cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
3D projection electrophoresis for single-cell immunoblotting

Immunoassays and mass spectrometry are powerful single-cell protein analysis tools; however, interfacing and throughput bottlenecks remain. Here, we introduce three-dimensional single-cell immunoblots to detect both cytosolic and nuclear proteins. The 3D microfluidic device is a photoactive polyacrylamide gel with a microwell array-patterned face (xy) for cell isolation and lysis. Single-cell lysate in each microwell is "electrophoretically projected" into the 3rd dimension (z-axis), separated by size, and photo-captured in the gel for immunoprobing and confocal/light-sheet imaging. Design and analysis are informed by the physics of 3D diffusion. Electrophoresis throughput is > 2.5 cells/s (70× faster than published serial sampling), with 25 immunoblots/mm2 device area (>10× increase over previous immunoblots). The 3D microdevice design synchronizes analyses of hundreds of cells, compared to status quo serial analyses that impart hours-long delay between the first and last cells. Here, we introduce projection electrophoresis to augment the heavily genomic and transcriptomic single-cell atlases with protein-level profiling.
Single-Cell Transcriptomics Reveals Zone-Specific Alterations of Liver Sinusoidal Endothelial Cells in Cirrhosis

Background Dysfunction of liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs) is permissive for the progression of liver fibrosis and cirrhosis and responsible for its clinical complications. Here, we have mapped the spatial distribution of heterogeneous liver ECs in normal vs cirrhotic mouse livers and identified zone-specific transcriptomic changes of LSECs associated with liver cirrhosis using scRNA-seq technology. Approach & Results Cirrhosis was generated in endothelial specific green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter mice through carbon tetrachloride inhalation for 12 weeks. GFP-positive liver EC populations were isolated from control and cirrhotic mice by FACS. We identified 6 clusters of liver EC populations including 3 clusters of LSECs, 2 clusters of vascular ECs and 1 cluster of lymphatic ECs. Based on previously reported LSEC-landmarks, we mapped the 3 clusters of LSECs in zones 1, 2, and 3, and determined phenotypic changes in each zone between control and cirrhotic mice. We found genes representing capillarization of LSECs (eg, CD34) as well as extracellular matrix genes were most upregulated in LSECs of zone 3 in cirrhotic mice, which may contribute to the development of basement membranes. LSECs in cirrhotic mice also demonstrated decreased expression of endocytic receptors, most remarkably in zone 3. Transcription factors (Klf2 [Kruppel-like factor-2], Klf4 [Kruppel-like factor-4], and AP-1) that induce nitric oxide production in response to shear stress were downregulated in LSECs of all zones in cirrhotic mice, implying increased intrahepatic vascular resistance. Conclusion This study deepens our knowledge of the pathogenesis of liver cirrhosis at a spatial, cell-specific level, which is indispensable for the development of novel therapeutic strategies to target the most dysfunctional liver ECs.
Polymers for Extreme Conditions Designed Using Syntax-Directed Variational Autoencoders

The design/discovery of new materials is highly nontrivial owing to the near-infinite possibilities of material candidates and multiple required property/performance objectives. Thus, machine learn...
Secure IoT Data Analytics in Cloud via Intel SGX

The growing adoption of IoT devices in our daily life is engendering a data deluge, mostly private information that needs careful maintenance and secure storage system to ensure data integrity and protection. Also, the prodigious IoT ecosystem has provided users with opportunities to automate systems by interconnecting their devices and other services with rule-based programs. The cloud services that are used to store and process sensitive IoT data turn out to be vulnerable to outside threats. Hence, sensitive IoT data and rule-based programs need to be protected against cyberattacks. To address this important challenge, in this paper, we propose a framework to maintain confidentiality and integrity of IoT data and rule-based program execution. We design the framework to preserve data privacy utilizing Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) such as Intel SGX, and end-to-end data encryption mechanism. We evaluate the framework by executing rule-based programs in the SGX securely with both simulated and real IoT device data.
Spatial Concentration of Caching in Wireless Heterogeneous Networks

