cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Modeling Molecular Hyperfine Line Emission

In this paper, we discuss two approximate methods previously suggested for modeling hyperfine spectral line emission for molecules whose collisional transition rates between hyperfine levels are unknown. Hyperfine structure is seen in the rotational spectra of many commonly observed molecules such as HCN, HNC, NH3, N2H+, and C17O. The intensities of these spectral lines can be modeled by numerical techniques such as Λ-iteration that alternately solve the equations of statistical equilibrium and the equation of radiative transfer. However, these calculations require knowledge of both the radiative and collisional rates for all transitions. For most commonly observed radio frequency spectral lines, only the net collisional rates between rotational levels are known. For such cases, two approximate methods have been suggested. The first method, hyperfine statistical equilibrium, distributes the hyperfine level populations according to their statistical weight, but allows the population of the rotational states to depart from local thermal equilibrium (LTE). The second method, the proportional method, approximates the collision rates between the hyperfine levels as fractions of the net rotational rates apportioned according to the statistical degeneracy of the final hyperfine levels. The second method is able to model non-LTE hyperfine emission. We compare simulations of N2H+ hyperfine lines made with approximate and more exact rates and find that satisfactory results are obtained.
Gallium Phosphide-on-Silicon Dioxide Photonic Devices

The development of integrated photonic circuits utilizing gallium phosphide requires a robust, scalable process for fabrication of GaP-on-insulator devices. Here, we present the first GaP photonic devices on SiO2. The process exploits direct wafer bonding of a GaP/Al x Ga1- x P/GaP heterostructure onto a SiO2-on-Si wafer followed by the removal of the GaP substrate and the Al x Ga1- x P stop layer. Photonic devices such as grating couplers, waveguides, and ring resonators are patterned by inductively coupled-plasma reactive-ion etching in the top GaP device layer. The peak coupling efficiency of the fabricated grating couplers is as high as −4.8 dB. Optical quality factors of 20 000 as well as second- and third-harmonic generation are observed with the ring resonators. Because the large bandgap of GaP provides for low two-photon absorption at telecommunication wavelengths, the high-yield fabrication of GaP-on-insulator photonic devices enabled by this work is especially interesting for applications in nanophotonics, where high quality factors or low mode volumes can produce high electric field intensities. The large bandgap also enables integrated photonic devices operating at visible wavelengths.
STACKED WEAK LENSING MASS CALIBRATION: ESTIMATORS, SYSTEMATICS, AND IMPACT ON COSMOLOGICAL PARAMETER CONSTRAINTS

When extracting the weak lensing shear signal, one may employ either locally normalized or globally normalized shear estimators. The former is the standard approach when estimating cluster masses, while the latter is the more common method among peak finding efforts. While both approaches have identical signal-to-noise in the weak lensing limit, it is possible that higher order corrections or systematic considerations make one estimator preferable over the other. In this paper, we consider the efficacy of both estimators within the context of stacked weak lensing mass estimation in the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We find that the two estimators have nearly identical statistical precision, even after including higher order corrections, but that these corrections must be incorporated into the analysis to avoid observationally relevant biases in the recovered masses. We also demonstrate that finite bin-width effects may be significant if not properly accounted for, and that the two estimators exhibit different systematics, particularly with respect to contamination of the source catalog by foreground galaxies. Thus, the two estimators may be employed as a systematic cross-check of each other. Stacked weak lensing in the DES should allow for the mean mass of galaxy clusters to be calibrated to ≈2% precision (statistical only), which can improve the figure of merit of the DES cluster abundance experiment by a factor of ~3 relative to the self-calibration expectation. A companion paper investigates how the two types of estimators considered here impact weak lensing peak finding efforts.
Univalence for inverse diagrams and homotopy canonicity

We describe a homotopical version of the relational and gluing models of type theory, and generalize it to inverse diagrams and oplax limits. Our method uses the Reedy homotopy theory on inverse diagrams, and relies on the fact that Reedy fibrant diagrams correspond to contexts of a certain shape in type theory. This has two main applications. First, by considering inverse diagrams in Voevodsky's univalent model in simplicial sets, we obtain new models of univalence in a number of (∞, 1)-toposes; this answers a question raised at the Oberwolfach workshop on homotopical type theory. Second, by gluing the syntactic category of univalent type theory along its global sections functor to groupoids, we obtain a partial answer to Voevodsky's homotopy-canonicity conjecture: in 1-truncated type theory with one univalent universe of sets, any closed term of natural number type is homotopic to a numeral.
Statistical Mechanics of the US Supreme Court

