cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Modeling left-truncated and right-censored survival data with longitudinal covariates

There is a surge in medical follow-up studies that include longitudinal covariates in the modeling of survival data. So far, the focus has been largely on right censored survival data. We consider survival data that are subject to both left truncation and right censoring. Left truncation is well known to produce biased sample. The sampling bias issue has been resolved in the literature for the case which involves baseline or time-varying covariates that are observable. The problem remains open however for the important case where longitudinal covariates are present in survival models. A joint likelihood approach has been shown in the literature to provide an effective way to overcome those difficulties for right censored data, but this approach faces substantial additional challenges in the presence of left truncation. Here we thus propose an alternative likelihood to overcome these difficulties and show that the regression coefficient in the survival component can be estimated unbiasedly and efficiently. Issues about the bias for the longitudinal component are discussed. The new approach is illustrated numerically through simulations and data from a multi-center AIDS cohort study.
Adaptive Experimental Design with Temporal Interference: A Maximum Likelihood Approach

Suppose an online platform wants to compare a treatment and control policy, e.g., two different matching algorithms in a ridesharing system, or two different inventory management algorithms in an online retail site. Standard randomized controlled trials are typically not feasible, since the goal is to estimate policy performance on the entire system. Instead, the typical current practice involves dynamically alternating between the two policies for fixed lengths of time, and comparing the average performance of each over the intervals in which they were run as an estimate of the treatment effect. However, this approach suffers from *temporal interference*: one algorithm alters the state of the system as seen by the second algorithm, biasing estimates of the treatment effect. Further, the simple non-adaptive nature of such designs implies they are not sample efficient. We develop a benchmark theoretical model in which to study optimal experimental design for this setting. We view testing the two policies as the problem of estimating the steady state difference in reward between two unknown Markov chains (i.e., policies). We assume estimation of the steady state reward for each chain proceeds via nonparametric maximum likelihood, and search for consistent (i.e., asymptotically unbiased) experimental designs that are efficient (i.e., asymptotically minimum variance). Characterizing such designs is equivalent to a Markov decision problem with a minimum variance objective; such problems generally do not admit tractable solutions. Remarkably, in our setting, using a novel application of classical martingale analysis of Markov chains via Poisson's equation, we characterize efficient designs via a succinct convex optimization problem. We use this characterization to propose a consistent, efficient online experimental design that adaptively samples the two Markov chains.
Approximate Quantum Error Correction Revisited: Introducing the Alpha-Bit

We establish that, in an appropriate limit, qubits of communication should be regarded as composite resources, decomposing cleanly into independent correlation and transmission components. Because qubits of communication can establish ebits of entanglement, qubits are more powerful resources than ebits. We identify a new communications resource, the zero-bit, which is precisely half the gap between them; replacing classical bits by zero-bits makes teleportation asymptotically reversible. This decomposition of a qubit into an ebit and two zero-bits has wide-ranging consequences including applications to state merging, the quantum channel capacity, entanglement distillation, quantum identification and remote state preparation. The source of these results is the theory of approximate quantum error correction. The action of a quantum channel is reversible if and only if no information is leaked to the environment, a characterization that is useful even in approximate form. However, different notions of approximation lead to qualitatively different forms of quantum error correction in the limit of large dimension. We study the effect of a constraint on the dimension of the reference system when considering information leakage. While the resulting condition fails to ensure that the entire input can be corrected, it does ensure that all subspaces of dimension matching that of the reference are correctable. The size of the reference can be characterized by a parameter $$\alpha $$; we call the associated resource an $$\alpha $$-bit. Changing $$\alpha $$ interpolates between standard quantum error correction and quantum identification, a form of equality testing for quantum states. We develop the theory of $$\alpha $$-bits, including the applications above, and determine the $$\alpha $$-bit capacity of general quantum channels, finding single-letter formulas for the entanglement-assisted and amortised variants.
OLD MASSIVE GLOBULAR CLUSTERS AND THE STELLAR HALO OF THE DWARF STARBURST GALAXY NGC 4449

We use Hubble Space Telescope imaging to show that the nearby dwarf starburst galaxy NGC?4449 has an unusual abundance of luminous red star clusters. Joint constraints from integrated photometry, low-resolution spectroscopy, dynamical mass-to-light ratios, and resolved color-magnitude diagrams provide evidence that some of these clusters are old globular clusters (GCs). Spectroscopic data for two massive clusters suggest intermediate metallicities ([Fe/H] ~?1) and subsolar Mg enhancement ([Mg/Fe] ~?0.1 to ?0.2). One of these clusters may be the nucleus of a tidally disrupting dwarf galaxy; the other is very massive (~3 ? 106 M ?). We have also identified a population of remote halo GCs. NGC?4449 is consistent with an emerging picture of the ubiquity of stellar halos among dwarf galaxies, and study of its GCs may help distinguish between accretion and in situ scenarios for such halos.
HEATING OF FLARE LOOPS WITH OBSERVATIONALLY CONSTRAINED HEATING FUNCTIONS

