cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Physics of Hollow Bose-Einstein Condensates

Bose-Einstein condensate shells, while occurring in ultracold systems of coexisting phases and potentially within neutron stars, have yet to be realized in isolation on Earth due to the experimental challenge of overcoming gravitational sag. Motivated by the expected realization of hollow condensates by the space-based Cold Atomic Laboratory in microgravity conditions, we study a spherical condensate undergoing a topological change from a filled sphere to a hollow shell. We argue that the collective modes of the system show marked and robust signatures of this hollowing transition accompanied by the appearance of a new boundary. In particular, we demonstrate that the frequency spectrum of the breathing modes shows a pronounced depression as it evolves from the filled-sphere limit to the hollowing transition. Furthermore, when the center of the system becomes hollow surface modes show a global restructuring of their spectrum due to the availability of a new, inner, surface for supporting density distortions. We pinpoint universal features of this topological transition as well as analyse the spectral evolution of collective modes in the experimentally relevant case of a bubble-trap.
The Design of Global Correlation Quantifiers and Continuous Notions of Statistical Sufficiency.

Using first principles from inference, we design a set of functionals for the purposes of ranking joint probability distributions with respect to their correlations. Starting with a general functional, we impose its desired behavior through the Principle of Constant Correlations (PCC), which constrains the correlation functional to behave in a consistent way under statistically independent inferential transformations. The PCC guides us in choosing the appropriate design criteria for constructing the desired functionals. Since the derivations depend on a choice of partitioning the variable space into n disjoint subspaces, the general functional we design is the n-partite information (NPI), of which the total correlation and mutual information are special cases. Thus, these functionals are found to be uniquely capable of determining whether a certain class of inferential transformations, ρ → ∗ ρ ′ , preserve, destroy or create correlations. This provides conceptual clarity by ruling out other possible global correlation quantifiers. Finally, the derivation and results allow us to quantify non-binary notions of statistical sufficiency. Our results express what percentage of the correlations are preserved under a given inferential transformation or variable mapping.
Information, Information Processing and Gravity

I discuss fundamental limits placed on information and information processing by gravity. Such limits arise because both information and its processing require energy, while gravitational collapse (formation of a horizon or black hole) restricts the amount of energy allowed in a finite region. Specifically, I use a criterion for gravitational collapse called the hoop conjecture. Once the hoop conjecture is assumed a number of results can be obtained directly: the existence of a fundamental uncertainty in spatial distance of order the Planck length, bounds on information (entropy) in a finite region, and a bound on the rate of information processing in a finite region. In the final section I discuss some cosmological issues, related to the total amount of information in the universe, and note that almost all detailed aspects of the late universe are determined by the randomness of quantum outcomes. This paper is based on a talk presented at a 2007 Bellairs Research Institute (McGill University) workshop on black holes and quantum information.
Standard model decays of tau into three charged leptons

Abstract Analytic expressions are given for the τ decays into three charged leptons, τ → ll l v τ v l , where the l are combinations of electrons and muons, and for the radiative decays τ → γl v τ v l . The branching ratios are sensitive functions of whether the final state l are muons or electrons.
The Max-Cut Decision Tree: Improving on the Accuracy and Running Time of Decision Trees.

Decision trees are a widely used method for classification, both by themselves and as the building blocks of multiple different ensemble learning methods. The Max-Cut decision tree involves novel modifications to a standard, baseline model of classification decision tree construction, precisely CART Gini. One modification involves an alternative splitting metric, maximum cut, based on maximizing the distance between all pairs of observations belonging to separate classes and separate sides of the threshold value. The other modification is to select the decision feature from a linear combination of the input features constructed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) locally at each node. Our experiments show that this node-based localized PCA with the novel splitting modification can dramatically improve classification, while also significantly decreasing computational time compared to the baseline decision tree. Moreover, our results are most significant when evaluated on data sets with higher dimensions, or more classes; which, for the example data set CIFAR-100, enable a 49% improvement in accuracy while reducing CPU time by 94%. These introduced modifications dramatically advance the capabilities of decision trees for difficult classification tasks.
On Injective Modules and Support Varieties for the Small Quantum Group

Let be the small quantum group at a root of unity associated to a simple Lie algebra . Generalizing a classical result for algebraic groups, we show that if M is a -module admitting a compatible torus action, then the injectivity of M can be detected by the restriction of M to certain root subalgebras of . We provide two proofs of this fact. The first is combinatorial and applies also to the higher Frobenius–Lusztig kernels of the big quantum group containing . The second proof is geometric and makes use of a new rank-variety-type result for the Borel subalgebras of . A brief application of the new rank variety result is also discussed.
Twisted line liquids

