cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Me, My Echo Chamber, and I: Introspection on Social Media Polarization

Homophily - our tendency to surround ourselves with others who share our perspectives and opinions about the world - is both a part of human nature and an organizing principle underpinning many of our digital social networks. However, when it comes to politics or culture, homophily can amplify tribal mindsets and produce "echo chambers" that degrade the quality, safety, and diversity of discourse online. While several studies have empirically proven this point, few have explored how making users aware of the extent and nature of their political echo chambers influences their subsequent beliefs and actions. In this paper, we introduce Social Mirror, a social network visualization tool that enables a sample of Twitter users to explore the politically-active parts of their social network. We use Social Mirror to recruit Twitter users with a prior history of political discourse to a randomized experiment where we evaluate the effects of different treatments on participants' i) beliefs about their network connections, ii) the political diversity of who they choose to follow, and iii) the political alignment of the URLs they choose to share. While we see no effects on average political alignment of shared URLs, we find that recommending accounts of the opposite political ideology to follow reduces participants» beliefs in the political homogeneity of their network connections but still enhances their connection diversity one week after treatment. Conversely, participants who enhance their belief in the political homogeneity of their Twitter connections have less diverse network connections 2-3 weeks after treatment. We explore the implications of these disconnects between beliefs and actions on future efforts to promote healthier exchanges in our digital public spheres.
Fast initial conditions for Glauber dynamics

In the study of Markov chain mixing times, analysis has centered on the performance from a worst-case starting state. Here, in the context of Glauber dynamics for the one-dimensional Ising model, we show how new ideas from information percolation can be used to establish mixing times from other starting states. At high temperatures we show that the alternating initial condition is asymptotically the fastest one, and, surprisingly, its mixing time is faster than at infinite temperature, accelerating as the inverse-temperature $$\beta $$ ranges from 0 to $$\beta _0=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm {arctanh}(\frac{1}{3})$$ . Moreover, the dominant test function depends on the temperature: at $$\beta <\beta _0$$ it is autocorrelation, whereas at $$\beta >\beta _0$$ it is the Hamiltonian.
HDR Imaging With Quanta Image Sensors: Theoretical Limits and Optimal Reconstruction

High dynamic range (HDR) imaging is one of the biggest achievements in modern photography. Traditional solutions to HDR imaging are designed for and applied to CMOS image sensors (CIS). However, the mainstream one-micron CIS cameras today generally have a high read noise and low frame-rate. Consequently, these sensors have limited acquisition speed, making the cameras slow in the HDR mode. In this paper, we propose a new computational photography technique for HDR imaging. Recognizing the limitations of CIS, we use the Quanta Image Sensors (QIS) to trade spatial-temporal resolution with bit-depth. QIS are single-photon image sensors that have comparable pixel pitch to CIS but substantially lower dark current and read noise. We provide a complete theoretical characterization of the sensor in the context of HDR imaging, by proving the fundamental limits in the dynamic range that QIS can offer and its trade-offs with noise and speed. In addition, we derive an optimal reconstruction algorithm for single-bit and multi-bit QIS. Our algorithm is theoretically optimal for all linear reconstruction schemes based on exposure bracketing. Experimental results confirm the validity of the theory and algorithm, based on synthetic and real QIS data.
Extensive Healthy Donor Age/Gender Adjustments and Propensity Score Matching Reveal Physiology of Multiple Sclerosis Through Immunophenotyping.

Quantifying cell subpopulations in biological fluids aids in diagnosis and understanding of the mechanisms of injury. Although much has been learned from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow cytometry in neuroimmunological disorders, such as multiple sclerosis (MS), previous studies did not contain enough healthy donors (HD) to derive age- and gender-related normative data and sufficient heterogeneity of other inflammatory neurological disease (OIND) controls to identify MS specific changes. The goals of this blinded training and validation study of MS patients and embedded controls, representing 1,240 prospectively acquired paired CSF/blood samples from 588 subjects was (1) to define physiological age-/gender-related changes in CSF cells, (2) to define/validate cellular abnormalities in blood and CSF of untreated MS through disease duration (DD) and determine which are MS-specific, and (3) to compare effect(s) of low-efficacy (i.e., interferon-beta [IFN-beta] and glatiramer acetate [GA]) and high-efficacy drugs (i.e., natalizumab, daclizumab, and ocrelizumab) on MS-related cellular abnormalities using propensity score matching. Physiological gender differences are less pronounced in the CSF compared to blood, and age-related changes suggest decreased immunosurveillance of CNS by activated HLA-DR+T cells associated with natural aging. Results from patient samples support the concept of MS being immunologically single disease evolving in time. Initially, peripherally activated innate and adaptive immune cells migrate into CSF to form MS lesions. With progression, T cells (CD8+ > CD4+), NK cells, and myeloid dendritic cells are depleted from blood as they continue to accumulate, together with B cells, in the CSF and migrate to CNS tissue, forming compartmentalized inflammation. All MS drugs inhibit non-physiological accumulation of immune cells in the CSF. Although low-efficacy drugs tend to normalize it, high-efficacy drugs overshoot some aspects of CSF physiology, suggesting impairment of CNS immunosurveillance. Comparable inhibition of MS-related CSF abnormalities advocates changes within CNS parenchyma responsible for differences in drug efficacy on MS disability progression. Video summarizing all results may become useful educational tool.
DiCENet: Dimension-wise Convolutions for Efficient Networks.