We build simple models for the distribution of voting patterns in a group, using the Supreme Court of the United States as an example. The maximum entropy model consistent with the observed pairwise correlations among justices’ votes, an Ising spin glass, agrees quantitatively with the data. While all correlations (perhaps surprisingly) are positive, the effective pairwise interactions in the spin glass model have both signs, recovering the intuition that ideologically opposite justices negatively influence each another. Despite the competing interactions, a strong tendency toward unanimity emerges from the model, organizing the voting patterns in a relatively simple “energy landscape.” Besides unanimity, other energy minima in this landscape, or maxima in probability, correspond to prototypical voting states, such as the ideological split or a tightly correlated, conservative core. The model correctly predicts the correlation of justices with the majority and gives us a measure of their influence on the majority decision. These results suggest that simple models, grounded in statistical physics, can capture essential features of collective decision making quantitatively, even in a complex political context.
Sympathetic Cooling of Molecular Ion Motion to the Ground State

We demonstrate sympathetic sideband cooling of a 40CaH+ molecular ion co-trapped with a 40Ca+ atomic ion in a linear Paul trap. Both axial modes of the two-ion chain are simultaneously cooled to near the ground state of motion. The center of mass mode is cooled to an average quanta of harmonic motion , corresponding to a temperature of . The breathing mode is cooled to , corresponding to a temperature of .
Optimized Markov state models for metastable systems

A method is proposed to identify target states that optimize a metastability index amongst a set of trial states and use these target states as milestones (or core sets) to build Markov State Models (MSMs). If the optimized metastability index is small, this automatically guarantees the accuracy of the MSM, in the sense that the transitions between the target milestones is indeed approximately Markovian. The method is simple to implement and use, it does not require that the dynamics on the trial milestones be Markovian, and it also offers the possibility to partition the system’s state-space by assigning every trial milestone to the target milestones it is most likely to visit next and to identify transition state regions. Here the method is tested on the Gly-Ala-Gly peptide, where it is shown to correctly identify the expected metastable states in the dihedral angle space of the molecule without a priori information about these states. It is also applied to analyze the folding landscape of the Beta3s mini-protein, where it is shown to identify the folded basin as a connecting hub between an helix-rich region, which is entropically stabilized, and a beta-rich region, which is energetically stabilized and acts as a kinetic trap.
Field theory for a deuteron quantum liquid

Based on general symmetry principles we study an effective Lagrangian for a neutral system of condensed spin-1 deuteron nuclei and electrons, at greater-than-atomic but less-than-nuclear densities. We expect such matter to be present in thin layers within certain low-mass brown dwarfs. It may also be produced in future shock-wave-compression experiments as an effective fuel for laser-induced nuclear fusion. We find a background solution of the effective theory describing a net spin zero condensate of deuterons with their spins aligned and anti-aligned in a certain spontaneously emerged preferred direction. The spectrum of low energy collective excitations contains two spin-waves with linear dispersions — like in antiferromagnets — as well as gapped longitudinal and transverse modes related to the Meissner effect — like in superconductors. We show that counting of the Nambu-Goldstone modes of spontaneously broken internal and space-time symmetries obeys, in a nontrivial way, the rules of the Goldstone theorem for Lorentz non-invariant systems. We discuss thermodynamic properties of the condensate, and its potential manifestation in the low-mass brown dwarfs.
Toward Ka Band Acoustics: Lithium Niobate Asymmetrical Mode Piezoelectric MEMS Resonators

This work presents a new class of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) resonators toward Ka band (26.5-40 GHz) for fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication. Resonant frequencies of 21.4 and 29.9 GHz have been achieved using the fifth and seventh order asymmetric (A5 and A7) Lamb-wave modes in a suspended Z-cut lithium niobate (LiNbO 3 ) thin film. The fabricated device has demonstrated an electromechanical coupling $(k_{t}^{2})$ of 1.5% and 0.94% and extracted mechanical $Qs$ of 406 and 474 for A5 and A7 respectively. The quality factors are the highest reported for piezoelectric MEMS resonators operating at this frequency range. The demonstrated performance has shown the strong potential of LiNbO 3 asymmetric mode devices to meet the front-end filtering requirements of 5G.
Bregman Forward-Backward Operator Splitting

We establish the convergence of the forward-backward splitting algorithm based on Bregman distances for the sum of two monotone operators in reflexive Banach spaces. Even in Euclidean spaces, the convergence of this algorithm has so far been proved only in the case of minimization problems. The proposed framework features Bregman distances that vary over the iterations and a novel assumption on the single-valued operator that captures various properties scattered in the literature. In the minimization setting, we obtain rates that are sharper than existing ones.
Just-in-time Quantum Circuit Transpilation Reduces Noise

