cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Use of DuPont Analysis by Market Participants

DuPont analysis, a common form of financial statement analysis, decom- poses return on net operating assets into two multiplicative components: profit margin and asset turnover. These two accounting ratios measure different constructs and, accordingly, have different properties. Prior research has found that a change in asset turnover is positively related to future changes in earnings. This paper comprehensively explores the DuPont components and contributes to the literature along three dimen- sions. First, the paper contributes to the financial statement analysis literature and finds that the information in this accounting signal is in fact incremental to accounting signals studied in prior research in predicting future earnings. Second, it contributes to the literature on the stock market's use of accounting information by examining immediate and future equity return responses to these components by investors. Finally, it adds to the literature on analysts' processing of accounting information by again testing immediate and delayed response of analysts through contemporaneous forecast revi- sions as well as future forecast errors. Consistent across both groups of market par- ticipants, the results show that the information is useful as evidenced by associations between the DuPont components and stock returns as well as analyst forecast revi- sions. However, I find predictable future forecast errors and future abnormal returns indicating that the information processing does not appear to be complete. Taken to- gether, the analysis indicates that the DuPont components represent an incremental and viable form of information about the operating characteristics of a firm.
Cost-Effectiveness of Motivational Interviewing for Smoking Cessation and Relapse Prevention among Low-Income Pregnant Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract Objectives Low-income women have high rates of smoking during pregnancy, but little is known about the costs, benefits, and cost-effectiveness of motivational interviewing (MI), focused on the medical and psychosocial needs of this population, as an intervention for smoking cessation and relapse prevention. Methods A sample of 302 low-income pregnant women was recruited from multiple obstetrical sites in the Boston metropolitan area into a randomized controlled trial of a motivational intervention for smoking cessation and relapse prevention versus usual care (UC). The findings of this clinical trial were used to estimate the costs, benefits, and cost-effectiveness of the intervention from a societal perspective, incorporating published quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) and life-year (LY) estimates. Outcomes included smoking cessation and relapse, maternal and infant outcomes, economic costs, LYs and QALYs saved, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios. Results The cost-effectiveness of MI for relapse prevention compared to UC was estimated to be $851/LY saved and $628/QALY saved. Including savings in maternal medical costs in sensitivity analyses resulted in cost savings for MI for relapse prevention compared to UC. For smoking cessation, MI cost more but did not provide additional benefit compared to UC. In one-way sensitivity analyses, the incremental cost-effectiveness of MI versus UC would have been $117,100/LY saved and $86,300/QALY saved if 8% of smokers had quit. In two-way sensitivity analyses, MI was still relatively cost-effective for relapse prevention ($17,300/QALY saved) even if it cost as much as $2000/participant and was less effective. For smoking cessation, however, a higher level of effectiveness (9/110) and higher cost ($400/participant) resulted in higher incremental cost-effectiveness ratios ($112,000/QALY). Conclusions Among low-income pregnant women, MI helps prevent relapse at relatively low cost, and may be cost-saving when net medical cost savings are considered. For smoking cessation, MI cost more but provided no additional benefit compared to UC, but might offer benefits at costs comparable to other clinical preventive interventions if 8–10% of smokers are induced to quit.
Does Household Finance Affect the Political Process? Evidence from Voter Turnout During a Housing Crisis

I examine the effect of house price declines on voter participation using a novel person-level panel data set. Contrary to what the “angry voter hypothesis” predicts, I find that a 10% decline in local house prices decreases the participation rate of the average mortgaged homeowner by 1.6 percentage points. Consistent with a financial distress channel, house price declines have no effects on renters and particularly severe effects on highly leveraged households. My findings are consistent with the existence of a feedback loop between financial distress and inequality operating through voter participation.
Optimal Multiple Trading Times Under the Exponential OU Model with Transaction Costs

This paper studies the timing of trades under mean-reverting price dynamics subject to fixed transaction costs. We solve an optimal double stopping problem to determine the optimal times to enter and subsequently exit the market, when prices are driven by an exponential Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. In addition, we analyze a related optimal switching problem that involves an infinite sequence of trades, and we identify the conditions under which the double stopping and switching problems admit the same optimal entry and/or exit timing strategies. Among our results, we find that the investor generally enters when the price is low but may find it optimal to wait if the current price is sufficiently close to zero. In other words, the continuation (waiting) region for entry is disconnected. Numerical results are provided to illustrate the dependence of timing strategies on model parameters and transaction costs.
The Impacts of Borrowing Constraints on Homeownership