We propose a model of directed lines where the average direction has the nature of a cholesteric liquid crystal. This model, for instance, would describe the liquid of screw dislocations in the twist-grain-boundary (TGB) phase of liquid crystals. We show that the presence of lines does not alter the long wavelength elasticity of a cholesteric and, therefore, does not stabilize Landau-Peierls instability of the cholesteric phase. We discuss other possible mechanisms for stabilizing the twist-grain-boundary phase.
Depressive, drug abusive, or informative: Knowledge-aware study of news exposure during COVID-19 outbreak

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a serious adverse impact on the lives of people across the world COVID-19 has exacerbated community-wide depression, and has led to increased drug abuse brought about by isolation of individuals as a result of lockdown Further, apart from providing informative content to the public, the incessant media coverage of COVID-19 crisis in terms of news broadcasts, published articles and sharing of information on social media have had the undesired snowballing effect on stress levels (further elevating depression and drug use) due to uncertain future In this position paper, we propose a novel framework for assessing the spatio-temporal-thematic progression of depression, drug abuse, and informativeness of the underlying news content across the different states in the United States Our framework employs an attention-based transfer learning technique to apply knowledge learned on a social media domain to a target domain of media exposure To extract news articles that are related to COVID-19 communications from the streaming news content on the web, we use neural semantic parsing, and background knowledge bases in a sequence of steps called semantic filtering We achieve promising preliminary results on three variations of Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model We compare our findings against a report from Mental Health America and the results show that our fine-tuned BERT models perform better than vanilla BERT Our study can benefit epidemiologists by offering actionable insights on COVID-19 and its regional impact Further, our solution can be integrated into end-user applications to tailor news for users based on their emotional tone measured on the scale of depressiveness, drug abusiveness, and informativeness © 2020 Copyright held by the author(s)
Bispectral mode decomposition of nonlinear flows

Triadic interactions are the fundamental mechanism of energy transfer in fluid flows. This work introduces bispectral mode decomposition as a direct means of educing flow structures that are associated with triadic interactions from experimental or numerical data. Triadic interactions are characterized by quadratic phase coupling which can be detected by the bispectrum. The proposed method maximizes an integral measure of this third-order statistic to compute modes associated with frequency triads, as well as a mode bispectrum that identifies resonant three-wave interactions. Unlike the classical bispectrum, the decomposition establishes a causal relationship between the three frequency components of a triad. This permits the distinction of sum- and difference-interactions, and the computation of interaction maps that indicate regions of nonlinear coupling. Three examples highlight different aspects of the method. Cascading triads and their regions of interaction are educed from direct numerical simulation data of laminar cylinder flow. It is further demonstrated that linear instability mechanisms that attain an appreciable amplitude are revealed indirectly by their difference-self-interactions. Applicability to turbulent flows and noise-rejection is demonstrated on particle image velocimetry data of a massively separated wake. The generation of sub- and ultra-harmonics in large eddy simulation data of a transitional jet is explained by extending the method to cross-bispectral information.
Revisiting the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation as Seen in ERA5. Part II: Evaluation of Waves and Wave Forcing

This paper describes stratospheric waves in ERA5 reanalysis and evaluates the contributions of different types of waves to the driving of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO). Because of its higher spatial resolution compared to its predecessors, ERA5 is capable of resolving a broader spectrum of waves. It is shown that the resolved waves contribute to both eastward and westward accelerations near the equator, mainly by the way of the vertical flux of zonal momentum. The eastward accelerations by the resolved waves are mainly due to Kelvin waves and small-scale gravity (SSG) waves with zonal wavelengths smaller than 2000 km, whereas the westward accelerations are forced mainly by SSG waves, with smaller contributions from inertio-gravity and mixed-Rossby-gravity waves. Extratropical Rossby waves propagate into the tropical region and impart a westward acceleration to the zonal flow. They appear to be responsible for at least some of the irregularities in the QBO cycle.
On the behavior of $1$-Laplacian Ratio Cuts on nearly rectangular domains

Given a connected set $\Omega_0 \subset \mathbb{R}^2$, define a sequence of sets $(\Omega_n)_{n=0}^{\infty}$ where $\Omega_{n+1}$ is the subset of $\Omega_n$ where the first eigenfunction of the (properly normalized) Neumann $p-$Laplacian $ -\Delta^{(p)} \phi = \lambda_1 |\phi|^{p-2} \phi$ is positive (or negative). For $p=1$, this is also referred to as the Ratio Cut of the domain. We conjecture that, unless $\Omega_0$ is an isosceles right triangle, these sets converge to the set of rectangles with eccentricity bounded by 2 in the Gromov-Hausdorff distance as long as they have a certain distance to the boundary $\partial \Omega_0$. We establish some aspects of this conjecture for $p=1$ where we prove that (1) the 1-Laplacian spectral cut of domains sufficiently close to rectangles of a given aspect ratio is a circular arc that is closer to flat than the original domain (leading eventually to quadrilaterals) and (2) quadrilaterals close to a rectangle of aspect ratio $2$ stay close to quadrilaterals and move closer to rectangles in a suitable metric. We also discuss some numerical aspects and pose many open questions.
The Promise of a Network Approach for Policing Research

