cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Accumbens cholinergic interneurons mediate cue-induced nicotine seeking and associated glutamatergic plasticity

Nicotine, the primary addictive substance in tobacco, is widely abused. Relapse to cues associated with nicotine results in increased glutamate release within nucleus accumbens core (NAcore), modifying synaptic plasticity of medium spiny neurons (MSNs) which contributes to reinstatement of nicotine seeking. However, the role of cholinergic interneurons (ChIs) within the NAcore in mediating these neurobehavioral processes is unknown. ChIs represent less than 1% of the accumbens neuronal population and are activated during drug seeking and reward-predicting events. Thus, we hypothesized that ChIs may play a significant role in mediating glutamatergic plasticity that underlies nicotine seeking behavior. Using chemogenetics in transgenic rats expressing Cre under the control of the choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) promoter, ChIs were bi-directionally manipulated prior to cue-induced reinstatement. Following nicotine self-administration and extinction, ChIs were activated or inhibited prior to a cue reinstatement session. Following reinstatement, whole-cell electrophysiology from NAcore MSNs was used to assess changes in plasticity, measured via α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA)/N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) (A/N) ratios. Chemogenetic inhibition of ChIs inhibited cued nicotine seeking and resulted in decreased A/N, relative to control animals, whereas activation of ChIs was unaltered, demonstrating that ChI inhibition may modulate plasticity underlying cue-induced nicotine seeking. These results demonstrate that ChI neurons play an important role in mediating cue-induced nicotine reinstatement and underlying synaptic plasticity within the NAcore. Significance Statement The studies reported here are the first to address the role of cholinergic interneurons (ChIs) in cue-induced nicotine seeking and in nicotine-induced changes in synaptic plasticity within nucleus accumbens medium spiny neurons (MSNs). Chemogenetic inhibition of ChIs prevented cue-induced nicotine seeking and associated MSN plasticity. Additionally, these studies highlight the role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in mediating cue induced nicotine seeking and associated MSN morphology. Through the use of chemogenetics, behavioral assessments, and electrophysiology the results presented here highlight the importance of the cholinergic circuitry within the nucleus accumbens core for mediating cue-induced nicotine seeking.
The Effects of Object Shape, Fidelity, Color, and Luminance on Depth Perception in Handheld Mobile Augmented Reality

Depth perception of objects can greatly affect a user’s experience of an augmented reality (AR) application. Many AR applications require depth matching of real and virtual objects and have the possibility to be influenced by depth cues. Color and luminance are depth cues that have been traditionally studied in two-dimensional (2D) objects. However, there is little research investigating how the properties of three-dimensional (3D) virtual objects interact with color and luminance to affect depth perception, despite the substantial use of 3D objects in visual applications. In this paper, we present the results of a paired comparison experiment that investigates the effects of object shape, fidelity, color, and luminance on depth perception of 3D objects in handheld mobile AR. The results of our study indicate that bright colors are perceived as nearer than dark colors for a high-fidelity, simple 3D object, regardless of hue. Additionally, bright red is perceived as nearer than any other color. These effects were not observed for a low-fidelity version of the simple object or for a more-complex 3D object. High-fidelity objects had more perceptual differences than low-fidelity objects, indicating that fidelity interacts with color and luminance to affect depth perception. These findings reveal how the properties of 3D models influence the effects of color and luminance on depth perception in handheld mobile AR and can help developers select colors for their applications.
QRnet: Optimal Regulator Design With LQR-Augmented Neural Networks

In this letter we propose a new computational method for designing optimal regulators for high-dimensional nonlinear systems. The proposed approach leverages physics-informed machine learning to solve high-dimensional Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations arising in optimal feedback control. Concretely, we augment linear quadratic regulators with neural networks to handle nonlinearities. We train the augmented models on data generated without discretizing the state space, enabling application to high-dimensional problems. We use the proposed method to design a candidate optimal regulator for an unstable Burgers’ equation, and through this example, demonstrate improved robustness and accuracy compared to existing neural network formulations.
TaskTorrent: a Lightweight Distributed Task-Based Runtime System in C++

We present TaskTorrent, a lightweight distributed task-based runtime in C++.TaskTorrent uses a parametrized task graph to express the task DAG, and one-sided active messages to trigger remote tasks asynchronously. As a result the task DAG is completely distributed and discovered in parallel. It is a C++14 library and only depends on MPI. We explain the API and the implementation. We perform a series of benchmarks against StarPU and ScaLAPACK. Micro benchmarks show it has a minimal overhead compared to other solutions. We then apply it to two large linear algebra problems. TaskTorrent scales very well to thousands of cores, exhibiting good weak and strong scalings.
Joint Subgraph-to-Subgraph Transitions: Generalizing Triadic Closure for Powerful and Interpretable Graph Modeling

