cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Full-versus limited-information estimation of a rational-expectations model: Some numerical comparisons

Abstract This paper compares numerically the asymptotic distributions of parameter estimates and test statistics associated with two estimation techniques: (a) a limited-information one, which uses instrumental variables to estimate a single equation [ Hansen and Singleton (1982) ], and (b) a full-information one, which uses a procedure asymptotically equivalent to maximum likelihood to simultaneously estimate multiple equations [ Hansen and Sargent (1980) ]. The paper compares the two with respect to both (1) asymptotic efficiency under the null hypothesis of no misspecification, and (2) asymptotic bias and power in the presence of certain local alternatives. It is found that (1) full-information standard errors are only moderately smaller than limited-information standard errors, and (2) when the model is misspecified, full-information tests tend to be more powerful, and its parameter estimates tend to be more biased. This suggests that at least in the model considered here, the gains from the use of the less robust and computationally more complex full-information technique are not particularly large.
Lunar Cycle Effects in Stock Returns

We find strong lunar cycle effects in stock returns. Specifically, returns in the 15 days around new moon dates are about double the returns in the 15 days around full moon dates. This pattern of returns is pervasive; we find it for all major U.S. stock indexes over the last 100 years and for nearly all major stock indexes of 24 other countries over the last 30 years. Taken as a whole, this evidence is consistent with popular beliefs that lunar cycles affect human behavior.
The 60th Anniversary of the Everson Decision and America's Church-State Proposition

On February 10, 1947, the United States Supreme Court handed down Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township . For scholars of the First Amendment, Everson marks the beginning of the Supreme Court's modern era with respect to church-state relations. It is easy enough to state the reason for the decision's prominence, for it was in Everson where the Establishment Clause was first “incorporated” through the Fourteenth Amendment and made applicable to the actions of all state and local governments. But just what did it mean to take the restraints on federal power that comprise the principle of no-establishment and to make them limits on the governments of the several states, as well as on the thousands of municipalities, counties, and school districts that dot the land? In Part II of these remarks, I will focus on what has occurred downstream of Everson over these event-filled sixty years. As the reader will see, I am of the belief that Everson's new deal has resulted in more good than harm for religious freedom. Still the record is mixed, as it is with most major developments. However, before going there, in Part I of this extended essay, I look back in time to recapture just what was in the bundle of restraints that all nine of the Justices in Everson said they were bringing forward via the Fourteenth Amendment and making newly binding on the many unsuspecting state and local officials.
Chapter 11 Case Management and Delay Reduction: An Empirical Study

Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases will drag on interminably if judges let them. The recent nine-month O.J. Simpson trial was short compared to the careers of some chapter 11 bankruptcy cases. The typical duration of chapter 11 cases can be reduced remarkably, however, through moderate judicial case management.The data in this study show that relatively modest judicial case management can squeeze a substantial amount of delay out of chapter 11 cases within the context of the present bankruptcy law. The case management program in this study, applied to 81.2% of the chapter 11 case load, shortened by 24.1% the time to confirmation of a chapter 11 plan in a typical case; it reduced by 44.1% the time to conversion to a case under another chapter of the Bankruptcy Code; and it shortened by 53.5% the time to dismissal of a typical nonviable chapter 11 case. The overall time until disposition of a chapter 11 case was diminished by 45.4%.While these remarkable results were obtained, the impact of the outcome of the cases was rather modest. There was a slight increase in the rate of plan confirmations. However, there was an 18.5% increase in the number of dismissals and a corresponding decrease in the conversions to other chapters.It is important to emphasize that these changes in the handling of chapter 11 cases occurred within the confines of the present Bankruptcy Code. The reduction in time to disposition of a chapter 11 case can be accomplished with absolutely no change in the statute of the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure. It only requires judges to adopt judicial management techniques authorized by existing law.This Article does not suggest that the particular model of chapter 11 case management reported in this study, referred to as "fast track" management, is the only appropriate type of judicial chapter 11 case management, or even the best. This study reports on this particular fast track model principally because it is the only model for which good data are available and because it is very effective in reducing delays in the chapter 11 process. Some sort of judicial case management is good for the bankruptcy system, creditors, and perhaps even debtors as well.
Private religious hospitals: limitations upon autonomous moral choices in reproductive medicine.