We propose a decentralized caching policy for wireless heterogeneous networks that makes content placement decisions based on pairwise interactions between cache nodes. We call our proposed scheme $\gamma $ -exclusion cache placement ( $\mathop {\mathrm {\sf {GEC}}} $ ), where a parameter $\gamma $ controls an exclusion radius that discourages nearby caches from storing redundant content. $\mathop {\mathrm {\sf {GEC}}} $ takes into account item popularity and the nodes’ caching priorities and leverages negative dependence to relax the classic 0–1 knapsack problem to yield spatially balanced sampling across caches. We show that $\mathop {\mathrm {\sf {GEC}}} $ guarantees a better concentration (reduced variance) of the required cache storage size than the state of the art, and that the cache size constraints can be satisfied with high probability. Given a cache hit probability target, we compare the 95% confidence intervals of the required cache sizes for three caching schemes: (i) independent placement, (ii) hard exclusion caching ( $\mathop {\mathrm {\sf {HEC}}} $ ), and (iii) the proposed $\mathop {\mathrm {\sf {GEC}}} $ approach. For uniform spatial traffic, we demonstrate that $\mathop {\mathrm {\sf {GEC}}} $ provides approximately a 3x and 2x reduction in required cache size over (i) and (ii), respectively. For non-uniform spatial traffic based on realistic peak-hour variations in urban scenarios, the gains are even greater.
On factoring of unlimited integers

Abdelmadjid Boudaoud asked whether every unlimited integer is a sum of a limited integer and a product of two unlimited integers. Assuming Dickson's conjecture, the answer is negative.
Oil shocks and external balances

Abstract We provide estimates of the effects of demand and supply shocks in the global crude oil market on several measures of oil exporters' and oil importers' external balances, including the oil trade balance, the non-oil trade balance, the current account, capital gains, and changes in net foreign assets (NFA). First, we show that the effect of oil demand and supply shocks on the merchandise trade balance and the current account, which depending on the source of the shock can be large, depends critically on the response of the non-oil trade balance. Our results provide evidence of an intermediate degree of international financial integration. Second, we document the presence of large and systematic valuation effects in response to these shocks. Valuation effects overall tend to cushion the effect of oil demand and supply shocks on the NFA positions of oil exporters and oil importers. Third, we quantify the overall importance of global business cycle demand shocks as well as oil-market specific demand and supply shocks for external balances.
How to Make the Much-Needed Employee Free Choice Act Politically Acceptable

The proposed Employee Free Choice Act (AFCA) would make it easier for employees to select bargaining agents by allowing unions to become certified based upon authorization cards instead of secret ballot Labor Board elections. This practice would be similar to the practice employed by the Labor Board under the original NLRA from 1935 until 1947. To ensure that a majority of workers really desire representation, EFCA could require that 60% or 67% of employees in proposed bargaining units sign authorization cards before the designated union could be certified. EFCA would also require first contract arbitration in the many instances in which newly certified unions are unable to negotiate initial agreements.
OBSERVING UNOBSERVABLES: IDENTIFYING INFORMATION ASYMMETRIES WITH A CONSUMER CREDIT FIELD EXPERIMENT

Information asymmetries are important in theory but difficult to identify in practice. We estimate the presence and importance of hidden information and hidden action problems in a consumer credit market using a new field experiment methodology. We randomized 58,000 direct mail offers to former clients of a major South African lender along three dimensions: (i) an initial “offer interest rate” featured on a direct mail solicitation; (ii) a “contract interest rate” that was revealed only after a borrower agreed to the initial offer rate; and (ii) a dynamic repayment incentive that was also a surprise and extended preferential pricing on future loans to borrowers who remained in good standing. These three randomizations, combined with complete knowledge of the lender's information set, permit identification of specific types of private information problems. Our setup distinguishes hidden information effects from selection on the offer rate (via unobservable risk and anticipated effort), from hidden action effects (via moral hazard in effort) induced by actual contract terms. We find strong evidence of moral hazard and weaker evidence of hidden information problems. A rough estimate suggests that perhaps 13% to 21% of default is due to moral hazard. Asymmetric information thus may help explain the prevalence of credit constraints even in a market that specializes in financing high-risk borrowers.
A Further Study of the Choice Between Two Hedging Strategies–the Continuous Case

In our previous work, the choice between two popular hedging strategies was studied under the assumption that the hedge position of the underlying portfolio follows a discrete-time Markov chain with boundary conditions. This paper aims to investigate the same problem for the continuous case. We first assume that the underlying hedge position follows an arbitrary continuous-time Markov process; we give the general formulas for long-run cost per unit time under two cost structures: (1) a fixed transaction cost (2) a non-fixed transaction cost. Then we consider the case where the underlying hedge position follows a Brownian motion with drift; we show that (i) re-balancing the hedge position to the initial position is always more cost-efficient than re-balancing it to the boundary for a fixed transaction cost; (ii) when the cost function satisfies certain conditions, re-balancing the hedge position to the initial position is more cost-efficient than re-balancing it to the boundary for a non-fixed transaction cost.
Sufficient dimension reduction for spatial point processes directed by Gaussian random fields