We introduce a novel and generic convolutional unit, DiCE unit, that is built using dimension-wise convolutions and dimension-wise fusion. The dimension-wise convolutions apply lightweight convolutional filtering across each dimension of the input tensor while dimension-wise fusion efficiently combines these dimension-wise representations; allowing the DiCE unit to efficiently encode spatial and channel-wise information contained in the input tensor. The DiCE unit is simple and can be seamlessly integrated with any architecture to improve its efficiency and performance. Compared to depth-wise separable convolutions, the DiCE unit shows significant improvements across different architectures. When DiCE units are stacked to build the DiCENet model, we observe significant improvements over state-of-the-art models across various computer vision tasks including image classification, object detection, and semantic segmentation. On the ImageNet dataset, the DiCENet delivers 2-4% higher accuracy than state-of-the-art manually designed models (e.g., MobileNetv2 and ShuffleNetv2). Also, DiCENet generalizes better to tasks (e.g., object detection) that are often used in resource-constrained devices in comparison to state-of-the-art separable convolution-based efficient networks, including neural search-based methods (e.g., MobileNetv3 and MixNet).
Correlating the Structure and Activity of Y. pestis Ail in a Bacterial Cell Envelope.

Abstract Understanding microbe-host interactions at the molecular level is a major goal of fundamental biology and therapeutic drug development. Structural biology strives to capture biomolecular structures in action, but the samples are often highly simplified versions of the complex native environment. Here, we present an Escherichia coli model system that allows us to probe the structure and function of Ail, the major surface protein of the deadly pathogen Yersinia pestis. We show that cell surface expression of Ail produces Y. pestis virulence phenotypes in E. coli, including resistance to human serum, cosedimentation of human vitronectin, and pellicle formation. Moreover, isolated bacterial cell envelopes, encompassing inner and outer membranes, yield high-resolution solid-state NMR spectra that reflect the structure of Ail and reveal Ail sites that are sensitive to the bacterial membrane environment and involved in the interactions with human serum components. The data capture the structure and function of Ail in a bacterial outer membrane and set the stage for probing its interactions with the complex milieu of immune response proteins present in human serum.
Efficient Document Exchange and Error Correcting Codes with Asymmetric Information

We study two fundamental problems in communication, Document Exchange (DE) and Error Correcting Code (ECC). In the first problem, two parties hold two strings, and one party tries to learn the other party's string through communication. In the second problem, one party tries to send a message to another party through a noisy channel, by adding some redundant information to protect the message. Two important goals in both problems are to minimize the communication complexity or redundancy, and to design efficient protocols or codes. Both problems have been studied extensively. In this paper we study whether asymmetric partial information can help in these two problems. We focus on the case of Hamming distance/errors, and the asymmetric partial information is modeled by one party having a vector of disjoint subsets $\vec{S}=(S_1, \cdots, S_t)$ of indices and a vector of integers $\vec{k}=(k_1, \cdots, k_t)$, such that in each $S_i$ the Hamming distance/errors is at most $k_i$. We establish both lower bounds and upper bounds in this model, and provide efficient randomized constructions that achieve a $\min\lbrace O(t^2), O\left((\log \log n)^2\right) \rbrace $ factor within the optimum, with almost linear running time. We further show a connection between the above document exchange problem and the problem of document exchange under edit distance, and use our techniques to give an efficient randomized protocol with optimal communication complexity and \emph{exponentially} small error for the latter. This improves the previous result by Haeupler \cite{haeupler2018optimal} (FOCS'19) and that by Belazzougui and Zhang \cite{BelazzouguiZ16} (FOCS'16). Our techniques are based on a generalization of the celebrated expander codes by Sipser and Spielman \cite{sipser1996expander}, which may be of independent interests.
Lift coefficient estimation for a rapidly pitching airfoil