Contemporary managed care imperatives have severely limited an individual's right to make free and informed choices regarding his or her own health care. The author posits that legislation allowing private, religiously affiliated hospitals to refuse patient requests for legitimate health care services - particularly reproductive medicine - must be reconsidered. Ethical exemptions allowing religious hospitals to refuse sensitive and controversial medical services such as abortion, sterilization and prescription of contraceptive drugs, AIDS counseling, and fertilization are virtually unlimited. However, these institutional privileges cannot remain absolute. Private hospital exemptions should be re-written, with clear limitations conditioned upon newly evolving public policy imperatives for informed choice in comprehensive patient health care plans.
Bond Market Exposures to Macroeconomic and Monetary Policy Risks

I provide empirical evidence of changes in the U.S. Treasury yield curve and related macroeconomic factors, and investigate whether the changes are brought about by external shocks, monetary policy, or by both. To explore this, I characterize bond market exposures to macroeconomic and monetary policy risks, using an equilibrium term structure model with recursive preferences in which inflation dynamics are endogenously determined. In my model, the key risks that affect bond market prices are changes in the correlation between growth and inflation and changes in the conduct of monetary policy. Using a novel estimation technique, I find that the changes in monetary policy affect the level of bond yields through their effect on expected inflation, while the changes in the correlation between growth and inflation affect both the level as well as the volatility of bond yields. Consequently, the changes in the correlation structure are the main contributor to bond risk premia and to bond market volatility. The time variations within a regime and risks associated with moving across regimes lead to the failure of the Expectations Hypothesis and to the excess bond return predictability regression of Cochrane and Piazzesi (2005), as in the data.
Incorporating shading losses in solar photovoltaic potential assessment at the municipal scale

Abstract Recently several algorithms have been developed to calculate the solar photovoltaic (PV) potential on the basis of 2.5D raster data that can capture urban morphology. This study provides a new algorithm that (i) incorporates both terrain and near surface shadowing effects on the beam component; (ii) scales down the diffuse components of global irradiation; and (iii) utilizes free and open source GRASS and the module r.sun in modeling irradiation. This algorithm is semi-automatic and easy to upgrade or correct (no hand drawn areas), open source, detailed and provides rules of thumb for PV system design at the municipal level. The workflow is pilot tested on LiDAR data for 100 buildings in downtown Kingston, Ontario. Shading behavior was considered and suitable roof sections for solar PV installations selected using a multi-criteria objective. At sub-meter resolution and small time steps the effect of occlusion from near object was determined. Annual daily horizontal irradiation values were refined at 0.55 m resolution and were shown to be lower than those obtained at 90 m by 30%. The robustness of r.sun as capable of working with different levels of surface complexity has been confirmed. Finally, the trade off of each computation option (spatial resolution, time step and shading effect) has been quantified at the meso scale, to assist planners in developing the appropriate computation protocols for their regions.
Searching for the Right to Truth: The Impact of International Human Rights Law on National Transitional Justice Policies

This Article focuses on the right to truth and its interaction with the duty to bring perpetrators to justice following a period of gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law. It explores how truth-finding and criminal justice programs interact, and how States can most comprehensively satisfy their obligations with regard to the right to truth and the duty to bring perpetrators to justice, given the raft of practical limitations that a State may face in periods of political transition. The Article argues that even when a State is able to carry out prosecutions, it is likely obliged to look for additional strategies, including truth commissions, to more comprehensively fulfill its international human rights obligations. Additionally, where an exhaustive suite of prosecutions is not feasible in the short term, truth commissions and other transitional justice mechanisms can be employed to commence the fulfillment of the right to truth, though these should be implemented with a view to proceeding to thorough criminal justice processes as soon as the State’s political context permits.
Bounds in Competing Risks Models and the War on Cancer

In 1971, President Nixon declared war on cancer. Thirty years later, many declared this war a failure: the age-adjusted mortality rate from cancer in 2000 was essentially the same as in the early 1970s. Meanwhile the age-adjusted mortality rate from cardiovascular disease fell dramatically. Since the causes that underlie cancer and cardiovascular disease are likely dependent, the decline in mortality rates from cardiovascular disease may partially explain the lack of progress in cancer mortality. Because competing risks models (used to model mortality from multiple causes) are fundamentally unidentified, it is difficult to estimate cancer trends. We derive bounds for aspects of the underlying distributions without assuming that the underlying risks are independent. We then estimate changes in cancer and cardiovascular mortality since 1970. The bounds for the change in duration until death for either cause are fairly tight and suggest much larger improvements in cancer than previously estimated.
Specifying Grounds for Judicial Disqualification in Federal Courts

This Article discusses the essential component of equal justice under the law that a neutral and detached judge preside over court proceedings. Specifically, it examines the statutory grounds for recusal, found at 28 U.S.C. § 455, with a focus on the specific bases for recusal at § 455(b). It discusses the issues of statutory interpretation found in the case law applying § 455(b). It also argues that periodically, it may be appropriate to reexamine the statute for the purpose of (1) adding ethical duties not currently described such as a duty to disclose disqualifying circumstances; (2) broadening preexisting duties such as the judge's duty to inform himself or herself about financial holdings; or (3) adding new disqualifying conditions such as recusals involving former law clerks.
The Background of Our Being: Internet Background Checks in the Hiring Process