We analyze high-cadence high-resolution observations of a C3.2 flare obtained by AIA/SDO on 2010 August 1. The flare is a long-duration event with soft X-ray and EUV radiation lasting for over 4 hr. Analysis suggests that magnetic reconnection and formation of new loops continue for more than 2 hr. Furthermore, the UV 1600 A observations show that each of the individual pixels at the feet of flare loops is brightened instantaneously with a timescale of a few minutes, and decays over a much longer timescale of more than 30 minutes. We use these spatially resolved UV light curves during the rise phase to construct empirical heating functions for individual flare loops, and model heating of coronal plasmas in these loops. The total coronal radiation of these flare loops are compared with soft X-ray and EUV radiation fluxes measured by GOES and AIA. This study presents a method to observationally infer heating functions in numerous flare loops that are formed and heated sequentially by reconnection throughout the flare, and provides a very useful constraint to coronal heating models.
PSpectRe: A Pseudo-Spectral Code for (P)reheating

PSpectRe is a C++ program that uses Fourier-space pseudo-spectral methods to evolve interacting scalar fields in an expanding universe. PSpectRe is optimized for the analysis of parametric resonance in the post-inflationary universe and provides an alternative to finite differencing codes, such as Defrost and LatticeEasy. PSpectRe has both second- (Velocity-Verlet) and fourth-order (Runge-Kutta) time integrators. Given the same number of spatial points and/or momentum modes, PSpectRe is not significantly slower than finite differencing codes, despite the need for multiple Fourier transforms at each timestep, and exhibits excellent energy conservation. Further, by computing the post-resonance equation of state, we show that in some circumstances PSpectRe obtains reliable results while using substantially fewer points than a finite differencing code. PSpectRe is designed to be easily extended to other problems in early-universe cosmology, including the generation of gravitational waves during phase transitions and pre-inflationary bubble collisions. Specific applications of this code will be described in future work.
Legendre functions of fractional degree: transformations and evaluations

Associated Legendre functions of fractional degree appear in the solution of boundary value problems on wedges or in toroidal geometries, and elsewhere in applied mathematics. In the classical case when the degree is half an odd integer, they can be expressed using complete elliptic integrals. In this study, many transformations are derived, which reduce the case when the degree differs from an integer by one-third, one-fourth or one-sixth to the classical case. These transformations or identities facilitate the symbolic manipulation and evaluation of Legendre and Ferrers functions. They generalize both Ramanujan9s transformations of elliptic integrals and Whipple9s formula, which relates Legendre functions of the first and second kinds. The proofs employ algebraic coordinate transformations, specified by algebraic curves.
A New Godunov Scheme for MHD, with Application to the MRI in disks

We describe a new numerical scheme for MHD which combines a higher order Godunov method (PPM) with Constrained Transport. The results from a selection of multidimensional test problems are presented. The complete test suite used to validate the method, as well as implementations of the algorithm in both F90 and C, are available from the web. A fully three‐dimensional version of the algorithm has been developed, and is being applied to a variety of astrophysical problems including the decay of supersonic MHD turbulence, the nonlinear evolution of the MHD Rayleigh‐Taylor instability, and the saturation of the magnetorotational instability in the shearing box. Our new simulations of the MRI represent the first time that a higher‐order Godunov scheme has been applied to this problem, providing a quantitative check on the accuracy of previous results computed with ZEUS; the latter are found to be reliable.
Superpixel based segmentation and classification of polyps in wireless capsule endoscopy

Wireless Capsule Endoscopy (WCE) is a relatively new technology to record the entire GI trace, in vivo. The large amounts of frames captured during an examination cause difficulties for physicians to review all these frames. The need for reducing the reviewing time using some intelligent methods has been a challenge. Polyps are considered as growing tissues on the surface of intestinal tract not inside of an organ. Most polyps are not cancerous, but if one becomes larger than a centimeter, it can turn into cancer by great chance. The WCE frames provide the early stage possibility for detection of polyps. Here, the application of simple linear iterative clustering (SLIC) superpixel for segmentation of polyps in WCE frames is evaluated. Different SLIC superpixel numbers are examined to find the the highest sensitivity for detection of polyps. The SLIC superpixel segmentation is promising to improve the results of previous studies. Finally, the superpixels were classified using a support vector machine (SVM) by extracting some texture and color features. The classification results showed a sensitivity of 91%.
Scaling exponent for incremental records

