cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Second Arecibo Search for 5 GHz Radio Flares from Ultracool Dwarfs

We describe our second installment of the 4.75 GHz survey of ultracool dwarfs (UCDs) conducted with the Arecibo radio telescope, which has observed 27 such objects and resulted in the detection of sporadic flaring from the T6 dwarf, WISEPC J112254.73+255021.5. We also present follow up observations of the first radio-emitting T dwarf, 2MASS J10475385+2124234, a tentatively identified radio emitting L1 dwarf, 2MASS J1439284+192915, and the known radio-flaring source, 2MASS J13142039+132011 AB. Our new data indicate that 2MASS J1439284+192915 is not a radio flaring source. The overall detection rate of our unbiased survey for radio-flaring UCDs is ~5% for new sources, with a detection rate for each spectral class of ~5-10%. Evidently, radio luminosity of the UCDs does not appear to monotonically decline with spectral type from M7 dwarfs to giant planets, in contradiction to theories of the magnetic field generation and internal structure of these objects. Along with other, recently published results, our data exemplify the unique value of using radio surveys to reveal and study properties of substellar magnetic activity.
Computational Tool for Ensemble Averaging of Single-Molecule Data.

Abstract Molecular motors couple chemical transitions to conformational changes that perform mechanical work in a wide variety of biological processes. Disruption of this coupling can lead to diseases, and therefore there is a need to accurately measure mechanochemical coupling in motors in both health and disease. Optical tweezers with nanometer spatial and millisecond temporal resolution have provided valuable insights into these processes. However, fluctuations due to Brownian motion can make it difficult to precisely resolve these conformational changes. One powerful analysis technique that has improved our ability to accurately measure mechanochemical coupling in motor proteins is ensemble averaging of individual trajectories. Here, we present a user-friendly computational tool, Software for Precise Analysis of Single Molecules (SPASM), for generating ensemble averages of single-molecule data. This tool utilizes several conceptual advances, including optimized procedures for identifying single-molecule interactions and the implementation of a change-point algorithm, to more precisely resolve molecular transitions. Using both simulated and experimental data, we demonstrate that these advances allow for accurate determination of the mechanics and kinetics of the myosin working stroke with a smaller set of data. Importantly, we provide our open-source MATLAB-based program with a graphical user interface that enables others to readily apply these advances to the analysis of their own data.
Accurate and Efficient KIR Gene and Haplotype Inference From Genome Sequencing Reads With Novel K-mer Signatures

The killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) proteins evolve to fight viruses and mediate the body's reaction to pregnancy. These roles provide selection pressure for variation at both the structural/haplotype and base/allele levels. At the same time, the genes have evolved relatively recently by tandem duplication and therefore exhibit very high sequence similarity over thousands of bases. These variation-homology patterns make it impossible to interpret KIR haplotypes from abundant short-read genome sequencing data at population scale using existing methods. Here, we developed an efficient computational approach for in silico KIR probe interpretation (KPI) to accurately interpret individual's KIR genes and haplotype-pairs from KIR sequencing reads. We designed synthetic 25-base sequence probes by analyzing previously reported haplotype sequences, and we developed a bioinformatics pipeline to interpret the probes in the context of 16 KIR genes and 16 haplotype structures. We demonstrated its accuracy on a synthetic data set as well as a real whole genome sequences from 748 individuals from The Genome of the Netherlands (GoNL). The GoNL predictions were compared with predictions from SNP-based predictions. Our results show 100% accuracy rate for the synthetic tests and a 99.6% family-consistency rate in the GoNL tests. Agreement with the SNP-based calls on KIR genes ranges from 72%-100% with a mean of 92%; most differences occur in genes KIR2DS2, KIR2DL2, KIR2DS3, and KIR2DL5 where KPI predicts presence and the SNP-based interpretation predicts absence. Overall, the evidence suggests that KPI's accuracy is 97% or greater for both KIR gene and haplotype-pair predictions, and the presence/absence genotyping leads to ambiguous haplotype-pair predictions with 16 reference KIR haplotype structures. KPI is free, open, and easily executable as a Nextflow workflow supported by a Docker environment at https://github.com/droeatumn/kpi.
Counting eta-quotients of prime level

It is known that all modular forms on SL_2(Z) can be expressed as a rational function in eta(z), eta(2z) and eta(4z). By utilizing known theorems, and calculating the order of vanishing, we can compute the eta-quotients for a given level. Using this count, knowing how many eta-quotients are linearly independent and using the dimension formula, we can figure out a subspace spanned by the eta-quotients. In this paper, we primarily focus on the case where N=p a prime.
Task-Oriented Motion Mapping on Robots of Various Configuration Using Body Role Division