Many employers are searching job applicants on Google, Facebook, and any number of other search engines and social networks. For some, this search is a cause of great concern, leading the FTC and Senators Al Franken and Richard Blumenthal, among others, to investigate the issue. So-called “internet background checks” can vary greatly in their degree of thoroughness; on the one hand, a third-party agency might produce a formal “internet background report” documenting all websites consulted and evaluating every source, while on the other hand, a member of the employer’s hiring committee might simply search the candidate off the record. Both of these practices can inform the decision-makers in the hiring process, and both, ultimately, afford the employer access to information about the candidate they might not otherwise find in the rest of the candidate’s application. This Note analyzes the legal and normative issues surrounding internet background checks. After reviewing studies showing that, at minimum, a fifth to a quarter of employers use internet search engines or social networks to screen candidates at some point during the hiring process, this Note suggests a taxonomy of three different approaches to internet information gathering. It then considers how fair credit reporting and equal employment laws might apply to these three approaches. The Note then concludes with recommended best practices for employers in light of this legal analysis. © 2013 Alexander Reicher. This Note is the first-place winner of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal’s annual student writing competition. † Associate, Latham & Watkins LLP, San Francisco; J.D., University of California Berkeley School of Law (2012). I would like to thank Chris Hoofnagle for his helpful guidance while writing this Note and Chris Conley and Tom Reicher for their comments on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank my wife, Janice, for her assistance and support throughout the entire process. The views expressed in this Note are solely those of the author. 0115-0154_REICHER_081313_WEB (DO NOT DELETE) 8/13/2013 4:55 PM 116 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 28:115
Public Intuitions About Fair Child Support Allocations: Converging Evidence for a "Fair Shares" Rule

Nearly all American states use one of two systems for setting the amount of child support that noncustodial parents (NCPs) are required to pay to custodial parents (CPs). In previous work, we found that lay judgments of the child support amount the law should require differ in meaningful ways from these two systems: Our respondents favored child support amounts that are more responsive to the NCP’s income and much more responsive to the CP’s income than set by either system. They also favored dollar amounts that increase more rapidly with NCP income when CP income is lower, producing a characteristic fanning lines pattern when dollar support amounts are charted against NCP income for several different CP incomes. We give the label “Fair Shares” to these two features of our respondents’ child support judgments. We describe six new experimental studies that vary the context of these judgments in ways that test whether the “Fair Shares” account is robust. Our studies consistently replicate the fan-shaped pattern and shed further light on lay judgments.
Six Tax Laws Later: How Individuals' Marginal Federal Income Tax Rates Changed between 1980 and 1995

Abstract : The authors examine the evolution of marginal federal income tax rates from 1980 to 1995 using panel and cross-section data. Results show that marginal rates fell dramatically for most taxpayers between 1980 and 1995. Whereas more than three-quarters of taxpayers faced statutory tax rates above 15 percent in 1980, less than one-quarter of taxpayers were in that situation in 1995. Individuals' tax rates also rose and fell due to life-cycle changes in income. Young people (ages 30-44) were twice as likely to experience tax rate increases as older taxpayers. Nonetheless, the majority of taxpayers in every age group experienced rate reductions. The large tax rate cuts in 1981 and 1986 clearly dominate life-cycle effects.
Brandeis, Erie, and the New Deal “Constitutional Revolution”

This article examines the Supreme Court’s 1938 decision in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins and its relationship to the so-called “New Deal Constitutional Revolution.” Considering both the New Deal and the series of decisions the Supreme Court issued between 1937 and 1943, it argues that Erie was compatible with both. In particular, it addresses three doubts about that compatibility, what it calls the “congressional power” doubt, the “decentralization” doubt, and the Carolene Products/“stricter scrutiny” doubt. Analyzing the first two, it concludes that Erie was fully consistent with the expansion of legislative power and the treatment of state and federal powers that came with the New Deal and its “constitutional revolution.” Analyzing the third and seemingly most serious doubt, it argues that Erie and the Carolene Products/”stricter scrutiny” approach shared three fundamental characteristics that made them not only consistent but mutually reinforcing.
Double Categories of Open Dynamical Systems (Extended Abstract)