We develop a method for estimating the instantaneous lift coefficient on a rapidly pitching airfoil that uses a small number of pressure sensors and a measurement of the angle of attack. The approach assimilates four surface pressure measurements with a modified nonlinear state space model (Goman–Khrabrov model) through a Kalman filter. The error of lift coefficient estimates based only on a weighted-sum of the measured pressures are found to be noisy and biased, which leads to inaccurate estimates. The estimate is improved by including the predictive model in an conventional Kalman filter. The Goman–Khrabrov model is shown to be a linear parameter-varying system and can therefore be used in the Kalman filter without the need for linearization. Additional improvement is realized by modifying the algorithm to provide more accurate estimate of the lift coefficient. The improved Kalman filtering approach results in a bias-free lift coefficient estimate that is more precise than either the pressure-based estimate or the Goman–Khrabrov model on their own. The new method will enable performance enhancements in aerodynamic systems whose performance relies on lift.
Multi-Swarm Herding: Protecting against Adversarial Swarms

This paper studies a defense approach against one or more swarms of adversarial agents. In our earlier work, we employ a closed formation (‘StringNet’) of defending agents (defenders) around a swarm of adversarial agents (attackers) to confine their motion within given bounds, and guide them to a safe area. The control design relies on the assumption that the adversarial agents remain close enough to each other, i.e., within a prescribed connectivity region. To handle situations when the attackers no longer stay within such a connectivity region, but rather split into smaller swarms (clusters) to maximize the chance or impact of attack, this paper proposes an approach to learn the attacking sub-swarms and reassign defenders towards the attackers. We use a ‘Density-based Spatial Clustering of Application with Noise (DBSCAN)’ algorithm to identify the spatially distributed swarms of the attackers. Then, the defenders are assigned to each identified swarm of attackers by solving a constrained generalized assignment problem. Simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.
Energy-Efficient Node Deployment in Heterogeneous Two-Tier Wireless Sensor Networks With Limited Communication Range

We study a heterogeneous two-tier wireless sensor network in which $N$ heterogeneous access points (APs) collect sensing data from densely distributed sensors and then forward the data to $M$ heterogeneous fusion centers (FCs). This heterogeneous node deployment problem is modeled as an optimization problem with the total power consumption of the network as its cost function. The necessary conditions of the optimal AP and FC node deployment are explored in this paper. We provide a variation of Voronoi Diagram as the optimal cell partition for this network and show that each AP should be placed between its connected FC and the geometric center of its cell partition. In addition, we propose a heterogeneous two-tier Lloyd algorithm to optimize the node deployment. Furthermore, we study the sensor deployment when the communication range is limited for sensors and APs. Simulation results show that our proposed algorithms outperform the existing clustering methods like Minimum Energy Routing, Agglomerative Clustering, Divisive Clustering, Particle Swarm Optimization, Relay Node placement in Double-tiered Wireless Sensor Networks, and Improved Relay Node Placement, on average.
Women’s Pathways Into Activism Rethinking the Women’s Environmental Justice Narrative in California’s San Joaquin Valley

This article explores women’s pathways to participation in environmental justice advocacy in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Many scholars find that women become environmental justice activists ac...
Demand Uncertainty and Cost Behavior

ABSTRACT: We investigate analytically and empirically the relationship between demand uncertainty and cost behavior. We argue that with more uncertain demand, unusually high realizations of demand become more likely. Accordingly, firms will choose a higher capacity of fixed inputs when uncertainty increases in order to reduce congestion costs. Higher capacity levels imply a more rigid short-run cost structure with higher fixed and lower variable costs. We formalize this “counterintuitive” argument in a simple analytical model of capacity choice. Following this logic, we hypothesize that firms facing higher demand uncertainty have a more rigid short-run cost structure with higher fixed and lower variable costs. We test this hypothesis for the manufacturing sector using data from Compustat and the NBER-CES Industry Database. Evidence strongly supports our hypothesis for multiple cost categories in both datasets. The results are robust to alternative specifications. Data Availability: All data used in this s...
'OPTIMAL' POLLUTION ABATEMENT - WHOSE BENEFITS MATTER, AND HOW MUCH?

Abstract We examine the determinants of environmental regulatory activity (inspections and enforcement actions) and levels of air and water pollution for 409 US pulp and paper mills, using data for 1985–1997. We focus on the benefits to the surrounding population from pollution abatement. Plants with larger benefits emit less pollution, as do those with more kids and elders nearby. Plants in poor areas emit more pollution, though (surprisingly) we find less pollution in minority areas. Out-of-state neighbors seem to count less than in-state ones, although this effect diminishes if the bordering state's Congressional delegation is strongly pro-environment. We use ‘spatially lagged’ instrumental variables to control for the potential endogeneity of which individuals choose to locate near the plant. The results for regulatory activity are noticeably less significant than the emissions results.
When Do Human Rights Treaties Help Asylum Seekers? A Study of Theory and Practice In Canadian Jurisprudence Since 1990