This paper utilizes microdata to directly quantify the impact of mortgage underwriting criteria on individual homeownership propensities. To determine whether a family is constrained by these criteria, the optimal home purchase price is estimated. The results indicate that wealth and income constraints both reduce homeownership propensities, with a stronger impact for wealth constraints. Mortgage market innovations of the early 1980s seem to have reduced these effects. The research indicates, however, that even in well-developed capital markets, the presence of borrowing constraints adversely affects homeownership propensities.
The Necessity of Economics: The Preferential Option for the Poor, Markets, and Environmental Law

Markets and economic theory are often cast as the enemies of both the poor and environmental quality. This paper, part of the Peace with Creation symposium held at the St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, argues that economics provides a necessary, but not sufficient, tool to address the problems of the poor and of improving environmental quality. The paper discusses ten propositions of economic theory and explains how each applying them results in both improvements in environmental quality and in the lot of the poor. The paper then briefly examines three examples of how applying the lessons of economics accomplishes both. It concludes by arguing that fulfilling Christianity's obligations towards both God's creation and the poor requires that we understand the economic implications of our actions.
Is the “curse of natural resources” really a curse?

This paper takes a new look at the long-run implications of resource abundance. Using a Schumpeterian growth model that yields an analytical solution for the transition path, it derives conditions under which the curse of natural resources occurs and is in fact a curse, meaning that welfare falls, conditions under which it occurs but it is not a curse, meaning that growth slows down but welfare rises nevertheless, and conditions under which it does not occur at all. An effective way to summarize the results is to picture growth and welfare as hump-shaped functions of resource abundance. The property that the peak of growth occurs earlier than the peak of welfare captures the crucial role of initial consumption, which rises with resource abundance, and is an important reminder that the welfare effect of resource abundance depends on the whole path of consumption, not on a summary statistic of its slope. Growth regressions that ignore the endogeneity of initial income do not provide sufficient information to assess whether resource abundance is bad even if one could prove beyond reasonable doubt that the relation is indeed negative and causal. Recent evidence that the correlation is actually positive should make us even more skeptical of policy advice based on the curse logic.
Towards a Communicative Theory of International Law

Review(s) of: Formalism and the sources of international law: A theory of the ascertainment of legal rules, by Jean D'Aspremont (Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 2011) 288 Pages, Price 60.00 pounds (hardcover) ISBN 9780199696314.
CEO Involvement in Selecting Board Members, Audit Committee Effectiveness, and Restatements

Research finds that independent audit committees and audit committee financial experts are generally effective in monitoring the financial reporting and auditing processes. However, not all audit committees that appear in form to be independent are in fact actually independent, and not all financial experts with similar backgrounds and credentials are equally effective. We examine whether the benefits of having an independent and expert audit committee are diminished when the chief executive officer (CEO) is involved in the selection of board members. Using restatements, our results provide some evidence that the monitoring benefits of having an independent and expert audit committee are only maintained when the CEO is not formally involved in selecting board members. Further, we find that these results appear to be driven by the more severe restatements, including misstatements in conjunction with fraudulent financial reporting. In addition, we find our results continue to apply in the post-SOX period – a period that provides data for a more exact measure of CEO involvement in the director selection process, although these data have more limited variation in audit committee characteristics. Finally, we find that the stock market’s negative reaction to a restatement announcement is mitigated only when the audit committee is independent and the CEO was not involved in selecting board members.
Reconceptualizing human rights

This paper defends several highly revisionary theses about human rights. Section 1 shows that the phrase ‘human rights’ refers to two distinct types of moral claims. Sections 2 and 3 argue that several longstanding problems in human rights theory and practice can be solved if, and only if, the concept of a ‘human right’ is replaced by two more exact concepts: International human rights: moral claims sufficient to warrant coercive domestic and international social protection. Domestic human rights: moral claims sufficient to warrant coercive domestic social protection but only non-coercive international action. Section 3 then argues that because coercion is central to both types of human rights, and coercion is a matter of justice, the traditional view of human rights – that they are normative entitlements prior to and independent of substantive theories of justice – is incorrect. Human rights must instead be seen as emerging from substantive theories of domestic and international justice. Finally, Section...
Conceptual role semantics