Considerable attention has been devoted to understanding police socialization and the resulting culture, yet only recently have scholars turned to a network approach to understand the social relati...
Homogenization of hydrodynamic transport in Dirac fluids

Large-scale electrical and thermal currents in ordinary metals are well approximated by effective medium theory: global transport properties are governed by the solution to homogenized coupled diffusion equations. In some metals, including the Dirac fluid of nearly charge neutral graphene, microscopic transport is not governed by diffusion, but by a more complicated set of linearized hydrodynamic equations, which form a system of degenerate elliptic equations coupled with the Stokes equation for fluid velocity. In sufficiently inhomogeneous media, these hydrodynamic equations reduce to homogenized diffusion equations. We recast the hydrodynamic transport equations as the infimum of a functional over conserved currents and present a functional framework to model and compute the homogenized diffusion tensor relating electrical and thermal currents to charge and temperature gradients. We generalize to this system to the well-known results in homogenization theory: Tartar’s proof of local convergence to the homogenized theory in periodic and highly oscillatory media and sub-additivity of the above functional in random media with highly oscillatory, stationary, and ergodic coefficients.
Design and Simulation of a Novel Mechanically-Stacked Solar Cell

A novel, InGaP/GaAs, mechanically-stacked solar cell is simulated under AM1.5G and AM0 spectra to evaluate power conversion efficiency for terrestrial and space applications, respectively. The simulation builds upon previous work that presented a high-efficiency, GaAs, emitter-less, back-surface-alternating-contact solar cell. In this paper, the innovative back-surface-contact design is leveraged in a tandem cell configuration that demonstrates power conversion efficiency comparable to state-of-the-art, monolithic, multi-junction solar cells.
How internal and external risks affect the relationships between trust and driver behavior in automated driving systems

Abstract Automated driving systems (ADSs) allow vehicles to engage in self-driving under specific conditions. Along with the potential safety benefits, the increase in productivity through non-driving-related tasks (NDRTs) is often cited as a motivation behind the adoption of ADSs. Although advances have been made in understanding both the promotion of ADS trust and its impact on NDRT performance, the influence of risk remains largely understudied. To fill this gap, we conducted a within-subjects experiment with 37 licensed drivers using a simulator. Internal risk was manipulated by ADS reliability and external risk by visibility, producing a 2 (ADS reliability) × 2 (visibility) design. The results indicate that high reliability increases ADS trust and further enhances the positive impact of ADS trust on NDRT performance, while low visibility reduces the negative impact of ADS trust on driver monitoring. Results also suggest that trust increases over time if the system is reliable and that visibility did not have a significant impact on ADS trust. These findings are important for the design of intelligent ADSs that can respond to drivers’ trusting behaviors.
HAM: Hybrid Associations Models for Sequential Recommendation

Sequential recommendation aims to identify and recommend the next few items for a user that the user is most likely to purchase/review, given the user's purchase/rating trajectories. It becomes an effective tool to help users select favorite items from a variety of options. In this manuscript, we developed hybrid associations models (HAM) to generate sequential recommendations using three factors: 1) users long-term preferences, 2) sequential, high-order and low-order association patterns in the users most recent purchases/ratings, and 3) synergies among those items. HAM uses simplistic pooling to represent a set of items in the associations, and element-wise product to represent item synergies of arbitrary orders. We compared HAM models with the most recent, state-of-the-art methods on six public benchmark datasets in three different experimental settings. Our experimental results demonstrate that HAM models significantly outperform the state of the art in all the experimental settings, with an improvement as much as 46.6%. In addition, our run-time performance comparison in testing demonstrates that HAM models are much more efficient than the state-of-the-art methods, and are able to achieve significant speedup as much as 139.7 folds.
Estimating COVID-19 under-reporting across 86 nations: implications for projections and control