This article supports a new theoretical approach to the utilization of human rights treaties in refugee status adjudications in domestic courts. The existing literature on treaty effectiveness is divided between several optimistic and pessimistic perspectives, none of which adequately predict the circumstances under which domestic courts in Canada reference treaties in ways that help refugees obtain relief. This new theoretical approach adds to the literature on treaty effectiveness in the litigation context by suggesting that the extent to which Canadian domestic courts reference treaties in ways that help refugees depends on several factors, including the manner in which those treaties are integrated into domestic law. It also demonstrates that invoking human rights treaties indiscriminately can be detrimental to the interests of refugees, as it can create the impression that the refugee’s lawyer is desperate. This article is available in Osgoode Hall Law Journal: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol51/iss2/7
A constructive process view of decision making: Multiple strategies in judgment and choice

Abstract A viewpoint that has recently emerged in decision research is that preferences for objects of any complexity are often constructed — not merely revealed — in generating a response to a judgement or choice task. This paper reviews a program of research that traces the constructiveness of preferences to the use of multiple strategies in decision making, contingent on task demands. It is argued that individuals often build strategies opportunistically, changing their processing on the spot depending upon the information they encounter during the course of solving the decision problem.
“I’m a Lawyer, Not an Ethnographer, Jim”: Textual Poachers and Fair Use

This short article, written for a festschrift for Henry Jenkins, discusses the influence of his work on media fandom in legal scholarship and advocacy around fair use.
Markets and Sovereignty

The past few decades have witnessed the growth of an exciting debate in the legal academy about the tensions between economic pressures to commodify and philosophical commitments to the market inalienability of certain items. Sex, organs, babies and college athletics are among the many topics that have received attention. The debates have often have proceeded, however, as if they involve markets on one side and the state on the other, with the relevant question being the ways in which the latter can or should try to facilitate, restrict, or rely on the former. In this essay, we approach the relationship between markets and sovereign control from a different perspective, and contemplate more radical versions of their relationship. What would it mean for governing authority itself to be market alienable? And what would it mean if the people—rather than the state—were the ones who set the prices and controlled the transfers? Could a “market for sovereign control” contribute to welfare-enhancing changes in governance?
Reciprocity of Government Restructuring/Policy Changes and the Convergent Environment in South Korea

This paper takes the approach that industry developments, the structure of governmental decision-making bodies, and policy responses are interdependent and mutually shaped. How ministries and regulatory bodies are designed and put together affects both their policy outlooks and managerial capabilities, in turn affecting their policy output. Governments have also consciously restructured ministries and regulators in order to promote specific policy orientations, or in response to changes in the industry. This three-way interaction is critically important to the responses of governments to the emerging broadband ecosystem. The paper examines four different restructurings in the Korean government, and argues that the identification of a governmental agency as a nodal agency was the result of a new policy orientation, and the response to a change in the industrial environment. Though no two countries are totally similar in terms of their industrial and political environments or policy needs, the paper is based on the premise that the example of South Korea has useful lessons for other countries, as a leading indicator of changes in government regulatory structures in response to convergence and the emergence of the broadband ecosystem.
Bribery and Favoritism in Queuing Models of Rationed Resource Allocation

Queuing mechanisms are commonly used in developing countries and in transition economies to allocate goods characterized by excess demand to citizens. Bribery and favoritism frequently accompany the use of such queuing mechanisms. Therefore, we first analyze a queuing model of resource allocation with bribery. Specifically, we determine the expected wait time of a citizen from the time he arrives to queue and the time he obtains the rationed good, the likelihood that a citizen illegally obtains n units of the rationed good, and the expected time a citizen spends being served by the public or private official. Next, we analyze a queuing model of resource allocation with favoritism. Using this model, we ascertain the mean arrival rate of the favored citizen and the likelihood that an ordinary citizen is bumped n times to provide the rationed good immediately to the favored citizen.
Why Are There Rich and Poor Countries? Symmetry-Breaking in the World Economy

Abstract To explain cross-country differences in economic performance, the economics of coordination failures typically portrays each country in a closed economy model with multiple equilibria and then argues that the Poor countries are in equilibria inferior to those achieved by the Rich. This approach cannot tell us anything about the degree of inequality in the world economy. A more satisfactory approach would be to build a world economy model and show why it has to be separated into the Rich and the Poor regions, i.e., to demonstrate the coexistence of the Rich and Poor as an inevitable aspect of the world trading system. In the present model, the symmetry-breaking of the world economy into the Rich and the Poor occurs because international trade causes agglomeration of different economic activities in different regions of the world. International trade thus creates a kind of pecking order among nations, and as in a game of musical chairs, some countries must be excluded from being Rich. J. Japan. Int. Econ ., December 1996, 10 (4), pp. 419–439. Department of Economics, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208
Stock returns, inflation, and the ‘proxy hypothesis’: A new look at the data