Many works in robot teaching either focus only on teaching task knowledge, such as geometric constraints, or motion knowledge, such as the motion for accomplishing a task. However, to effectively teach a complex task sequence to a robot, it is important to take advantage of both task and motion knowledge. The task knowledge provides the goals of each individual task within the sequence and reduces the number of required human demonstrations, whereas the motion knowledge contain the task-to-task constraints that would otherwise require expert knowledge to model the problem. In this letter, we propose a body role division approach that combines both types of knowledge using a single human demonstration. The method is inspired by facts on human body motion and uses a body structural analogy to decompose a robot’s body configuration into different roles: body parts that are dominant for imitating the human motion and body parts that are substitutional for adjusting the imitation with respect to the task knowledge. Our results show that our method scales to robots of different number of arm links, guides a robot’s configuration to one that achieves an upcoming task, and is potentially beneficial for teaching a range of task sequences.
The Influence of Axial Length Upon the Retinal Ganglion Cell Layer of the Human Eye.

Purpose Variation in retinal thickness with eye size complicates efforts to estimate retinal ganglion cell number from optical coherence tomography (OCT) measures. We examined the relationship among axial length, the thickness and volume of the ganglion cell layer (GCL), and the size of the optic chiasm. Methods We used OCT to measure GCL thickness over 50 degrees of the horizontal meridian in 50 healthy participants with a wide range of axial lengths. Using a model eye informed by individual biometry, we converted GCL thickness to tissue volume per square degree. We also measured the volume of the optic chiasm for 40 participants using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Results There is a positive relationship between GCL tissue volume and axial length. Given prior psychophysical results, we conclude that increased axial length is associated with increased retinal ganglion cell size, decreased cell packing, or both. We characterize how retinal ganglion cell tissue varies systematically in volume and spatial distribution as a function of axial length. This model allows us to remove the effect of axial length from individual difference measures of GCL volume. We find that variation in this adjusted GCL volume correlates well with the size of the optic chiasm. Conclusions Our results provide the volume of ganglion cell tissue in the retina, adjusted for the presumed effects of axial length upon ganglion cell size and/or packing. The resulting volume measure accounts for individual differences in the size of the optic chiasm, supporting its use to characterize the post-retinal visual pathway. Translational relevance Variations in ametropia can confound clinical measures of retinal features. We present a framework within which the thickness and volume of retinal structures can be measured and corrected for the effects of axial length.
Security, Privacy and Ethical Concerns of IoT Implementations in Hospitality Domain

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been on the rise in the last decade as it finds applications in various domains. Hospitality is one of the pioneer sectors that has adopted this technology to create novel services such as smart hotel rooms, personalized services etc. Hotels, restaurants, theme parks, and cruise ships are some specific application areas to improve customer satisfaction by creating an intense interactive environment and data collection with the use of appropriate sensors and actuators. However, applying IoT solutions in the hospitality environment has some unique challenges such as easy physical access to devices. In addition, due to the very nature of these domains, the customers are at the epicenter of these IoT technologies that result in a massive amount of data collection from them. Such data and its management along with business purposes also raises new concerns regarding privacy and ethical considerations. Therefore, this paper surveys and analyzes security, privacy and ethical issues regarding the utilization of IoT devices by focusing on the hospitality industry specifically. We explore some exemplary uses, cases, potential problems and solutions in order to contribute to better understanding and guiding the business operators in this sector.
Computing Proton-Coupled Redox Potentials of Fluorotyrosines in a Protein Environment

The oxidation of tyrosine to form the neutral tyrosine radical via proton-coupled electron transfer is essential for a wide range of biological processes. The precise measurement of the proton-coup...
Expected Idiosyncratic Skewness

We test the prediction of recent theories that stocks with high idiosyncratic skewness should have low expected returns. Because lagged skewness alone does not adequately forecast skewness, we estimate a cross-sectional model of expected skewness that uses additional predictive variables. Consistent with recent theories, we find that expected idiosyncratic skewness and returns are negatively correlated. Specifically, the Fama-French alpha of a low-expected-skewness quintile exceeds the alpha of a high-expected-skewness quintile by 1.00% per month. Furthermore, the coefficients on expected skewness in Fama-MacBeth cross-sectional regressions are negative and significant. In addition, we find that expected skewness helps explain the phenomenon that stocks with high idiosyncratic volatility have low expected returns. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.
An Experiment in Hiring Discrimination via Online Social Networks