We investigate records in a growing sequence of identical and independently distributed random variables. The record equals the largest value in the sequence, and our focus is on the increment, defined as the difference between two successive records. We investigate sequences in which all increments decrease monotonically, and analyze the case where the random variables are drawn from a uniform distribution with compact support. We find that the fraction IN of sequences that exhibit this property decays algebraically with sequence length N, namely IN ~ N−ν as N → ∞, and obtain the exponent ν = 0.317 621... using analytic methods. We also study the record distribution and the increment distribution. Whereas the former is a narrow distribution with an exponential tail, the latter is broad and has a power-law tail characterized by the exponent ν. Empirical analysis of records in the sequence of waiting times between successive earthquakes is consistent with the theoretical results.
A Theory of Specular Surface Geometry

A theoretical framework is introduced for the perception of specular surface geometry. When an observer moves in three-dimensional space, real scene features such as surface markings remain stationary with respect to the surfaces they belong to. In contrast, a virtual feature which is the specular reflection of a real feature, travels on the surface. Based on the notion of caustics, a feature classification algorithm is developed that distinguishes real and virtual features from their image trajectories that result from observer motion. Next, using support functions of curves, a closed-form relation is derived between the image trajectory of a virtual feature and the geometry of the specular surface it travels on. It is shown that, in the 2D case, where camera motion and the surface profile are coplanar, the profile is uniquely recovered by tracking just two unknown virtual features. Finally, these results are generalized to the case of arbitrary 3D surface profiles that are traveled by virtual features when camera motion is not confined to a plane. This generalization includes a number of mathematical results that substantially enhance the present understanding of specular surface geometry. An algorithm is developed that uniquely recovers 3D surface profiles using a single virtual feature tracked from the occluding boundary of the object. All theoretical derivations and proposed algorithms are substantiated by experiments.
Exploiting Temporal Coherence for Self-Supervised One-Shot Video Re-identification

While supervised techniques in re-identification are extremely effective, the need for large amounts of annotations makes them impractical for large camera networks. One-shot re-identification, which uses a singular labeled tracklet for each identity along with a pool of unlabeled tracklets, is a potential candidate towards reducing this labeling effort. Current one-shot re-identification methods function by modeling the inter-relationships amongst the labeled and the unlabeled data, but fail to fully exploit such relationships that exist within the pool of unlabeled data itself. In this paper, we propose a new framework named Temporal Consistency Progressive Learning, which uses temporal coherence as a novel self-supervised auxiliary task in the one-shot learning paradigm to capture such relationships amongst the unlabeled tracklets. Optimizing two new losses, which enforce consistency on a local and global scale, our framework can learn richer and more discriminative representations. Extensive experiments on two challenging video re-identification datasets - MARS and DukeMTMC-VideoReID - demonstrate that our proposed method is able to estimate the true labels of the unlabeled data more accurately by up to \(8\%\), and obtain significantly better re-identification performance compared to the existing state-of-the-art techniques .
Geometry of hyperfields

Abstract Given a scheme X over Z and a hyperfield H which is equipped with a topology which satisfies certain conditions, we endow the set X ( H ) of H-rational points with a natural topology. We then prove that; (1) when H is the Krasner hyperfield, X ( H ) is homeomorphic to the underlying space of X, (2) when H is the tropical hyperfield and X is of finite type over a complete non-Archimedean valued field k, X ( H ) is homeomorphic to the underlying space of the Berkovich analytification X an of X, and (3) when H is the hyperfield of signs, X ( H ) is homeomorphic to the underlying space of the real scheme X r associated with X.
Model-Based Learning for Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping

Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) is a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique that estimates magnetic susceptibility of tissue from Larmor frequency offset measurements. The generation of QSM requires solving a challenging ill-posed field-to-source inversion problem. Inaccurate field-to-source inversion often causes large susceptibility estimation errors that appear as streaking artifacts in the QSM, especially in massive hemorrhagic regions. Recently, several deep learning (DL) QSM techniques have been proposed and demonstrated impressive performance. Due to the inherent non-existent ground-truth QSM references, these DL techniques used either calculation of susceptibility through multiple orientation sampling (COSMOS) maps or synthetic data for network training. Therefore, they were constrained by the availability and accuracy of COSMOS maps, or suffered from performance drop when the training and testing domains were different. To address these limitations, we present a model-based DL method, denoted as uQSM. Without accessing to QSM labels, uQSM is trained using the well-established physical model. When evaluating on multi-orientation QSM datasets, uQSM achieves higher levels of quantitative accuracy compared to TKD, TV-FANSI, MEDI, and DIP approaches. When qualitatively evaluated on single-orientation datasets, uQSM outperforms other methods and reconstructed high quality QSM.
Spectrum of the Laplacian and the Jacobi operator on rotational CMC hypersurfaces of spheres