Summary. We develop a sufficient dimension reduction paradigm for inhomogeneous spatial point processes driven by Gaussian random fields. Specifically, we introduce the notion of the kth-order central intensity subspace. We show that a central subspace can be defined as the combination of all central intensity subspaces. For many commonly used spatial point process models, we find that the central subspace is equivalent to the first-order central intensity subspace. To estimate the latter, we propose a flexible framework under which most existing benchmark inverse regression methods can be extended to the spatial point process setting. We develop novel graphical and formal testing methods to determine the structural dimension of the central subspace. These methods are extremely versatile in that they do not require any specific model assumption on the correlation structures of the covariates and the spatial point process. To illustrate the practical use of the methods proposed, we apply them to both simulated data and two real examples.
A Bayesian hierarchical model for inferring player strategy types in a number guessing game

The $p$-beauty contest is a multi-player number guessing game that is widely used to study strategic behavior. Using new data from a specially-designed web experiment, we examine the evidence in favor of a popular class of behavioral economic models called $k$-step thinking models. After fitting a custom Bayesian spline model to the experimental data, we estimate that the proportion of players who could be using a $k$-step thinking strategy is approximately 25%.
The comeback of Modell Deutschland? The New German Political Economy in the EU

Since the early 1990s four institutional weaknesses have taken turns as the popular ‘whipping boy’ for Germany's economic ills: a backward-oriented, bank-dominated financial system; an insider-dominated corporate governance system; rigid labor markets and inflexible unions; and an overly expensive welfare system. This paper surveys a wide range of the reforms that have been undertaken to redress these weaknesses. While there is still a clear need for further labor market and especially welfare state reforms, Germany's institutional reforms to date represent successful adjustment to more global and competitive capital and product markets – one that preserves an economic model capable of combining relatively high social equality with long-term competitiveness. In this sense Germany has laid the foundations for a comeback and may still serve as a model for all of the European Union.
Analyzing the Robustness of Semi-Parametric Duration Models for the Study of Repeated Events

Estimators within the Cox family are often used to estimate models for repeated events. Yet, there is much we still do not know about the performance of these estimators. In particular, we do not know how they perform given time dependence, different censoring rates, and a varying number of events and sample sizes. We use Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate the performance of a variety of popular semi-parametric estimators as these data aspects change and under conditions of event dependence and heterogeneity, both, or neither. We conclude that the conditional frailty model outperforms other standard estimators under a wide array of data-generating processes, and data limitations rarely alter its performance.
Growth and Capital Flows with Risky Entrepreneurship

We show that the behavior of entrepreneurs facing incomplete financial markets and risky investment can explain why accelerations of productivity growth in developing countries tend to be associated with current account improvements. Under uninsurable investment risk, entrepreneurs have to largely rely on self-financing so that, when productivity growth rises, entrepreneurs increase saving to finance new investment. The key insight is that saving has to increase more than investment to also allow for the accumulation of precautionary assets that entrepreneurs hold for self-insurance against investment risk. Numerical simulations show that this net saving increase can generate a current account improvement in line with the empirical evidence. (JEL E21, E22, F32, F41, F43, G32, L26)
INFORMATION NETWORKS: EVIDENCE FROM ILLEGAL INSIDER TRADING TIPS

This paper exploits a novel hand-collected dataset to provide a comprehensive analysis of the social relationships that underlie illegal insider trading networks. I find that inside information flows through strong social ties based on family, friends, geographic proximity, and ancestry. On average, inside tips originate from corporate executives and reach buy-side investors after three links in the network. Inside traders earn prodigious returns of 35% over 21 days, with traders farther from the original source earning lower returns, but higher dollar gains. More broadly, this paper provides some of the only evidence on information networks that employs direct observations of person-to-person communication.
Postures of Judging: An Exploration of Judicial Decisionmaking

This Article critiques Ronald Dworkin’s answer to the question of fit: how judges reconcile general legal rules with particular situations. Dworkin’s heavy focus on legal principles under-emphasizes the importance of facts in judicial decisionmaking. Exploring how judges approach the question of fit from a more literary perspective, the Article examines the "posture" of a judge — a judge’s physical and temporal position in relation to the cases she adjudicates, a position which affects the level of generality with which a judge perceives the facts of a case and directly influences a judge’s toleration of imprecision in fit between general propositions and concrete cases. Postures provide a descriptive account of aspects of our legal experience that Dworkin’s principled jurisprudence cannot explain. The Article focuses on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov to illustrate how a multiplicity of similar yet distinct postures are shaped and how they relate to each other. Through a comparison of law and literature, the Article describes how literature grapples with similar questions as law, and how literature can instruct us about the successes and failures of certain postures. ____________________________ No elaboration of statute law can forestall variant cases and the need of interpretation ad hoc. Moral and legal schemes that attempt the impossible in the way of definite formulation compensate for explicit strictness in some lines by implicit looseness in others. The only truly severe code is the one that forgoes codification, throwing responsibility for judging each case upon the agents concerned, imposing upon them the burden of discovery and adaptation.
Welcome to the Wild West: Protecting Access to Cross Border Fertility Care in the United States