We generalize triadic closure, along with previous generalizations of triadic closure, under an intuitive umbrella generalization: the Subgraph-to-Subgraph Transition (SST). We present algorithms and code to model graph evolution in terms of collections of these SSTs. We then use the SST framework to create link prediction models for both static and temporal, directed and undirected graphs which produce highly interpretable results. Quantitatively, our models match out-of-the-box performance of state of the art graph neural network models, thereby validating the correctness and meaningfulness of our interpretable results.
Origins and Evolution of War and Politics

This is a progress report of The Long-Range Analysis of War (LORANOW) Project, an ongoing investigation on the earliest origins and evolution of warfare and politics. Using multidisciplinary sources (archaeology, epigraphy, ethnology) and new coding procedures (integrated historical reconstruction), thus far approximately 2,300 wars have been recorded in the pilot datasets, indicating a tentatively lower onset rate (≈ 0.2 wars/year) than for the modern system (≈ 1.1 wars/year). Paleolithic “protowarfare” among the earliest humans in Afro-Eurasia is also discussed. Besides the early date for warfare at Jericho (ca. 7500 B.C.), findings thus far support the hypothesis that war and politics have had multiple independent origins (pleogenic theory), in at least three separate regions (trident model): Mesopotamia (Tigris-Euphrates Rivers basin, since ca. 3000 B.C.), China (Yellow River basin, since ca. 2500 B.C.), and Mesoamerica (Olmec-Mexican Gulf Coast, since ca. 900 B.C.). Two other possible, unconfirmed areas are Nubia and the Peruvian Andes.
COMPARE: Comparative Advantage driven resource allocation for Virtual Network Functions

As Communication Service Providers (CSPs) adopt the Network Function Virtualization (NFV) paradigm they need to transition their network function capacity to a virtualized infrastructure with different Network Functions (NFs) running on a set of heterogeneous servers. This paper describes a novel technique for allocating server resources (compute, storage and network) for a given set of Virtual Network Function (VNF) requirements. Our approach helps the telecommunication providers decide the most effective way to run several VNFs on servers with different performance characteristics. Our analysis of prior VNF performance characterization on heterogeneous/different server resource allocations shows that the ability to arbitrarily create many VNFs among different servers' resource allocations leads to a comparative advantage among servers. We propose a VNF resource allocation method called COMPARE that maximizes the total throughput of the system by formulating this resource allocation problem as a comparative advantage problem among heterogeneous servers. There are several applications for using the VNF resource allocation from COMPARE including transitioning current Telco deployments to NFV based solutions and providing initial VNF placement for Service Function Chain (SFC) provisioning. We use analytic proof and illustrative examples to demonstrate optimality of COMPARE algorithm.
Intervention in Roman Law: A Case Study in the Hazards of Legal Scholarship

In this Article, I offer a case study of one of the hazards presented by legal scholarship in law reviews as it has evolved over the last century. The standard law review article typically begins with an overview of the author's subject, frequently involving a historical perspective or a chronology of the development of a doctrine. This background section stems from a number of causes, but many attribute it to the fact that most law reviews are student-edited. In order to evaluate an author's argument, students need a brief course in, say, the basics of trade law and pollution control statutes before the author can advance her or his argument about how the two should intersect or how the courts have botched the job of merging the two. If an error creeps into a background section, then, other scholars might simply repeat the error without critical injury.I discovered such an error while preparing an article in this standard format. Part I documents the error that these three men made. Readers who wish to escape the tedium of the argument of whether Roman law had intervention and the extent to which it did may wish to skip to the more sprightly Part II, which documents instances in which other scholars -- both eminent and not -- have repeated the mistake. Finally, Part III provides some reflections on the broader significance of the mistake.
Civil Service Reform

Abstract Civil service rules governing the selection and motivation of bureaucrats are among the defining institutions of modern democracies. Although this is an active area of reform in the US and elsewhere, economic analyses of the issue are virtually nonexistent. This paper provides a welfare evaluation of civil service reform. It describes the effect of reform on the interaction of politicians, voters, and bureaucrats, and shows that society often faces trade-offs between improving the bureaucracy and improving the performance of politicians. My results characterize the conditions under which merit-based recruitment and civil service protections such as tenure can improve welfare.
Religion, terrorism and public goods: Testing the club model