A (closed) dynamical system is a notion of how things can be, together with a notion of how they may change given how they are. The idea and mathematics of closed dynamical systems has proven incredibly useful in those sciences that can isolate their object of study from its environment. But many changing situations in the world cannot be meaningfully isolated from their environment -- a cell will die if it is removed from everything beyond its walls. To study systems that interact with their environment, and to design such systems in a modular way, we need a robust theory of open dynamical systems. In this extended abstract, we put forward a general definition of open dynamical system. We define two general sorts of morphisms between these systems: covariant morphisms which include trajectories, steady states, and periodic orbits; and contravariant morphisms which allow for plugging variables of some systems into parameters of other systems. We define an indexed double category of open dynamical systems indexed by their interface and use a double Grothendieck construction to construct a double category of open dynamical systems. In our main theorem, we construct covariantly representable indexed double functors from the indexed double category of dynamical systems to an indexed double category of spans. This shows that all covariantly representable structures of dynamical systems -- including trajectories, steady states, and periodic orbits -- compose according to the laws of matrix arithmetic.
The Ideology of Genus & The Ghost of Heidegger

The same-sex right to adopt children awoke in Sweden heated emotional reaction, unprecedented in the Swedish National Parliament. The argument against same-sex couples followed a disturbing pattern of reasoning and logic that follows the logic of Nordic European Folklore mythology possible to find in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger.
Compensation for Terrorism: What We Are Learning

This article participates in the quest for "the informing principle beyond raw politics" concerning compensation for victims of terror, concluding with an analysis employing "a kind of rationalized emotion." Noting that the quest presently involves a "steep learning curve," the piece builds on a previous article (published at 30 Hofstra 1245 and 36 Ind. L. Rev. 237). Briefly reviewing the history of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, the article opines that the Justice Department's rules for the Fund, and the "intense" discussions between the Fund's special master and victims' groups, provide examples of what Tocqueville called Americans "becom[ing] educated about the formalities of government." This process leads to the question of what it means to be a member of a national community, physically attacked and rendered vulnerable by a monstrous terrorist act. The article says that Congress, strongly influenced like all its constituents by dramatic media coverage, printed "a ticket that covers one set of events." Placing the fatalities of September 11th in statistical perspective with the annual toll of accident deaths in the country and of combat deaths in foreign wars and the Civil War, the article surveys alternative models for dealing with injuries. Looking to the possibility of future attacks, it suggests that any such episodes are likely to exert a "powerful downward pressure on valuation" of injuries, particularly the valuation of intangibles. Noting revelations about governmental failures in the use of available information - and citing thriller fiction published in 2000 as illustrative of knowledge about the risks of terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in particular - the article declares that in retrospect this information makes the Fund appear "to represent a kind of expiation by the Government itself." The article indicates that compensation for terrorism will become more concretized as a function of Government. The conclusion views the statute that set up the Fund as a funneling device for rage - "do[ing] something for somebody" when it was not then possible to do something "against somebody." Although the penultimate sentence of the article predicts that "[if] there are next times, we will be cooler in our response in the doing-for category," the last sentence asserts that "on this first occasion, Congress spoke for the community with a meaning that outstrips the wisdom of conventional analysis."
The Relevance of Federal Norms for State Separation of Powers

Of the American Constitution's three most distinctive features-federalism, judicial protection of individual rights and separation of powers-only the last has been held inapplicable to the states. First, federalism is, by its terms, a doctrine of power-sharing between the national and state governments. The distribution of authority between nation and states was the chief point of contention during the period of the Constitution's framing and ratification, and in recent years, the United States Supreme Court has vigorously enforced federalism norms. Second, although the original Constitution contained relatively few individual rights provisions applicable to the states, during the last half-century, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendments as providing extensive protection for individual rights against state interference. Yet separation of powers remains aloof. Despite the Supreme Court's willingness to impose sometimes rigid formal rules on the branches of the federal government, the Court has not found justifiable limits on the states' choice of governmental structures.This article uses Rhode Island's current controversy surrounding legislative appointments to executive commissions as a vehicle for (re-)examining the role of the federal Constitution in state separation-of-powers disputes. Part I examines the United States Supreme Court's frequent claim that the separation-of-powers principle does not apply to the states. It shows that several provisions of the federal Constitution assume a significant difference between the branches of state government, and concludes that some measure of separation of powers in state government is therefore a structural requirement of the federal Constitution.
The Memory Gap in Surveillance Law

In March 2007, Google announced a change in its data retention policy: that it would “anonymize” search data in its server logs after eighteen to twenty-four months. 1 For many observers, the policy change was more significant for the past practice it confirmed than for the future practice it heralded. The policy change underscored that since it first launched its search service, Google had stored its users’ search queries, along with the search results on which the users clicked, indefinitely, and had done so in such a way that this data could be tied to the particular computers from which the queries were made. 2
A two-country model of endogenous growth

