithmetic average returns: it reduces the mean arithmetic return from 698% to 59%, and it reduces the arithmetic alpha from 462% to 32%. I confirm the robustness of the estimates in a variety of ways. I also find that the smallest Nasdaq stocks have similar large means, volatilities, and arithmetic alphas in this time period, confirming that the remaining puzzles are not special to venture capital.
A Reluctant Apology for Plessy: A Response to Akhil Amar

In this article, written for the 2011 Pepperdine Law Review Symposium discussing five candidates for the worst U.S. Supreme Court decisions in history, Professor McDonald undertakes the "unenviable task" of defending the Court's 1896 decision in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. This defense, a "reluctant apology," is comprised of a constitutional and historical analysis of the Court's majority opinion. Professor McDonald begins by criticizing the content, tone, and apparent intention of Justice Brown's majority opinion in Plessy, characterizing it as a needlessly offensive and divisive opinion. Then, the analysis shifts toward placing the opinion in the historical context of the time. Under this analysis, the Supreme Court of this era clearly lacked both the power and the inclination to force a significant change of public opinion on a social issue like segregation. Professor McDonald posits that, although slavery had been formally abolished by the end of the nineteenth century, the racial attitudes among whites throughout the country were still significantly hostile toward blacks, which would have strongly discouraged the Supreme Court from invalidating a Southern segregation statute. Professor McDonald then analyzes the opinion in accordance with several different constitutional interpretation principles. First, he argues that an originalist analysis does not support the idea that the framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment intended the Equal Protection Clause to outlaw segregated facilities. He then argues that principles of federalism would also have discouraged such a result, since they required the court to defer to the stated legislative purpose of the state that had passed the law. Next, he claims that the principles of judicial precedent also pointed towards the result reached by the Court. Finally, he examines the issue from a living constitutionalist approach, determining that striking down the statute in question would have provoked a violent conflagration in the South of that era, the potential harm of which outweighed any positive result of correcting the moral wrongs represented by Louisiana’s segregation law. Professor McDonald concludes by expressing his agreement with noted legal historians that the result reached by the Court was not surprising and probably to be expected given the prevailing legal and social context of the times.
Taking the lord's name in vain: The impact of connected directors on 19th century British banks☆

This paper utilizes data on the presence of prominent individuals – that is, those with political (e.g., Members of Parliament) and aristocratic titles (e.g., lords) – on the boards of directors of English and Welsh banks from 1879 to 1909 to investigate whether the appointment of well-connected directors enhanced equity value for bank shareholders. Our analysis of panel data shows that the appointment of connected directors did not increase equity returns (as measured by the capital gain plus dividend yield on bank shares). In fact, we find that the appointment of MPs to directorships had negative effects on bank equity returns. Our event-study analysis corroborates this finding, showing that a bank's shares exhibited negative abnormal returns when their directors were elected to Parliament. Taken together, our results indicate that connected directors yielded little – or even negative – economic payoff to bank shareholders in pre-war Britain.
Intergenerational Financial Literacy: The Case for Teaching Sustainable Financial Decision Making in Schools:

This article examines national (US) educational financial literacy standards through the lens of sustainability and intergenerational responsibility. Linking financial literacy standards to important sustainability issues like the Bruntland Report, the American Indian seventh generation concept, and future ethics, the article recommends the addition of specific ethical, social, and environmental standards to current financial literacy standards. The example of water is used to illustrate the connection between sustainability and financial literacy, and implications for current educators are discussed.
Setting the Bar: The Evaluative and Allocative Roles of Organizational Aspirations

This study explores the determinants of organizational aspirations, proposing that aspirations play dual roles that create important tension for managers. On one hand, aspirations serve an evaluati...
IN PRAISE OF IDEOLOGICAL OPENNESS

One's ideological views – that is, the pattern of positions one tends to take on important public-policy issues – run deep and change little. Inevitably they involve commitments and judgments about the most important things. Just as we value disclosure of vested interests, we value disclosure of one's ideological tendencies. This article elaborates some virtues of ideological openness.
The economics of trade agreements in the linear Cournot delocation model