As has been the case with other types of medical tourism, the phenomenon of cross border fertility care ("CBFC") has sparked concern about the lack of global or even national harmonization in the regulation of the fertility industry. The diversity of laws around the globe leads would-be parents to forum shop for a welcoming place to make babies. Focusing specifically on the phenomenon of travel to the United States, this Article takes up the question of whether there should be any legal barriers to those who come to the United States seeking CBFC. In part, CBFC suffers from the same general concerns raised about the use of fertility treatment in general, but it is possible to imagine a subset of arguments that would lead to forbidding or at least discouraging people from coming to the United States for CBFC, either as a matter of law or policy. This paper stands in opposition to any such effort and contemplates the moral and ethical concerns about CBFC and how, and if, those concerns warrant expression in law. Part I describes the conditions that lead some couples and individuals to leave their home countries to access fertility treatments abroad and details why the United States, with its comparatively liberal regulation of ART, has become a popular CBFC destination for travelers from around the world. Part II offers and refutes arguments supporting greater domestic control over those who seek to satisfy their desires for CBFC in the United States by reasserting the importance of the right of procreation while also noting appropriate concerns about justice and equality in the market for babies. Part III continues the exploration of justice by investigating the question of international cooperation in legislating against perceived wrongs. This Part concludes that consistent legislation across borders is appropriate where there is consensus about the wrong of an act, but it is unnecessary and inappropriate where there remain cultural conflicts about certain practices—in this case assisted reproduction.
Certification of training and training outcomes

Abstract External certification of workplace skills obtained through on-the-job training is widespread in many countries. This may indicate that training is financed by workers, and certification serves to assure the quality of the training offered by the firm. However, other evidence shows that general training is financed by firms, especially in Germany. We show in this paper that external certification of training may also be necessary for an equilibrium with firm-sponsored training. Firm financing of training is only possible if firms have monopsony power over the workers after training. If the training firm can extract too much of the employment rents, however, workers may not have sufficient incentives to put forth effort during training. Certification increases the value training to the outside market, and hence to workers, making firm-sponsored training possible.
An analytical model for the formation of economic clusters

Abstract A simple spatial economy derived from microeconomic foundations is presented to gain insight into the formation of economic clusters. In this model, the formation of economic clusters is a consequence of the competition between economic forces that are consistent with atomistic agents maximizing their utility. An analytic approach is used to obtain the evolution of economic clusters. With this approach, the number of clusters which will grow can be predicted. These results are derived in the traditional one-dimensional geometry and extended to the more realistic two-dimensional landscape.
Can Paying “Too Much” or “Too Little” Tax Contribute to Forced CEO Turnover?

ABSTRACT Our study examines the effect of corporate tax outcomes on forced CEO turnover. While prior research argues that firms often do not engage in tax avoidance due to reputational concerns, the empirical evidence suggesting the existence of reputational costs is scarce. In a broad sample of firms, we find evidence of a relation between the payment of low taxes and forced turnover. We also find that forced CEO turnover is more likely when the firm pays a high tax rate relative to its peers. Our results are consistent with the existence of previously unexplored individual reputational costs for not engaging in tax avoidance. JEL Classifications: M40; H25.
A Fundamental-Analysis-Based Test for Speculative Prices

ABSTRACT: I investigate the possibility that recent price movements include significantly larger speculative components than those observed historically, where speculation is defined as the component of price that does not co-move with fundamentals. Specifically, at the aggregate level, price and accounting fundamentals co-move historically (1979–1993) but do not co-move recently (1994–2008). The lack of co-movement in recent periods is accompanied by a significant reduction in the positive association between ratios of accounting fundamentals-to-price with future market returns. Changes in measurement error in accounting fundamentals do not appear to cause the lack of co-movement in recent periods, and risk- and growth-based explanations are not supported by the data. The results of this study provide evidence of a structural change in the long-run association between price and accounting fundamentals. Data Availability: Data are available from public sources identified in the study.
Data science and prediction

Big data promises automated actionable knowledge creation and predictive models for use by both humans and computers.
The merits of horizontal versus vertical FDI in the presence of uncertainty

We examine the impact of uncertainty on vertical and horizontal FDI. Our model shows that greater supply uncertainty reduces the expected income from vertical FDI but increases the expected income from horizontal FDI. Greater demand uncertainty adversely affects the expected income under both production modes. Uncertainty about predatory actions by the host country is more costly to the multinational under vertical than under the horizontal mode. We examine sales by foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies. Conditioning on host-country characteristics thought to influence FDI, we find evidence that volatility and sovereign risk have a greater negative impact on vertical FDI than on horizontal FDI.
Large-angle observatory with energy resolution for synoptic x-ray studies (LOBSTER-SXS)