We investigate whether personal information posted by job candidates on social media sites is sought and used by prospective U.S. employers. We create profiles for job candidates on popular social ...
An Article I Theory of the Inherent Powers of the Federal Courts

A proper understanding of the nature of the inherent powers begins with separating whether the judiciary has any constitutional power to overrule Congress from the judiciary’s power to act in the absence of congressional action, i.e. in the interstices of federal statutes and rules. Separating out these two very different types of powers helps clarify that the inherent powers of federal courts are actually both broader and shallower than have been previously thought: Congress has near plenary authority in this area, but the courts have a great deal of leeway to act when Congress has not. An examination of the history and text of the Constitution, the ratification debates, and the earliest cases establishes that it is Article I’s necessary and proper clause, not Article III’s “judicial power” or “courts,” which controls any inherent judicial authority. As such, Congress has near plenary authority over the structure and procedure of the federal courts. With the power of Congress in mind, however, the judiciary has substantial authority to act when Congress has not. The Framers created a remarkably flexible judicial branch based upon the way common law courts operated in the late-18th century. Those courts regularly acted in the absence of legislative authority in a multitude of ways, bound by the common law and current practice, but not by legislative silence. Thus, as long as a federal court’s use of the inherent power has not been foreclosed by an existing Act of Congress and is reflective of the judicial power – i.e. helpful to the deciding of cases – courts are empowered to act, as long as they understand that Congress can always fix what it does not like. This analysis also best explains what courts have done since the framing. While the Supreme Court has repeatedly claimed an inherent power strong enough to invalidate a congressional act in dicta, it has never actually invalidated one, even in situations where Congress has substantially impinged upon traditional areas of inherent power like rule making or contempt. This understanding of congressional and judicial power thus offers an elegant solution to the thorny problem of inherent powers and squares the circle by fitting a unified theory to the history, language and structure of the Constitution and the more modern, pro-judiciary case law.
The Legal Needs of the Poor as a Starting Point for Systemic Reform

The crisis in the provision of legal services to poor people has a long history. As with many longstanding social ills urban sprawl, disintegrating public schools, poverty in general the persistence of the problem tends to reduce it to subliminal status, despite angst-laden bar meetings, scholarly articles espousing new and innovative approaches, and cycles of warnings and complaints from poverty lawyers. What is beyond challenge, however, is that the gap between the needs of poor clients and lawyers to meet these needs is large and growing larger.1 The explanation for the most recent stage of the crisis is the virtual demise of federal funding for legal services. For fiscal year 1996, Congress reduced funding for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) by thirty percent, continuing a series of major reductions and advocacy restrictions that have severely undermined the ability of legal services lawyers to serve their clients.2 While it is true that legal services programs had been forced to accept restrictions in past years, new controls prohibiting LSC grantees from using non-LSC resources to engage in class action suits, lobbying, and litigation against a federal or state welfare system3 have decreased advocacy to the poor from a steady stream to a trickle.
Systemic risk and the macroeconomy: An empirical evaluation

Abstract This article studies how systemic risk and financial market distress affect the distribution of shocks to real economic activity. We analyze how changes in 19 different measures of systemic risk skew the distribution of subsequent shocks to industrial production and other macroeconomic variables in the US and Europe over several decades. We also propose dimension reduction estimators for constructing systemic risk indexes from the cross section of measures and demonstrate their success in predicting future macroeconomic shocks out of sample.
The Value of Waiting in Lawmaking

Political actors and legislative bodies often invoke net present value calculations to support proposed legislative change. This paper explores the idea that adopting a law is like investing in a productive asset to identify possible misleading applications of net present value calculations. Investment involves incurring a present cost in the expectation of future benefits. Legal systems can be regarded as making investment decisions when incurring present lawmaking costs that will generate benefits over time. Lawmaking investments share, in varying degrees, three important attributes with other investment decisions. First, lawmaking costs cannot be recovered if the enacted rules prove to be ineffective or undesirable at a later time. That is, lawmaking investments are partially or completely irreversible. Second, there is often uncertainty over the future benefits of the legislation. Chosen rules may prove ineffective or changes in the social or economic circumstances may render them obsolete over time. Third, like any investment decision, timing is an issue for lawmakers to determine: lawmaking innovation or revision of current rules can be postponed. Often delays in such investment decisions come at a cost, given the forgone benefits of the investment in the immediate future. This paper focuses on the value of waiting in lawmaking, illustrating the interaction among the above factors in identifying the conditions that determine the optimal timing of legal intervention. The basic model is followed by two extensions. In the first extension, we allow for some learning and informational benefit from the immediate implementation of the new law. In a second extension, we allow for political time preference to affect the lawmaking choice.
The Case for Returning Politicians to the Supreme Court