Abstract Existing theories of trade agreements suggest that GATT/WTO efforts to reign in export subsidies represent an inefficient victory for exporting governments that comes at the expense of importing governments. Building on the Cournot delocation model first introduced by Venables (1985), we derive new results from this model and use these results to develop a more benign interpretation of efforts to restrain export subsidies in trade agreements. And we suggest that the gradual tightening of restraints on export subsidies that has occurred in the GATT/WTO may be interpreted as deriving naturally from the gradual reduction in import barriers that member countries have negotiated. Together with existing theories, the Cournot delocation model may help to provide a more nuanced and complete understanding of the treatment of export subsidies in trade agreements.
Exploring the Role of Social Networks in Affective Organizational Commitment: Network Centrality, Strength of Ties, and Structural Holes

Although studies in public management have identified personal attributes, job characteristics, and organizational rewards as key factors that influence affective organizational commitment, limited attention has been paid to the influence of social networks on affective commitment. Given that organizational attitudes and behaviors are often socially constructed, this article argues that employees’ affective commitment is influenced by their social networks in an organization. What are the social network configurations that lead to affective organizational commitment? This study attempts to answer this question by focusing on nonlinear relationships between several network dimensions (i.e., network centrality, tie strength, and structural holes) and affective commitment. These relationships are empirically tested by using both social network data and employee survey data collected from two local governments in South Korea. Results of the study show that employees’ network centrality has an inverted U-shape...
Unethical Obedience by Subordinate Attorneys: Lessons from Social Psychology

Consider the plight of a lawyer—fresh out of law school with crushing loan debt and few job offers—who accepts a position at a medium-sized firm. A partner asks the young lawyer to review a client’s documents to determine what needs to be produced in discovery. In the stack, the associate finds a “smoking gun” that is clearly within the scope of discovery and spells disaster for the client’s case. The associate reports the document to the partner, who without explanation tells the associate not to produce it. The associate asks the partner a few questions and quickly drops the subject when the partner tells the associate to get back to work. We would like to believe that the young lawyer has the courage to ensure that the partner ultimately produces the document. We might hope, or expect, that the lawyer will report the issue to the firm’s ethics counsel, if the firm is big enough to have one, or consult with other lawyers in the firm, assuming that she has developed the necessary relationships with her colleagues despite her junior status. In fact, research in the area of social psychology suggests that, in some contexts, a subordinate lawyer will often comply with unethical instructions of this sort. This basic, but crucial, insight into human behavior suggests that there is often a significant gap between what the legal ethics rules require and how lawyers will typically behave. Indeed, lawyers will too often obey obviously unethical or illegal instructions or fail to report the wrongdoing of other lawyers.
Firm Financing over the Business Cycle

Firm financing is the link between financial markets and the real economy. In this paper, we investigate how firm financing depends on the state of the economy. Using Compustat data, we look at the external financing decisions of firms over the business cycle. We find that firm financing is cyclical, but that the cyclicality depends on size. Whereas large firms seem to substitute between debt and equity financing over the business cycle, small firms are unable to do so, increasing financing in good times and reducing it in bad. More importantly, small firms make extensive use of equity financing which is generally more expensive. In this paper, we propose a mechanism that explains these empirical facts in a heterogeneous firm optimization model. Our mechanism is based on two main features: (1) small firms are growing and therefore need more funds and (2) cost of debt financing is higher for more leveraged firms. These features imply that small firmsâ€™ funding needs cannot be satisfied by debt alone - especially not in booms when growth opportunities and therefore funding needs are higher. For this reason they turn to equity. The model accounts for the cyclical patterns we see in the data.
Old George Orwell got it backward: Some thoughts on behavioral tax economics