Abstract Can rational models, once theological explanations are discredited, explain why certain radical religious rebels are so successful in perpetrating suicide attacks? The fundamental barrier to success turns out not to be recruiting suicide attackers; there is a rational basis for volunteering. Rather, the barrier is the danger of other operatives defecting. A club model, portraying voluntary religious organizations as efficient providers of local public goods, explains how they weed out potential defectors by requiring sacrifices as signals of commitment. They are thereby able to succeed in risky terrorist attacks. The model has testable implications for tactic choice and damage achieved by clubs and other rebel organizations. Data spanning a half-century on both terrorists and civil war insurgents, much from Middle East sources and Israel/Palestine, reveal that: a) missions organized by radical religious clubs that provide benign local public goods are both more lethal and are more likely to be suicide attacks than missions organized by other terrorist groups with similar aims and theologies; and b) suicide attacks are chosen when targets are “hard,” i.e., difficult to destroy. Our results suggest benign tactics to counter radical religious terrorism and insurgency.
Do medical marijuana laws increase hard drug use

AbstractMedical marijuana laws generate significant debate regarding drug policy. For instance, if marijuana is a complement to hard drugs, then these laws would increase the usage not only of marijuana but also of hard drugs. In this paper I study empirically the effects of medical marijuana laws by analyzing data on drug arrests and treatment admissions. I find that medical marijuana laws increase these proxies for marijuana consumption by around 10–15 percent. However, there is no evidence that cocaine and heroin usage increases. From the arrest data, the estimates indicate a 0–15 percent decrease in possession arrests for cocaine and heroin combined. From the treatment data, the estimates show a 20 percent decrease in admissions for heroin-related treatment, although there is no significant effect for cocaine-related treatment. These results suggest that marijuana may be a substitute for heroin, but it is not strongly correlated with cocaine.
Term structures of asset prices and returns

Abstract We explore the term structures of claims to a variety of cash flows, namely, US government bonds (claims to dollars), foreign government bonds (claims to foreign currency), inflation-adjusted bonds (claims to the price index), and equity (claims to future equity indexes or dividends). The average term structures reflect the dynamics of the dollar pricing kernel, cash flow growth, and the interaction between the two. We use an affine model to illustrate how these two components can deliver term structures with a wide range of levels and shapes. Finally, we calibrate a representative agent economy to show that the evidence is consistent with the equilibrium models.
Informed short selling around SEO announcements

Abstract While much of the prior research on short selling around announcements of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) has focused on manipulation, it is unclear whether there is also informed short selling around these announcements. We test for informed short selling around SEO announcements by examining the relation between i) pre-announcement short selling and the announcement-period return and ii) changes in short interest around the SEO announcement and the long-term operating and stock price performance following the equity issue. We find that firms with large increases in short interest prior to the SEO announcement exhibit lower (i.e., more negative) announcement-period returns, and that firms with large increases in short interest around the SEO announcement experience inferior long-term operating and stock price performance following the equity issue. We also find that the negative relation between large increases in short interest and long-term operating and stock price performance is more pronounced among shelf offers. This result highlights the informational role of short sellers in identifying opportunistic market timers of equity issues among shelf filers. Our overall results indicate the presence of informed short selling around SEO announcements.
Do Institutions Cause Growth

We revisit the debate over whether political institutions cause economic growth, or whether, alternatively, growth and human capital accumulation lead to institutional improvement. We find that most indicators of institutional quality used to establish the proposition that institutions cause growth are constructed to be conceptually unsuitable for that purpose. We also find that some of the instrumental variable techniques used in the literature are flawed. Basic OLS results, as well as a variety of additional evidence, suggest that (a) human capital is a more basic source of growth than are the institutions, (b) poor countries get out of poverty through good policies, often pursued by dictators, and (c) subsequently improve their political institutions.
An extended sparse max-linear moving model with application to high-frequency financial data

There continues to be unfading interest in developing parametric max-stable processes for modelling tail dependencies and clustered extremes in time series data. However, this comes with some diffi...
The Restricting Claims Principle Revisited: Grounding the Means Principle on the Agent–Patient Divide