Running quantum programs is fraught with challenges on on today's noisy intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) devices. Many of these challenges originate from the error characteristics that stem from rapid decoherence and noise during measurement, qubit connections, crosstalk, the qubits themselves, and transformations of qubit state via gates. Not only are qubits not “created equal”, but their noise level also changes over time. IBM is said to calibrate their quantum systems once per day and reports noise levels (errors) at the time of such calibration. This information is subsequently used to map circuits to higher quality qubits and connections up to the next calibration point. This work provides evidence that there is room for improvement over this daily calibration cycle. It contributes a technique to measure noise levels (errors) related to qubits immediately before executing one or more sensitive circuits and shows that just-in-time noise measurements can benefit late physical qubit mappings. With this just-in-time recalibrated transpilation, the fidelity of results is improved over IBM's default mappings, which only uses their daily calibrations. The framework assess two major sources of noise, namely readout errors (measurement errors) and two-qubit gate/connection errors. Experiments indicate that the accuracy of circuit results improves by 3–304% on average and up to 400% with on-the-fly circuit mappings based on error measurements just prior to application execution.
Local Bilayer Hydrophobicity Modulates Membrane Protein Stability.

Through the insertion of nonpolar side chains into the bilayer, the hydrophobic effect has long been accepted as a driving force for membrane protein folding. However, how the changing chemical composition of the bilayer affects the magnitude of the side-chain transfer free energies ( Δ G s c ° ) has historically not been well understood. A particularly challenging region for experimental interrogation is the bilayer interfacial region that is characterized by a steep polarity gradient. In this study, we have determined the Δ G s c ° for nonpolar side chains as a function of bilayer position using a combination of experiment and simulation. We discovered an empirical correlation between the surface area of the nonpolar side chain, the transfer free energies, and the local water concentration in the membrane that allows for Δ G s c ° to be accurately estimated at any location in the bilayer. Using these water-to-bilayer Δ G s c ° values, we calculated the interface-to-bilayer transfer free energy ( Δ G i , b ° ). We find that the Δ G i , b ° are similar to the "biological", translocon-based transfer free energies, indicating that the translocon energetically mimics the bilayer interface. Together these findings can be applied to increase the accuracy of computational workflows used to identify and design membrane proteins as well as bring greater insight into our understanding of how disease-causing mutations affect membrane protein folding and function.
Markov state models and NMR uncover an overlooked allosteric loop in p53

The tumor suppressor p53 is the most frequently mutated gene in human cancer, and thus reactivation of mutated p53 is a promising avenue for cancer therapy. Analysis of wildtype p53 and the Y220C cancer mutant long-timescale molecular dynamics simulations with Markov state models and validation by NMR relaxation studies has uncovered the involvement of loop L6 in the slowest motions of the protein. Due to its distant location from the DNA-binding surface, the conformational dynamics of this loop has so far remained largely unexplored. We observe mutation-induced stabilization of alternate L6 conformations, distinct from all experimentally-determined structures, in which the loop is both extended and located further away from the DNA-interacting surface. Additionally, the effect of the L6-adjacent Y220C mutation on the conformational landscape of the functionally-important loop L1 suggests an allosteric role to this dynamic loop and the inactivation mechanism of the mutation. Finally, the simulations reveal a novel Y220C cryptic pocket that can be targeted for p53 rescue efforts. Our approach exemplifies the power of the MSM methodology for uncovering intrinsic dynamic and kinetic differences among distinct protein ensembles, such as for the investigation of mutation effects on protein function.
Fast Convergence of Fictitious Play for Diagonal Payoff Matrices

Fictitious Play (FP) is a simple and natural dynamic for repeated play in zero-sum games. Proposed by Brown in 1949, FP was shown to converge to a Nash Equilibrium by Robinson in 1951, albeit at a slow rate that may depend on the dimension of the problem. In 1959, Karlin conjectured that FP converges at the more natural rate of $O(1/\sqrt{t})$. However, Daskalakis and Pan disproved a version of this conjecture in 2014, showing that a slow rate can occur, although their result relies on adversarial tie-breaking. In this paper, we show that Karlin's conjecture is indeed correct for the class of diagonal payoff matrices, as long as ties are broken lexicographically. Specifically, we show that FP converges at a $O(1/\sqrt{t})$ rate in the case when the payoff matrix is diagonal. We also prove this bound is tight by showing a matching lower bound in the identity payoff case under the lexicographic tie-breaking assumption.
High-entropy rare earth tetraborides