It is entirely appropriate that the study of public finance take seriously ‘‘behavioral’’ inconsistencies with traditional models of individual and collective decision-making. This raises the question of whether the state should play a role in protecting individuals from themselves, and whether individuals are susceptible to manipulation, or even exploitation, by the people who comprise the state. In this essay I two aspects of this issue --- tax complexity and tax compliance. In addressing these issues I ask, and offer some tentative answers to, what is distinctive about behavioral tax economics as a sub-field of behavioral economics and as a sub-field of tax economics.
Monetary policy, composite leading economic indicators and predicting the 2001 recession

On 26 November 2001, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the US economy had officially entered into a recession in March 2001. This decision was a surprise and did not end all the conflicting opinions expressed by economists. This matter was finally settled in July 2002 after a revision to the 2001 real gross domestic product showed negative growth rates for its first three quarters. A series of political and economic events in the years 2000–01 have increased the amount of uncertainty in the state of the economy, which in turn has resulted in the production of less reliable economic indicators and forecasts. This paper evaluates the performance of two very reliable methodologies for predicting a downturn in the US economy using composite leading economic indicators (CLI) for the years 2000–01. It explores the impact of the monetary policy on CLI and on the overall economy and shows how the gradualness and uncertainty of this impact on the overall economy have affected the forecasts of these methodologies. It suggests that the overexposure of the CLI to the monetary policy tools and a strong, but less effective, expansionary money policy have been the major factors in deteriorating the predictions of these methodologies. To improve these forecasts, it has explored the inclusion of the CLI diffusion index as a prior in the Bayesian methodology. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
PREDICTING WHO REOFFENDS: THE NEGLECTED ROLE OF NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT IN RECIDIVISM STUDIES*

Prior studies of recidivism have focused almost exclusively on individual-level characteristics of offenders and their offenses to explore the correlates of reoffending. Notably absent from these studies are measures reflecting the neighborhood contexts in which individuals live. The current research addresses this shortcoming. Using data on a sample of ex-offenders in Multnomah County, Oregon (Portland and surrounding area) in conjunction with 2000 census data, we answer two questions. First, which individual-level factors influence rates of recidivism? Second, to what extent does neighborhood socioeconomic status account for variation in the reoffending behavior of ex-prisoners that is not explained by their individual-level characteristics? We find that those who return to disadvantaged neighborhoods recidivate at a greater rate while those who return to resource rich or affluent communities recidivate at a lesser rate, controlling for individual-level factors.
The Economic Value of Auditing and Its Effectiveness in Public School Operations

We examine the impact of auditing on public school operations with two objectives: to investigate whether audits provide economic benefits to stakeholders and how complex compliance rules impact auditing effectiveness. Utilizing auditing time data and a unique opportunity presented by the Quality Basic Education Act in Georgia, we estimate the relative performance of school district operations employing a stochastic frontier estimation technique. We find that auditing produces real economic benefits for stakeholders by mitigating inefficiency in the use of school resources. We also find that stringent compliance rules reduce an audit’s effectiveness but auditors’ experience can help to overcome the problems. The lack of disclosure of auditing costs hinders the ability to conduct a cost–benefit analysis of new requirements. Our analysis supports the notion that auditing is vital to establish governance mechanisms and disclosure of auditing costs is important to adequately evaluate a new policy. Data are available from the public sources identified in the text.
Bonuses and employment in Japan

Abstract Japan has a relatively unique system of labor compensation. Most Japanese workers are paid large bonuses twice a year. This paper examines the cyclical movement of bonuses compared with wages and the relation of bonuses to employment in the context of the Weitzman “share economy.” The paper makes three basic points: (1) The Japanese bonus is much more procyclical than Japanese base wages, but not as cyclically variable as profits. Bonuses can be interpreted as containing a quantitatively significant revenue- or profit-sharing component. (2) Bonuses have employment consequences quite different from those of base wages. Even after controlling for other economic factors, bonuses are positively related to employment, whereas base wages are negatively related to employment. (3) The bonus system of paying workers seems to play a modest role in helping to stabilize Japanese unemployment at comparatively low levels.
The Major Role of Clinicians in the Discovery of Off‐Label Drug Therapies