Abstract This paper reexamines the proxy hypothesis of Fama (American Economic Review, 1981, 71, 545–565) as the main explanation for the negative correlation between stock returns and inflation. We look at quarterly data on industrial-production growth, monetary-base growth, CPI inflation, three-month Treasury-bill rates, and returns on the equally-weighted NYSE portfolio, for the 1954–1976 and 1977–1990 periods. Using time-series techniques, we find that production growth induces only a weak negative correlation between inflation and stock returns, and explains less of the covariance between the two series than inflation and interest-rate innovations.
PRIVATE-PROPERTY RIGHTS, ERRONEOUS INTERPRETATIONS, MORALITY, AND ECONOMICS: REPLY TO DEMSETZ

Professor Harold Demsetz and I have been involved in an intellectual dispute which has taken place over several years. I can hardly have a better debating partner. He is easily amongst the half dozen or so most eminent economists who has not (yet) won the Nobel Prize in this discipline. To say that his contributions to the theory of property rights, regulation, law and economics, to mention only a few of the areas on which he has focused his attention, are highly regarded within the profession would be a vast understatement. Most important of all to me, he is one of the very few eminent economists who has been willing to engage me in intellectual combat.
Dynamic Selling Mechanisms for Product Differentiation and Learning

Changing regulations, macroeconomic factors, and technological innovations cause substantial uncertainty in the cost of providing services. In their study “Dynamic Selling Mechanisms for Product Di...
The Other Side of Garcia: The Right of Publicity and Copyright Preemption

The subject of my talk is a perfect transition from the two prior talks, and a perfect place to end an entire symposium about Copyright Outside the Box—by literally getting out of the copyright box entirely, and talking about the right of publicity and its intersection with copyright law. June Besek started off this panel by describing it as being about “If authorship, what then?” and my twist on this question is, “If not authorship, what then?” Or perhaps instead the turn is toward thinking about authorship in a different way: Are we talking about the author of the underlying film or the underlying work, or instead, are we perhaps talking about a different type of authorship—meaning authorship over oneself, one’s name, or one’s likeness? This latter notion of being the author of oneself is the purview of the right of publicity. Perhaps another way of thinking about my topic is that co-panelist Jay Dougherty’s film producers should still be worried even though they ultimately won in the Ninth Circuit’s rehearing of Garcia v. Google, Inc. Or, yet another lens to consider, is to pick up where my other co-panelist, Eva Subotnik, left off— perhaps the actors and the subjects of photographs have another avenue of asserting their rights, other than copyright law. The title of this talk is “The Other Side of Garcia.” The “other side” is the right of publicity, and its interface with copyright, and in particular with the doctrine of copyright preemption. This intersection or really conflict between the two laws was actually at the heart of Garcia v. Google, although it is rarely talked about in the context of the case.
Plaintiff Personal Jurisdiction and Venue Transfer

Personal jurisdiction usually focuses on the rights of the defendant. That is because a plaintiff implicitly consents to personal jurisdiction in the court where the plaintiff chooses to file. But what if the defendant seeks to transfer venue to a court in a state in which the plaintiff has no contacts and never consented to personal jurisdiction? Lower courts operate on the assumption that, in both ordinary venue-transfer cases under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) and MDL-transfer cases under § 1407(a), personal-jurisdiction concerns for plaintiffs simply do not apply. I contest that assumption. Neither statute authorizes such expansive federal-court personal jurisdiction. And theories based on implied consent stretch that notion too far. Personal jurisdiction legitimately can treat plaintiffs and defendants differently, but those differences call for nuance and fact dependency, not a blanket exemption for plaintiffs from personal-jurisdiction protections. I attend to plaintiff-side personal jurisdiction by articulating and justifying the standard for protecting the due-process rights of plaintiffs subject to interstate venue transfer without their express consent.
Effects of Discussion of Audit Reviews on Auditors' Motivation and Performance

One important purpose of audit review is to provide feedback and onthe‐job training (Libby and Luft 1993), but we know very little about the effectiveness of review as a feedback mechanism. Firms have recently been moving to including discussion of performance and audit findings as part of the review procedure (Rich et al. 1997). The purpose of this field survey is to explore whether the addition of such discussion to the review feedback process enhances preparers' subsequent performance. By examining survey responses from both reviewers and preparers from actual audit engagements, we find that incorporating discussion of performance with written review notes does enhance preparers' motivation to improve performance. However, experience moderates the effect of discussion on performance improvement as perceived by the reviewer. While discussion resulted in better performance for less experienced auditors, it appears to actually diminish performance improvement for more experienced preparers.
Hayek, Leoni, and Law as the Fifth Factor of Production