Abstract Based on detailed stratigraphy, petrology and geochemistry, the initial arc magmatism of the Oman Ophiolite consisting of tholeiitic lavas followed by boninite flows and tephras is studied in the Wadi Bidi area, northern Oman Mountains. An 1110-m-thick V2 sequence is divided into the lower 970 m (LV2) and upper 140 m (UV2) thick subsequences by a 1.0-m-thick sedimentary layer. Pahoehoe flows dominate in the lower part of the LV2, while the upper part consists mainly of sheet flows with sparse interbedded pelagic sediments and a cylindrical plug. In addition to the presence of a feeder conduit, the flow-dominant lithofacies with a few thin sedimentary interbeds in the LV2 indicates that the study area was the centre of a volcano grown in a short period. The UV2 is composed of boninite sheet flows overlain by a 2.0-m-thick pyroclastic fall deposit. A small amount of boninite lavas at the end of the V2 sequence overlain by thick pelagic sediments suggests that the subduction-related arc volcanism was short lived and terminated long before the ophiolite obduction. Supplementary material: Locations, mode of occurrence, phenocryst assemblages and bulk-rock major and trace element compositions of lavas in the Wadi Bidi area are available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18684.
Citizens United and the Threat to the Regulatory State

This brief essay, intended for publication in electronic form, discusses the potential impact of Citizens United on the commercial speech doctrine and argues that the impact may be to throw roadblocks in recent efforts of increased regulatory oversight of critical industries.
The Economics of Collective Negotiation in Pretrial Bargaining

This article studies the strategic use of collective negotiation in multiplaintiff litigation. Compared with one-on-one negotiation, collective negotiation can change the distribution of per-plaintiff damages in a manner that influences the defendant’s bargaining incentive. Informational asymmetry among the members of collective action and delegation of bargaining to a self-interested representative can yield a tougher bargaining position. A plaintiff’s decision to join the collective action can signal his type, which in turn influences the defendant’s bargaining behavior. In equilibrium, some plaintiffs join the action for fear of sending a bad signal.
Banking the Poor through Everyday Stores

require as many if not more financial transactions than average bank customers, since their income is less predictable, they are often paid more frequently (daily or weekly), and their daily financial circumstances may be more easily overwhelmed by health or other shocks. Yet active cash flow management may not translate into long-term financial accumulation, given the pressing consumption and investment needs poor people face. Thus, serving the poor presents two major challenges for retail banks: devising a viable revenue model that is consistent with customers’ cash flow needs and perceptions of value, and minimizing the infrastructure and operational burden of handling millions of small transactions. Concentrating low-value transactions at a limited number of branches is very costly for banks and their customers alike, especially if regulations mandate disproportionate investments at a branch relative to the volume of business conducted there. Banks have to invest large fixed costs in setting up and maintaining their branch network, and customers often expend significant time and money to travel to distant branches. As a result, banks often stay away from poor or rural communities, which they find too costly to serve, and poor people fall back on local, more informal options to manage their finances. Banking beyond branches is about shifting the bulk of low-value transactions to a much lower-cost and more ubiquitous retail channel, which makes for a significantly more compelling business case to serve the poor. The key is to leverage the corner shops that can be found in every village and in every neighborhood. Why shouldn’t banks be able to let these shops handle basic deposit and withdrawal transactions on their behalf? In much the same way the shops exchange their pre-purchased inventory of rice or cooking oil against cash, they can also exchange their own bank balance against cash, and vice versa. This can be done safely, as long
A Critique of John Noonan's Approach to Development of Doctrine

In this essay, I consider Judge Noonan’s views on development of doctrine. I conclude that his challenging work in this area leaves much to be desired. I first consider Judge Noonan’s view on the development of moral doctrine. Judge Noonan contends that the Catholic Church has changed her moral teachings and he uses the idea of the development of moral doctrine to assess these changes. Judge Noonan’s invocation of the the concept of 'development of doctrine' is highly misleading. Judge Noonan is in reality seeking to describe and defend the idea of change, of reversal, not of organic development. Moreover, I do not believe that he has adequately defended his charge that the Church has in fact changed her moral teachings. Further , his account od development runs the risk of subjectivism, and is, for that reason, outside the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy.I then consider Judge Noonan’s extension of the concept of development of doctrine into the realm of the interpretation of legal texts. I do not believe that his theory of development is any more persuasive in this context. Although his view of development has great appeal in the area of common law decision-making, I believe that it fails in the area of textual interpretation. His approach takes the judge beyond the text and, as was true in his treatment of moral doctrine, too easily results in subjective decision-making. In my view, Judge Noonan’s methodology is flawed n this area as well.
The personal-tax advantages of equity ☆

Abstract We value a firm that pays its cash flows to equity through share repurchases in a dynamic environment where personal taxes are paid on capital gains upon realization. The cost of capital is reduced by approximately 0.8% through the use of repurchases relative to dividends. We use the empirical distribution of pre-tax free cash flows in Fama and French (1999) to evaluate the tradeoffs between the costs of financial distress, the personal-tax advantages of equity, and the corporate-tax advantage to debt. The optimal capital structure is interior with a 3% bankruptcy cost.
Initial evaluations in the interview: Relationships with subsequent interviewer evaluations and employment offers.