Let $M\subset \mathbb{S}^{n+1}\subset\mathbb{R}^{n+2}$ be a compact cmc rotational hypersurface of the $(n+1)$-dimensional Euclidean unit sphere. Denote by $|A|^2$ the square of the norm of the second fundamental form and $J(f)=-\Delta f-nf-|A|^2f$ the stability or Jacobi operator. In this paper we compute the spectra of their Laplace and Jacobi operators in terms of eigenvalues of second order Hill's equations. For the minimal rotational examples, we prove that the stability index --the numbers of negative eigenvalues of the Jacobi operator counted with multiplicity -- is greater than $3 n+4$ and we also prove that there are at least 2 positive eigenvalues of the Laplacian of $M$ smaller than $n$. When $H$ is not zero, we have that every non-flat CMC rotational immersion is generated by rotating a planar profile curve along a geodesic called the axis of rotation. Let $m$ be the number of points where the maximal distance from this profile curve to the origin is achieved (we assume that the coordinates of the plane containing the profile curve has been set up so that the axis of rotation goes through the origin). Let $l$ be be the wrapping number of the profile curve. We show that the number of negative eigenvalues of the operator $J$ counted with multiplicity is at least $(2l-1)n+(2m-1)$. This result was proven for the case $n=2$ by Rossman and Sultana. They called $m$ the number of bulges or the number of necks. We will slightly change the definition of $l$ to include immersed examples that contain the axis of rotation.
Gendered exposures: exploring the role of paid and unpaid work throughout life in U.S. women’s cardiovascular health

The paper explores how paid and unpaid labor history over the life course influence women’s cardiovascular disease. U.S. women comprise about 50% of the paid workforce and perform the majority of u...
High fidelity modeling of aerosol pathogen propagation in built environments with moving pedestrians

A high fidelity model for the propagation of pathogens via aerosols in the presence of moving pedestrians is proposed. The key idea is the tight coupling of computational fluid dynamics and computational crowd dynamics in order to capture the emission, transport and inhalation of pathogen loads in space and time. An example simulating pathogen propagation in a narrow corridor with moving pedestrians clearly shows the considerable effect that pedestrian motion has on airflow, and hence on pathogen propagation and potential infectivity.
DNN+NeuroSim V2.0: An End-to-End Benchmarking Framework for Compute-in-Memory Accelerators for On-Chip Training

DNN+NeuroSim is an integrated framework to benchmark compute-in-memory (CIM) accelerators for deep neural networks, with hierarchical design options from device-level, to circuit level and up to algorithm level. A python wrapper is developed to interface NeuroSim with a popular machine learning platform: Pytorch, to support flexible network structures. The framework provides automatic algorithm-to-hardware mapping, and evaluates chip-level area, energy efficiency and throughput for training or inference, as well as training/inference accuracy with hardware constraints. Our prior inference version of DNN+NeuroSim framework available at https://github.com/neurosim/DNN_NeuroSim_V1.2 was developed to estimate the impact of reliability in synaptic devices, and analog-to-digital converter (ADC) quantization loss on the accuracy and hardware performance of an inference engine. In this work, we further investigated the impact of the “analog” emerging nonvolatile memory (eNVM)’s nonideal device properties for on-chip training. By introducing the nonlinearity, asymmetry, device-to-device and cycle-to-cycle variation of weight update into the python wrapper, and peripheral circuits for error/weight gradient computation in NeuroSim core, we benchmarked CIM accelerators based on state-of-the-art SRAM and eNVM devices for VGG-8 on CIFAR-10 dataset, revealing the crucial specs of synaptic devices for on-chip training. The latest training version of the DNN+NeuroSim framework is available at https://github.com/neurosim/DNN_NeuroSim_V2.1 .
Compressed Super-Resolution of Positive Sources