Objective. To determine the role of clinicians in the discovery of off-label use of prescription drugs approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Data Sources. Micromedex Healthcare Series was used to identify new uses of new molecular entities approved by the FDA in 1998, literature from January 1999–December 2003 was accessed through MEDLINE, and relevant patents were identified through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Data Synthesis and Main Finding. A survey of new therapeutic uses for new molecular entity drugs approved in 1998 was conducted for the subsequent 5 years of commercial availability. During that period, 143 new applications were identified in a computerized search of the literature for the 29 new drugs considered and approved in 1998. Literature and patent searches were conducted to identify the first report of each new application. Authors of the seminal articles were contacted through an electronic survey to determine whether they were in fact the originators of the new applications. If they were, examination of article content and author surveys were used to explore if each new application was discovered through clinical practice that was independent of pharmaceutical company or university research (field discovery) or if the discovery was made by or with the involvement of pharmaceutical company or university researchers (central discovery). Eighty-two (57%) of the 143 drug therapy innovations in our sample were discovered by practicing clinicians through field discovery. Conclusion. To our knowledge, the major role of clinicians in the discovery of new, off-label drug therapies has not been previously documented or explored. We propose that this finding has important regulatory and health policy implications.
Resentencing in the Shadow of Johnson v. United States

This essay analyzes several statutes and doctrines that will determine whether courts resentence prisoners who received mandatory minimum sentences under the Armed Career Criminal Act’s residual clause. The Supreme Court recently held ACCA’s residual clause unconstitutionally vague. This essay argues that Johnson applies retroactively to cases that have already become final, and also examines several recent court of appeals decisions regarding whether defendants may file second or successive post-conviction petitions based on Johnson. It also offers recommendations for what the Department of Justice, Congress, and federal courts can do to ensure that prisoners with Johnson claims do not serve a term of imprisonment longer than the statutory maximum for their offense of conviction.
Where Are All the Transnational Bankruptcies? The Puzzling Case for Universalism

Debates about transnational insolvencies rest on the assumption that the increasing global reach of companies will lead to more cases where more than one country assets jurisdiction over a debtor's assets. The challenge in this discussion is to delineate which set of rules countries should adopt so that value is not destroyed. The so-called "universalists" worry about inefficient liquidations and stress the need for countries to cooperate with each other. Territorialists, on the other hand, worry about a race to the bottom where the debtor chooses a friendly country to handle its insolvency and the rest of the countries where the debtor has assets reflexively cooperate. Yet both camps agree that as businesses expand across borders, multiple insolvency proceedings are inevitable. The only open question is the extent to which the involved jurisdictions should cooperate with each other. This paper challenges this accepted wisdom. It demonstrates that there are relatively few reorganization cases that involve multiple proceedings. The explanation for this puzzle is that debtors can control the number of proceedings that are opened in any given case. There are multiple proceedings only when it suits the debtor's interest. This control that debtors have over the process requires a reorientation in the literature. Rather than focusing on the rules that countries adopt, we have to examine the actions that debtors take and assess the welfare concerns.
DYNAMIC TRADING IN A DURABLE GOOD MARKET WITH ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION

We analyze a dynamic version of the Akerlof–Wilson “lemons” market in a competitive durable good setting. There is a fixed set of sellers with private information about the quality of their wares. The price mechanism sorts sellers of different qualities into different time periods—prices and average quality of goods traded increase over time. Goods of all qualities are traded in finite time. Market failure arises because of the waiting involved—particularly for sellers of better quality. The equilibrium path may exhibit intermediate breaks in trading.
The Barnett Critique After Three Decades: A New Keynesian Analysis

Abstract This paper extends a New Keynesian model to include roles for currency and deposits as competing sources of liquidity services demanded by households. It shows that, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the Barnett critique applies: while a Divisia aggregate of monetary services tracks the true monetary aggregate almost perfectly, a simple-sum measure often behaves quite differently. The model also shows that movements in both quantity and price indexes for monetary services correlate strongly with movements in output following a variety of shocks. Finally, the analysis characterizes the optimal monetary policy response to disturbances that originate in the financial sector.
FISCAL POLICY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