The authors of this study examine how evaluations made during an early stage of the structured interview (rapport building) influence end of interview scores, subsequent follow-up employment interviews, and actual internship job offers. Candidates making better initial impressions received more internship offers (r = .22) and higher interviewer ratings (r = .42). As predicted, initial evaluations of candidate competence extend beyond liking and similarity to influence subsequent interview outcomes from the same interviewer (ΔR² = .05), from a separate interviewer (ΔR² = .05), and from another interviewer who skipped rapport building (ΔR² = .05). In contrast, assessments of candidate liking and similarity were not significantly related to other judgments when ratings were provided by different interviewers. The findings of this study thus indicate that initial impressions of candidates influence employment outcomes, and that they may be based on useful judgments of candidate competence that occur in the opening minutes of the structured interview.
Toward Political Safeguards of Self-Determination

The theorists of the political safeguards of federalism (primarily Herbert Wechsler, Jesse Choper, and Larry Kramer) contend that various features of the American political system are sufficient to protect the values of federalism, obviating the need for federalist judicial review. These theorists have identified constitutional features of the system (i.e., equal representation in the Senate) and extolled subconstitutional features (notably the strength of the major political parties) as guarantors of state prerogatives against the federal government. They have not, however, developed a substantial account of the reasons why state prerogatives need or deserve protection and how those reasons bear on the political safeguards theory. Advocates of judicial safeguards of federalism have offered various reasons for federalist judicial review. The most familiar and constitutionally salient reason is that vindicating the interests of state governments helps to preserve personal freedom. Unfortunately, the history of federalist judicial review demonstrates that, at the times of greatest conflict between federal and state authority, courts have asserted state prerogatives to undermine personal freedom. With that history in mind, I suggest state prerogatives are useful primarily for advancing two particular aspects of personal freedom. First, states afford citizens additional opportunities to create political structures and participate in government. Second, states can supplement federal regulation of the powerful private interests that threaten personal freedom in contemporary society. Both of these salutary consequences of federalism serve the value of political self-determination, a broad end toward which protection of state prerogatives is merely one means. Establishing political participation and supplemental regulation as the rationales for protecting state prerogatives will require a recalibration of the political safeguards theory. First, these goals do not justify states in opposing federal power but merely require states to supplement federal power. Thus, no political safeguard needs to aggrandize state power at the expense of the federal government. Second, the self-determination values suggest some features of the political system that theorists have extolled as political safeguards are actually counterproductive. Thus, legislatures and courts may need to reconsider how they manage the political system. The Supreme Court's recent cases that advance the rights of the major political parties - California Democratic Party v. Jones, Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Forbes, FCC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee - provide the primary example. Those decisions, while desirable for the political safeguards of federalism, contravene the underlying value of political self-determination.
Operating performance and aggressive trade credit policies

Abstract We examine the operating performance improvements associated with the extension of trade credit. Our results suggest a positive and significant relation between future profitability and contemporaneous trade credit provision. Further findings indicate significantly higher margins, revenues and market shares for firms that extend more trade credit than industry competitors with similar characteristics, operational necessities and financial distress levels. These inferences are robust to several econometric concerns such as the joint determination of trade credit extension and firm performance. Overall, our results imply that aggressive trade credit policies can provide firm management with a unique channel to improve product market performance.
Uncontrolled Land Development and the Duration of the Depression in the United States

Aggregate economic activity was heavily influenced by the construction sector's expansion, collapse, and failure to revive during the interwar years. The 1920s building boom was the first to respond to the potential of the automobile and the last to be largely unplanned. Its uncoordinated character slowed the growth of full employment output toward the end of the 1920s. The physical and legal detritus of unregulated land development posed continuing obstacles to recovery during the second half of the 1930s.
What can venture capitalists and entrepreneurs learn from behavioral economists

Building upon new findings from the field of behavioral finance and economics, this article provides fresh insights into how venture capitalists (VCs) and entrepreneurs perceive, experience, and deal with risk; and how they go about making decisions in their respective areas of venture creation, venture evaluation, venture growth, and investing. By helping VCs and entrepreneurs to be cognizant of the many psychological traps that continuously get turned on at and around decision-making times, such findings would certainly help both parties to avoid committing costly mistakes in their businesses. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Wargaming as a Methodology: The International Crisis Wargame and Experimental Wargaming:

Background.Wargaming has a long history as a tool for understanding the complexity of conflict. Although wargames have shown their relevance across topics and time, the immersive nature of wargames...
From Seriatim to Consensus and Back Again: A Theory of Dissent

Why do judges dissent? There are several conventional answers. One is that dissents communicate legal theories to future judges, litigants, or politicians in the hope of becoming law later. Another is that dissents reveal the internal deliberation of courts, thus increasing their legitimacy in a democratic society. Both of these suggest that dissent improves the law making process. Other theories are potentially less benign. For example, dissents are inevitable given the ego and life-tenure of Article III judges or dissents enable majorities to be bolder in their holdings, thereby creating more law than is necessary. Chief Justice Roberts adheres to this latter view, and therefore has called for more unanimity on the Court. Before we can say whether Roberts's goal is worth pursuing, we must have a full account of the reason for dissent. This paper traces the history of judicial discourse to understand the reason for dissent. Over the past several hundred years, the Supreme Court and its predecessors in England have sometimes issued dissents and sometimes spoken largely with one voice. A specific change in the delivery of opinions has happened at least three times on a grand scale: (1) Chief Justice Mansfield's change from traditional seriatim opinions to an "opinion of the court" in England circa 1760; (2) a similar change in the United States Supreme Court upon the ascendancy of John Marshall to Chief Justice in 1801; and (3) the development of a tradition of writing separately during the New Deal era of the Supreme Court, which has persisted to the present. This paper shows that in each case the change in judicial discourse was made in an attempt to increase the power of law courts over other forms of dispute resolution. For example, Mansfield and Marshall moved from seriatim opinions to an "opinion of the court" to bring certainty to decisions and thereby increase the power of their courts, whereas the modern move away from unanimity is about achieving the same goal, but by using dissent to placate losers and protect the Court's jurisdiction over politically contentious issues like abortion or affirmative action. In short, history shows that judicial discourse, be it unanimity or seriatim or something in the middle, reflects court power, and those who want to change court power did so through a change in judicial discourse.
The Effects of Firm-Provided Measure Weightings on Evaluators' Incorporation of Non-Contractible Information

ABSTRACT: Subjective performance evaluation systems often prescribe for evaluators to use multiple measures to assess overall subordinate performance. Firms can choose to explicitly provide suggested weights to “balance” the relative weight evaluators place on each measure. However, we theorize that doing so may also affect evaluators' perceptions regarding the extent to which the firm intends for them to exercise subjectivity in their evaluations. We conducted an experiment in which evaluators use four measures to subjectively evaluate a subordinate's overall performance. Evaluators were also provided with relevant non-contractible information, although evaluators were not explicitly required to consider this information. We find that the provision of weights reduces the extent to which evaluators employ subjectivity to incorporate non-contractible information, which is manifested in larger outcome effects. Our results suggest firms should carefully consider what the structure and characteristics of thei...
The Perfect Storm: Intellectual Property and Public Values

It begins easily enough. Section 107 of Title 17 of the United States Code, at its core, expresses a straightforward promise: “Notwithstanding the [statutory rights granted copyright holders] the fair use of a copyrighted work . . . for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”1 A small carve-out, an exception, a set aside from the otherwise-robust privileges offered to the owners of copyrights. And yet in 2005—still in the very early stages of what portends to be a remarkable new era of information-based social activity—that promise, at least among the many on both sides of the pitched battles over the scope, meaning, and content of the copyright law, seems to have been lost. Today, the concept of fair use in the copyright law is viewed by some as an empty pledge, where only the battered husk of an idea remains after years of unceasing assault by the organized legions of corporate content controllers.2 Yet among these content creators, so often the villains of this 21 century tale, fair use is an increasingly dirty epithet: one used (in their view) to justify the theft of valuable property on a scope and scale unimaginable a decade ago.3 The
Creativity for invention insights: corporate strategies and opportunities for public entrepreneurship

This paper introduces and describes the invention-insight sample space and uses it to describe the creative process of discovering invention insights—the essential combinations of elements of knowledge to envision the basic working configurations of inventions, the working ideas for new technologies. Evidence about invention insights and about corporate strategies to promote them is viewed in the context of the paper’s description of the invention-insight discovery process. Then that description is used (1) to identify a novel new opportunity—initiation of policies to stimulate invention insights that directly combine unusually large numbers of knowledge elements—for public sector entrepreneurship to speed the pace of technological progress and the opening up of altogether new areas of science and technology, and (2) to delimit the appropriate form of policy—promotion of competition and the free exchange of ideas—to exploit the opportunity. With sufficient uncertainty in the search for insights, pre-invention-insight ideas in themselves should ideally be freed from the restrictions of intellectual property.
Non-Classical Estrogen Signaling Inhibits Melanoma and Improves Response to PD-1 Blockade