Atomic norm minimization is a convex optimization framework to recover point sources from a subset of their low-pass observations, or equivalently the underlying frequencies of a spectrally-sparse signal. When the amplitudes of the sources are positive, a positive atomic norm can be formulated, and exact recovery can be ensured without imposing a separation between the sources, as long as the number of observations is greater than the number of sources. However, the classic formulation of the atomic norm requires to solve a semidefinite program involving a linear matrix inequality of a size on the order of the signal dimension, which can be prohibitive. In this letter, we introduce a novel “compressed” semidefinite program, which involves a linear matrix inequality of a reduced dimension on the order of the number of sources. We guarantee the tightness of this program under certain conditions on the operator involved in the dimensionality reduction. Finally, we apply the proposed method to direction finding over sparse arrays based on second-order statistics and achieve significant computational savings.
Active‐Set Newton Methods and Partial Smoothness

Diverse optimization algorithms correctly identify, in finite time, intrinsic constraints that must be active at optimality. Analogous behavior extends beyond optimization to systems involving part...
Nonlinear prediction via Hermite transformation

General prediction formulas involving Hermite polynomials are developed for time series expressed as a transformation of a Gaussian process. The prediction gains over linear predictors are examined...
WiForce: Wireless Sensing and Localization of Contact Forces on a Space Continuum.

Contact force is a natural way for humans to interact with the physical world around us. However, most of our interactions with the digital world are largely based on a simple binary sense of touch (contact or no contact). Similarly, when interacting with robots to perform complex tasks, such as surgery, richer force information that includes both magnitude and contact location is important for task performance. To address these challenges, we present the design and fabrication of WiForce which is a 'wireless' sensor, sentient to contact force magnitude and location. WiForce achieves this by transducing force magnitude and location, to phase changes of an incident RF signal of a backscattering tag. The phase changes are thus modulated into the backscattered RF signal, which enables measurement of force magnitude and contact location by inferring the phases of the reflected RF signal. WiForce's sensor is designed to support wide-band frequencies all the way up to 3 GHz. We evaluate the force sensing wirelessly in different environments, including through phantom tissue, and achieve force accuracy of 0.3 N and contact location accuracy of 0.6 mm.
Estimating the Price Elasticity of Demand for Subways: Evidence from Mexico

Abstract This paper uses fare changes in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey to estimate the price elasticity of demand for urban rail transit. In two of the cases there is a significant fare increase (30%+), and in the third there is a 60-day fare holiday. Ridership responds sharply in the expected direction in all three cities, implying price elasticities which range across cities from −.23 to −0.32. In addition, there is suggestive evidence that the temporary fare holiday led to a higher baseline level of ridership. These estimates are directly relevant for policymakers considering alternative pricing structures for urban rail. The paper discusses the relevant economic considerations and then shows how the estimated elasticities can be used to perform policy counterfactuals.
Cross-Spectral Iris Matching Using Conditional Coupled GAN

Cross-spectral iris recognition is emerging as a promising biometric approach to authenticating the identity of individuals. However, matching iris images acquired at different spectral bands shows significant performance degradation when compared to single-band near-infrared (NIR) matching due to the spectral gap between iris images obtained in the NIR and visual-light (VIS) spectra. Although researchers have recently focused on deep-learning-based approaches to recover invariant representative features for more accurate recognition performance, the existing methods cannot achieve the expected accuracy required for commercial applications. Hence, in this paper, we propose a conditional coupled generative adversarial network (CpGAN) architecture for cross-spectral iris recognition by projecting the VIS and NIR iris images into a low-dimensional embedding domain to explore the hidden relationship between them. The conditional CpGAN framework consists of a pair of GAN-based networks, one responsible for retrieving images in the visible domain and other responsible for retrieving images in the NIR domain. Both networks try to map the data into a common embedding subspace to ensure maximum pair-wise similarity between the feature vectors from the two iris modalities of the same subject. To prove the usefulness of our proposed approach, extensive experimental results obtained on the PolyU dataset are compared to existing state-of-the-art cross-spectral recognition methods.
Agents or Trustees? International Courts in their Political Context:

In International Relations applications, theorists employing Principal‐ Agent (P‐A) theory have posited that the fact of delegation defines a relationship between states (collective Principals) and international organizations (Agents) where recontracting threats are the predominant way states influence IOs. Developing a category of delegation to international Trustees, I argue that recontracting tools will be both harder to use and less effective at influencing the Trustees. Trustees are (1) selected because of their personal reputation or professional norms, (2) given independent authority to make decisions according to their best judgment or professional criteria, and (3) empowered to act on behalf of a beneficiary. These three factors account for the different politics between Principals and Trustees, a politics aimed at either keeping issues outside of the domain of the Trustee or at rhetorically engaging the Trustee’s authority in an effort to persuade the common ‘beneficiary’ whose loyalty and respect both States and the Trustee seek. In explaining why recontracting threats are not central to Principal‐Trustee relations, the analysis bounds the realm in which we might expect P‐A theory to apply, and provides a theoretical basis to question the ‘rational expectations’ claim that ICs are tailoring their decisions to reflect the wishes of powerful states and avoid adverse recontracting.
Contested Federalism and American Climate Policy