This paper offers possible explanations for three generally observed facts about fiscal policy and development: (F1) the relative size of government increases as an economy develops, (F2) the rise in government and taxation are associated with rising or constant economic growth rates, and (F3) today's developing countries have larger government sectors than today's developed countries had at similar stages of development. The explanations for these facts are based on the structural transformation from traditional to modern production, rising public infrastructure investment, and less democratic governments in many of today's developing economies.
Introduction to Symposium: Reasoning from Literature

The “literary turn” in legal studies manifests in many ways in our legal discipline and practice. Be it with the birth of the study of law and literature in the 1980s, the growing attention to narrative theory and storytelling in the law in the 1990s, or the “cultural turn” in legal studies in the 21st century (as some scholars have called the cultural analysis of law), reasoning from literature seems commonplace. And yet it is still marginalized in legal studies as interdisciplinary, not “really law,” and lacking the core persuasive power that legal argumentation and doctrinal analysis do. This Symposium was put together to wrestle with what it means to “reason from literature” and to contest the boundaries between legal reasoning and literary logic. Jessica Silbey was the Symposium organizer and wrote the introduction to the volume, entitled “Reasoning from Literature.” Other contributors to the volume include Peter Brooks, Laura Heymann, Bernadette Meyler Carol Rose and Kenji Yoshino.
Incremental Model Building Homotopy Approach for Solving Exact AC-Constrained Optimal Power Flow.

Alternating-Current Optimal Power Flow (AC-OPF) is framed as a NP-hard non-convex optimization problem that solves for the most economical dispatch of grid generation given the AC-network and device constraints. Although there are no standard methodologies for obtaining the global optimum for the problem, there is considerable interest from planning and operational engineers in finding a local optimum. Nonetheless, solving for the local optima of a large AC-OPF problem is challenging and time-intensive, as none of the leading non-linear optimization toolboxes can provide any timely guarantees of convergence. To provide robust local convergence for large complex systems, we introduce a homotopy-based approach that solves a sequence of primal-dual interior point problems. We utilize the physics of the grid to develop the proposed homotopy method and demonstrate the efficacy of this approach on U.S. Eastern Interconnection sized test networks.
The interaction of the ITER first wall with magnetic perturbations

Mitigation of the multiple risks associated with disruptions and runaway electrons in tokamaks involves competing demands. Success requires that each risk be understood sufficiently that appropriate compromises can be made. Here the focus is on the interaction of short timescale magnetic-perturbations with the structure in ITER that is closest to the plasma, blanket modules covered by separated beryllium tiles. The effect of this tiled surface on the perturbations and on the forces on structures are subtle. Indeterminacy can be introduced by tile-to-tile shorting. A determinate subtlety is introduced because electrically separated tiles can act as a conducting surface for magnetic perturbations that have a normal component to the surface. A practical method for including this determinate subtlety into plasma simulations is developed. The shorter the timescales and the greater the localization, particularly in the toroidal direction, the more important the magnetic effects of the tiles become.
In search of the RNA world on Mars.