Author(s): Greenberg, Mark; Harman, Gilbert | Abstract: Conceptual role semantics (CRS) is the view that the meanings of expressions of a language (or other symbol system) or the contents of mental states are determined or explained by the role of the expressions or mental states in thinking. The theory can be taken to be applicable to language in the ordinary sense, to mental representations, conceived of either as symbols in a “language of thought” or as mental states such as beliefs, or to certain other sorts of symbol systems. CRS rejects the competing idea that thoughts have intrinsic content that is prior to the use of concepts in thought. According to CRS, meaning and content derive from use, not the other way round.CRS is thus an attempt to answer the question of what determines or makes it the case that representations have particular meanings or contents. The significance of this question can be seen by considering, for example, theories of mind that postulate a language of thought. Such theories presuppose an account of what makes it the case that a symbol in the language of thought has a particular meaning. Some conceptual role theorists have not clearly distinguished this kind of question from questions about the nature of the meanings or contents of various kinds of representations. CRS, as we understand it, is consistent with many different kinds of positions on the latter question. For example, as we discuss below, CRS has no commitment to the view that the meaning of a symbol should be identified with its conceptual role.In the first few sections, we examine CRS’s treatment of a few fundamental issues (section 2), consider diverse examples of ways in which representations are used in thought, (section 3), and discuss how to investigate the relevance of conceptual role to content (section 4). Next, in section 5, we turn to information-based versions of CRS and the challenge that they pose to versions that recognize other aspects of conceptual role. Finally, we consider a number of important objections to CRS.
Does Aggregated Returns Disclosure Increase Portfolio Risk Taking

Many experiments have found that participants take more investment risk if they see returns less frequently, see portfolio-level returns (rather than each individual asset's returns), or see long-horizon (rather than one-year) historical return distributions. In contrast, we find that such information aggregation treatments do not affect total equity investment when we make the investment environment more realistic than in prior experiments. Previously documented aggregation effects are not robust to changes in the risky asset's return distribution or the introduction of a multi-day delay between portfolio choice and return realizations.
Antonin Scalia and the Dilemma of Constitutional Originalism

Antonin Scalia has had a very significant and healthy impact on the way people talk about American constitutional law. Thanks largely to Justice Scalia’s forceful and eloquent voice, originalism is...
Estimating and identifying vector autoregressions under diagonality and block exogeneity restrictions

Abstract I show how to estimate and identify a large-scale vector autoregression (VAR) when the variables in a subset are mutually independent, conditional on common factors and when the conditioning variables are independent of the former subset. The approach is useful when using VARs to estimate the responses of a large cross-section of variables to aggregate shocks.
Oil Prices and the Stock Market

This paper develops a novel method for classifying oil price changes as supply or demand driven and documents several new facts about the relation between oil prices and stock returns. Demand shocks are strongly positively correlated with market returns, while supply shocks have a strong negative correlation. The negative eects of supply shocks are concentrated in rms which produce consumer goods, and are also strongest for oil importing countries. Demand shocks are identied as returns to an index of oil producing rms which are orthogonal to unexpected changes in the VIX index. Supply shocks are oil price changes which are orthogonal to demand shocks and changes in the VIX. Theoretical and empirical evidence are presented in support of this strategy.
Transnational/Domestic Constitutional Law

The Supreme Court's references to non-U.S. law in deciding constitutional cases, new treaty institutions associated with NAFTA and the WTO, and recent advocacy urging that U.S. courts should make non-U.S. law a rule of decision more often than they have - all these have generated a new critical literature arguing that these developments threaten domestic sovereignty and self-governance. This Essay attempts to describe precisely what the objections are, distinguishing between discrete objections focusing on particular constitutional problems and sovereignty-based objections. I argue that the discrete objections are not terribly strong and that the sovereignty-based ones re-state familiar arguments about judicial activism. The context is new, but the nature of the arguments is not. I conclude by suggesting that the critical literature is a form of interest-group advocacy of precisely the same kind that the literature criticizes as undermining domestic sovereignty and self-governance - which suggests that neither form of advocacy is really troubling.
Effects of Lawyers' Socio-political Attitudes on Their Judgments of Social Science in Legal Decision Making