In the past few decades, prior service in the federal judiciary has become an increasingly important qualification for appointment to the Supreme Court. As a result, the Court has lost one kind of Justice who was very nearly a constant on the Court for 170 years: the politician who joins the Court after distinguished and prominent service in public life. Politicians of national prominence should be returned to the Supreme Court. These statesmen give legitimacy to the Court in an age when confirmation hearings are unrevealing. They have a history of accountability on concrete legal and political issues. They bring wisdom and skills that can improve the work of the Court. Today’s Supreme Court interprets and reviews statutes and decides issues of executive power without any Justice with experience voting on legislation or serving as a cabinet member. Former politicians can enhance the Court’s interactions with the other branches of government and predict and manage the political fallout from unpopular decisions.
Borders and business cycles

Abstract We document that business cycles of U.S. Census regions are substantially more synchronized than those of European countries. Data from regions within European countries confirm a European border effect — within-country correlations are substantially larger than cross-country correlations. These results continue to hold after controlling for exogenous factors such as distance and size. We consider the role of four factors that have received attention in the debate about EMU: sectoral specialization, the level of trade, monetary policy and fiscal policy. We find that the lower level of trade between European countries explains most of the observed border effect.
Our (National) Federalism

"National Federalism" best describes the modern allocation of state and federal power, but it is a federalism without doctrine. Federalism today comes primarily from Congress — through its decisions to give states prominent roles in federal schemes and so to ensure the states’ continuing relevance in the statutory era. As a result, many of the most significant state sovereign acts now occur through state implementation of federal statutory law, but we have no law to effectuate this account of state authority. This is National Federalism: nationalism and federalism, simultaneous and in tension — and generated entirely by federal statutes. Unlike traditional federalism, it is neither a constant presence nor an entitlement: rather, it is a feature of federal statutory design. But nor does it have the usual trappings of nationalism, because it incorporates experimentation, variety and state historical expertise — the classic "federalism" values — into national law. State sovereignty remains, even if law does not yet recognize it as such. States pass state legislation, appoint new state officials and hear state-law cases in state courts, all as part of their work to implement federal statutory law, but in many ways autonomous from it. Yet, instead of having Chevron-like doctrines that give implementing states more policymaking discretion; or jurisdictional rules that keep more of these cases in state courts; or choice-of-law regimes requiring that state standards of review and state rules of administrative procedure should apply to the state laws enacted by states legislatures that shape the local implementation of federal law in ways unique to each state — instead of all of that, we have a doctrinal muddle and a Court that does not even see these questions as federalism questions in the first place. This essay develops the account of Congress as our primary source of federalism, and re-situates nationalism within that account. It then assembles a list of fifteen unresolved doctrinal questions that reveal the complexity and importance of federalism’s modern statutory domain.
Amatory Jurisprudence and the Querelle Des Lois

It is my view, and here, no doubt, I am pre-empting my conclusion, that what literary and feminist historicism recognizes as the querelle des femmes, the debate as to the status and political role of women, is in fact underpinned and motivated by a much less explicit, yet nonetheless portentous, querelle des lois. The querelle des femmes, in other words, was always a polemic as to the legal status of women, as to their definition and role in theology and jurisprudence, canon and civil law. More than that, however, what the recovery of amatory jurisprudence can help to show is that the querelle des femmes was predicated upon a conflict of jurisdictions and at base addressed the primary political question of which law, masculine or feminine, that of amity or fraternity, of Venus or polity, of love or regality, was to govern.
Do expenditures other than instructional expenditures affect graduation and persistence rates in American higher education

Abstract During the last two decades, median instructional spending per full-time equivalent (FTE) student at American 4-year colleges and universities has grown at a slower rate than median spending per FTE student in a number of other expenditure categories, including academic support, student services and research. Our paper uses institutional level panel data and a variety of econometric approaches, including unconditional quantile regression methods, to analyze whether these non-instructional expenditure categories influence graduation and first-year persistence rates of undergraduate students. Our most important finding is that student service expenditures influence graduation and persistence rates and their marginal effects are higher for students at institutions with lower entrance test scores and higher Pell Grant expenditures per student. Put another way, their effects are largest at institutions that have lower current graduation and first-year persistence rates. Simulations suggest that reallocating some funding from instruction to student services may enhance persistence and graduation rates at those institutions whose rates are currently below the medians in the sample.
Intangible capital, relative asset shortages and bubbles