This paper discusses the nature of law as the fifth factor of production, or more fundamentally as the institutional framework within which the production process takes place. Unlike land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship, whose coordination is an outcome of institutional arrangements, the law itself is the institutional embodiment of the voluntary exchange processes evolving from the decisions, but not the design, of judges that form the reliable expectations about who “plans” the coordination of the other four factors of production. The legal theory of Hayek and Leoni lends itself to this dual nature of spontaneous order analysis and also the basis of the burgeoning literature on analytical anarchism. Although Hayek and Leoni were not legal centralists, their conception of law as part of a larger spontaneous order was open-ended to competition and experimentation on the constitutional level of rules just as that experienced on the post-constitutional level of the market itself.
The Role Of Export Subsisies When Product Quality Is Unknown

Abstract We explore the role of export subsidies when foreign goods are initially of unknown quality to domestic consumers. Absent export subsidies, entry of high quality firms may be blocked by their inability to sell at prices reflecting their true quality. Export subsidies can break this entry barrier and increase welfare. Moreover, even when high quality firms find it possible to signal their quality to consumers through an introductory pricing strategy, a rolefor government policy can arise: the signal (low introductory price) transfers surplus from foreign producers to domestic consumers and can be avoided with an appropriate export tax/subsidy policy.
What Do Fund Flows Reveal about Asset Pricing Models and Investor Sophistication

Recent evidence indicates that market model alphas are stronger predictors of mutual fund flows than alphas with other models. Some recent papers have interpreted this evidence to mean that CAPM is the best asset pricing model, but some others have interpreted it as evidence against investor sophistication. We evaluate the merits of these mutually exclusive interpretations. We show that no tenable inference about the validity of any asset pricing model can be drawn from this evidence. Rejecting the investor sophistication hypothesis is tenable, but the appropriate benchmark to judge sophistication is different from that used in this literature.
Marriage, the Constitution, and the Future of Family Law

This article discusses the implications of Obergefell for marriage and family law more generally, for example, how some states might try to treat same-sex marital couples differently from other couples with respect to the rights and benefits to which they are entitled under state law and whether such attempts would likely pass constitutional muster. It also discusses how some states will emphasize (and others deemphasize) marital status when determining individuals’ rights and responsibilities, e.g., by modifying their approaches to the rights and obligations of cohabitating couples. The article concludes that the Obergefell holding is unlikely to cause significant changes in family law, and that states reacting to such a decision are more likely to diverge than converge with respect to the degree to which they distinguish between marital and non-marital couples.
Hearing the Deaf: Cochlear Implants, the Deaf Community, and Bioethical Analysis

is an excellent introduction to Deaf culture. (Aronson Film Assoc., Inc., Pub. Pol‘y. Prod., Inc., Thirteen/WNET, & Channel 4 (UK) N.Y. 2000). The film traces the stories of two brothers—one deaf and one hearing—as they and their wives struggle to make decisions about cochlear implants for their hearing children.
Measuring the Structure of Road Networks

Spatial networks display both topologic and geometric variations in their structure. This study investigates the measurement of road network structure. Existing measures of heterogeneity, connectivity, accessibility, and interconnectivity are reviewed and three supplemental measures are proposed, including measures of entropy, connection patterns, and continuity. Proposed measures were applied to 16 test networks, which were derived from 4 idealized base networks: 90-degree, 45-degree, 30-degree, and completely connected. The results show that the differentiated structures of road networks can be evaluated by the measure of entropy; predefined connection patterns of arterial roads can be identified and quantified by the measures of ringness, webness, beltness, circuitness, and treeness. A measure of continuity evaluates the quality of a network from the perspective of travelers. Proposed measures could be used to describe the structural attributes of complicated road networks quantitatively, to compare different network structures, and to explore the structural evolution of networks in the spatial and temporal context. These measures can find their applications in urban planning and transportation practice.
THE EFFECT OF THE TRADING SYSTEM ON IPO UNDERPRICING: EVIDENCE FROM THE 1997 ORDER-HANDLING RULES

We use a natural experiment resulting from the 1997 Securities and Exchange Commission rule mandating a change in the order-handling rules (OHR) for all NASDAQ stocks to test whether secondary market structure affects initial public offering (IPO) underpricing. We find that the increase in liquidity that the OHR represent led to a decrease in underpricing for cold NASDAQ IPOs, suggesting that when liquidity is lowest, changes in market liquidity display a negative relation to initial returns.
The Private Attorney General in a Global Age: Public Interests in Private International Antitrust Litigation