Advances in origins of life research and prebiotic chemistry suggest that life as we know it may have emerged from an earlier RNA World. However, it has been difficult to reconcile the conditions used in laboratory experiments with real-world geochemical environments that may have existed on the early Earth and hosted the origin(s) of life. This challenge is due to geologic resurfacing and recycling that have erased the overwhelming majority of the Earth's prebiotic history. We therefore propose that Mars, a planet frozen in time, comprised of many surfaces that have remained relatively unchanged since their formation > 4 Gya, is the best alternative to search for environments consistent with geochemical requirements imposed by the RNA world. In this study, we synthesize in situ and orbital observations of Mars and modeling of its early atmosphere into solutions containing a range of pHs and concentrations of prebiotically relevant metals (Fe2+ , Mg2+ , and Mn2+ ) spanning various candidate aqueous environments. We then experimentally determine RNA degradation kinetics due to metal-catalyzed hydrolysis (cleavage) and evaluate whether early Mars could have been permissive toward the accumulation of long-lived RNA polymers. Our results indicate that a Mg2+ -rich basalt sourcing metals to a slightly acidic (pH 5.4) environment mediates the slowest rates of RNA cleavage, though geologic evidence and basalt weathering models suggest aquifers on Mars would be near neutral (pH ~ 7). Moreover, the early onset of oxidizing conditions on Mars has major consequences regarding the availability of oxygen-sensitive metals (i.e., Fe2+ and Mn2+ ) due to increased RNA degradation rates and precipitation. Overall, (a) low pH decreases RNA cleavage at high metal concentrations; (b) acidic to neutral pH environments with Fe2+ or Mn2+ cleave more RNA than Mg2+ ; and (c) alkaline environments with Mg2+ dramatically cleaves more RNA while precipitates were observed for Fe2+ and Mn2+ .
Adaptive pseudo-time methods for the Poisson–Boltzmann equation with Eulerian solvent excluded surface

This work further improves the pseudo-transient approach for the Poisson Boltzmann equation (PBE) in the electrostatic analysis of solvated biomolecules. The numerical solution of the nonlinear PBE is known to involve many difficulties, such as exponential nonlinear term, strong singularity by the source terms, and complex dielectric interface. Recently, a pseudo-time ghost-fluid method (GFM) has been developed in [S. Ahmed Ullah and S. Zhao, Applied Mathematics and Computation, 380, 125267, (2020)], by analytically handling both nonlinearity and singular sources. The GFM interface treatment not only captures the discontinuity in the regularized potential and its flux across the molecular surface, but also guarantees the stability and efficiency of the time integration. However, the molecular surface definition based on the MSMS package is known to induce instability in some cases, and a nontrivial Lagrangian-to-Eulerian conversion is indispensable for the GFM finite difference discretization. In this paper, an Eulerian Solvent Excluded Surface (ESES) is implemented to replace the MSMS for defining the dielectric interface. The electrostatic analysis shows that the ESES free energy is more accurate than that of the MSMS, while being free of instability issues. Moreover, this work explores, for the first time in the PBE literature, adaptive time integration techniques for the pseudo-transient simulations. A major finding is that the time increment $\Delta t$ should become smaller as the time increases, in order to maintain the temporal accuracy. This is opposite to the common practice for the steady state convergence, and is believed to be due to the PBE nonlinearity and its time splitting treatment. Effective adaptive schemes have been constructed so that the pseudo-time GFM methods become more efficient than the constant $\Delta t$ ones.
Kartta Labs: Collaborative Time Travel.

We introduce the modular and scalable design of Kartta Labs, an open source, open data, and scalable system for virtually reconstructing cities from historical maps and photos. Kartta Labs relies on crowdsourcing and artificial intelligence consisting of two major modules: Maps and 3D models. Each module, in turn, consists of sub-modules that enable the system to reconstruct a city from historical maps and photos. The result is a spatiotemporal reference that can be used to integrate various collected data (curated, sensed, or crowdsourced) for research, education, and entertainment purposes. The system empowers the users to experience collaborative time travel such that they work together to reconstruct the past and experience it on an open source and open data platform.
The Reference Effect of Delay Announcements: A Field Experiment

We explore whether customers are loss averse in time and how delay information may impact such reference-dependent behavior using observational and field experiment data from two call centers of an...
Outcomes of Surgical Treatment of Symptomatic Bipartite Patella in Teenage Athletes

Introduction Bipartite patella affects about 2-3% of people. Most cases are asymptomatic; however, some teenage athletes with bipartite patella develop anterior knee pain due to fragment mobility. The bipartite patella is connected to the primary patella by fibrocartilage. The fibrous attachment can become separated by sports activity and trauma. When conservative therapy fails (PT, icing, bracing, NSAIDs), surgery is indicated. The purpose of this study is to report the outcomes of fragment excision and/or lateral release in teenage athletes with symptomatic bipartite patella. Methods The study was approved by the College of Medicine IRB. A retrospective chart and …
An algorithm to locate the centers of baryon acoustic oscillations