Abstract Purely technological factors can be a fundamental force behind the emergence of asset price bubbles in developed economies. We analyze an economy in which the production technology utilizes both physical and intangible capital, where the latter cannot be used as collateral for borrowing. Technological change, in the form of increased importance of intangible capital in production, sharpens the borrowing constraints of entrepreneurs, leading to a scarcity of high-yield assets relative to low-yield ones. This can create the conditions for asset bubbles. Additionally, due to the financial frictions, standard dynamic efficiency tests are not valid, and bubbles are not Pareto improving.
THE ROLE OF INVESTMENT BANK REPUTATION AND RELATIONSHIPS IN EQUITY PRIVATE PLACEMENTS

We explore the role of placement agents in equity private placements. Reputable agents are more likely to place shares of firms that have performed better and that have had frequent prior relationships with the agent. Controlling for self-selection and endogeneity, firms using reputable agents offer smaller price discounts. However, issuers having frequent prior relationships with placement agents incur higher gross spreads. Although the results support the certification role of investment banks in private placements, they also shed light on the costs incurred by issuers that frequently rely on the same investment bank.
Can Audit Partners Predict Subordinates' Ability to Detect Errors?

This study examines audit partners' predictions of the ability of managers and seniors to detect financial statement errors. If partners are unable to predict the ability of their subordinates to detect errors, audit effectiveness may be affected. Audit partners are asked to predict which members of the audit team (managers or seniors) are able to detect specific types of errors. These predictions are then compared to errors detected by managers and seniors that are seeded in working papers. The results show that partners (1) exhibit significant overconfidence in the ability of subordinates to detect errors, (2) are more accurate in predicting managers' performance than seniors, (3) are more accurate at predicting subordinates' ability to detect mechanical (simple) errors than conceptual (complex) errors, and (4) are not better at predicting subordinates' ability to detect more frequent and more important errors than less frequent and less important errors.
Legislative Compromise and Tax Transition Policy

The extensive literature on legal transitions has formed a general position in favor of establishing a governmental transition policy; the primary debate concerns whether the policy should be one of systematically mitigating or not mitigating transition losses. Arguments on both sides generally have assumed a sharp dichotomy between a substantive legal change and the transition treatment associated with the substantive change. Focusing on federal tax legislation, this Article challenges that assumption and the normative conclusions that it supports. Specifically, this Article identifies compromise as an important component of the tax legislative process and argues that the ability to provide or not to provide transition relief on an ad hoc basis facilitates such compromise. A policy either to mitigate or not to mitigate tax transition losses would remove this mechanism and, consequently, would cause legislators to pursue compromise through other means, such as by scaling back the substantive policy changes they otherwise would enact. This effectively tilts substantive tax policy toward the status quo. The analysis yields three main conclusions. First, tax transition policy is not exogenous to substantive tax policy. Second, the likely effects of tax transition policy on the development of substantive tax policy raise doubts about the normative arguments that have been made for tax transition policy. Finally, contrary to the general consensus of the literature, the ad hoc approach to tax transitions in current practice yields results that may be no less desirable than the results of following a formal tax transition policy.
Citation-Based Benchmarks and Individual Accounting Faculty Research Rankings by Topical Area and Methodology

ABSTRACT: This paper provides citation rankings and benchmarking data for individual accounting researchers disaggregated by topic and methodological area and studies what factors increase citation totals. Based on Google Scholar data from 7,113 articles published in respected accounting journals, we find that citation totals differ significantly based on accounting topic area (accounting information systems, audit, financial, managerial, tax, other) and methodology (analytical, archival, experimental, other), suggesting the need to separately benchmark authors who publish in these groups. We also find that authors who have a broad collaboration network, graduated from a school that started a journal, are topic specialists, or publish with topic specialists have higher numbers of citations. Data Availability: Most of the data are available on the website discussed in Appendix A. For easier-to-use extracts of the data, contact the authors.
Development Decision-Making and the Content of International Development Law

Abstract: International development law deals with the rights and duties of states and other actors in the development process. As the consensus view of the development process disintegrated during the 1970s and 1980s, the agreement on the content of international development law also began to break down. Today there are two competing idealized views of development. The arst, the “traditional view,” maintains that devel-opment is about economic growth, which can be distinguished from other social, cultural, environmental, and political development issues in society. The second, the “modern view,” maintains that development is an integrated process of change involving intertwined economic, social, cultural, political, and environmental dimensions. These two views of development lead to different perceptions of the substantive content of development law, of the importance of sovereignty, and of the rela-tionship between national and international law in the law applicable to development.
Reducing traumatic brain injuries in youth sports: youth sports traumatic brain injury state laws, January 2009-December 2012.