Abstract Six high-entropy rare earth tetraborides of the tetragonal UB4-prototyped structure have been successfully synthesized for the first time. The specimens are prepared from elemental precursors via high-energy ball mill and in-situ reactive spark plasma sintering. The sintered specimens are >98 % in relative densities without detectable oxide impurities (albeit the presence of minor hexaborides in some compositions). No detectable secondary phase is observed in the composition (Y0.2Nd0.2Sm0.2Gd0.2Tb0.2)B4, which is proven homogeneous at both microscale and nanoscale. The Vickers microhardness are determined to be ∼13−15 GPa at a standard indentation load of 9.8 N. A scientifically interesting observation is represented by the anisotropic lattice distortion from the rule-of-mixture averages. This work expands the family of high-entropy ceramics via fabricating a new class of high-entropy borides with a unique tetragonal quasi-layered crystal structure.
Benefits and Cyber-Vulnerability of Demand Response System in Real-Time Grid Operations

With improvement in smart grids through two-way communication, demand response (DR) has gained significant attention due to the inherent flexibility provided by shifting noncritical loads from peak periods to off-peak periods, which can greatly improve grid reliability and reduce cost of energy. Operators utilize DR to enhance operational flexibility and alleviate network congestion. However, the intelligent two-way communication is susceptible to cyber-attacks. This paper studies the benefits of DR in security-constrained economic dispatch (SCED) and then the vulnerability of the system to line overloads when cyber-attack targets DR signals. This paper proposes a false demand response signal and load measurement injection (FSMI) cyber-attack model that sends erroneous DR signals while hacking measurements to make the attack undetectable. Simulation results on the IEEE 24-bus system (i) demonstrate the cost-saving benefits of demand response, and (ii) show significant line overloads when the demand response signals are altered under an FSMI attack.
Detecting and Tracking Unsafe Lane Departure Events for Predicting Driver Safety in Challenging Naturalistic Driving Data

Our goal is to improve driver safety predictions in at-risk medical or aging populations from naturalistic driving video data. To meet this goal, we developed a novel model capable of detecting and tracking unsafe lane departure events (e.g., changes and incursions), which may occur more frequently in at-risk driver populations. The model detects and tracks roadway lane markings in challenging, low-resolution driving videos using a semantic lane detection pre-processor (Mask R-CNN) utilizing the driver's forward lane region, demarking the convex hull that represents the driver's lane. The hull centroid is tracked over time, improving lane tracking over approaches which detect lane markers from single video frames. The lane time series was denoised using a Fix-lag Kalman filter. Preliminary results show promise for robust lane departure event detection. Overall recall for detecting lane departure events was 81.82%. The F1 score was 75% (precision 69.23%) and 70.59% (precision 62.07%) for left and right lane departures, respectively. Future investigations include exploring (1) horizontal offset as a means to detect lead vehicle proximity, even when image perspectives are known to have a chirp effect and (2) Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) models to detect peaks instead of a peak detection algorithm.
Adaptive Bayesian Spectral Analysis of High-Dimensional Nonstationary Time Series

This article introduces a nonparametric approach to spectral analysis of a high-dimensional multivariate nonstationary time series. The procedure is based on a novel frequency-domain factor model t...
BP-RRT: Barrier Pair Synthesis for Temporal Logic Motion Planning

For a nonlinear system (e.g. a robot) with its continuous state space trajectories constrained by a linear temporal logic specification, the synthesis of a low-level controller for mission execution often results in a non-convex optimization problem. We devise a new algorithm to solve this type of non-convex problems by formulating a rapidly-exploring random tree of barrier pairs, with each barrier pair composed of a quadratic barrier function and a full state feedback controller. The proposed method employs a rapidly-exploring random tree to deal with the non-convex constraints and uses barrier pairs to fulfill the local convex constraints. As such, the method solves control problems fulfilling the required transitions of an automaton in order to satisfy given linear temporal logic constraints. At the same time it synthesizes locally optimal controllers in order to transition between the regions corresponding to the alphabet of the automaton. We demonstrate this new algorithm on a simulation of a two linkage manipulator robot.
Household wealth and the measurement of economic well-being in the United States

We analyze the level and distribution of economic well-being in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s based on the standard measure of money income and a measure in which income from wealth is calculated as the sum of lifetime annuity from nonhome wealth and imputed rental-equivalent for owner-occupied homes. Over the 1982–2000 period, median well-being increases faster when these adjustments are made than when standard money income is used. This adjustment also widens the income gap between African-Americans and whites but increases the relative well-being of the elderly. Adding imputed rent and annuities from household wealth to household income considerably increases measured inequality and the share of income from wealth in inequality. However, both measures show about the same rise in inequality over the period. We also find an increasing share of wage and salary income in our expanded definition of income among the richest 1% over the period but do not find that the “working rich” have largely replaced rentiers at the top of the economic ladder.
Empirical assessment of bifurcation regions within New Keynesian models