In an earlier article, I introduced the “restricting claims principle” (RCP) to explain what is right about the means principle: the idea that it is harder to justify causing or allowing someone to suffer harm if using him as a means than if causing or allowing harm as a side effect. The RCP appeals to the idea that claims not to be harmed as a side effect push to restrict an agent from doing what she would otherwise be free to do for herself or others, given an appropriate account of her baseline freedom. Claims not to be harmed as a means are not in that way ‘‘restricting.’’ The original RCP relied on a counterfactual account of the agent’s baseline freedom: What could the agent permissibly do if the patient were not present? I argue here that that counterfactual baseline fails. The revised RCP relies instead on a ‘‘toolkit baseline’’: Do the patient claims concern the property the agent needs to use? This toolkit baseline reflects the different ways that agents relate to others: as fellow agents with whom they divide up the resources of the world, and as patients who might be affected by their actions. The toolkit baseline, resting on this agent-patient divide, provides a superior account of an agent’s baseline freedom, and a better account of the moral ground for the means principle
Out of the Shadows: Preventive Detention, Suspected Terrorists, and War

The United States does not have a statute authorizing preventive detention of suspected terrorists without charge. Some consider that irresponsible, as it is not difficult to imagine circumstances in which the government might want to detain a suspected al Qaeda operative, but not be prepared to file charges in open court as required for a criminal prosecution. The government may have learned of the individual from a confidential or foreign-government source that it cannot publicly disclose, or from an ongoing investigation. It may lack sufficient evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt, but have substantial grounds to believe that the individual was actively engaged in armed conflict for al Qaeda. The disclosures necessary for a public trial might seriously compromise the military struggle against the Taliban and al Qaeda. U.S. law has no formal statutory mechanism by which the government could detain such a person. Some have suggested that this is a potentially profound defect in our national security armature.
Defining the Word ‘Maintain’; Context Counts

The Supreme Court in Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates v. Allstate Ins. Co., a diversity-of-citizenship case, held that a state statute prohibiting “maintenance” of a class action to enforce a penalty clashed with the terms of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 that authorizes “maintenance” of a class suits meeting the requirements of the rule. Writing for himself and three others Justices, Justice Scalia refused to consider the history of the state provision and merely declared that its “clear text” established the conflict. He failed to consider the fact that the word “maintain” is ambiguous and that there is reason to believe that that word means one thing in the statute and another in the rule. The result of the decision is that a case that could not be tried in a state court was to be tried in a federal court under diversity jurisdiction, leading to violation of the Rules Enabling Act and serious forum shopping.
Say on Pay and the SEC Disclosure Rules: Expressive Law and CEO Compensation

The debate over the lack of correlation between CEO compensation and performance has caused a divide amongst corporate law scholars. Proponents of intervention have predictably welcomed the legislative activity and have called for more. This article argues that the legislative and regulatory interventions by the state are in furtherance of the expressive functions of the law, and that even in the absence of sanctions such expressive laws can have an affect on behavior. It argues that while legislative and regulatory actions can express certain norms, they are ultimately unlikely to be of much help in behavior modification unless accompanied by norm internalization. Decentralized deployment of non-legal sanctions can offer a pathway to norm internalization in the CEO compensation area. Under this thesis, legislation only aids the deployment of social sanctions by virtue of its expressive function. This paper will briefly describe the expressive function of the law, and provides an overview of legislative attempts at serving this expressive function. It posits that expressive law cannot succeed in the absence of norm internalization by CEOs and directors. This process of internalization requires large shareholders to incur the costs of socializing the relevant actors by leveraging the structural attributes of the corporate law system.
Gresham's Law of Political Communication: How Citizens Respond to Conflicting Information

Although citizens are often exposed to conflicting communications from political elites, few studies examine the effects of conflicting information on the quality of citizens’ decisions. Thus, I conduct experiments in which subjects are exposed to conflicting information before making decisions that affect their future welfare. The results suggest that a version of Gresham's Law operates in the context of political communication. When a credible source of information suggests the welfare-improving choice and a less credible source simultaneously suggests a choice that will make subjects worse off, subjects make worse decisions than when only the credible source is available. This occurs because many subjects base their decisions upon the less credible source or forgo participation. This occurs mostly among unsophisticated subjects, who are more easily led astray. These findings reveal important limits to the effectiveness of credible information sources and suggest how political campaigns might strategica...
How to Conduct Effective Transnational Negotiations between Nations, Nongovernmental Organizations, and Business Firms

In out global economy, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and business firms negotiate regularly on a transnational basis. Due to cultural differences, political differences, different communication styles, and similar factors, it can be more difficult to engage in such transnational interactions than in domestic interactions. This article considers the impact of such factors on transnational negotiations, and explains what persons preparing for such interactions should consider.
Getting to Rights: Treaty Ratification, Constitutional Convergence, and Human Rights Practice