The soft X-ray band hosts a larger, more diverse range of variable sources than any other region of the electromagnetic spectrum. They are stars, compact binaries, SMBH's, the X-ray components of Gamma-Ray Bursts, their X-ray afterglows, and soft X-ray flares from supernova. We describe a concept for a very wide field (~ 4 ster) modular hybrid X-ray telescope system that can measure positions of bursts and fast transients with as good as arc second accuracy, the precision required to identify fainter and increasingly more distant events. The dimensions and materials of all telescope modules are identical. All but two are part of a cylindrical lobster-eye telescope with flat double sided mirrors that focus in one dimension and utilize a coded mask for resolution in the other. Their positioning accuracy is about an arc minute. The two remaining modules are made from the same materials but configured as a Kirkpatrick-Baez telescope with longer focal length that focuses in two dimensions. When pointed it refines the hybrid telescope's arc minute positions to an arc second and provides larger effective area for spectral and temporal measurements. Above 10 keV the mirrors act as an imaging collimator with positioning capability. For short duration events this hybrid focusing/coded mask system is more sensitive and versatile than either a 2D coded mask or a 2D lobster-eye telescope. Very wide field X-ray telescopes have become feasible as the ability to fabricate large area arrays of CCD and CMOS detectors has improved. This instrument's function in the soft X-ray band is similar to that of Swift in hard X-ray band and there is a larger variety of fast transients in the soft X-ray band. An instrument with considerably more sensitivity than current wide field X-ray detectors would be compatible with a modest NASA Explorer mission.
Dynamic Conditional Beta Is Alive and Well in the Cross Section of Daily Stock Returns

This paper presents evidence for a significantly positive link between the dynamic conditional beta and the cross section of daily stock returns. An investment strategy that takes a long position in stocks in the highest conditional beta decile and a short position in stocks in the lowest conditional beta decile produces average returns and alphas in the range of 0.60%–0.80% per month. We provide an investor attention-based explanation of this finding. We show that stocks with high conditional beta have strong attention-grabbing characteristics, leading to a higher fraction of buyer-initiated trades for these stocks. We also find that stocks recently bought perform significantly better than stocks recently sold. Hence, the high beta stocks that investors are more likely to buy have higher expected returns than the low beta stocks that investors are more likely to sell. This paper was accepted by Lauren Cohen, finance.
Flexible Products for Dynamic Preferences

Consumers often have needs that change in a dynamic fashion over time due to physiological, mental or environmental variations. We develop a model to address a product strategy question on how to satisfy dynamic consumer preferences: Should a firm offer multiple standard products, each designed for a specific purpose (e.g., several specialized golf clubs), or a flexible product that can be reconfigured by consumers as their preferences change (e.g., one adjustable golf club)? Often the latter approach is fueled by new technology, like the dial-a-dose system that Novo Nordisk invented and perfected over the years for its insulin pens. We find that products that deliver a high utility to consumers are ideal candidates for flexible designs, as higher utility encourages reconfiguration and justifies a higher flexibility premium. This offers an explanation as to why flexible products are typically sold at significant premiums over their ‘inflexible’ counterparts. We also discover a non-obvious relationship between optimal product strategy and dynamic consumer preferences. Intuition suggests that product flexibility would be more valuable when consumer preferences are more dynamic in the sense of changing more often. On the contrary, we find that a flexible product may lead to higher profits than a portfolio of standard products when consumer preferences are more stable. While higher stability in preferences reduces the frequency of reconfigurations, it also increases the value of each reconfiguration when preference shifts do occur. Finally, we also investigate the impact of heterogeneity in consumer preferences. We find that it can lead to a hybrid product strategy being optimal, where offering a mix of flexible and standard products enables efficient price discrimination between high- and low-end consumers.
Statistical Significance and the Burden of Persuasion