As is well known in systems theory, the parameter space of most dynamic models is stratified into subsets, each of which supports a different kind of dynamic solution. Since we do not know the parameters with certainty, knowledge of the location of the bifurcation boundaries is of fundamental importance. Without knowledge of the location of such boundaries, there is no way to know whether the confidence region about the parameters’ point estimates might be crossed by one or more such boundaries. If there are intersections between bifurcation boundaries and a confidence region, the resulting stratification of the confidence region damages inference robustness about dynamics, when such dynamical inferences are produced by the usual simulations at the point estimates only. Recently, interest in policy in some circles has moved to New Keynesian models, which have become common in monetary policy formulations. As a result, we explore bifurcations within the class of New Keynesian models. We study different specifications of monetary policy rules within the New Keynesian functional structure. In initial research in this area, Barnett and Duzhak (Physica A 387(15):3817–3825, 2008) found a New Keynesian Hopf bifurcation boundary, with the setting of the policy parameters influencing the existence and location of the bifurcation boundary. Hopf bifurcation is the most commonly encountered type of bifurcation boundary found among economic models, since the existence of a Hopf bifurcation boundary is accompanied by regular oscillations within a neighborhood of the bifurcation boundary. Now, following a more extensive and systematic search of the parameter space, we also find the existence of Period Doubling (flip) bifurcation boundaries in the class of models. Central results in this research are our theorems on the existence and location of Hopf bifurcation boundaries in each of the considered cases. We also solve numerically for the location and properties of the Period Doubling bifurcation boundaries and their dependence upon policy-rule parameter settings.
Music and the market: Song and stock volatility

Abstract Popular music may presage market conditions because people contemplating complex future economic behavior prefer simpler music, and vice versa. In comparing the annual average beat variance of the songs in the U.S. Billboard Top 100 since its inception in 1958 through 2007 to the standard deviation of returns of the S&P 500 for the same or the subsequent year, a significant negative correlation is observed. Furthermore, the beat variance appears able to predict future market volatility, producing 2.5 volatility points of profit per year on average.
The Political Economy of Reforming the Anti‐dumping Laws

In the idealised economic world in which economists usually begin their theoretical analyses, the first-best international policy for dealing with dumping is to eliminate the economic distortions that make dumping possible, e.g., tariffs, subsidies and monopoly power, and deal with relevant equity considerations through lump-sum income redistribution. But this combination of policies generally is not politically feasible, and the use of second-best policies is the only realistic option. Consequently, for academic economists seeking achievable AD reform, the most promising approach may be to work toward the elimination of the many current administrative practices that unfairly injure groups not directly involved in the petitioning process but accept that there can be practical circumstances where the equity concerns of petitioners trump overall efficiency objectives.
Crafting a Progressive Workplace Regulatory Policy: Why Enforcement Matters

With the success of the Democratic party in retaking control of the United Sates Congress in 2006, and the prospects of a Democrat in the White House in 2008, policymakers will be hearing calls to address a variety of workplace problems that have been largely neglected over the past decade. There will be calls to pass legislation regarding the outsourcing of work, new policies to assist working families and low income workers, and bold initiatives to address the myriad of problems facing both temporary/contingent workers and the growing immigrant workforce. Initiating new policies represents a signal opportunity for a new Congress or President. Capitalizing on the momentum of an election victory to push through a legislative agenda is imperative, as well as an early indicator of the long-term effectiveness of a new Congress or administration. With that said, a progressive workplace regulatory policy should not depend solely, or even primarily, on new legislative initiatives. Instead, significant advances in achieving core public goals in the workplace can be more effectively pursued by drawing on the extensive body of established laws, regulations, and executive orders and the vast administrative apparatus that already exists to implement those policies. Rather than focusing all energy and political capital on passing legislative initiatives, which could take years to implement, a new Congress or entering administration should bring to its regulatory
Value of Conglomerates and Capital Market Conditions

This article studies variations in the value of diversification across time under various capital market conditions. I find that when external capital is more costly at the aggregate level, the value of conglomerates increases relative to focused firms. I also find that this increase is greater for financially constrained conglomerates, such as bank-dependent or small conglomerates. My findings support the theories on the advantage of diversification over focus. They suggest that the ability to substitute external capital markets with internal capital markets creates value for conglomerates when the financing cost in external markets is high, especially for those conglomerates that are financially constrained.
Looking to the East: The Stories of Modern Indian People and the Development of Tribal Law