Context. The cosmic structure formed from baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the early universe is imprinted in the galaxy distribution observable in large-scale surveys and is used as a standard ruler in contemporary cosmology. Typically, BAOs are detected as a preferential length scale in two-point statistics, which gives little information about the location of the BAO structures in real space.Aims. The aim of the algorithm described in this paper is to find probable centers of BAOs in the cosmic matter distribution.Methods. The algorithm convolves the three-dimensional distribution of matter density with a spherical shell kernel of variable radius placed at different locations. The locations that correspond to the highest values of the convolution correspond to the probable centers of BAOs. This method is realized in an open-source, computationally efficient algorithm.Results. We describe the algorithm and present the results of applying it to the SDSS DR9 CMASS survey and associated mock catalogs.Conclusions. A detailed performance study demonstrates the ability of the algorithm to locate BAO centers and in doing so presents a novel detection of the BAO scale in galaxy surveys.
A Framework for Analyzing Influencer Marketing in Social Networks: Selection and Scheduling of Influencers

Explosive growth in the number of users on various social media platforms has transformed the way firms strategize their marketing activities. To take advantage of the vast size of social networks,...
Latrophilin GPCR signaling mediates synapse formation

Neural circuit assembly in the brain requires precise establishment of synaptic connections, but the mechanisms of synapse assembly remain incompletely understood. Latrophilins are postsynaptic adhesion-GPCRs that engage in trans-synaptic complexes with presynaptic teneurins and FLRTs. In mouse CA1-region neurons, Latrophilin-2 and Latrophilin-3 are essential for formation of entorhinal-cortex-derived and Schaffer-collateral-derived synapses, respectively. However, it is unknown whether latrophilins function as GPCRs in synapse formation. Here, we show that Latrophilin-2 and Latrophilin-3 exhibit constitutive GPCR activity that increases cAMP levels, which was blocked by a mutation interfering with G-protein and arrestin interactions of GPCRs. The same mutation impaired the ability of Latrophilin-2 and Latrophilin-3 to rescue the synapse-loss phenotype in Latrophilin-2 and Latrophilin-3 knockout neurons in vivo. Our results suggest that Latrophilin-2 and Latrophilin-3 require GPCR signaling in synapse formation, indicating that latrophilins promote synapse formation in the hippocampus by activating a classical GPCR-signaling pathway.
Reforming the regulation of broker-dealers and investment advisers

A key component of fi nancial regulatory reform is harmonizing the law governing brokerdealers and investment advisers. Historically, brokers charged commissions and were regulated under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Advisers charged asset-based fees and were subject to the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, which contains a special exclusion for brokers. In recent years, brokers have changed their compensation structure and many now market themselves as advisers, raising questions about whether they should be treated as such. The Obama Administration’s 2009 white paper on regulatory reform and draft legislation call for a fi duciary duty to be imposed on brokers that provide advice. This Article explores the debate over regulating brokers and advisers, and makes four key claims. First, changes in brokers’ compensation and marketing methods vitiate application of the broker-dealer exclusion and should subject brokers to the Advisers Act. Second, changes in the nature of brokerage, spurred by changes in technology, make the broker-dealer exclusion unsustainable and Congress should repeal it. The third claim is that imposing fi duciary duties on brokers is incompatible with their historical roles as dealers and underwriters. To resolve this tension, this Article suggests a compromise that enhances brokers’ duties but does not hobble their ability to perform their traditional functions. Finally, regulating brokers as advisers would overburden the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This Article offers alternatives to alleviate the strain .
Learning Spring Mass Locomotion: Guiding Policies With a Reduced-Order Model