Female sex and pregnancy are associated with reduced risk of melanoma and improved stage specific survival; however, the mechanism underlying this apparent clinical benefit is unknown. We previously discovered that pregnancy-associated 17β-estradiol drives melanocyte differentiation by activating the nonclassical G-protein coupled estrogen receptor (GPER). Here, we show that pregnancy inhibits melanoma, and that transient GPER activation induces long-term changes in melanocytes, which are associated with increased cellular differentiation and resistance to melanoma. A selective GPER agonist induced c-Myc protein degradation, slowed tumor growth, and inhibited expression of immune suppressive proteins including PD-L1, suggesting that GPER signaling may render melanoma cells more vulnerable to immunotherapy. Systemically delivered GPER agonist was well tolerated, and cooperated synergistically with PD-1 blockade in melanoma-bearing mice to dramatically extend survival. These results thus define GPER as a target for differentiation-based melanoma therapy.
A model for optimizing electronic toll collection systems

Abstract This paper examines the deployment of electronic toll collection (ETC) and develops a model to maximize social welfare associated with a toll plaza. A payment choice model estimates the share of traffic using ETC as a function of delay, price, and a fixed cost of acquiring the in-vehicle transponder. Delay in turn depends on the relative number of ETC and manual collection lanes. Price depends on the discount given to users of the ETC lanes. The fixed cost of acquiring the transponder (not simply a monetary cost, but also the effort involved in signing up for the program) is a key factor in the model. Once a traveler acquires the transponder, the cost of choosing ETC in the future declines significantly. Welfare depends on the market share of ETC, and includes delay and gasoline consumption, toll collection costs, and social costs such as air pollution. This work examines the best combination of ETC lanes and toll discount to maximize welfare. Too many ETC lanes cause excessive delay to non-equipped users. Too high a discount costs the highway agency revenue needed to operate the facility. The model is applied to California’s Carquinez Bridge, and recommendations are made concerning the number of dedicated ETC lanes and the appropriate ETC discount.
On the Choice between the Stocking Rate and Time in Range Management

A long standing question in range management concerns the relative importance of the stocking rate versus the length oftime during which animals graze a particular rangeland. Weaddress this question by analyzing the problem faced by a privaterancher who wishes to minimize the long run expected net unit cost (LRENC) from range operations by choosing either the stocking rate or the length of time during which his animals graze hisrangeland. We construct a renewal-theoretic model and show that,in general, this rancher's LRENC with an optimally chosen stocking rate is lower than his LRENC with an optimally chosen grazing cycle length. From a management perspective, this means that correct stocking of the range is more important than the length of time during which animals graze the range. In addition, our research shows how to address questions concerning the desirability of temporal versus non-temporal controls in managing naturalresources such as fisheries and hunting grounds.
The Privacy Bailout: State Government Involvement in the Privacy Arena

In the midst of massive government involvement in the financial, real estate and automotive sectors, other important problems linger without sufficient governmental attention. This article focuses on one area where federal intervention has been particularly absent - the realm of individual privacy in the Information Age. The problem is that monitoring in the United States is increasingly powerful and takes many forms. Online, prominent Web sites collect, store and disseminate a great deal of personally identifying information (PII) without clearly and simply informing users. This is the case even though such notice is cheap and can be effective. Offline, technology exists to monitor individuals driving in their vehicles, walking on the street, shopping in the mall, talking on their cellphones and conducting tasks in and around the workplace. This article focuses on the manner in which the fifty states have bailed-out the federal government, so to speak, in an effort to protect both individuals and their PII from the prying eyes of both state governments and private businesses/employers. This article is unique in that it identifies, classifies and evaluates prominent state laws focusing on areas such as state constitutional privacy protection, RFID restrictions, genetic testing, privacy of PII against security breaches and dissemination, eavesdropping and lifestyle discrimination statutes. At the end of the day, this article demonstrates the most important reasons why Congress must create national guidelines governing the protection of an individual's PII.
Time inconsistency and retirement choice

Hyperbolic discounting with naivete is widely believed to provide a better explanation than exponential discounting of why people borrow so much and why they wait so long to save for retirement. We reach a different set of conclusions. We show that if financial planning is enriched to include the choice of when to retire, then naive hyperbolic discounters may borrow far less and start saving for retirement significantly earlier than exponential discounters.
Scott functions, their representations on domains, and applications to random sets