Objectives. I sought to describe current state-wide youth sports traumatic brain injury (TBI) laws and their relationship to prevailing scientific understandings of youth sports TBIs, and to facilitate further research by creating an open-source data set of current laws.Methods. I used Westlaw and LexisNexis databases to create a 50-state data set of youth sports TBI laws enacted between January 2009 and December 2012. I collected and coded the text and citations of each law and developed a protocol and codebook to facilitate future research.Results. Forty-four states and Washington, DC, passed youth sports TBI laws between 2009 and 2012. No state’s youth sports TBI law focuses on primary prevention. Instead, such laws focus on (1) increasing coaches’ and parents’ ability to identify and respond to TBIs and (2) reducing the immediate risk of multiple TBIs.Conclusions. Existing youth sports TBI laws were not designed to reduce initial TBIs. Evaluation is required to assess their effectiveness in reducing t...
Computationally simple and unified approach to finite- and infinite-horizon Clark–Scarf inventory model

In this article, it is shown that an easily computed and simply structured policy for making work-order decisions is optimal in the Clark–Scarf inventory model. That is a model of a make-to-stock multistage serial manufacturing process with convex costs of finished goods inventory, a setup cost for purchasing, linear costs of work-in-process inventories, and backlogging of excess demand. The criteria used in this article include the expected present value of costs (in the finite and infinite horizons) and the long-run average cost per period. Moreover, the same myopic policy that is optimal for the finite-horizon model is optimal also for the infinite-horizon model. This permits a unified approach to the various criteria.
Towards a taxonomy of modes of moral decision-making

Sunstein advocates a more systematic approach to the study of moral decision-making, namely the heuristics-and-biases paradigm. We offer two concerns and suggest that a focus on decision processes can add value. Recent research on decision modes suggest that it is useful to distinguish between the qualitative differences in the ways in which moral decisions can be made when they are not made by reflective, consequentialist reasoning.
Military Coalitions and the Outcome of Interstate Wars

Approximately one-third of all interstate conflicts are multilateral, with the majority of these having a coalition of states fighting on at least one side. Despite the frequency of coalition wars, coalitions have not received much attention within the conflict literature. This paper presents the first general study on the effectiveness of coalitions during interstate wars. While there are many drawbacks to fighting as part of a coalition, the benefits of cooperation outweigh the cost, making coalitions more likely to win wars. An empirical examination of war outcomes between 1816 and 2007 confirms this hypothesis; coalitions have greater odds of victory than states fighting outside a coalition. This finding holds after controlling for possible endogeneity and selection bias.
VOLUNTARY PROVISION OF PUBLIC GOODS FOR BADS: A THEORY OF ENVIRONMENTAL OFFSETS*

This article examines voluntary provision of a public good that is motivated, in part, to compensate for activities that diminish the public good. Markets for environmental offsets, such as those that promote carbon neutrality, provide an increasingly salient example. An important result is that mean donations do not converge to zero as the economy grows large. The equilibrium is solved to show how direct donations and net contributions depend on wealth and heterogeneous preferences. Comparative static analysis demonstrates how public good provision and social welfare depend on the technology, individual wealth and an initial level of the public good. Why do individuals voluntarily provide public goods? The question has received much attention in the economics literature, and two general answers have emerged. The first is based on a standard model of private provision of a pure public good. Agents are assumed to benefit from the aggregate level of a public good and thus have some incentive for private provision. While the additional incentive to free ride ensures that the equilibrium level of the public good will fall short of the Pareto-efficient level, the theory nevertheless predicts some degree of voluntary provision. 1 The second explanation has grown out of the need to reconcile why observed levels of private provision regularly exceed those that the standard theory predicts. Research in this area can be characterised broadly as refinements or extensions on the impure public good model. The general approach is to assume that agents obtain a private benefit from some aspect of their own provision and this encourages provision beyond that which would occur if benefits came from only the public good itself. Different interpretations of the private benefit range from a feeling of warm-glow satisfaction, social approval, prestige and signalling about income. 2 The present article pursues a further explanation for voluntary provision of a public good. The idea is that provision may occur, in part, to offset other activities that have an adverse effect on a public good. Consider an activity that produces a negative externality through diminishing the level of a public good. Assuming the individual cares enough about the public good, she may seek to minimise her adverse effect on it. One possibility is for the individual to restrain her behaviour voluntarily. 3 Another possibility, which need not be mutually exclusive, is for the individual to offset some (or all) of her detrimental effect through direct provision of the public good.
The Kumaraswamy distribution: median-dispersion re-parameterizations for regression modeling and simulation-based estimation