This Article examines the adoption of rights in national constitutions in the post-World War II period in light of claims of global convergence. Using a comprehensive database on the contents of the world’s constitutions, we observe a qualified convergence on the content of rights. Nearly every single right has increased in prevalence since its introduction, but very few are close to universal. We show that international rights documents, starting with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have shaped the rights menu of national constitutions in powerful ways. These covenants appear to coordinate the behavior of domestic drafters, whether or not the drafters’ countries are legally committed to the agreements (though commitment enhances the effect). Our particular focus is on the all-important International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, whose ratification inclines countries towards rights they, apparently, would not otherwise adopt. This finding confirms the complementary relationship between treaty ratification and domestic constitutional norms, and suggests that one important channel of treaty efficacy may be through domestic constitutions.
The wages of dishonesty: The supply of cheating under high-powered incentives

We use a novel design to identify how dishonesty changes through a broad reward range that, at the high end, exceeds participants’ average daily wages. Using a sample of online Indian workers who earn bonuses based on six simultaneous coin flips, we show that the relationship between dishonesty and financial rewards depends on the incentive range. We find two novel effects as incentives exceed those used in most prior research. First, dishonesty increases and reaches its maximum as rewards increase from $0.50 to $3 per reported head and as earnings reach $15, indicating that rewards can indeed motivate more cheating when large enough. More importantly, we show that dishonesty declines at the highest reward levels (up to $5 per head) as individuals appear to engage in lower magnitudes of dishonesty. We detail how our results could be explained by a reference-dependent utility with internal costs of dishonesty that are convex in the magnitude of the lie, and show survey and simulation-based evidence that support this explanation.
Awareness and the Legal Profession: An Introduction to the Mindful Lawyer Symposium

The first time I introduced mindfulness meditation to a gathering of lawyers, about twelve years ago, I was facing about 200 of them at an ABA conference in something like Grand Ballroom B of a Hyatt Regency Hotel. I was so apprehensive—concerned that I would offer them too much, or more than they wanted—that I asked them to close their eyes for only a minute— and I was surprised when they did so, and that so few of them peeked. By October 2010, a group of lawyers, law professors, judges, and law students sat in room 105 Boalt Hall, a standard large classroom at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, at the Mindful Lawyer Conference, eager to soak up as much as they could. At this major event—co-sponsored by U.C. Berkeley and the law schools at the University at Buffalo, the University of California, Hastings, CUNY, the University of Florida, and the University of San Francisco—planners and presenters had the opposite concern: could we offer enough? Between these two conferences, efforts to introduce mindfulness to the legal profession had proliferated. Even though most law students, law professors, lawyers, judges, and mediators are unaware of such developments— and perhaps uninterested—thousands of their number have received training in mindfulness (and other contemplative practices) in the last decade— through law school courses and non-credit programs or in retreats, workshops or conference programs, many of which offer CLE credit.1 The five articles in this symposium arose out of presentations at the 2010 Mindful Lawyer Conference. I wish to situate these articles and undertakings in a broader context. They resonate with and resemble similar developments in other arenas and in the wider society; and they both buttress and lean upon other initiatives within the legal profession.
The Real Effects of Uncertainty on Merger Activity

Firm values can substantially change between the time deal terms are set and the actual deal closing, risking renegotiation, or termination. We find increases in market volatility decrease subsequent deal activity, but only for public targets subject to an interim period. The effect is strongest when volatility is highest, for deals taking longer to close, and for larger targets. Merging parties attempt to shorten the interim window as risk increases. Firm- and industry-level uncertainty measures reveal similar findings, ruling out an unobserved macro variable. We conclude interim uncertainty contributes to understanding the timing and intensity of public firmsâ€™ merger activity.Received February 12, 2015; accepted May 23, 2016 by Editor David Denis.
The Interaction Between Technology Adoption and Trade When Firms are Heterogeneous

This paper develops a monopolistic competition model with heterogeneous firms to study the interaction between technology adoption and trade in a world of two countries facing different technology adoption costs. It shows that a reduction in the technology adoption cost in one country increases productivity, induces more firms to adopt advanced technology, and improves welfare in this country, while decreasing productivity, inducing more firms to switch back to old technology, and reducing welfare in the other country. Furthermore, although a reduction in transport costs always makes the country with the lower adoption cost better off, it can hurt the other country.
An Experimental Test of Fairness Under Agency and Profit Constraints (With Notes on Implications for Corporate Governance)