Abstract We study the competitive equilibria of a two-country endogenous growth model in which the source of growth is the linearity of technology in reproducible inputs. We begin by showing that in a model with no externalities there is a unique equilibrium; however, there are multiple ways in which the social planner can allocate production plans across countries. We then introduce an externality to human capital and we show that the model has multiple equilibria that can be Pareto ranked. In many of these equilibria there are perfectly foreseen discrete reallocations of capital from one country to another, accompanied by discrete jumps in growth rates.
Commentary: Food for Thought and Thoughts About Food: Can Meals and Lodging Provided to Domestic Servants Be for the Convenience of the Employer?

This commentary considers one of the least important issues in tax law: whether the value of meals and lodging provided to domestic servants is excludable from the servants' gross income under section 119 of the Internal Revenue Code. Trivial though the issue is, the author goes on and on-and on, arguing that an example in the regulations under section 119, which concludes that the "business premises of the employer" requirement would be satisfied in such a situation, is misleading in its implications. It's not enough that the meals and lodging be provided on the business premises of the employer to meet statutory requirements, and how, pray tell, would the "convenience of the employer" requirement be met in such a case? (Hint: it wouldn't.)
Fiscal Rules and Discretion in a World Economy

Governments are present-biased toward spending. Fiscal rules are deficit limits that trade off commitment to not overspend and flexibility to react to shocks. We compare coordinated rules, chosen jointly by a group of countries, to uncoordinated rules. If governments' present bias is small, coordinated rules are tighter than uncoordinated rules: individual countries do not internalize the redistributive effect of interest rates. However, if the bias is large, coordinated rules are slacker: countries do not internalize the disciplining effect of interest rates. Surplus limits enhance welfare, and increased savings by some countries or outside economies can hurt the rest.
The effects of accounting restatements on firm growth

Abstract Do restatements result in lower firm growth? One argument in support of this contention is that accounting restatements hurt contracting relations between the firm and outside parties such as a firm’s customers and suppliers, negatively impacting firm cash flows. The negative impact on cash flow reduces the level of internal cash holdings available for investment. Another argument is that restatements dampen firm growth by increasing the firm’s cost of external financing. We empirically evaluate these arguments by using the standard sales growth based financial planning model. In carrying out our analysis, we distinguish the effects of restatement on overall firm growth as well as its components of internally and externally financed growth. Our findings suggest that overall firm growth rates decline following a restatement. Furthermore, we find that accounting restatements have a greater adverse impact on externally financed growth rates. We also find that not all restatements yield identical effects: the impact of restatements is more pronounced for the subsample of firms identified to have undertaken the more egregious fraudulent reporting than the subsample of firms that reported restatements to correct previous accounting errors. We also find that firms with severe restatements, measured based on announcement period market reactions, have lower externally financed growth. Overall, our evidence highlights the adverse impact of restatement on firm growth, particularly through external financing.
When and Why do Plants Comply? Paper Mills in the 1980s*

This paper uses census data for 116 pulp and paper mills over the period 1979–1990 to examine the determinants of compliance with air pollution regulations. Several plant characteristics are significant: large plants, old plants, and pulp mills comply less frequently, as do plants with water pollution or OSHA violations, but firm characteristics generally are not significant. Enforcement activity increases compliance, but in a heterogeneous way: pulp mills are less sensitive to inspections, while plants owned by larger firms are less sensitive to inspections and more sensitive to “other” enforcement actions, consistent with the authors’ expectations and prior research results.
Gambling with the Psyche: Does Prosecuting Human Rights Violators Console Their Victims

Legal action against those accused of committing brutal violations of human rights has oourished in the last decade. Saddam Hussein awaits trial in Iraq.1 Augusto Pinochet, Chile’s former military leader, has been pursued by European and Chilean prosecuting judges since Spain’s Balthasar Garzon sought his extradition for murder in October 1998.2 Meanwhile, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (“ICTY”), Slobodan Milosevic is preparing his defense against charges of genocide and war crimes.3 Even U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, with other senior ofacials, has been accused in a privately aled criminal complaint in Germany of being responsible for the torture of prisoners held in Iraq.4 Such legal actions were almost unimaginable a decade ago. These are only the most prominent cases. A dozen senior Baathist ofacials face prosecution by Iraq’s new government.5 In Argentina, a 2001 court ruling abrogated laws giving immunity to military ofacers who oversaw and participated in the kidnapping and secret execution (“disappearance”) of as
Irreconcilable differences? The FASB's conceptual framework and the public interest

