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Various social norms and legal restrictions limit individuals' autonomy based on their gender. Some of these restrict the romantic and sexual relationships individuals may pursue. Others restrict gender expression. Still others restrict the freedom to work, own property, or participate in the political process. Many scholars have studied the role of intentional political activism in combating these restrictions. Less explored, however, is how spontaneous order within market economies created opportunities for this type of activism. Individuals who are seeking private gains rather than social change can nonetheless contribute to social change that they do not intend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial experimental literature in behavioral economics and psychology finds that individuals rely on heuristics and cognitive biases when they make decisions. These heuristics and biases impact the choices of individuals from all walks of life, including police officers entrusted with the power to enforce laws. Individuals act within an institutional context. We examine how the institutions that structure American policing interact with the heuristics and biases of individual police officers. We then suggest institutional changes that may result in better performance from boundedly rational police officers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2016 passage of California's Proposition 64, legalizing recreational (adult-use) cannabis, was justified ex ante in part for its potential to encourage restorative justice and positive local and state economic outcomes. But are the local institutions administering Proposition 64 achieving these aims? We address this question via a two-year case study of Mendocino County's polycentric cannabis governance system using a mixed methods approach including archival analysis, cannabis industry and governance system interviews, and participant observation. Evidence from our case study suggests that Mendocino's ability to achieve these goals is hampered by three quasi-market failures: interjurisdictional conflict, coproduction deficits, and devolution without adequate fiscal decentralization. A major driver in these quasi-market failures is the substantial regulatory and enforcement responsibility this governance system places on local government. We conclude by discussing some institutional structures that may address these failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fatal conceit of foreign intervention refers to the limitations faced by governments using discretionary power to address perceived problems in foreign societies. Drawing on evidence from the "Afghanistan Papers"—a collection of internal government documents compiled by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) and released in December 2019—we demonstrate how the failure of the U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan to meet the stated objectives illustrates the fatal conceit of foreign intervention. We explore the limitations faced by foreign government interveners in three stages, reflecting distinct decision nodes within a means-ends framework in which the policies relating to foreign intervention are formulated and implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Gene expression patterns provide a detailed view of cellular functions. Comparison of profiles in disease vs normal conditions provides insights into the processes underlying disease progression. However, availability and integration of public gene expression datasets remains a major challenge. The aim of the present study was to explore the transcriptome of pancreatic islets and, based on this information, to prepare a comprehensive and open access inventory of insulin-producing beta cell gene expression, the Beta Cell Gene Atlas (BCGA). Methods We performed Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing (MPSS) analysis of human pancreatic islet samples and microarray analyses of purified rat beta cells, alpha cells and INS-1 cells, and compared the information with available array data in the literature. Results MPSS analysis detected around 7600 mRNA transcripts, of which around a third were of low abundance. We identified 2000 and 1400 transcripts that are enriched/depleted in beta cells compared to alpha cells and INS-1 cells, respectively. Microarray analysis identified around 200 transcription factors that are differentially expressed in either beta or alpha cells. We reanalyzed publicly available gene expression data and integrated these results with the new data from this study to build the BCGA. The BCGA contains basal (untreated conditions) gene expression level estimates in beta cells as well as in different cell types in human, rat and mouse pancreas. Hierarchical clustering of expression profile estimates classify cell types based on species while beta cells were clustered together. Conclusion Our gene atlas is a valuable source for detailed information on the gene expression distribution in beta cells and pancreatic islets along with insulin producing cell lines. The BCGA tool, as well as the data and code used to generate the Atlas are available at the T1Dbase website (T1DBase.org).

In a pandemic, citizens and policy makers must rely on expert opinion. What are the institutional arrangements that allow for the best advice to come forward? Using the framework established by Koppl (2018) on expert failure, we analyze the COVID-19 pandemic to see where missteps in expertise occurred and suggest institutional arrangements to improve expert advice in future pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Credit unions currently serve over 110 million members in the United States. This is surprising, given the challenges associated with forming cooperatives. This paper explains how grants were used to overcome these challenges and create the modern credit union sector. Edward Filene, a wealthy 20th-century department store owner, provided philanthropic funding and technical expertise to early credit unions, resulting directly in the creation of 26,000 American credit unions over a 45-year period. Filene's leadership helped overcome the various social dilemmas associated with creating cooperatives, reforming institutions, and establishing an institutional framework that enables and supports cooperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do gifts relate to formal and informal institutions? Giving gifts, especially in the form of anti-poverty aid, opens the givers to a serious social dilemma: the Samaritan's dilemma. We explain how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses a mixture of formal and informal governance to provide sustainable social welfare programs that avoid this dilemma. These institutions not only govern aid arrangements, but also provide governance across the entire Church community, encouraging religious adherence and broad-based participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on origins and evolution of the idea of the virtual wall at the U.S.-Mexico border which enhances the efficiency of government institutions in controlling both foreign and domestic peoples. It mentions that virtual wall uses advanced surveillance technologies to detect and deter unauthorized border crossings which is used by the U.S. Border Patrol.