Even in a climate of increased cooperation among regulatory authorities, jurisdictional conflict remains a prominent aspect of cross-border antitrust regulation. Much of this conflict is generated by private litigation - that is, lawsuits initiated under U.S. antitrust law by private attorneys general rather than by the government. This article examines two strands of jurisprudence relevant to the role of the private attorney general in cases with international aspects. First, it analyzes the cases, involving actions based on statutory violations of the antitrust laws, in which the extraterritorial reach of U.S. antitrust law has been delimited. It then turns to decisions on choice of forum and choice of law in international contracts, noting that those cases increasingly support party autonomy even when regulatory law issues are involved. The article notes that the former cases contemplate an expansive role for, and the latter cases marginalize, the private attorney general. It then argues that the disparate treatment accorded the private attorney general in these two settings illustrates a more general inconsistency in the value assigned to public regulatory interests of the United States in international cases - while the statutory cases suggest that U.S. antitrust interests cannot be weighed against other interests, the contract cases indicate otherwise. The article thus concludes that arguments against interest balancing in the statutory context have been undermined by developments in the international contract arena.
The Semi‐Sovereign State: Belarus and the Russian Neo‐Empire

States sometimes sacrifice sovereignty to other states. What can account for this seemingly irrational behavior? In analyzing Belarus' membership in the Russia neo-empire, I find that four factors explain President Aleksandyr Lukashenka's decision to sacrifice some sovereignty to Russia. The first and previously most ignored variable is the degree of relation-specific assets (RSAs), most notably fuel pipelines. While Russian President Vladimir Putin has attempted to ruthlessly force Lukashenka into acquiescing control over Belarus' pipelines, Lukashenka has held firm, using an aggressive attacking campaign against Putin. This article uses process-tracing to demonstrate how a weak state's leader can use RSAs to his advantage. In addition to the critical and underappreciated role of RSAs, weak nationalism and democratic norms, and Russia's own strong interest in an economic hierarchy play an important role in explaining the current relationship between the two states. By using a rationalist analysis that incorporates norms as independent variables, I join several recent works that integrate rationalist and constructivist approaches.
The Anatomy of Chevron: Step Two Reconsidered

The famous case of Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837 (1984), holds that a reviewing court should evaluate an administrative agency's interpretation of its enabling legislation by first asking whether the statute has a clear meaning ("step one"); if the statute is ambiguous, the interpretation should be upheld if it is reasonable ("step two"). But if the agency's interpretation is not clearly contrary to the statute, on what grounds could it be deemed unreasonable? Cases from the Supreme Court, which has never set aside an agency action on the basis of step two, do not answer this question. This article examines a line of D.C. Circuit cases that tend to identify Chevron step two review with traditional "arbitrary and capricious" review. The article defends this approach and suggests that it offers a better solution to the problem of giving meaning to step two than any of the salient alternatives.
The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit

You suspect something amiss is going on behind your back. Or maybe you know something is going on, but you are not sure of all the details. You want the full story, and you know one way to get it. You could spy. Is there any reason not to spy on other people as necessary to get the facts straight, especially if you can put the facts you uncover to good use? To "spy" is secretly to monitor or investigate another's beliefs, inten tions, actions, omissions, or capacities, especially as revealed in otherwise concealed or confidential conduct, communications and documents. By definition, spying involves secret, covert activity, though not necessarily lies, fraud or dishonesty. Nor does spying necessarily involve the use of special equipment, such as a tape recorder or high-powered binoculars. Use of a third party agent, such as a "private eye" or Central Intelligence Agency operative is not necessary for surveillance to count as spying. By "spying" I mean something different from unwanted open sur veillance of people who know they are being observed or investigated; and I mean something different from openly prying into others' affairs by plying them with meddlesome questions. Like spying, open surveillance and prying raise moral concerns. Notably, all three?spying, open sur veillance and prying, potentially interfere with expectations of privacy. People want to be let alone. But spying is morally troublesome both because it violates privacy norms and because it relies on secrecy and, perhaps, nefarious deception. Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication?telephone, mobile phone, comput er email ?there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping.
Central bank communications and equity ETFs