Climate change has routinely been framed as an issue to be addressed through an intergovernmental regime guided by a set of large nations. The evolving reality of climate change policy development, in the U.S. and abroad, relies heavily on sub-national initiative. This article reviews the American climate policy odyssey, examining distinct periods in which respective intergovernmental roles have shifted. It devotes particular attention to the substantial expansion of state involvement between 1998 and 2007 and the more recent experience in which high state and federal engagement has produced a period of contested federalism. It concludes by exploring the growing likelihood that this arena will continue to be dominated in coming years by either state policy or some blending of state and federal authority.
Proficiency Tests to Estimate Error Rates in the Forensic Sciences

A proficiency test is an assessment of the performance of laboratory personnel using samples whose sources are known to the proficiency test administrator but unknown to the examinee. Proficiency tests can help identify reasonable first pass estimates for the rates at which various types of errors occur. It is crucial to obtain error rate estimates because the reliability and probative value of forensic science evidence is inextricably linked to the rates at which examiners make errors. Without such information, legal decision makers have no scientifically meaningful way of thinking about the risk of false identification and false non-identification associated with forensic reports.
The Significance of the Local in Immigration Regulation

The proliferation of state and local regulation designed to control immigrant movement has generated media attention and high-profile lawsuits in the last year. Proponents and opponents of these measures share one basic assumption with deep roots in constitutional doctrine and practice - immigration control is the exclusive responsibility of the federal government. As a result, assessments of this important trend have failed to explain why state and local measures are arising in large numbers, and why the uniformity both sides seek is neither achievable nor desirable. I argue that is time to come to a modus vivendi regarding participation by all levels of government in the management of migration. To do so, I provide a functional account of sub-federal immigration regulation and demonstrate how the federal-state-local dynamic operates as an integrated system to manage contemporary immigration. The primary function states and localities play is to integrate immigrants into the body politic and thus to bring the country to terms with demographic change. This process cannot be managed by a single sovereign, and it sometimes depends on states and localities adopting positions in tension with federal policy. Given these dynamics, I offer a reformulation of existing federalism presumptions. These will not be primarily for application by courts, though courts should abandon constitutional or strong field and obstacle preemption theories in immigration cases. Instead, I offer a framework for federal and state lawmakers intended to restrain their impulses to preempt legislation by lower levels of government, and to create incentives for cooperative ventures in immigration regulation. Counterintuitively, the changes wrought by globalization demand strong institutions beneath the national level. Immigration highlights this convergence of the transnational and the local. Only by assimilating our understandings of immigration federalism to this realization can we explain and harness the value of state and local regulation.
The Role of Economic Trade-Offs in the Audit Opinion Decision: An Empirical Analysis:

We extend existing audit opinion models by incorporating economic tradeoffs that arise in the auditor's qualification (modification) decision. Prior qualification studies (e.g., Dopuch, Holthausen,...
The Minimum Core of Economic and Social Rights: A Concept in Search of Content

Within the catalogue of rights, whether conceived in constitutional or international terms, economic and social rights are said to be especially indeterminate. This Article inquires into the conceptual foundations of a minimum core of economic and social rights. The concept of the minimum core has been applied to provide determinacy and even justiciability to the rights to food, health, housing, and education, and also (most ambitiously) to give substance to minimum legal obligations in both national and global distributive justice debates. This Article brings together the methodological insights of comparative constitutional law and international human rights, and traces the ways in which concepts are borrowed from each field. By doing so, this Article disaggregates three contrasting approaches to giving content to the minimum core - that of ascertaining the normative essence, minimum consensus or minimum obligation of economic and social rights. This Article further demonstrates how each approach is ultimately unable to provide an account that satisfies the proclaimed aims of the minimum core's proponents. It ends by gesturing towards alternative ways of approaching a universalized discourse of minimums in economic and social rights.
Tackling the "Evils" of Interlocking Directorates in Healthcare Nonprofits