An information-theoretic waveform design is proposed for Gaussian mixture radar target profiling by maximizing the mutual information between the measurements and the target signal. During gradient optimization, a bandwidth constraint is enforced by introducing a frequency-domain masking operator. Simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed waveform design on target profiling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influential figures within communities are sometimes able to exploit their position and then leverage their social standing to avoid accountability, often in spite of their community's nominal commitment to just conduct. This outcome may lead individuals to blame social capital for injustice, abuse, and outcomes at odds with "social justice" (particularly social equality between racial, gender, ability, and other socially constructed groups). We argue that neither social capital nor hierarchies are to blame per se, but a lack of liberalism is. Hierarchies are more dangerous when individuals have fewer exit options and fewer alternative opportunities for social support and mutually beneficial exchange. Liberal institutions are necessary to foster the pluralism, polycentricity, and economic growth that create these types of exit options. To mitigate the abuses associated with hierarchy and social capital networks that face little competition, thoroughgoing liberalism that itself relies on social capital is necessary. Misdiagnosing the problem risks exacerbating it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role do whistleblowers play in democratic politics? This paper answers this question by analyzing the political economy of whistleblowing within democratic political institutions. Democratic politics is characterized by numerous principal-agent problems creating significant space for opportunism. Whistleblowers help to resolve these principal-agent problems through the revelation of information regarding abuses of power. These revelations can take place internally, by taking advantage of channels to report abuse, or externally, by publicly revealing information. The latter is especially important where internal mechanisms for reporting opportunism are lacking. Whistleblowing in the US national security state is presented to illustrate this logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In clinical practice, several strategies and pharmacological options are available to treat neuropsychiatric symptoms of Huntington disease (HD). However, there is currently insufficient data for evidence-based guidelines on the management of these common symptoms. Objective: We aimed to develop expert-based recommendations regarding the management of agitation, anxiety, apathy, psychosis, and sleep disorders. Methods: Guideline development was based on a modified Institute of Medicine guideline process that accounted for a lack of evidence base. An international committee of 11 multidisciplinary experts proposed a series of statements regarding the description and management of each symptom. Statement assessment and validation was performed using a web-based survey tool and 84 international HD experts (neurologists and psychiatrists) who assessed the statements and indicated their level of agreement. Results: High-level agreement (≥85% experts strongly agreed or agreed) was reached for 107 of the 110 statements that have been incorporated into the expert-based clinical recommendations presented herein. Conclusions: Clinical statements to guide the routine management of agitation, anxiety, apathy, psychosis, and sleep disorders in HD have been developed. Although not specifically tested in the HD population, clinical experience has shown that most of the neuropsychiatric symptoms discussed, when considered in isolation are treatable using pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic strategies developed for use in other populations. However, the management of neuropsychiatric symptoms in HD can be complex because neuropsychiatric symptoms often co-exist and treatment decisions should be adapted to cover all symptoms while limiting polypharmacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As passive radar becomes more popular, modeling its behavior and physics becomes more critical. Particular to space-time adaptive processing (STAP) for ground moving target indication, the way in which clutter is modeled will directly impact performance expectations and results. Furthermore, modeling Doppler modulation from uncooperative waveforms can also impact performance assessments. This paper introduces a three-dimensional model that incorporates a novel method for modeling clutter and waveform impacts in passive STAP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the adoption of arbitrary and increasingly wideband signals, the design of modern radar systems continues to be limited by analog-to-digital converter technology and data throughput bottlenecks. Meanwhile, compressive sensing (CS) promises to reduce sampling rates below the Nyquist rate for some applications by constraining the set of possible signals. In many practical applications, detailed prior knowledge on the signals of interest can be learned from training data, existing track information, and/or other sources, which can be used to design better compressive measurement kernels. In this paper, we use an information-theoretic approach to optimize CS kernels for time delay estimation. The measurements are modeled via a Gaussian mixture model by discretizing the a priori probability distribution of the time delay. The optimal CS kernel that approximately maximizes the Shannon mutual information between the measurements and the time delay is then found by a gradient-based search. Furthermore, we also derive the Bayesian Cramér–Rao bound (CRB) for time delay estimation as a function of the CS kernel. In numerical simulations, we compare the performance of the proposed optimal sensing kernels to random projections and the Bayesian CRB. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed technique for sensing kernel optimization can significantly improve performance, which is consistent with the Bayesian CRB versus signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Finally, we use the Bayesian CRB expressions and simulation results to make conclusions about the usefulness of CS in radar applications. Specifically, we discuss CS SNR loss versus resolution improvement in SNR- and resolution-limited scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Direction-of-arrival (DOA), power, and achievable degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) are fundamental parameters for source estimation. In this paper, we propose a novel sparse reconstruction-based source estimation algorithm by using a coprime array. Specifically, a difference coarray is derived from a coprime array as the foundation for increasing the number of DOFs, and a virtual uniform linear subarray covariance matrix sparse reconstruction-based optimization problem is formulated for DOA estimation. Meanwhile, a modified sliding window scheme is devised to remove the spurious peaks from the reconstructed sparse spatial spectrum, and the power estimation is enhanced through a least squares problem. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in terms of DOA estimation and power estimation as well as the achievable DOFs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses spectral regrowth caused by wideband signals input into solid-state amplifiers. Unique contributions are a weighted least-squares method for solving predistorter nonlinear model parameters, and a Bayesian method for tracking model parameters in slowly changing systems. Next-generation active phased array radars are the primary application. Past predistortion research has been primarily aimed at narrowband communications, while radar wideband applications have been relatively unexplored. Laboratory measurements confirm our methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]