In most endeavors concerned with the acquisition of knowledge, quantitative information is welcomed. In law, however, it appears sometimes that scientific or numerical evidence makes cases harder, not easier. Nevertheless, there are many cases and administrative proceedings, in such areas as environmental law, food and drug regulation, and civil rights, in which statistical data obtained by observation or experiment are readily accepted as assisting in the proper resolution of disputed issues of fact.' When courts or administrators confront scientific and statistical evidence in these proceedings, they are not always certain of how to weigh the evidence or whether they should, or must, rely on the standards for proof that scientists apply in evaluating statistical hypotheses. Two decisions of the Supreme Court illustrate this uncertainty. In Castaneda zv Partida, 2 a grand jury discrimination case, the Court, acting as its own statistician, computed a statistic known as the "standard deviation."3 The Court found this computation highly probative of discrimination in light of the "general rule" that "if the difference between the expected value and the observed number is greater than two or three standard deviations, the hypothesis that the jury drawing was random would be suspect to a social scientist."4 One would not have thought that this reference, in a single footnote, to a standard of proof popular among social scientists would be read as commanding that the same standard be determinative when evaluating statistical evidence in court. Yet, in Hazelwood School District v. United States,5 an employment discrimination case decided the same year, the Court dropped the qualifying language about social science and noted that, under the "precise" methodology delineated in Castaneda, a disparity of slightly less than two standard deviations was not "suspect."6 In the wake of these opinions,
THE COSTS OF ENTRENCHED BOARDS

This paper investigates empirically how the value of publicly traded firms is overall affected by arrangements protecting management from removal. In a majority of U.S. public companies, staggered boards substantially insulate the board from removal in either a hostile takeover or a proxy contest. We find that staggered boards are associated with a lower firm value (as measured by Tobin’s Q). We also find evidence consistent with the possibility that staggered boards bring about, and not merely reflect, an economically significant reduction in firm value. Finally, the correlation with reduced firm value is stronger for staggered boards that are established in the corporate charter (which shareholders cannot amend) than for staggered boards established in the company’s bylaws (which can be amended by shareholders).
Vicarious Liability in Torts: The Sex Exception

The vicarious liability of employers for the torts of their employees is one of the most firmly established principles in the common law world. Yet in cases of sexual abuse or exploitation, U.S. courts have created an exception to the rule, applying the familiar “course and scope of employment” requirement far more restrictively. Despite growing awareness that sexual abuse constitutes a predictable risk in many workplaces, the sex exception has stubbornly persisted, even in jurisdictions that embrace new, more “liberal” approaches to vicarious liability centered on “enterprise risk.” This article, based on the 2013 Valparaiso University Monsanto Lecture on Tort Law and Jurisprudence, examines the confusing body of U.S. cases, finding a double standard in the way courts approach sex abuse cases as compared to cases of intentional non-sexual violence. Drawing upon feminist theory, cognitive psychology and interdisciplinary scholarship on institutional culture, the article critiques the U.S. version of sexual exceptionalism and proposes a new rule that would cover the most common cases of sexual abuse.
Pathways to a Good Job: Perceived Work Quality among the Machinists in North America

This paper examines the perceived quality of jobs held by a sample of members of the International Association of Machinists, a large union in North America. It is argued that useful insights can be obtained by examining the relationships between global and specific measures of job quality. We then compare two ways of linking them: the regression or correlational-causation approach and the configurational approach that regards jobs as ‘bundles’ of various characteristics. Our results suggest that there are various pathways by which workers may consider jobs to be ‘good’ but that job quality among the machinists is related especially to satisfaction with benefits, interesting work and autonomy.
Financial Intermediation and The Great Depression: A Multiple Equilibrium Interpretation

Abstract This paper explores the behavior of the U.S. economy during the interwar period from the perspective of a model in which the existence of nonconvexities in the intermediation process gives rise to a multiplicity of equilibria. The resulting indeterminacy is resolved through a sunspot process which leads to endogenous fluctuations in aggregate economic activity. From this perspective, the Depression period is represented as a regime shift associated with a financial crisis. Our model economy has properties which are broadly consistent with observations over the interwar period. Contrary to observation, the model predicts a negative correlation of consumption and investment as well as a highly volatile capital stock. Our model of financial crisis reproduces many aspects of the Great Depression, though the model predicts a much sharper fall in investment than is observed in the data. Modifications to our model (adding durable goods and a capacity utilization choice) do not overcome these deficiencies.
Is the short rate drift actually nonlinear

Ait-Sahalia (1996) and Stanton (1997) use nonparametric estimators applied to short-term interest rate data to conclude that the drift function contains important nonlinearities. We study the finite-sample properties of their estimators by applying them to simulated sample paths of a square-root diffusion. Although the drift function is linear, both estimators suggest nonlinearities of the type and magnitude reported in Ait-Sahalia (1996) and Stanton (1997). Combined with the results of a weighted least squares estimator, this evidence implies that nonlinearity of the short rate drift is not a robust stylized fact.
What Are We - Laborers, Factories, or Spare Parts? The Tax Treatment of Transfers of Human Body Materials