I. Understanding Board Overlap in Healthcare A. The Story of Allina Health System B. The Hospital Chain C. The Small Town Joint Venture II. Fiduciary Duties – Traditional Doctrine, Modern Shortcomings.. A. The Duties Reviewed 1. The Duty of Care 2. The Duty of Loyalty 3. The Duty of Obedience a. Charter Mission b. Licensure Mission c. Mission Interpretation B. The Void of Guidance 1. Caselaw, By Example 2. The Revised Model Nonprofit Corporation Act... III. The General Corporate Approach Is Insufficient for the Non-profit Healthcare Organization IV. Proposals for Proactive Boards A. Procedural Shifts 1. Multiplicity of Interest – Documentation and Disclosure 2. Charter Documentation 3. No Safe Harbor 4. Revise the RMNCA B. Substantive Shifts 1. Elevating and Parsing the Duty of Obedience: Charter Mission and Licensure Mission 2. Duty of Loyalty Viewed through Duty of Obedience.. 3. Duty of Care Informed by the Other Two Fiduciary Duties C. Reevaluating Multiple Board Memberships 1. Vertically Integrated Systems 2. Horizontally Integrated Systems 3. Smaller Alliances IV. Conclusion
How Do Start-ups Obtain Their Legal Services?

This Essay is the first to examine, using responses to online surveys, the use of in-house versus outside counsel by rapid-growth start-up companies. It also explores, from the vantage point of the start-up’s entrepreneur, some reasons for that choice. The Essay tests several hypotheses derived from the economic and entrepreneurship literatures about the benefits of in-house versus outside counsel in the unique context of start-up firms.
Constitutional Precedents in Japan: A Comment on the Role of Precedent

Japan is a civil law country, and the precedent of the Supreme Court is not binding on either the Supreme Court itself or lower courts. Judges are supposed to return to the text of the statute for each legal dispute and apply the rules to specific cases. Judicial decisions are not law to be applied by the courts. However, since judges have followed the precedent of the Supreme Court most of the time, these precedents have a de facto binding power even though they are not legally binding. In this Comment, the author focuses on constitutional law precedents to illustrate the Supreme Court of Japan’s approach toward its own precedent. The theory of precedent may be a convenient measure to justify or rationalize the outcome the Supreme Court has already reached. Yet, precedent plays a very important role in constitutional adjudication, constraining the decision making of the Supreme Court.
The Litigation of Financial Innovations

AbstractThis paper examines the litigation of patents relating to financial products and services. I show that these grants are being litigated at a rate 27–39 times greater than that of patents as a whole. The patents being litigated are disproportionately those issued to individuals and to smaller, private entities and those with features that may proxy for higher quality. Larger entities are disproportionately targeted in litigation. I discuss how the findings are in large part consistent with the theoretical literature on the economics of litigation.
Political Sentiment and Predictable Returns

This study shows that shifts in political climate influence stock prices. As the party in power changes, there are systematic changes in the industry-level composition of investor portfolios, which weaken arbitrage forces and generate predictable patterns in industry returns. A trading strategy that attempts to exploit demand-based return predictability generates an annualized risk-adjusted performance of 6% during the 1939 to 2011 period. This evidence of predictability spans 17%-27% of the market and is stronger during periods of political transition. Our demand-based predictability pattern is distinct from cash flow-based predictability identified in the recent literature.
The economics of conflicts of interest in financial institutions

Abstract A conflict of interest exists when a party to a transaction can gain by taking actions that are detrimental to its counterparty. This paper examines the growing empirical literature on the economics of conflicts of interest in financial institutions. Economic analysis shows that, although conflicts of interest are omnipresent when contracting is costly and parties are imperfectly informed, there are important factors that mitigate their impact and, strikingly, it is possible for customers of financial institutions to benefit from the existence of such conflicts. The empirical literature reaches conclusions that differ across types of conflicts of interest but are overall more ambivalent and certainly more benign than the conclusions drawn by journalists and politicians from mostly anecdotal evidence.
Sentencing Guidelines and Judicial Discretion: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Human Calculation Errors

The extent to which rules set by the legislature bind or influence decisions regarding sentence length is central to institutional design and to determining the practical impact of any proposed reform regarding criminal punishment. However, it is generally difficult to identify empirically the impact of sentencing recommendations because court actors may have preferences that are correlated with those outlined in the guidelines. In this article, we take advantage of a new source of identification to study how government actors interact and make decisions in the criminal sentencing process. We identify instances in the Maryland circuit court in which the case facts are not consistent with the final sentence recommendation—inconsistencies that appear to be the result of human error and exogenous to the preferences of downstream actors. We find that even an advisory guidelines system like the one in Maryland has a direct impact on judicial decision making in cases involving drugs and violent crimes. Judges appear eager to go along with an erroneous lesser sentence for violent offenses. In contrast, judges appear to discount mistakes that are too high. This asymmetry does not occur for property and drug offenses that are simpler and more frequently encountered. More generally, experience matters. Error rates are lower for more frequently occurring offense types and lower for those court professionals who complete more of the sentencing worksheets. The net effect of sentencing guidelines on time served appears to be small because parole boards counteract the remaining influence of the guidelines.
Fetal pain legislation: is it viable?