Tribal sovereignty is a story told by tribal leaders and advocates for decades to federal and state governments and courts. This story has led to significant political and economic gains for Indian people, but the story is getting old. While the pre-contact Indian communities relied upon storytelling to communicate important social norms, the conquest of Indian nations eviscerated that capacity. Indian people, in order to preserve the right to legal self-determination, must restore their own unique customs and traditions and incorporate those elements into modern tribal law. This paper analyzes four short stories by the renowned Spokane-Coeur d'Alene author, Sherman Alexie, stories about modern Indian people living in a world dominated by non-Indian culture and government. The paper highlights areas where new stories may inform tribal government choices as to tribal law and policy, including tribal membership and cultural property. Tribal law and sovereignty cannot exist in the long-term without reference to and a direct connection to the new stories of Indian people living today.
Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics: Reconfiguring Problems and Mechanisms across Research Traditions

This article defines, operationalizes, and illustrates the value of analytic eclecticism in the social sciences, with a focus on the fields of comparative politics and international relations. Analytic eclecticism is not an alternative model of research or a means to displace or subsume existing modes of scholarship. It is an intellectual stance that supports efforts to complement, engage, and selectively utilize theoretical constructs embedded in contending research traditions to build complex arguments that bear on substantive problems of interest to both scholars and practitioners. Eclectic scholarship is marked by three general features. First, it is consistent with an ethos of pragmatism in seeking engagement with the world of policy and practice, downplaying unresolvable metaphysical divides and presumptions of incommensurability and encouraging a conception of inquiry marked by practical engagement, inclusive dialogue, and a spirit of fallibilism. Second, it formulates problems that are wider in scope than the more narrowly delimited problems posed by adherents of research traditions; as such, eclectic inquiry takes on problems that more closely approximate the messiness and complexity of concrete dilemmas facing “real world” actors. Third, in exploring these problems, eclectic approaches offer complex causal stories that extricate, translate, and selectively recombine analytic components—most notably, causal mechanisms—from explanatory theories, models, and narratives embedded in competing research traditions. The article includes a brief sampling of studies that illustrate the combinatorial potential of analytic eclecticism as an intellectual exercise as well as its value in enhancing the possibilities of fruitful dialogue and pragmatic engagement within and beyond the academe.
Investment Incentives of a Regulated Dominant Firm

We study the investment incentives of a regulated, incumbent firm in a deregulation process. The regulator cannot commit to a long-term regulatory policy, and investment decisions are taken before optimal regulatory policies are imposed. We characterize the regulated incumbent's incentive to invest when a deregulation process is initiated and an unregulated firm enters the market as a result. The change in the marginal return to investment depends on how the investment changes the firm's virtual cost—the sum of its physical production and information costs. When the marginal return to investment increases due to deregulation, social welfare increases as a result of higher investment and more competition. Otherwise, the change in social welfare depends on the total of the effects in the fall of investment and increased competition. We also present conditions under which deregulation enhances welfare.
Fiscal management in federal democracies : Argentina and Brazil

In shifting to decentralized public finances, a country's central government faces certain fiscal management problems. First, during and soon after the transition, unless it reduces pending or increases its own tax resources, the central government tends to have higher deficits as it shifts fiscal resources to sub-national governments through transfers, revenue sharing, or delegation of tax bases. Reducing spending is hard, not only because cuts are always hard, but because sub-national governments might not take on expected tasks, leaving the central government with a legal or political obligation to continue spending for certain services. Second, after decentralization, the local or state government faces popular pressure to spend more and tax less, creating the tendency to run deficits. This tendency can be a problem if sub-national governments and their creditors expect or rely on bailouts by the central government. Econometric evidence from 32 large industrial and developing countries indicates that higher sub-national spending and deficits lead to greater national deficits. The authors investigate how, and how successfully, Argentina and Brazil dealt with these problems in the 1990s. In both countries, sub-national governments account for about half of public spending and are vigorous democracies in most (especially the largest) jurisdictions. The return to democracy in the 1980s revived and strengthened long-standing federal practices while weakening macroeconomic performance, resulting in unsustainable fiscal deficits, high inflation, sometimes hyperinflation, and low or negative growth. Occasional stabilization plans failed within a few years. Then Argentina (in 1991) and Brazil (in 1994) introduced successful stabilization plans. National issues were important in preventing and then bringing about macroeconomic stabilization, but so were intergovernmental fiscal relations and the fiscal management of sub-national governments. State deficits and federal transfers were often out of control in the 1980s, contributing to national macroeconomic problems. Stabilization programs in the 1990s needed to establish control, and self-control, over sub-national spending and borrowing.
Performance-vesting provisions in executive compensation

Abstract The usage of performance-vesting (p-v) equity awards to top executives in large U.S. companies has grown from 20 to 70 percent from 1998 to 2012. We measure the effects of p-v provisions on value, delta, and vega of equity-based compensation. We find large differences in the value of p-v awards reported in company disclosures versus economic value. We also find that equity-based grants continue to convey significant compensation convexity (vega) after ASC 718 (2005) and that, counter to recent claims in the literature, our analysis empirically reaffirms the presence of a causal relation between compensation convexity (vega) and firm risk.
Who pays for switching costs