Table of ContentsI. Introduction 1055II. The Burgeoning Problem of the Taxation of Human Body Materials 1059III. Existing Law Is Inadequate 1064A. The Existing Statutory Framework Does Not DirectlyAddress the Issue 10661. Income Tax Provisions 10662. Payroll Tax Provisions 10693. Gift Tax Provisions 10704. Estate Tax Provisions 10715. Conclusions 1072B. Existing Guidance Is Contradictory, Narrowly Drawn, and Outdated 1072C. Advice Given by Clinics Is Erroneous 1079D. Treatment by Commentators Is Narrow and/or Outdated 1080IV. The Problem Is Multifaceted and Complex 1082A. The Debate Is Framed by Broader Dispute over How We View Human Bodies and Their Materials 1082B. Markets for Human Body Materials Are Growing and Changing 1088V. Developing a Framework 1090A. No Uniform Characterization of Human Body Materials 1090B. Despite Complications, Can Make Sense Within Current Tax Framework 1091C. Guiding Principles 10921. Tax Consequences of Gratuitous Transfers 10942. Tax Consequences of Commercial Transactions 10963. Cadavers (And Their Constituent Parts) That Are Buried or Otherwise Disposed of in Traditional Ways Should Not Be Considered Property 1102D. Application to Common Scenarios 11031. Surrogacy Arrangements 11032. Sales of Eggs 1 1043. Sales of Plasma and Sperm 1 1044. Black Market Kidney Sales 1 1065. Kidney Donations 1 107E. Implementing the Framework 1107VI. Conclusion 11081. IntroductionTransfers of human body materials are ubiquitous. Details about them appear daily in the popular press, and scholars regularly debate the ethical questions they present. These transfers can (and do) take many forms. For example, consider:* Military wives serving as paid surrogate mothers while their husbands are deployed abroad;1* Ivy League women selling their eggs for upwards of $50,000;* Sales of kidneys for $20,000;3* Semi-weekly sales of plasma yielding an annual income of $75,000;4* Donation of a pint of blood or a kidney to a charitable organization;* A woman providing an egg for her sister's use in in vitro fertilization;* A taxi driver donating his kidney to a passenger who is on the verge of kidney failure;5 and* The harvesting of corneas and other body materials from cadavers for commercial resale. …
Nonembeddability of persistence diagrams with $p>2$ Wasserstein metric

Persistence diagrams do not admit an inner product structure compatible with any Wasserstein metric. Hence, when applying kernel methods to persistence diagrams, the underlying feature map necessarily causes distortion. We prove persistence diagrams with the p-Wasserstein metric do not admit a coarse embedding into a Hilbert space when p > 2.
Identifying Malpractice-Prone Physicians

We analyze the claims database of a large malpractice insurer covering more than 8,000 physicians and 9,300 claims. Applying empirical Bayes methods in a regression setting, we construct a predictor of each physician's underlying propensity to incur malpractice claims. Our explanatory factors are physician demographics (age, sex, specialty, training) and physician practice pattern characteristics (practice setting, procedures performed, practice intensity, special risk factors, and characteristics of hospital(s) on staff of). We divide physicians into medical and surgical/ancillary specialty categories and fit separate models to each. In the surgical/ancillary specialty group, physician characteristics can effectively distinguish between more and less claims-prone physicians. Physician characteristics have somewhat less predictive power in the medical specialty group. As measured by predictive information, physician characteristics are superior to 10 years of claims history. Insofar as medical malpractice claims can be thought of as extreme indicators of poor-quality care, this finding suggests that easily gathered physician characteristics can be helpful in designing targeted quality of care improvement policies.
Precedent, Fairness, and Common Sense Dictate that Padilla v. Kentucky Should Apply Retroactively

In 2010, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Padilla v. Kentucky. The Padilla Court’s holding was that failure of counsel to advise a non-citizen criminal defendant about the immigration consequences of a guilty plea constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel. This article addresses whether Padilla applies to convictions that occurred before Padilla was decided, in March 2010. First, this article provides background on relevant immigration law, Padilla v. Kentucky, and the Supreme Court’s retroactivity case law. Then, this article considers how lower courts have addressed the issue of retroactivity in the approximately twenty-seven months after the Padilla decision. This article also provides in-depth analysis of circuit courts and state supreme courts which have addressed the retroactivity issue. This article then critically analyzes the common arguments for and against applying Padilla retroactively. Finally, this article proposes that Padilla apply to all non-citizens who have been deported as a result of ineffective assistance of counsel.On April 30, 2012, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide the issue this article discusses. Although “confused and confusing,” the Supreme Court’s retroactivity case law supports a finding that Padilla applies retroactively. Similarly, fairness dictates that non-citizens who have received ineffective assistance of counsel, and been deported as a result, should be afforded a remedy. Common sense also dictates that Padilla applies retroactively. A plain reading of the Padilla case clearly imagines the retroactive effect of the Padilla holding. Moreover, the Supreme Court’s application of the Padilla rule to Jose Padilla was, in every sense, similar to those who would benefit from Padilla being retroactive. For these reasons, precedent, fairness and common sense dictate that Padilla should apply retroactively.
International Dispute Settlement at the Trademark-Domain Name Interface