Recently, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) revised its 'conceptual framework'. The FASB's conceptual framework is "intended to serve the public interest by providing structure and direction to financial accounting and reporting to facilitate the provision of unbiased financial and related information [which] helps capital and other markets to function efficiently in allocating scarce resources in the economy and society" (emphasis added). However, it is not the mission of either the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF, the parent of the FASB), or the FASB to serve the public interest. Therefore, whether the FASB's conceptual framework can serve the public interest as intended, or whether the conceptual framework is reconcilable with the public interest is questionable. This paper explores the question of whether the conceptual framework is compatible with the public interest. The question is important to consider because if the conceptual framework cannot serve the public interest as intended, then it will be necessary to revise the conceptual framework in order to achieve its intended purpose of serving the public interest.
Anti-Catholicism and Modern Church-State Relations

This article discusses how disputes over church and state in modern America have been affected by societal attitudes toward Roman Catholicism. It is part of a book in process, a legal and cultural history of church and state in America since the 1940s, when the Supreme Court regularly began to decide such disputes. From the late 1940s through the 1970s, a fairly strict separation of church and state became the dominant ideal in Supreme Court decisions and in elite culture. But the separation ideal has declined in influence in recent years, although it remains strong in some respects. This article discusses how attitudes toward Roman Catholicism in America fit into this story, in three different periods. First, the late 1940s and early 1950s saw a resurgence in fear and distrust of Catholicism, and these contributed to the rise of church-state separationism in constitutional decisions. Second, in the 1960s and 1970s, negative attitudes toward Catholicism might have been expected to decline, but they lingered, and for that and other reasons the ideal of church-state separation became even more strict, especially in restricting aid to religious schools. Finally, in the 1980s and 1990s, the partial rollback of separationism, especially of its restrictions on parochial school aid, has been partly influenced by changes in the nature and importance of anti-Catholicism. Although negative attitudes toward Catholicism certainly remain significant, they are less widely held, are less focused on Catholic schools as such, and are only part of a broader distrust of politically active social conservatives, including evangelical Protestants. The decline in the centrality of the "Catholic question" has contributed to a shift in the focus of church-state ideals away from church-state separation and toward equal treatment of different religious views.
The Effect of Social Connectedness on Crime: Evidence from the Great Migration

This paper estimates the effect of social connectedness on crime across U.S. cities from 1970 to 2009. Migration networks among African Americans from the South generated variation across destinati...
Rolling Systems and Their Billiard Limits

Billiard systems, broadly speaking, may be regarded as models of mechanical systems in which rigid parts interact through elastic impulsive (collision) forces. When it is desired or necessary to account for linear/angular momentum exchange in collisions involving a spherical body, a type of billiard system often referred to as no-slip has been used. In recent work, it has become apparent that no-slip billiards resemble nonholonomic mechanical systems in a number of ways. Based on an idea by Borisov, Kilin and Mamaev, we show that no-slip billiards very generally arise as limits of nonholonomic (rolling) systems, in a way that is akin to how ordinary billiards arise as limits of geodesic flows through a flattening of the Riemannian manifold.
Projections of tropical heat stress constrained by atmospheric dynamics

Extreme heat under global warming is a concerning issue for the growing tropical population. However, model projections of extreme temperatures, a widely used metric for extreme heat, are uncertain on regional scales. In addition, humidity needs to be taken into account to estimate the health impact of extreme heat. Here we show that an integrated temperature–humidity metric for the health impact of heat, namely, the extreme wet-bulb temperature (TW), is controlled by established atmospheric dynamics and thus can be robustly projected on regional scales. For each 1 °C of tropical mean warming, global climate models project extreme TW (the annual maximum of daily mean or 3-hourly values) to increase roughly uniformly between 20° S and 20° N latitude by about 1 °C. This projection is consistent with theoretical expectation based on tropical atmospheric dynamics, and observations over the past 40 years, which gives confidence to the model projection. For a 1.5 °C warmer world, the probable (66% confidence interval) increase of regional extreme TW is projected to be 1.33–1.49 °C, whereas the uncertainty of projected extreme temperatures is 3.7 times as large. These results suggest that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C will prevent most of the tropics from reaching a TW of 35 °C, the limit of human adaptation. Limiting global warming to 1.5 °C will prevent tropical regions from reaching the limit of human adaptability, according to robust dynamical constraints on projected heat stress.
Towards a Learning-Based Framework for Self-Driving Design of Networking Protocols