Earlier work characterized pricing with switching costs as a dilemma between a short-term “harvesting” incentive to increase prices versus a long-term “investing” incentive to decrease prices. This paper shows that small switching costs may reduce firm profits and provide short-term incentives to lower rather than raise prices. We provide a simple expression which characterizes the impact of the introduction of switching costs on prices and profits for a general model. We then explore the impact of switching costs in a variety of specific examples which are special cases of our model. We emphasize the importance of a short term “compensating” effect on switching costs. When consumers switch in equilibrium, firms offset the costs of consumers that are switching into the firm. If switching costs are low, this compensating effect of switching costs causes even myopic firms to decrease prices. The incentive to decrease prices is even stronger for forward looking firms.
Piracy or promotion? The impact of broadband Internet penetration on DVD sales

Abstract The Internet provides copyright holders with new sales and promotional channels for their content, while also providing consumers with new opportunities to illegally obtain free copies of this content. Unfortunately, disentangling these two effects is extremely difficult. In this paper we attempt to disentangle these two effects by applying fixed effects and first difference models to a new dataset quantifying changes in broadband Internet penetration and DVD sales at a local level from 2000 to 2003. We then compare our results to those reported in Liebowitz (2008) , who uses similar models in a similar time period on a similar product category: music CDs. Unlike Liebowitz, who finds a strong negative impact of broadband penetration on music sales, our results show that increased broadband penetration leads to a significant increase in DVD sales. Using the most conservative results, 9.3% of the $14.1 billion increase in DVD sales during our study period can be attributed to increased broadband penetration. One interpretation of these results is that the difference arises from differences in the ability to pirate these two types of content: while Internet music piracy was easy and rampant from 2000 to 2003, Internet movie piracy was difficult and of generally low quality in this time period. If this interpretation is true it would suggest that, in the absence of piracy, the Internet has an overall strong positive impact on media sales.
Realized Volatility, Liquidity, and Corporate Yield Spreads

I propose a friction measure of bond round-trip liquidity costs that is robust to outliers and accounts for the idiosyncratic information behind trading decisions. Particularly effective with investment-grade bonds, the proposed measure displays properties consistent with the credit risk puzzle. Using transactions from January 2004 to December 2011, I find that liquidity costs display a strong correlation with credit conditions and peaked during the sub-prime crisis. After controlling for equity volatility with high-frequency measures, liquidity costs explain a substantial fraction of the variation in the yield spreads of highly rated bonds, but become less important for speculative-grade bonds.
Realigning Auditors' Incentives

Accounting reforms for careless audits have not come to grips with the basic problem affecting the accounting industry, which is that accounting firms work for the companies they audit. A lax audit can be conceived of as a multi-period game, in which the immediate and future payoffs to the auditors from cooperating with management in questionable accounting practices exceed the discounted possibility of judgments and sanctions. To alter this payoff structure, it is necessary to reevaluate the employment tie between auditors and public companies. The Article evaluates three proposals to sever that tie: mandatory rotation of audit firms, the system of statutory auditors found in continental Europe, and a proposal to have auditors work for malpractice insurers who insure financial statements.
John Rambo v Atticus Finch: Gender, Diversity and the Civility Movement

(2013). John Rambo v Atticus Finch: Gender, Diversity and the Civility Movement. Legal Ethics: Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 97-118.
Carbon capture and storage at scale: Lessons from the growth of analogous energy technologies

Abstract At present carbon capture and storage (CCS) is very expensive and its performance is highly uncertain at the scale of commercial power plants. Such challenges to deployment, though, are not new to students of technological change. Several successful technologies, including energy technologies, have faced similar challenges as CCS faces now. To draw lessons for the CCS industry from the history of other energy technologies that, as with CCS today, were risky and expensive early in their commercial development, we have analyzed the development of the US nuclear-power industry, the US SO2-scrubber industry, and the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. Through analyzing the development of the analogous industries we arrive at three principal observations. First, government played a decisive role in the development of all of these analogous technologies. Second, diffusion of these technologies beyond the early demonstration and niche projects hinged on the credibility of incentives for industry to invest in commercial-scale projects. Third, the conventional wisdom that experience with technologies inevitably reduces costs does not necessarily hold. Risky and capital-intensive technologies may be particularly vulnerable to diffusion without accompanying reductions in cost.
Why are Latin Americans so unhappy about reforms