This article examines effects of monetary policy surprises on returns, volatilities, trading volumes, and bid–ask spread of two equity ETFs, the S&P 500 SPY fund and the S&P 400 MDY fund. The policy surprises are measured by both surprises in the federal funds rate target changes and surprises in the future direction of the Federal Reserve monetary policy. The results show that there is an overreaction of the SPY to the federal funds rate target surprise in the first 5 minutes' trading and that both the SPY and the MDY returns, volatilities, trading volumes, and bid–ask spread react more strongly to surprise cuts than to surprise increases in the federal funds rate target. Quantitatively, after 45 minutes, an unanticipated 25-basis-point cut in the federal funds rate target is associated with an increase of 1.2 and 1.6% in the SPY and the MDY, respectively, while an unanticipated 25-basis-point decline (or rise) in the four-quarter-ahead eurodollar futures rate is associated with an increase (or decrease) of 0.71 and 0.40% in the SPY and the MDY, respectively. Further evidence also suggests that the market reacts more strongly to surprises in the future direction of monetary policy during the monetary tightening period and that the impact of monetary policy surprises depends on their sizes. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 26:959–995, 2006
Police Perceptions of Body-Worn Cameras

Over the past several years there has been resistance from police officers towards implementing body-worn camera (BWC) technology. This paper assesses police perceptions towards BWCs in Pittsburgh and other cities to better characterize and explain such resistance, and also gain insight into the efficacy and potential benefits of BWCs from officers who have used the technology in their daily policing duties. Our surveys and interviews found that overall, Pittsburgh officers strongly believe BWCs can reduce citizen complaints and maintain police-community relations, but support for deploying BWCs throughout the city is low (31%). However, that support significantly increases among officers with hands-on BWC experience (57%). A comparison to previous police surveys found further evidence that BWC experience improves officer perception of the technology. In contrast, Pittsburgh officers who oppose city-wide adoption were concerned BWCs would erode trust between officers and their superiors, implying that police departments that can protect these internal police relationships might experience less resistance from police officers. These and other results suggest that changes in BWC technology, police policy and procedure, rollout, and police training could lead to better BWC programs.
Wildlife, Water Quality, and the Public Trust Doctrine: A Means of Enforcing Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution Management Plans

Even though the Clean Water Act has proven successful in many respects, it has failed to properly address agricultural nonpoint source water pollution. This lack of sufficient legislation has left our nation’s waters polluted and has detrimentally affected much of the wildlife that depend on these waters for survival. In an effort to prevent further deterioration of our water systems, the public should consider using the public trust doctrine as a means of requiring state and local agencies to consider the public’s interests in wildlife and water quality when developing, regulating, and reevaluating nonpoint source pollution control plans.
A Macroeconomic Framework for Quantifying Systemic Risk

Systemic risk arises when shocks lead to states where a disruption in financial intermediation adversely affects the economy and feeds back into further disrupting financial intermediation. We present a macroeconomic model with a financial intermediary sector subject to an equity capital constraint. The novel aspect of our analysis is that the model’s solution is a stochastic steady state in which only some of the states correspond to systemic risk states. This model allows us to examine the transition from “normal” states to systemic risk states. We calibrate our model and use it to match the systemic risk apparent during the 2007/2008 financial crisis.
Proactive financial reporting enforcement and shareholder wealth

Abstract Within the UK's proactive financial-reporting enforcement regime, we examine the effect of increased regulatory scrutiny on equity values. We find that a fourfold increase in the likelihood of regulator-initiated reviews of financial reports reduces equity values by 1.3% on average. Reductions in equity values are largest for firms with strong private oversight that likely ensures that they are closer to their equity-value-maximizing level of transparency. Additional evidence suggests that competition increases and that managers' investment horizons decrease in industries selected for increased regulatory scrutiny, consistent with direct compliance costs not fully explaining the reduction in equity values.
Inside or outside the IP system? Business creation in academia☆

Abstract Research and public policy on academic entrepreneurship are largely based on the assumption that faculty members start businesses to commercialize inventions that have been disclosed to university administrators and have been patented. In this paper, we analyze a sample of 11,572 professors and find that much academic entrepreneurship occurs outside the university intellectual property system. Specifically, about 2/3 of businesses started by academics are not based on disclosed and patented inventions. Moreover, we show that individual characteristics, departmental and organizational affiliations, and time allocation of academics that have started business outside the IP system are different from those of academics that have started businesses to exploit disclosed and patented inventions. We discuss the implications for research on and the practice of academic entrepreneurship.
Coal Mine Safety: Do Unions Make a Difference?:

Although the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) has always advocated strongly for miners' safety, the empirical literature contains no evidence that unionization reduced mine injuries or fatalities during the 1970s and '80s. The author uses an updated methodology and a more comprehensive data set than previous studies to examine the relationship between unionization and underground, bituminous coal mine safety from 1993 to 2010. She finds that unionization predicts a substantial and statistically significant decline in traumatic injuries and fatalities, the two safety measures that are the least prone to reporting bias. These results are especially pronounced among larger mines. Overall, unionization is associated with a 14 to 32% drop in traumatic injuries and a 29 to 83% drop in fatalities. Yet unionization also predicts higher total and nontraumatic injuries, suggesting that injury reporting practices differ between union and nonunion mines.