The Kumaraswamy distribution is very similar to the Beta distribution, but has the important advantage of an invertible closed form cumulative distribution function. The parameterization of the distribution in terms of shape parameters and the lack of simple expressions for its mean and variance hinder, however, its utilization with modeling purposes. The paper presents two median-dispersion re-parameterizations of the Kumaraswamy distribution aimed at facilitating its use in regression models in which both the location and the dispersion parameters are functions of their own distinct sets of covariates, and in latent-variable and other models estimated through simulation-based methods. In both re-parameterizations the dispersion parameter establishes a quantile-spread order among Kumaraswamy distributions with the same median and support. The study also describes the behavior of the re-parameterized distributions, determines some of their limiting distributions, and discusses the potential comparative advantages of using them in the context of regression modeling and simulation-based estimation.
Advice and Consent vs. Silence and Dissent? The Contrasting Roles of the Legislature in U.S. and U.K. Judicial Appointments

The Senate’s role in judicial appointments has come under increasingly withering criticism for its uninformative and “spectacle”-like nature. At the same time, Britain has established two new judicial appointment processes—to accompany its new Supreme Court and existing lower courts—in which Parliament plays no role. This Article seeks to understand the reasons for the inclusion and exclusion of the legislature in the U.S. and U.K. judicial appointment processes adopted at the creation of their respective Supreme Courts.. The Article proceeds by highlighting the ideas and concerns motivating inclusion of the legislature in judicial appointments in the early American state constitutions, Articles of Confederation, and U.S. Constitution, noting how the Senate’s role has evolved since the time of the Constitution’s ratification. Part II charts the principal ideas and concerns motivating the Constitutional Reform Act’s recent overhaul of Britain’s judicial appointment system and rejection of a parliamentary role.
State Constitutional Protection for Defendants in Criminal Prosecutions

A great debate has been raging in recent years concerning the application of state constitutional law in state criminal prosecutions. For many years, state constitutional provisions were essentially ignored with the entire emphasis placed on federal applications of the United States Constitution. Today, however, many state judges have looked to their own state constitutions to determine if sufficient protection has been given to criminal defendants. In this article, the author looks at this important development, and focuses on the debate about the propriety of the expanding scope of the state constitutional law.
Adverse Selection in Durable Goods Markets

We present a dynamic model of adverse selection to examine the interactions between new and used goods markets. We find that the used market never shuts down, the volume of trade can be large, and distortions are lower than previously thought. New cars prices can be higher under adverse selection than in its absence. An extension to several brands that differ in reliability leads to testable predictions of the effects of adverse selection. Unreliable brands have steeper price declines and lower volumes of trade. We contrast these predictions with those of a model where brands physically depreciate at different rates.
Litigating Toward Settlement

Civil litigation typically ends when the parties compromise. While existing theories of settlement primarily focus on information exchange, we instead examine how motion practice, especially nondiscovery motions, can substantially shape parties' knowledge about their cases and thereby influence the timing of settlement. Using docket-level federal district court data, we find a number of strong effects regarding how motions can influence this process: including that the filing of a motion significantly speeds case settlement; that granted motions are more immediately critical to settlement timing than motions denied; and that plaintiff victories have a stronger effect than defendant victories. These results provide a uniquely detailed look at the mechanism of compromise via information exchange and motion practice in litigation while simultaneously yielding evidence that this effect goes well beyond the traditionally studied discovery process. (JEL C00, K00, K10, K41). The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Yale University. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.
Original methods originalism: A new theory of interpretation and the case against construction

INTRODUCTION 751 I. INTERPRETIVE THEORIES AND INTERPRETIVE RULES 754 A. Positive and Normative Interpretive Theories 754 B. Interpretive Rules—Nonlegal and Legal 755 II. THE POSITIVE THEORY OF INTERPRETATION 758 A. Original Intent 758 B. Original Public Meaning 761 C. Original Methods: Additional Evidence and Answers 765 D. Interpretation Versus Construction 772 III. THE NORMATIVE THEORY OF INTERPRETATION 780 A. The Supermajority Theory of the Constitution 781 B. Original Legal Methods Versus Constitutional Constructionism: The Normative Perspective 783 IV. TOWARD THE CONTENT OF THE ORIGINAL INTERPRETIVE RULES 786 A. Discovering the Original Methods 786 B. The Content of Original Methods Originalism in our Constitution 788 C. Treanor’s Historical Work on Interpretive Rules 793 CONCLUSION 802
The natural resource curse and economic transition