Whether a human fetus experiences pain during an abortion has been the subject of heated debate within medical, legal, and political circles for over two decades. In the 1980's President Reagan's statement that "when the lives of the unborn are snuffed out [by abortion], they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing," and the release of a controversial film entitled "The Silent Scream" were merely two of the events that kept this issue in public view. Federal and state legislative efforts to enact "partial birth abortion bans" have reignited public debate over fetal pain." Three years ago, the argument intensified when the world caught a glimpse of life within the womb through the picture of Samuel Armas' tiny hand apparently grasping the finger of the perinatal surgeon who was repairing the spine of the twenty-one week old fetus. As the twenty-first century begins, there are some indications that advances in medical knowledge are resolving the debate in medical circles surrounding fetal pain, and the resolution favors its acknowledgment at some point prior to birth. The purpose of this article is to explore the nature and extent of the medical community's emerging consensus on the issue of fetal pain, and consider whether this consensus should be reflected in American law. Part I discusses the current state of medical knowledge regarding fetal experiences of pain. Part II describes recent changes in medical standards to acknowledge the possibility of fetal pain. The legal status of laws directed at minimizing or protecting the human fetus from pain under the United States Constitution is discussed in Part III. Common objections to fetal pain legislation are identified and answered in Part IV. This article concludes with a call for legal requirements that women seeking abortions be informed of the possibility that the fetus may experience pain after twelve weeks gestation, and offered fetal anesthetic or modified abortion procedures to minimize any possibility of fetal pain.
Positive, Proactive, and Committed: The Surprising Connection Between Good Citizens and Expressed (vs. Suppressed) Anger at Work

In two studies, we examine the relationship of positive and negative trait affectivity (PA/NA), organizational commitment, and emotional exhaustion with organizational member anger. Utilizing the dual threshold model (DTM) constructs of expressed and suppressed anger (Geddes & Callister, 2007), we find employees with high organizational commitment express anger to relevant others, that is, to management or to those responsible for the anger-provoking situation. In contrast, emotionally exhausted employees and those with high NA tend to suppress their anger, venting only to uninvolved parties or remaining silent. Findings also indicate a positive relationship with PA and anger expression—a connection rarely considered or examined in anger research. Further, expressed anger was predictive of perceived improvement with problematic situations, while suppressed anger forms led to perceptions that the situation at work deteriorated.
Beyond Borders: Is Media Freedom Contagious?

Previous literature has found strong and significant links between a nation’s ‘media freedom’ and measures of the country’s economic performance, culture, and institutional quality. 1 Coyne and Leeson (2009), for example, find that a free media can have a substantial role in the evolution of the institutional framework of a country. The extent to which a country’s media is free— meaning free from government control—has a wide ranging impact on the knowledge level of its citizens, the accountability of government leaders, and social cooperation. The past two decades have witnessed many countries implementing reforms that have expanded the level of press freedom within their borders, and the within-country impact of these reforms has been examined by previous authors. Our main concern in this paper is to examine the extent to which media reform in one country subsequently spills over into other geographically neighboring countries. That is, if country A’s media becomes more free, are there natural forces that tend to lead country A’s neighbors to also reform their media institutions, and vice versa. With growing interest in aiding the process of media reform throughout the world, it becomes important to know if efforts to increase media freedom in one country may help to create a domino effect that then spills over to other countries in the region. We begin our analysis by first reviewing the literature on media freedom and its impact on a country’s economic and institutional performance. We then discuss some of the other notable works that have looked for similar geographic spillovers in measures of economic and political institutions.
Regime type and interstate war finance

Governments can finance the higher military spending associated with interstate war through a combination of cutting nonmilitary spending, imposing higher taxes, borrowing, and adopting an inflationary monetary policy. We argue that the incentives of survival-motivated leaders influence the strategies governments use to fund their war efforts and that regime type conditions the use of some finance strategies. Consistent with our expectations, we find that fighting an interstate war is associated with greater reductions in nonmilitary spending in dictatorships than in democracies and that contemporary democracies and dictatorships have largely avoided financing their wars through tax increases and inflation. We find little support for the argument that democracies finance their interstate wars through greater debt than nondemocracies.