One theory to explain why courts often ignore relevant social science research is that it often refutes judges' sociopolitical beliefs. Using the death penalty as the exemplar social issue, this study explored whether lawyers' sociopolitical attitudes affect their judgments about the legal relevance of social science research introduced in court cases. Law students and state court judges completed a questionnaire that presented vignette summaries of two U.S. Supreme Court death penalty cases along with descriptions of the social science evidence contained in the Court opinions, with the evidence manipulated in this study to either support or not support the death penalty. After reading each vignette, participants rated the legal relevance, admissibility, and dispositive weight of the social science evidence. They then were asked about their own attitudes about the death penalty, science and social science backgound, attitude about social science, and political attitudes. In the case where the social science evidence was used to make new law generally, there was a bias effect: participants rated the evidence higher when it matched their own beliefs as compared to when it did not match their beliefs. Participants' level of science background neither moderated nor mediated the bias effects. There was no relationship between political views and evidentiary ratings or attitude about the use of social science in law. However, there was a relationship between evidentiary ratings and attitudes about the use of social science in law, as well as between evidentiary ratings and attitudes about judicial interpretation. Implications of the results for the use of social science in law are discussed.
Foreign Direct Investment In A Post-Communist Cuba: Overcoming Future Challenges

The history of economic transition since the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s offers many lessons for what Cuba may expect when it eventually embarks on its transition path. The path of transition has been more difficult than was conceived immediately following the collapse of communism. The nearly exclusive policy focus on economic liberalization and privatization of public enterprises did not lead to sustained inflows of foreign capital and the rapid economic growth and development once promised for these economies. Current transition strategies have increasingly recognized the importance of well-functioning social institutions ("good governance") as the necessary foundation of a well-functioning market economy. Building the institutional infrastructure required by a market economy and necessary for long-term success in attracting FDI has proven, however, to be a difficult and slow process. Foreign direct investment is accepted as one of the key supportive components of an economic transition strategy, but some of the key determinants of FDI are also ones that characterize an effective institutional infrastructure of a market economy. Additional factors related to systematic or market risks are also important determinants of FDI. A basic understanding of these determinants can aid future policy makers. This paper examines Cuba's recent experience in attracting FDI, summarizes some of the empirical work that has been done regarding the link between well-functioning social institutions and FDI and draws lessons for a future Cuban government pursuing transition to a market economy. General policy recommendations are also developed.
Art and the brand: The role of visual art in enhancing brand extendibility

We investigate a tool, namely visual art, which enables firms to increase the extendibility of their brands. Extant research proposes that successful brand extensions depend on favorable brand image and high perceived fit between the brand and the extension category. We propose that the presence of art has a positive influence on brand image (via a transfer of luxury perceptions from art onto the brand) and enhances perceived fit (via increased cognitive flexibility), resulting in more favorable brand extension evaluations. A pilot study and two experiments demonstrate that the presence of visual art favorably influences brand image perceptions and enhances perceptions of category fit. Mediation analysis reveals that together these factors explain the influence of visual art on brand extendibility.
Economic Freedom of North America at State Borders

I use matched county pairs on either side of US state borders to investigate the causal effects of the Economic Freedom of North America index (EFNA) on local outcomes. This method is similar to Dube et al. (2010). I construct a panel of county pairs running from 1981–2012 and four measures of outcomes, logged real incomes, logged real per capita incomes, employment, and logged real wages, employing single year and five year differences-in-differences. I find small, but precisely estimated, effects on incomes but mixed effects on wages and employment. All regressions show low R 2. This supports the hypothesis that state-level economic freedom improves capital income or that it attracts capital income across state borders.
The Role of Deference in Judicial Review of Public Use Determinations

In Kelo v. City of New London, the United States Supreme Court emphasized its longstanding practice of deferring to legislative determinations of public use. However, the Court also explicitly acknowledged that the U.S. Constitution sets a floor, not a ceiling, on individual rights and that the state courts are entitled to take a less deferential approach under their own state constitutions or statutes. This manuscript examines: (1) the ways in which the role of deference in judicial review of public use determinations can vary between federal and state courts and among state jurisdictions; and (2) the difficult issues raised by the interplay between legislatures and courts in public use determinations. Because the Supreme Court’s deferential approach to public use disputes provides little succor to property owners challenging takings, state court challenges to takings are likely to become increasingly important. Property owners, therefore, need to understand the issues raised by deference in judicial review of public use challenges in both federal and state courts.
Perfect public equilibrium when players are patient

We provide a characterization of the limit set of perfect public equilibrium payoffs of repeated games with imperfect public monitoring as the discount factor goes to one. Our result covers general stage games including those that fail a “full-dimensionality” condition that had been imposed in past work. It also provides a characterization of the limit set when the strategies are restricted in a way that endogenously makes the full-dimensionality condition fail, as in the strongly symmetric equilibrium studied by Abreu [Abreu, D., 1986. Extremal equilibria of oligopolistic supergames. J. Econ. Theory 39, 191–228] and Abreu et al. [Abreu, D., Pearce, D., Stacchetti, E., 1986. Optimal cartel equilibria with imperfect monitoring. J. Econ. Theory 39, 251–269]. Finally, we use our characterization to give a sufficient condition for the exact achievability of first-best outcomes. Equilibria of this type, for which all continuation payoffs lie on the Pareto frontier, have a strong renegotiation-proofness property: regardless of the history, players can never unanimously prefer another equilibrium.
Trust and the Reform of Securities Regulation