This essay identifies some of the emerging legal issues relating to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy ("UDRP"), a new anational online dispute settlement system established by a private, non-profit corporation, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in late 1999. The UDRP creates a fast and inexpensive mechanism for trademark owners to recapture domain names held by persons who, in bad faith, register and use domain names that are confusingly similar to those marks.The UDRP is worthy of serious study for at least two reasons. First and foremost, the process by which the UDRP was created, and the way in which it is structured, departs significantly from preexisting approaches to international dispute settlement, not only for intellectual property rights but also for international law generally. These differences in creation and structure raise questions about the UDRP's legitimacy and thus the legitimacy of the case law it is producing.Second, UDRP is already being heralded by national and international lawmakers as a model for resolving a much broader set of transborder legal problems. Although certain aspects of the UDRP may be worthy of emulation, this essay asks some hard questions about how anational dispute settlement systems ought to be structured. It focuses in particular on the mechanisms used to control the limited powers granted to dispute settlement decisionmakers such as UDRP panels. And it proposes several steps that ICANN should take to bolster the legitimacy of this new dispute settlement system.
Current Practices and Issues in Capital Budgeting and Reporting

Budgeting and accounting professionals, as well as other interested parties, are currently examining ways to improve governmental capital budgeting and reporting. Although progress has been made, major policy issues are still being analyzed and debated. This article provides an overview of current practices and the major policy issues that are being addressed. The discussion incorporates related ideas and observations made by Jesse Burkhead four decades ago. The author concludes that many of Burkhead's insights in the area of capital budgeting and reporting are still relevant and useful today.
Sources of variation in social networks

Abstract What explains the large variation in the number of contacts (degree) that different participants of social networks have: age, randomness, or some unobservable fitness measure? To answer this question, I extend the model presented in Jackson and Rogers (2007) to allow individuals to vary in their ability to attract contacts. I estimate the parameters of the extended model, using a social network of citations among high-energy physics papers, and find that the extended Jackson–Rogers model can parsimoniously fit the degree distribution of each age cohort. Moreover, both the length of time spent in the network and the unobservable fitness measure are important in explaining the observed variation in participantsʼ degrees.
Perception of volcanic eruption as agent of change on Merapi volcano, Central Java

Abstract Events like volcanic eruptions challenge equilibrium models of nature. This is a study of the perceptions of eruptions as agents of change, taking Mt. Merapi in Central Java as a case study. Villagers living on Merapi have developed a system of religious belief, and a system of agro-ecological practices, that ‘domesticates’ the volcanic hazard. The villagers view eruptions as agents of change, often change for the good. The Indonesian government, on the other hand, technologizes and exoticizes the volcanic hazard, and conceptually and materially separates it from the realm of civil society. The state focuses its attention exclusively on intermittent moments of heightened volcanic activity, whereas the villagers focus their attention on the much longer interim periods when there is little or no such activity. This case study shows that not just the perception of risk, but the very concept of risk itself can vary. The cultural production of such concepts co-evolves with natural patterns of perturbation.
Deference to Agency Statutory Interpretations First Advanced in Litigation? The "Chevron" Two-Step and the "Skidmore" Shuffle

Imagine the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) commences suit against you and alleges that, in contravention of the Internal Revenue Code, you failed to report all of your taxable income. The statute in question is ambiguous—under the IRS’s interpretation, you are liable; under yours, you are not. The IRS argues that the court should defer to its interpretation. This position is unsurprising, given that courts often defer to agency interpretations by according either controlling Chevron deference when an agency’s interpretation is promulgated with the force of law, or persuasive Skidmore deference when it is promulgated informally. But two things about this situation are surprising: not only is this suit the first time that the IRS has advanced this particular interpretation, but the IRS—even though it is appearing as a litigant, just like you—nonetheless is arguing for deference. You are quick to remind the court that “[d]eference to what appears to be nothing more than an agency’s convenient litigating position would be entirely inappropriate,”1 citing Bowen v Georgetown University Hospital.2 The IRS responds that it is not seeking Chevron deference, which is what Bowen addressed, but Skidmore deference. Relying on United States v Mead Corp,3 the IRS argues that informal agency interpretations—like amicus briefs or administrators’ rulings—are entitled to Skidmore deference because “Chevron did nothing to eliminate Skidmore’s