Networking protocols are designed through long-standing and hard-working human efforts. Machine Learning (ML)-based solutions for communication protocol design have been developed to avoid manual effort to adjust individual protocol parameters. While other proposed ML-based methods focus mainly on tuning individual protocol parameters (e.g. contention window adjustment), our main contribution is to propose a new Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) framework to systematically design and evaluate networking protocols. We decouple the protocol into a set of parametric modules, each representing the main protocol functionality that is used as a DRL input to better understand and systematically analyze the optimization of generated protocols. As a case study, we introduce and evaluate DeepMAC a framework in which the MAC protocol is decoupled into a set of blocks across popular 802.11 WLANs (e.g. 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac). We are interested to see which blocks are selected by DeepMAC across different networking scenarios and whether DeepMAC is capable of adapting to network dynamics.
Bidirectional Representation Learning From Transformers Using Multimodal Electronic Health Record Data to Predict Depression

Advancements in machine learning algorithms have had a beneficial impact on representation learning, classification, and prediction models built using electronic health record (EHR) data. Effort has been put both on increasing models’ overall performance as well as improving their interpretability, particularly regarding the decision-making process. In this study, we present a temporal deep learning model to perform bidirectional representation learning on EHR sequences with a transformer architecture to predict future diagnosis of depression. This model is able to aggregate five heterogenous and high-dimensional data sources from the EHR and process them in a temporal manner for chronic disease prediction at various prediction windows. We applied the current trend of pretraining and fine-tuning on EHR data to outperform the current state-of-the-art in chronic disease prediction, and to demonstrate the underlying relation between EHR codes in the sequence. The model generated the highest increases of precision-recall area under the curve (PRAUC) from 0.70 to 0.76 in depression prediction compared to the best baseline model. Furthermore, the self-attention weights in each sequence quantitatively demonstrated the inner relationship between various codes, which improved the model's interpretability. These results demonstrate the model's ability to utilize heterogeneous EHR data to predict depression while achieving high accuracy and interpretability, which may facilitate constructing clinical decision support systems in the future for chronic disease screening and early detection.
Drift kinetic theory of alpha transport by tokamak perturbations

Upcoming tokamak experiments fuelled with deuterium and tritium are expected to have large alpha particle populations. Such experiments motivate new attention to the theory of alpha particle confinement and transport. A key topic is the interaction of alpha particles with perturbations to the tokamak fields, including those from ripple and magnetohydrodynamic modes like Alfven eigenmodes. These perturbations can transport alphas, leading to changed localization of alpha heating, loss of alpha power and damage to device walls. Alpha interaction with these perturbations is often studied with single-particle theory. In contrast, we derive a drift kinetic theory to calculate the alpha heat flux resulting from arbitrary perturbation frequency and periodicity (provided these can be studied drift kinetically). Novel features of the theory include the retention of a large effective collision frequency resulting from the resonant alpha collisional boundary layer, correlated interactions over many poloidal transits and finite orbit effects. Heat fluxes are considered for the example cases of ripple and the toroidal Alfven eigenmode (TAE). The ripple heat flux is small. The TAE heat flux is significant and scales with the square of the perturbation amplitude, allowing the derivation of constraints on mode amplitude for avoidance of significant alpha depletion. A simple saturation condition suggests that TAEs in one upcoming experiment will not cause significant alpha transport via the mechanisms in this theory. However, saturation above the level suggested by the simple condition, but within numerical and experimental experience, which could be accompanied by the onset of stochasticity, could cause significant transport.
Fourier’s Quantum Information Processing

We demonstrate that quantum information processing (QIP) completely rests on quantum Fourier transform (QFT), and 190 years after his death, the work of Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier is more present than ever in one of the most important pillars of physics: QIP. Specifically, this study shows the impact of QFT on the main tool of quantum communication: entanglement, with a particular emphasis on its spectral nature, whose study is completed when entanglement is used in teleportation, and quantum secret sharing. Finally, a better understanding of the spectral nature of quantum entanglement will lead to better protocols for quantum communications, in general, and quantum cryptography, in particular.
On the optimality of randomization in experimental design: How to randomize for minimax variance and design‐based inference

I study the minimax-optimal design for a two-arm controlled experiment where conditional mean outcomes may vary in a given set. When this set is permutation symmetric, the optimal design is complete randomization, and using a single partition (i.e., the design that only randomizes the treatment labels for each side of the partition) has minimax risk larger by a factor of $n-1$. More generally, the optimal design is shown to be the mixed-strategy optimal design (MSOD) of Kallus (2018). Notably, even when the set of conditional mean outcomes has structure (i.e., is not permutation symmetric), being minimax-optimal for variance still requires randomization beyond a single partition. Nonetheless, since this targets precision, it may still not ensure sufficient uniformity in randomization to enable randomization (i.e., design-based) inference by Fisher's exact test to appropriately detect violations of null. I therefore propose the inference-constrained MSOD, which is minimax-optimal among all designs subject to such uniformity constraints. On the way, I discuss Johansson et al. (2020) who recently compared rerandomization of Morgan and Rubin (2012) and the pure-strategy optimal design (PSOD) of Kallus (2018). I point out some errors therein and set straight that randomization is minimax-optimal and that the "no free lunch" theorem and example in Kallus (2018) are correct.
Attribute-Efficient Learning of Halfspaces with Malicious Noise: Near-Optimal Label Complexity and Noise Tolerance.