Trust is a critically important ingredient in the recipes for a successful economy and a well-functioning securities market. Due to scandals, ranging in nature from massive incompetence, to massive irresponsibility, to massive fraud, investor trust is in shorter supply today than in years past. This is troubling, and commentators, policy makers, and industry leaders have all recognized the need for trust's restoration. As in times of similar crises, many have turned to law and regulation for the answers to our problems. The imposition of additional regulatory oversight, safeguards, and remedies, some advocate, can help resuscitate investor trust. These advocates have it half right. For trust is complicated, existing in a variety of forms. Some forms, predicated primarily upon reasoned calculation, respond well to law and regulation. But other forms, predicated primarily upon relationship and emotion, respond poorly to law and regulation. In fact, these latter forms of trust can be seriously harmed by legal intervention. Wise policymakers would carefully assess the nature of whatever particular trust relationship they wish to strengthen before taking action to ostensibly strengthen the trust in that relationship. Unfortunately, such an assessment has not been part of the significant securities law reforms recently proposed. As such, some of these reforms threaten to undermine, rather than enhance, the remaining supply of trust. * Associate Professor of Law, Hofstra University School of Law. I would like to thank the Villanova University School of Law’s first annual Morgan, Lewis & Bockius Symposium on Securities Regulation for affording me an opportunity to present an earlier draft of this article, and for the helpful feedback and suggestions received therefrom. Similarly, I would like to thank the Peter J. Tobin College of Business for inviting me to present an even earlier draft of this article at its annual Financial Services Institute Symposium. Lastly, I am indebted to Professors Norm Silber, Lynn Stout, Robert Miller, and Julian Velasco for their comments and suggestions on this project, and to Toni Aiello, Jamie Feldman, and Jennifer Riley for their most helpful research assistance.
The Influence of Compensation on Product Recommendations Made by Insurance Agents

Lawsuits alleging illegal and unethical insurance sales practices have received widespread publicity in recent years. Although many observers have argued that one source of ethical conflicts for insurance agents is the industry's reliance on straight commission compensation, there remains a paucity of empirical data to support the claim. Therefore, we tested whether different forms of compensation influence insurance agent recommendations of products. We obtained survey responses from 336 insurance agents. Respondents were presented with a composite sketch of a hypothetical client. Following this description, they were asked to identify which one of eight specified life insurance products they would recommend to the client. A between-groups design was employed to manipulate differences in compensation associated with the eight products. Results indicated that neither amount of coverage nor type of coverage (term life versus cash value) recommended was associated with compensation. However, an unanticipated finding was that amount of coverage recommended was significantly higher when the insured was male than when the insured was female.
Size, Skill and Sorting

The rise in inequality between the 1970s and the 1990s and the per- sistent gap in pay between large and small employers are two of the most robust findings in the study of labor markets. Mainstream economists focus on differences in observable and unobservable skills to explain both the overall rising inequality and the size-wage gap. In this paper we model how increasing returns to skill can affect the size-wage gap both with constant sorting and with size-biased, skill- biased technological change (e.g. if large firms always had access to computers, but small firms gained access to computers with the rise of affordable personal computers). We analyze the Current Population Surveys from 1979 to 1993 to determine whether large and small employers are converging in terms of mean wages (the employer size-wage effect), wage structures by occupation and education, charac- teristics of employees, and wage structures by region. We find mixed evidence of convergence and no consistent support for any single version of human capital theory.
Originalism, the Why and the What