Building on the scholarship using ultimatum game experiments to explore the presence of fairness norms in bargaining exchanges, the authors test whether such norms are affected by agency relationships alone or agency relationships linked with a duty to maximize returns to the principal. The findings are dramatic. The study, the first of its kind, indicates a significant decrease in a concern for fairness (defined as a willingness to share a pot of money) when a participant in a bargaining transaction acts as an agent for another and owes a duty to maximize the return to the principal. We find no such decrease when the agent is acting without the explicit duty to maximize return to the principal. These findings were made in the context of modified ultimatum game experiments conducted among first year law students. While recognizing the limitations of the experiments as well as the risks of extrapolating from experiment to actual practice, our findings suggest that existing corporate law - which requires directors to act as agents of shareholders and to maximize return to those shareholders - may provide incentives to directors to act unfairly toward non-shareholder stakeholders. These incentives, which currently exist in the law and norms governing corporate governance may actually encourage inefficient results that may reduce payoffs to corporations.
Equity portfolios generated by functions of ranked market weights

Dynamic equity portfolios can be generated by positive twice continuously differentiable functions of the ranked capitalization weights of an equity market. The return on such a portfolio relative to the market follows a stochastic differential equation that decomposes the relative return into two components: the logarithmic change in the value of the generating function, and a drift process that is of bounded variation. The method can be used to construct broad classes of stock portfolios, and has both theoretical and practical applications. Two applications of the method are presented: one offers an explanation for the size effect, the observed tendency of small stocks to have higher long-term returns than large stocks, and the other provides a rigorous analysis of the behavior of diversity-weighted indices, stock indices with weights that lie between capitalization weights and equal weights.
Higher supply chain security with lower cost: Lessons from total quality management

Abstract Supply chain security has become a major concern to the private and public sector, after the disastrous event of September 11, 2001. Prior to September 11, 2001, supply chain security concerns were related to controlling theft and reducing contraband such as illegal drugs, illegal immigrants, and export of stolen goods. But after September 11, 2001, the threat of terrorist attacks has heightened the need to assure supply chain security. The public is of course concerned with the potential of having weapons of mass destruction embedded in the shipments through the supply chain. In addition, the private sector is concerned with the costs of assuring security, and the potential disruptions associated with real or potential terrorist acts. Governments and industry have all responded with proposals to create more confidence in supply chain security, while maintaining smooth flows of goods and services in a global supply chain. One of the most effective strategies may be to apply the lessons of successful quality improvement programs. In this paper, we describe how the principles of total quality management can actually be used to design and operate processes to assure supply chain security. The central theme of the quality movement––that higher quality can be attained at lower cost by proper management and operational design––is also applicable in supply chain security. By using the right management approach, new technology, and re-engineered operational processes, we can also achieve higher supply chain security at lower cost. We will demonstrate how this can be done with a quantitative model of a specific case example.
The Challenges of the New Defalcation Standard

The crux of bankruptcy law is giving debtors a fresh start by discharging their debts. Yet society has recognized that some debts should not be discharged because they either have a high level of societal importance or derive from a debtor’s culpable conduct. One of these exceptions from discharge is for defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity. The legal meaning of defalcation has been unclear for 172 years, ranging from a breach of trust by one who has charge of money to the misappropriation of money in one’s keeping. A three-way federal circuit split developed on whether a state of mind was required for defalcation and if so, how culpable. In May 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved the circuit split in Bullock v. BankChampaign by establishing a new, heightened mental standard based on the Model Penal Code’s definition of “recklessly.” Bullock’s holding is significant because it did not adopt any of the tests from the circuit split. Bullock’s new test is challenging for three reasons. First, applying a Model Penal Code culpability to civil fiduciary law is awkward because the various sources of fiduciary duties rarely contain a mental state requirement. Second, the Model Penal Code’s recklessly definition is abstract and difficult to apply. For example, instead of focusing on the breach of a fiduciary duty, it concentrates on the risk that a fiduciary duty will be breached. Further, some elements of recklessly must be evaluated from a subjective standard while others require an objective one. Finally, in delineating the new recklessly test, Bullock parenthetically grafted in the separate criminal law doctrine of willful blindness. This synthesis of recklessness and willful blindness, which are two completely different tests, results in a seemingly unworkable standard that does not make sense. This Article explores each element of the new recklessly standard and identifies pitfalls to avoid. It also suggests an approach to reconcile the troubling analytical problems resulting from combining recklessness and willful blindness. This Article concludes by establishing an analytical framework to apply Bullock’s new test.
WARF's Stem Cell Patents and Tensions between Public and Private Sector Approaches to Research:

While society debates whether and how to use public funds to support work on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), many scientific groups and businesses debate a different question - the extent to which patents that cover such stem cells should be permitted to limit or to tax their research. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), a non-profit foundation that manages intellectual property generated by researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, owns three patents that have been at the heart of the latter controversy The story of WARF's patents and the controversy they have fostered highlights not only continuing tensions between proprietary and nonproprietary approaches to developing science and technology, but also an at least partly reassuring capacity of public and private sectors to deal with those tensions in a way that can render them substantially manageable, and frequently more manageable as a technology matures. More particularly, the cumulative story of WARF's patents features three leitmotifs that suggest how an attentive and engaged public sector might commonly succeed in working with public and private sector actors to achieve workable balances between proprietary rights and more general social interests: (1) right holders' decisions to pursue less than full rights assertion or enforcement; (2) the ability of government and other public sector actors to help bring about such decisions through co-option or pressure; and (3) the frequent availability or development of technological alternatives that limit research bottlenecks.
Black's Model of Interest Rates as Options, Eigenfunction Expansions and Japanese Interest Rates

Black’s (1995) model of interest rates as options assumes that there is a shadow instantaneous interest rate that can become negative, while the nominal instantaneous interest rate is a positive part of the shadow rate due to the option to convert to currency. As a result of this currency option, all term rates are strictly positive. A similar model was independently discussed by Rogers (1995). When the shadow rate is modeled as a diffusion, we interpret the zero-coupon bond as a Laplace transform of the area functional of the underlying shadow rate diffusion (evaluated at the unit value of the transform parameter). Using the method of eigenfunction expansions, we derive analytical solutions for zero-coupon bonds and bond options under the Vasicek and shifted CIR processes for the shadow rate. This class of models can be used to model low interest rate regimes. As an illustration, we calibrate the model with the Vasicek shadow rate to the Japanese Government Bond data and show that the model provides an excellent fit to the Japanese term structure. The current implied value of the instantaneous shadow rate in Japan is negative.
The Hybrid Nature of Political Rights

In recent redistricting and jury exclusion cases, the Supreme Court has expressed hostility to the idea that government may consider racial or gender group membership in making decisions that determine the composition of representative institutions. Instead, the Court has insisted that government must think of voters and jurors solely as individual actors, who cannot be recognized as having similar interests, experiences, or perspectives as other persons who share their race or sex. Whatever merit there may be in adopting this exclusively individualistic approach in the area of civil rights and privileges, Professors Amar and Brownstein argue that it is an inadequate basis for understanding the Constitution's equality requirements when political rights are at issue. Instead of focusing exclusively on the individual, our constitutional tradition acknowledges a dual dimension to political rights consisting of both an individualistic, dignitary component and a group-based, instrumental component. This tradition developed out of the political and legal struggle to extend the franchise to black men and to women through the 15th and 19th amendments and underlies over 100 years of case law interpreting the nature of political equality for constitutional purposes. Political rights in America have always reflected an uneasy tension between respect for the individual and a concern for the ability of groups to influence government. When the modern Court ignores the group and instrumental dimension of political rights in our history, it avoids, rather than resolves, the hard questions and grounds constitutional doctrine in this area on an unstable foundation.
Evaluating L-functions with few known coefficients.

We address the problem of evaluating an $L$-function when only a small number of its Dirichlet coefficients are known. We use the approximate functional equation in a new way and find that is possible to evaluate the $L$-function more precisely than one would expect from the standard approach. The method, however, requires considerably more computational effort to achieve a given accuracy than would be needed if more Dirichlet coefficients were available.
Investment performance of shorted leveraged ETF pairs

ABSTRACTWe analyze investment strategies involving triple-leveraged and inverse triple-leveraged ETF pairs by simulating daily returns over a 48-year period. Our results show that many such strategies significantly outperform the S&P 500 on a risk-adjusted basis. For example, when shorting the bear triple-leveraged ETF and the bull triple-leveraged ETF in a 2:1 proportion (while going long Treasuries), we find that the average annual Sharpe ratio is more than four times higher than for the S&P 500 and that the strategy outperforms the S&P 500 in 43 of the 48 years. Our results are robust to variations in bear/bull proportions, rebalance thresholds, and underlying parameters.
An Account of Global Factor Trade

A half century of empirical work attempting to predict the factor content of trade in goods has failed to bring theory and data into congruence. Our study shows how the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek theory, when modified to permit technical differences, a breakdown in factor price equalization, the existence of nontraded goods, and costs of trade, is consistent with data from ten OECD countries and a rest-of-world aggregate.
Estimating Distribution Costs with the Eaton–Kortum Model