This paper uses opinion surveys to document discontent with the pro-market reforms implemented by most Latin American countries during the 1990s. The paper also explores four possible sets of explanations for this discontent: (i) a general drift of the populace’s political views to the left; (ii) an increase in political activism by those who oppose reforms; (iii) a decline in the people’s trust of political actors; and (iv) the economic crisis. The paper’s principal finding is that the macroeconomic situation plays an important role in explaining the dissatisfaction with the reform process.
Information Asymmetry, Regulations and Equilibrium Outcomes: Theory and Evidence from the Housing Rental Market

We explore the role of information asymmetry and regulations on equilibrium outcomes in rental markets to show that while landlords price the cost of regulations into rent, they also invest in tenant screening to alleviate information asymmetry, thus restricting access to rental housing. We are the first to document this additional tenant screening in response to regulations.
The Structure of Counterproductive Work Behaviors: Dimensionality and Relationships with Facets of Job Performance

Personnel selection as an applied domain of work and organizational psychology has over one century of scientific history. This paper presents a historical account of the last 100 years of personnel selection by presenting some of the more important landmarks of the discipline. This historical account includes events, theoretical contributions, and methodological advances that have consolidated the discipline as a scientific one. The paper also serves as an introduction to the second part of the special issue devoted to the presentation of the state-of-art of personnel selection at the beginning of the XXIst Century.
Financial dependence and innovation: The case of public versus private firms

Abstract In this paper, we examine the relation between innovation and a firm’s financial dependence using a sample of privately held and publicly traded US firms. We find that public firms in external finance dependent industries spend more on research and development and generate a better patent portfolio than their private counterparts. However, public firms in internal finance dependent industries do not have a better innovation profile than private firms. The results are robust to various empirical strategies that address selection bias. The findings indicate that the influence of public listing on innovation depends on the need for external capital.
The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage in Canada: Law and Policy Considerations

This paper was presented at the conference: The Future of Same-Sex Marriage Claims: The Third Generation and Beyond, held at J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University. The author explores the legal and policy related reasons behind the same-sex marriage debate. She explores the chronology of events and the key legal developments that have paved the way for the same-sex marriage debate; explains why Canadian society is now facing the same-sex marriage debate by exploring the legal institutions of Canadian society; and reviews two approaches to same-sex-marriage in Canada and critiques their philosophical basis by suggesting that the proponents of same-sex marriage offer no workable philosophy as a foundation for that legal system. The author concludes by presenting five main arguments against redefining marriage: (1) Marriage and same-sex partnerships are so radically different that to treat them the same would mean distorting the authentic meaning of human dignity and the very notion of marriage. Such redefinition would also distort the authentic meaning of equality.; (2) offend the dignity of children; and (3) overlook scientific evidence essential to protecting the rights of children; (4) undermine the importance of the natural family; and (5) disturb the Canadian social order.
Human Rights and Civil Litigation in United States Courts: The Holocaust- Era Cases

This is a comment on an article by Professor Burt Neuborne, in which he describes in detail the Holocaust assets litigation against Swiss, German, Austrian, and French corporations. In the comment, I attempt to put that litigation episode into the larger context of human rights enforcement through civil litigation in United States courts as seen from a theoretical concept drawn from international relations theory. I then try to gain some insights into such civil human-rights litigation from the Holocaust cases. I conclude that the Holocaust-era litigation has done considerable good by creating a vast pool of assets for distribution among victims of the Holocaust whose claims had been submerged by the politics of the Cold War. At first blush, the litigation also appears to support the theory that granting individuals standing to sue for human-rights violations in national courts improves enforcement of human rights. Upon closer examination, however, the picture is less clear: All of the Holocaust cases were settled. Moreover, few, if any, of them led to pronouncements on the difficult questions of international human rights law at issue, thus leading one to wonder whether human rights were effectively enforced here. While Americans may insist that the settlements were surely negotiated "in the shadow of the law," the relevant actors in the European countries involved are convinced, and the evidence in these cases is quite strong, that the settlement outcomes were less the result of international law than of U.S. power. As I demonstrate, this perception may have considerable costs. It may breed resentment, which, in turn, may affect outcomes in cases and issue areas in which the United States and its litigants do not have the upper hand. It may also lead to protective action abroad that renders pursuing human rights claims more difficult, both in the United States and elsewhere. We are thus faced with a paradox: The same features that make civil litigation in the United States particularly attractive to human rights claimants - its ability to create new remedies, judicial discretion, liberal pleading, class actions, and the ability of parties to join every conceivable claim - may also make it ineffective in enforcing human rights and in fashioning new human rights norms, particularly when combined with measures by other branches of government. These are issues that need to be considered carefully by scholars in law and international politics when conceiving and empirically testing theories about the role of law and procedure in the behavior of nation states, groups, and individuals in the international sphere.