This paper is short and simple—like its author. It is short because its points can be made quickly, and I have elaborated on them at some length in many prior writings.1 It is simple because the truth about interpretation, that its aim is to understand what an author or authors intended to communicate, is a simple truth. Indeed, as you read what follows, you will be trying to understand what I, in writing what follows, intend to get you to understand. And in doing so, you will be confirming my simple thesis. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 1. In all tenable theories about the nature of law, there is a place for the following story. We do not agree about what we ought to do, but we do agree that we need to settle the matter. So we designate a person or group of people to decide what norm or norms should govern us with respect to the matters in dispute.2 That person might be a chief executive; that group might be a legislature or a constitutional convention. Regardless, their job in all cases is to come up with norms in order to settle what is to be done in some domain of social life. 2. Now, after this person or group has decided on the appropriate norms to govern the matter, they then must communicate to the rest of us what those norms are. For their job was not merely to settle the matter among themselves. It was to settle the matter for all of us. So they are faced with the following task: they must express the norms they have chosen in such a way that the rest of us understand what those norms are.
Generalizations of the General Lotto and Colonel Blotto games

In this paper, we generalize the General Lotto game (budget constraints satisfied in expectation) and the Colonel Blotto game (budget constraints hold with probability one) to allow for battlefield valuations that are heterogeneous across battlefields and asymmetric across players and for the players to have asymmetric resource constraints. We completely characterize Nash equilibrium in the generalized version of the General Lotto game and find that there exist sets of nonpathological parameter configurations of positive Lebesgue measure with multiple payoff nonequivalent equilibria. Across equilibria each player achieves a higher payoff when he more aggressively attacks battlefields in which he has lower relative valuations. Hence, the best defense is a good offense. We, then, show how this characterization can be applied to identify equilibria in the Colonel Blotto version of the game.
Gendered language and the educational gender gap

Abstract Languages differ in the degree to which they employ gender distinctions for nouns and pronouns. Speaking a gendered language may highlight gender roles. We find that speaking a gendered language is associated with a greater gender gap in educational attainment.
Risk Pricing over Alternative Investment Horizons

I explore methods that characterize model-based valuation of stochastically growing cash flows. Following previous research, I use stochastic discount factors as a convenient device to depict asset values. I extend that literature by focusing on the impact of compounding these discount factors over alternative investment horizons. In modeling cash flows, I also incorporate stochastic growth factors. I explore dynamic value decomposition (DVD) methods that capture concurrent compounding of a stochastic growth and discount factors in determining risk-adjusted values. These methods are supported by factorizations that extract martingale components of stochastic growth and discount factors. These components reveal which ingredients of a model have long-term implications for valuation. The resulting martingales imply convenient changes in measure that are distinct from those used in mathematical finance, and they provide the foundations for analyzing model-based implications for the term structure of risk prices. As an illustration of the methods, I re-examine some recent preference based models. I also use the martingale extraction to revisit the value implications of some benchmark models with market restrictions and heterogenous consumers.
On the logic of generalized hypertext

Hypertext is one of those neat ideas in computing that periodically burst upon the scene, quickly demonstrating their usefulness and gaining widespread acceptance. As interesting, useful and exciting as hypertext is, the concept has certain problems and limitations, many of which are widely recognized. In this paper we describe what we call basic hypertext and we present a logic model for it. Basic hypertext should be thought of as a rigorously-presented approximation of first-generation hypertext concepts. Following our discussion of basic hypertext, we present our concept of generalized hypertext, which is aimed at overcoming certain of the limitations of basic hypertext and which we have implemented in a DSS shell called Max. We then present a logic model for browsing in generalized hypertext. This paper is a revised and expanded version of [9].
Obtaining Informationally Consistent Decisions When Computing Costs with Limited Information

We demonstrate the need to view in a dynamic context any decision based on limited information. We focus on the use of product costs in selecting the product portfolio. We show how ex post data regarding the actual costs from implementing the decision leads to updating of product cost estimates and potentially trigger a revision of the initial decision. We model this updating process as a discrete dynamical system (DDS). We define a decision as informationally consistent if it is a fixed-point solution to the DDS. We employ numerical analysis to characterize the existence and properties of such solutions. We find that fixed points are rare, but that simple heuristics find them often and quickly. We demonstrate the usefulness and robustness of our methodology by examining the interaction of limited information with multiple decision rules (heuristics) and problem features (size of product portfolio, profitability of product markets). We discuss implications for research on cost systems.
THE ECONOMICS OF WORKAHOLISM: WE SHOULD NOT HAVE WORKED ON THIS PAPER

A large literature examines the addictive properties of such behaviors as smoking, drinking alcohol and eating. We argue that for some people addictive behavior may apply to a much more central aspect of economic life: working. Workaholism is subject to the same concerns about the individual as other addictions, is more likely to be a problem of higher-income individuals, and can, under conditions of jointness in the workplace or the household, generate negative spillovers onto individuals around the workaholic. Using the Retirement History Survey and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we find evidence that is consistent with the idea that high-income, highly educated people suffer from workaholism with regard to retiring, in that they are more likely to postpone earlier plans for retirement. The evidence and theory suggest that the negative effects of workaholism can be addressed with a more progressive income tax system than would be appropriate in the absence of this behavior.
Second Partner Review: An Analytical Model:

This paper develops an analytical model to examine the role that second partner review plays in promoting accurate, unbiased decisions by an engagement partner who possesses imperfect information and is subject to economic pressures to bias judgment. Optimal strategies are derived in a single-period model. The model includes an engagement partner and a second partner who both choose a sample size and a qualified or unqualified audit report. The analysis identifies conditions under which second partner review induces the engagement partner to report with greater independence. In addition to providing predictions immediately testable in an experimental context, the comprehensive example demonstrates that second partner review can cause the engagement partner not only to report with greater independence but also to sample more.Central to our analysis is a general audit reporting model that applies to both one-partner and two-partner situations. This model provides definitions and demonstrates the effect of a...
Targeting Gys1 with AAV‐SaCas9 Decreases Pathogenic Polyglucosan Bodies and Neuroinflammation in Adult Polyglucosan Body and Lafora Disease Mouse Models

Many adult and most childhood neurological diseases have a genetic basis. CRISPR/Cas9 biotechnology holds great promise in neurological therapy, pending the clearance of major delivery, efficiency, and specificity hurdles. We applied CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in its simplest modality, namely inducing gene sequence disruption, to one adult and one pediatric disease. Adult polyglucosan body disease is a neurodegenerative disease resembling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Lafora disease is a severe late childhood onset progressive myoclonus epilepsy. The pathogenic insult in both is formation in the brain of glycogen with overlong branches, which precipitates and accumulates into polyglucosan bodies that drive neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. We packaged Staphylococcus aureus Cas9 and a guide RNA targeting the glycogen synthase gene, Gys1, responsible for brain glycogen branch elongation in AAV9 virus, which we delivered by neonatal intracerebroventricular injection to one mouse model of adult polyglucosan body disease and two mouse models of Lafora disease. This resulted, in all three models, in editing of approximately 17% of Gys1 alleles and a similar extent of reduction of Gys1 mRNA across the brain. The latter led to approximately 50% reductions of GYS1 protein, abnormal glycogen accumulation, and polyglucosan bodies, as well as ameliorations of neuroinflammatory markers in all three models. Our work represents proof of principle for virally delivered CRISPR/Cas9 neurotherapeutics in an adult-onset (adult polyglucosan body) and a childhood-onset (Lafora) neurological diseases.
Approaching honor and shame with humility: Limitations to our current understanding:

Although honor and shame have been popular missiological themes in the last decade, there are several limitations associated with the concepts that occur in both the missiological literature and th...
An RCT of a CBT Intervention for Emerging Adults with ADHD Attending College: Functional Outcomes.

Objective: The current study reports functional outcomes from a multi-site randomized trial of a cognitive-behavioral treatment program for college students diagnosed with ADHD. Methods: A sample o...
Settling and clustering of snow particles in atmospheric turbulence

The effect of turbulence on snow precipitation is not incorporated into present weather forecasting models. Here we show evidence that turbulence is in fact a key influence on both fall speed and spatial distribution of settling snow. We consider three snowfall events under vastly different levels of atmospheric turbulence. We characterize the size and morphology of the snow particles, and we simultaneously image their velocity, acceleration and relative concentration over vertical planes approximately in area. We find that turbulence-driven settling enhancement explains otherwise contradictory trends between the particle size and velocity. The estimates of the Stokes number and the correlation between vertical velocity and local concentration are consistent with the view that the enhanced settling is rooted in the preferential sweeping mechanism. When the snow vertical velocity is large compared to the characteristic turbulence velocity, the crossing trajectories effect results in strong accelerations. When the conditions of preferential sweeping are met, the concentration field is highly non-uniform and clustering appears over a wide range of scales. These clusters, identified for the first time in a naturally occurring flow, display the signature features seen in canonical settings: power-law size distribution, fractal-like shape, vertical elongation and large fall speed that increases with the cluster size. These findings demonstrate that the fundamental phenomenology of particle-laden turbulence can be leveraged towards a better predictive understanding of snow precipitation and ground snow accumulation. They also demonstrate how environmental flows can be used to investigate dispersed multiphase flows at Reynolds numbers not accessible in laboratory experiments or numerical simulations.
Menstrual Cycle Tracking Applications and the Potential for Epidemiological Research: A Comprehensive Review of the Literature.