This paper is concerned with computationally efficient learning of homogeneous sparse halfspaces in $\mathbb{R}^d$ under noise. Though recent works have established attribute-efficient learning algorithms under various types of label noise (e.g. bounded noise), it remains an open question when and how $s$-sparse halfspaces can be efficiently learned under the challenging malicious noise model, where an adversary may corrupt both the unlabeled examples and the labels. We answer this question in the affirmative by designing a computationally efficient active learning algorithm with near-optimal label complexity of $\tilde{O}\big({s \log^4 \frac d \epsilon} \big)$ and noise tolerance $\eta = \Omega(\epsilon)$, where $\epsilon \in (0, 1)$ is the target error rate, under the assumption that the distribution over (uncorrupted) unlabeled examples is isotropic log-concave. Our algorithm can be straightforwardly tailored to the passive learning setting, and we show that the sample complexity is $\tilde{O}\big({\frac 1 \epsilon s^2 \log^5 d} \big)$ which also enjoys the attribute efficiency. Our main techniques include attribute-efficient paradigms for instance reweighting and for empirical risk minimization, and a new analysis of uniform concentration for unbounded data -- all of them crucially take the structure of the underlying halfspace into account.
Transient Hsp90 Suppression Promotes a Heritable Change in Protein Translation

The heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) chaperone functions as a protein-folding buffer and plays a unique role promoting the evolution of new heritable traits. To investigate the role of Hsp90 in modulating protein synthesis, we screened more than 1200 proteins involved in mRNA regulation for physical interactions with Hsp90 in human cells. Among the top hits was CPEB2, which strongly binds Hsp90 via its prion domain, reminiscent of the prion-like regulation of translation of Aplysia CPEB. In a yeast model of CPEB prion-dependent translation regulation, transient inhibition of Hsp90 amplified CPEB2 prion activity and resulted in persistent translation of the CPEB reporter. Remarkably, inhibition of Hsp90 was sufficient to induce a heritable change in protein translation that persisted for 30 generations, even in the absence of exogenous CPEB. Although we identified a variety of perturbations that enhanced translation of the reporter, only Hsp90 inhibition led to persistent activation. Thus, transient loss of Hsp90 function leads to the non-genetic inheritance of a novel translational state. We propose that, in addition to sculpting the conformational landscape of the proteome, Hsp90 promotes phenotypic variation by modulating protein synthesis.
Single-Chip Stereo Imager

This paper presents a complete Single-chip Stereo Imager (SSI), incorporating two 128 × 128 pixel current-mode imagers and current-mode analog computation circuitry on a single integrated circuit. A modified version of block matching is used to find the stereo disparity at each location in the field of view. At each location, the sum-of-absolute-difference is computed, in parallel, for each possible disparity. The SSI is capable of operation at 66.1 million checked disparities per second (41 fps) while drawing 15.2 mA from a 5 V supply, including imagers and computation circuits. The SSI occupies 4.23 × 4.23 mm2 of area in a 0.5 μm (λ e 0.35 μm) 5 V, 3-metal, 2-poly CMOS process.
Bell’s Theorem Without Inequalities and Only Two Distant Observers

A proof of Bell’s theorem without inequalities and involving only two observers is given by suitably extending a proof of the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem due to Mermin. This proof is generalized to obtain an inequality-free proof of Bell’s theorem for a set of n Bell states (with n odd) shared between two distant observers. A generalized CHSH inequality is formulated for n Bell states shared symmetrically between two observers and it is shown that quantum mechanics violates this inequality by an amount that grows exponentially with increasing n.
The performic acid oxidation of linoleic acid

The performic acid oxidation of linoleic acid has been shown to form 9,12-dihydroxy-trans-10,11-methylene-heptadecanoic acid (I) after hydrolysis of the formate ester. A sequence of reactions led to the identification of dimethyl-trans-1,2-cyclopropanedicarboxylate by gas liquid chromatography. Spectroscopic evidence is presented for thetrans geometry in I. Failure of the monoepoxide of linoleic acid to give the formate ester of I suggests the alternative that a homoallylic carbonium ion is formed directly upon attack of the peroxide reagent.