Abstract Using cross-country regressions, we examine the relationship between “point-source” resource abundance and economic growth, quality of institutions, investment in human and physical capital, and social welfare (life expectancy and infant mortality) for all countries and for the economies in transition. Contrary to most literature, we find little evidence of a natural resource curse for all countries. Only the “voice and accountability” measure of institutional quality is negatively and significantly affected by oil wealth. In the economies in transition, there is some evidence that natural resource wealth is associated with lower primary school enrollment and life expectancy and higher infant mortality compared to other resource rich countries. Compared to other economies in transition, however, natural resource abundant transitional economies are not significantly worse off with respect to our indicators.
Message Deleted? Resolving Physician-Patient E-mail through Contract Law

This article examines the impact of e-mail on the physician-patient relationship, and how contract law can resolve the uncertainties incumbent in this nascent form of communication. Significantly, courts have yet to indicate when the physician-patient relationship begins by e-mail, or to what extent e-mail affects the duties of the relationship. Instead of waiting for judicial guidance, physicians and patients can employ specialized contracts to clarify the role that e-mail plays in their relationship. As a result, more physicians and patients will regard e-mail correspondence as a valuable means of communication, and a tool for improving the quality of health care as well.
The Public-Private Dichotomy in Morality and Law

The article advances the thesis that the doctrines and concepts of law are attributable to the properties of society and to the forces molding these properties. The thesis, after being illustrated with the federal Investment Advisers Act, is assessed quantitatively using data from the General Social Survey. The Survey interviews a national sample of adults in U.S. households, and in 1991, it ascertained whether interviewees classified morality as a private matter or as a public issue. The social values of interviewees on the public-private nature of morality were the dependent variable in a study that assumed (i) an activity is not explicitly addressed by law, or is explicitly protected by law from regulation, when society designates the activity as private, and (ii) the doctrines of law that are adopted to regulate activities that are designated public embody the doctrines of prevailing morality.Because social values on whether morality is private or public comprised the dependent variable, the factors that mold these values have the potential to prevent or permit law designed to regulate socially significant activities. Logistic regression was used to estimate the relationship to the dependent variable of two sets of factors that may influence whether morality is designated private or public. One set was factors that structure (e.g., stratify) a society and that have important societal correlates and consequences. The other set was comprised of modes of thought and conduct that are cultural dimensions of a society. Notable relationships to the dependent variable were found for the structural factors of gender and, among women, educational attainment. In terms of gender, the odds that morality would be considered a private matter were approximately three-and-a-half times higher among women than among men. In terms of education, the odds that morality would be considered private were approximately three-fourths lower among women with 13 or more years of schooling than among women with 12 or fewer years of schooling. The article suggests that, because the odds of placing morality in the private sphere are appreciably greater among women, gains in the status of women may help to explain U.S. Supreme Court decisions that construed the federal Constitution to restrict government regulation of sexual activity and its incidents.
On Self-Evident Truths.

The National Association of Scholars, at some point, may want to pass a rule stating that since relativism has been criticized to perfection, we shall henceforth dedicate to it not more than 10 percent of our attention and we shall devote much more energy to what will come next. We have had a field day pointing out the abundant flaws in both the old-fashioned form and the multicultural form of relativism, so the time is ripe to focus on what, for me at least, are the more difficult questions: What moral judgments, which universal claims, can we rely on? Are there some basic truths, and how may we establish or find them?
Impact of Organizational Culture on Occupational Stress among the Bank of Ceylon Executive Employees

The occupational stress has become a serious issue in modern banking industry. Banking industry has to find the most influential factors which affects the occupational stress and needs to change industry’s structures according to findings. This article pays more attention to discuss about occupational stress and organizational culture among the Bank of Ceylon executive employees. This paper gives a literature review regarding the organizational culture and occupational stress. 150 executive employees were conveniently selected from Bank of Ceylon. Response rate of 69% has been achieved in survey of 104 executive employees of Bank of Ceylon. In analysis, it has been found that organizational culture has an impact on occupational stress in Bank of Ceylon. The Bank needs to develop a strong organizational culture that will reduce the occupational stress of executive employees and lead organization to the successes.
Judicial Ethics in Utah

Utah's Code of Judicial Conduct provides the requirements that judges need to follow in order to administer justice fairly and without the appearance of impropriety. They need to avoid inappropriate conduct, bias, and certain types of political and extra-judicial activities. If judges do these things they will encourage respect from litigants as well as acceptance of judgments.