We reviewed published studies on menstrual cycle tracking applications (MCTAs) in order to describe the potential of MCTAs for epidemiologic research. A search of PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus for MCTA literature yielded 150 articles. After exclusions, there were 49 articles that addressed the primary interest areas: 1) characteristics of MCTA users in research, 2) reasons women use or continue using MCTAs, 3) accuracy of identifying ovulation and utility at promoting and preventing pregnancy, and 4) quality assessments of MCTAs across several domains. MCTAs are an important tool for the advancement of epidemiologic research on menstruation. MCTA studies should describe the characteristics of their user base and missing data patterns. Describing the motivation for using MCTAs throughout a user’s life and validating the data collected should be prioritized in future research.
Estimating predator functional responses using the times between prey captures

Predator functional responses describe predator feeding rates and are central to predator-prey theory. Ecologists have measured thousands of predator functional responses using the same basic experimental method. However, this design is ill-suited to address many current questions regarding functional responses. We derive a new experimental design and statistical analysis that quantifies functional responses using the times between a predators' feeding events requiring only one or a few trials. We examine the feasibility of the experimental method and analysis using simulations to assess the ability of the statistical model to estimate functional response parameters and perform a proof-of-concept experiment estimating the functional responses of two individual jumping spiders. Our simulations show that the statistical method reliably estimates functional response parameters. Our proof-of-concept experiment illustrates that the method provides reasonable estimates of functional response parameters. By virtue of the fewer number of trials required to measure a functional response, the method derived here promises to expand the questions that can be addressed using functional response experiments and the systems in which they can be measured. Thus, we hope that our method will refine our understanding of functional responses and predator-prey interactions more generally.
Detection of Kardar–Parisi–Zhang hydrodynamics in a quantum Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain

Classical hydrodynamics is a remarkably versatile description of the coarse-grained behaviour of many-particle systems once local equilibrium has been established1. The form of the hydrodynamical equations is determined primarily by the conserved quantities present in a system. Some quantum spin chains are known to possess, even in the simplest cases, a greatly expanded set of conservation laws, and recent work suggests that these laws strongly modify collective spin dynamics, even at high temperature2,3. Here, by probing the dynamical exponent of the one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet KCuF3 with neutron scattering, we find evidence that the spin dynamics are well described by the dynamical exponent z = 3/2, which is consistent with the recent theoretical conjecture that the dynamics of this quantum system are described by the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang universality class4,5. This observation shows that low-energy inelastic neutron scattering at moderate temperatures can reveal the details of emergent quantum fluid properties like those arising in non-Fermi liquids in higher dimensions. Quantum systems possessing conserved quantities are expected to show quantum fluid properties governed by hydrodynamic equations. This behaviour is now evidenced in a neutron scattering study on the one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet KCuF3.
Super-delta2: An Enhanced Differential Expression Analysis Procedure for Multi-Group Comparisons of RNA-seq Data.

Motivation We developed super-delta2, a differential gene expression analysis pipeline designed for multi-group comparisons for RNA-seq data. It includes a customized one-way ANOVA F-test and a post-hoc test for pairwise group comparisons; both are designed to work with a multivariate normalization procedure to reduce technical noise. It also includes a trimming procedure with bias-correction to obtain robust and approximately unbiased summary statistics used in these tests. We demonstrated the asymptotic applicability of super-delta2 to log-transformed read counts in RNA-seq data by large sample theory based on Negative Binomial Poisson (NBP) distribution. Results We compared super-delta2 with three commonly used RNA-seq data analysis methods: limma/voom, edgeR, and DESeq2 using both simulated and real datasets. In all three simulation settings, super-delta2 not only achieved the best overall statistical power, but also was the only method that controlled type I error at the nominal level. When applied to a breast cancer dataset to identify differential expression pattern associated with multiple pathologic stages, super-delta2 selected more enriched pathways than other methods, which are directly linked to the underlying biological condition (breast cancer). Conclusions By incorporating trimming and bias-correction in the normalization step, super-delta2 was able to achieve tight control of type I error. Because the hypothesis tests are based on asymptotic normal approximation of the NBP distribution, super-delta2 does not require computationally expensive iterative optimization procedures used by methods such as edgeR and DESeq2, which occasionally have convergence issues. Availability Our method is implemented in a R-package, "superdelta2", freely available at: https://github.com/fhlsjs/superdelta2. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.