Economists have mainly relied on input–output tables to calculate domestic trade costs for a relatively small number of developed countries. In this work we use an augmented Eaton–Kortum model to estimate the distribution costs of a group of consumption goods for 60 countries, which include both developing and developed countries. Our results show that developing countries are subject to much higher distribution costs, and that reductions in the distribution costs can result in large welfare gains.
CEO Power, Compensation, and Governance *

This paper presents a contracting model of governance based on the premise that CEOs are the main promoters of governance change. CEOs use their power to extract higher pay or private benefits, and different governance structures are preferred by different CEOs as they favor one or the other type of compensation. The model explains why good countrywide investor protection breeds good firm governance and predicts a “race to the top” in firm-governance quality after the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. However, such governance changes may be associated with higher rather than lower CEO pay as CEOs substitute away from private benefits. The model also provides an explanation for the observed correlation of CEO pay and firm governance as driven by CEO power.
The Market for Crash Risk

This paper examines the equilibrium when negative stock market jumps (crashes) can occur, and investors have heterogeneous attitudes towards crash risk. The less crash-averse insure the more crash-averse through the options markets that dynamically complete the economy. The resulting equilibrium is compared with various option pricing anomalies reported in the literature: the tendency of stock index options to overpredict volatility and jump risk, the Jackwerth (2000) implicit pricing kernel puzzle, and the stochastic evolution of option prices. The specification of crash aversion is compatible with the static option pricing puzzles, while heterogeneity partially explains the dynamic puzzles. Heterogeneity also magnifies substantially the stock market impact of adverse news about fundamentals.
Do They Walk the Talk? Gauging Acquiring CEO and Director Confidence in the Value Creation Potential of Announced Acquisitions

We explore whether acquiring CEOs and directors act consistently with the idea that their newly announced acquisitions will increase long-term firm value. Specifically, we examine postannouncement adjustments to CEOs' equity-based holdings and find acquiring CEOs tend to exercise options and sell firm stock following acquisition announcements. Moreover, positive short-term market performance exacerbates this effect. Further, we find directors tend to grant their acquiring CEOs stock options, after acquisition announcement, presumably to more tightly align CEO-shareholder interests. These findings suggest that when CEOs and directors manage acquiring CEOs' equity-based holdings, they do not appear to anticipate long-term value creation from their acquisitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Vindicating Bankruptcy Rights

Thousands of consumer debtors pass through the bankruptcy process each year. Although their cases are legally complex, the bankruptcy system handles them in a routinized manner. Creditor and debtor attorneys rely heavily on forms in place of individualized pleadings, and many aspects of a debtor’s case are designed to function without direct judicial oversight. This system functions well, but it is not without limitation. Certain repeat players — large institutional lenders with hundreds of borrowers in bankruptcy — have exploited the absence of direct oversight to tilt the consumer bankruptcy process in their favor.This article is the second portion of my project on the use of class litigation to curb systematic creditor overreaching in bankruptcy. It considers the unique set of challenges presented by the class action device: namely, the rigorous requirements for class certification and the force of class action waivers in arbitration agreements. It finds that the prototypical debtor class action remains viable in the modern, anti-class-action framework. First, the force of class arbitration waivers can be muted in bankruptcy, as bankruptcy courts have broad discretion to deny arbitration of a matter when arbitration would “inherent[ly] conflict” with bankruptcy's aims. This article argues that courts should marshal their considerable discretion in applying the “inherent-conflict” analysis to deny arbitration of debtor class action proceedings when a class arbitration waiver is present. Second, debtor class action cases are strong candidates to run the ever-tightening gantlet of class certification.
Shirt-Tales: Clerking for Byron White

In honor of Byron White's 25th anniversary as a Supreme Court Justice, his then-current and former clerks presented him with a T-shirt. Emblazoned on the shirt were short, usually one-line, statements expressing the clerks’ thoughts about the Justice, his career, and their experiences as clerks. The melange of brief messages conveys much about the relationship between Justice White and those who were privileged to work as his clerks. It also provides meaningful insights into the clerkship experience, as well as into the nature of the man who defined the experience by the force of his personality.
The role of excess capacity in determining market power in natural gas transportation markets

The approval by FERC of a regulated natural gas pipeline’s market-based rate application depends upon the availability of substitute pipelines with sufficient capacity to maintain the current transport price. But how much alternate capacity is enough? Clearly, the price will not increase when alternate pipelines have unsubscribed capacity equal to the capacity of the applicant pipeline, since the applicant’s capacity is then perfectly substitutable. And indeed, FERC has approved market-based rates when this “complete-replacement” criterion has been met. However, complete-replacement is too stringent a condition and we determine precisely how much alternate capacity suffices to keep the price from rising.