In this letter, we describe an approach to achieve dynamic legged locomotion on physical robots which combines existing methods for control with reinforcement learning. Specifically, our goal is a control hierarchy in which highest-level behaviors are planned through reduced-order models, which describe the fundamental physics of legged locomotion, and lower level controllers utilize a learned policy that can bridge the gap between the idealized, simple model and the complex, full order robot. The high-level planner can use a model of the environment and be task specific, while the low-level learned controller can execute a wide range of motions so that it applies to many different tasks. In this letter, we describe this learned dynamic walking controller and show that a range of walking motions from reduced-order models can be used as the command and primary training signal for learned policies. The resulting policies do not attempt to naively track the motion (as a traditional trajectory tracking controller would) but instead balance immediate motion tracking with long term stability. The resulting controller is demonstrated on a human scale, unconstrained, untethered bipedal robot at speeds up to 1.2 m/s. This letter builds the foundation of a generic, dynamic learned walking controller that can be applied to many different tasks.
Accounting for Location Measurement Error in Imaging Data With Application to Atomic Resolution Images of Crystalline Materials

Scientists use imaging to identify objects of interest and infer properties of these objects. The locations of these objects are often measured with error, which when ignored leads to biased parame...
Valuing Player Actions in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Esports, despite its expanding interest, lacks fundamental sports analytics resources such as accessible data or proven and reproducible analytical frameworks. Even Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO), the second most popular esport, suffers from these problems. Thus, quantitative evaluation of CSGO players, a task important to teams, media, bettors and fans, is difficult. To address this, we introduce (1) a data model for CSGO with an open-source implementation; (2) a graph distance measure for defining distances in CSGO; and (3) a context-aware framework to value players’ actions based on changes in their team’s chances of winning. Using over 70 million in-game CSGO events, we demonstrate our framework’s consistency and independence compared to existing valuation frameworks. We also provide use cases demonstrating high-impact play identification and uncertainty estimation.
The role of urban form in the performance of shared automated vehicles

Abstract The technology of Shared Automated Vehicles (SAVs) has advanced significantly in recent years. However, existing SAV studies primarily focus on the system design, while limited studies have examined the impacts of exogenous variables, especially urban form, on SAV performance. Therefore, it remains unclear what key urban form measurements may influence SAV systems’ sustainability. This study fills the research gap by conducting simulation experiments using data collected from 286 cities. This study identifies critical urban form measurements correlated with the simulated SAV performance using fixed effects regression models. The results suggest that SAVs are more efficient and generate less VMT in denser cities with more connected networks and diversified land use development patterns. The model results can provide insights on land use and transportation policies to curb the adverse effects of SAVs in the future and generalize existing SAV simulation results to the rest of U.S. cities.
Research Funding, Income, and Career Satisfaction Among Clinician-Scientists in Ophthalmology in the United States.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to characterize clinician-scientists in ophthalmology and identify factors associated with successful research funding, income, and career satisfaction. Design Cross-sectional study. Methods A survey was conducted of clinician-scientists in ophthalmology at US academic institutions between April 17, 2019, and May 19, 2019. Collected information including 1) demographic data; 2) amount, type, and source of startup funding; first extramural grant; and first R01-equivalent independent grant; 3) starting and current salaries; and 4) Likert-scale measurements of career satisfaction were analyzed using multivariate regression. Results Ninety-eight clinician-scientists in ophthalmology were surveyed across different ages (mean: 48 ± 11 years), research categories, institutional types, geographic regions, and academic ranks. Median startup funding ranged from $50-99k, and median starting salaries ranged from $150-199k. A majority of investigators (67%) received their first extramural award from the National Eye Institute, mainly through K-award mechanisms (82%). The median time to receiving their first independent grant was 8 years, mainly through an R01 award (70%). Greater institutional startup support (P = .027) and earlier extramural grant success (P = .022) were associated with earlier independent funding. Male investigators (P = .001) and MD degreed participants (P = .008) were associated with higher current salaries but not starting salaries. Overall career satisfaction increased with career duration (P = .011) but not with earlier independent funding (P = .746) or higher income (P = .300). Conclusions Success in research funding by clinician-scientists in ophthalmology may be linked to institutional support and earlier acquisition of extramural grants but does not impact academic salaries. Nevertheless, career satisfaction among clinician-scientists improves with time, which is not necessarily influenced by research or financial success.