Abstract Choquet theorems (1954) on integral representation for capacities are fundamental to probability theory. They inspired a growing body of research into different approaches and generalizations of Choquet's results by many other researchers. Notably Matheron's work (1975) on distributions over the space of closed subsets has led to further advancements in the theory of random sets. This paper was inspired by the work of Norberg (1989) who generalized Choquet's results to distributions over domains. While Choquet's original theorems were obtained for locally compact Hausdorff (LCH) spaces, both Matheron's and Norberg's depend on the assumption of separability in their application of the Caratheodory's method. Our Radon measure approach differs from the work of Matheron and Norberg, in that it does not require separability. This investigation naturally leads to the introduction of finite and locally finite valuations, which allows us to characterize finite and locally finite random sets in terms of capacities on the class of compact subsets. Finally, the treatment of Levy exponent by Matheron and Norberg is revisited, and the notion of exponential valuation is proposed for the representation of general Poisson processes.
Experimentation, patents, and innovation

This paper studies a simple model of experimentation and innovation. Our analysis suggests that patents may improve the allocation of resources by encouraging rapid experimentation and e¢ cient ex post transfer of knowledge across …rms. Each …rm receives a private signal on the success probability of one of many potential research projects and decides when and which project to implement. A successful innovation can be copied by other …rms. Symmetric equilibria (where actions do not depend on the identity of the …rm) always involve delayed and staggered experimentation, whereas the optimal allocation never involves delays and may involve simultaneous rather than staggered experimentation. The social cost of insu¢ cient experimentation can be arbitrarily large. Appropriately-designed patents can implement the socially optimal allocation (in all equilibria). In contrast to patents, subsidies to experimentation, research, or innovation cannot typically achieve this objective. We also show that when
A Moral-Existential Account of the Psychological Factors Fostering Intergroup Conflict

We combine ideas from terror management and moral foundations theories to analyze the role of existential and moral concerns in the creation and escalation of intergroup conflict. We argue that moral values, as important components of cultural worldviews, serve to buffer existential anxiety. Perceived threats to one’s moral values thus are capable of inducing existential anxiety and unleashing strong moral emotions, creating the psychological impetus for intergroup conflict and violence. We review evidence that threats to the five core moral intuitions posited by moral foundations theory (harm ⁄care, fairness ⁄reciprocity, ingroup ⁄loyalty, authority ⁄respect, and purity ⁄ sanctity) are associated with existential anxiety and that this contributes to intergroup strife and violence. Moral and existential concerns combine to create a vicious feedback loop that leads to self-perpetuating spirals of violence, which helps explain the intractability of many real-life conflicts. An exceedingly dark side of human nature emerges when groups fail to resolve their conflicts through peaceful means and resort to violence instead. This is, sadly, an all-toocommon outcome in human societies across time and space. Scholars report that prolonged periods of human history not marked by ethno-political violence are unknown (Dutton, 2007). In this article, we present an integrative account of how moral and existential psychological processes contribute to the creation, escalation, and possible resolution of violent intergroup conflict. We posit that the uniquely human awareness of mortality, together with unique human moral sensibilities, constitute a critical psychological force that motivates and perpetuates cycles of intergroup violence. We argue that intergroup conflict is instigated by perceptions of violation to one’s deeply held moral values. Moral values are vital to keep existential anxiety at bay, and existential anxiety leads people to hold on more strongly to their moral values. Perceptions of moral violations, fueled by existential anxiety, thus set in motion a vicious feedback loop, resulting in escalating spirals of violence. To our knowledge, the present review is one of the first attempts to bring together the work on experimental existential psychology and the literature on moral foundations theory. We hope that this initial theorizing will be instrumental in inspiring new research that will shed light on the crucial intersection of morality and mortality in motivating intergroup conflict.
Do the Right Thing: But Only If Others Do So

Social norms play an important role in individual decision making. Bicchieri (2006) argues that two different expectations influence our choice to obey a norm: what we expect others to do (empirical expectations) and what we believe others think ought to be done (normative expectations). Little is known about the relative importance of these two types of expectation in individuals’ decisions, an issue that is particularly important when normative and empirical expectations are in conflict (e.g., high crime cities). In this paper, we report data from Dictator game experiments where we exogenously manipulate dictators’ expectations in the direction of either selfishness or fairness. When normative and empirical expectations are in conflict, we find that empirical expectations about other dictators’ choices significantly predict a dictator’s own choice. However, dictators’ expectations regarding what other dictators think should be done do not have a significant impact on their decisions. Our findings about the crucial influence of empirical expectations are important for those who design institutions or policies aimed at discouraging undesirable behavior.
The Libertarian Welfare State

Robert Hockett reviews Robert Frank's book Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good (Princeton University Press, 2011).