Search

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a shift in entrepreneurial opportunities in the United States. In this paper, we proxy entrepreneurial processes by examining housing prices in different regions of the United States. Housing prices capture the movement in people, tax dynamics, and behavioral preferences for equity ownership in different regions and over time, all of which were drastically impacted by COVID-19. We examine all US equity crowdfunding offerings starting with the very first offerings in 2016 Q2 until 2021 Q1 based on data from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The data indicate that regional housing prices post-COVID-19 are a strong predictor of the number of equity crowdfunding campaigns and the amount of capital raised. Moreover, the impact of housing price changes on crowdfunding is more pronounced among more prosperous regions. The housing price effect is robust to numerous controls and consideration of outliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In three experiments, we tested whether LGBTQ+ individuals experience greater psychological well-being when they feel other groups support (versus restrict) their community's collective autonomy to express its social identity. LGBTQ+ individuals recruited from a Canadian city (Experiment 1a, N=114), and nationally from the United States (Experiment 1b, N=370), retrospectively recalled feeling more personal autonomous need satisfaction, and in turn, greater psychological well-being during a time in their community's history when they felt their collective autonomy was supported (versus restricted). In Experiment 2 (N=396), US participants reported greater personal autonomous need satisfaction and psychological well-being after reflecting on how their community presently had versus lacked collective autonomy. Effects remained robust controlling for anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, personal autonomy support, and openness about one's gender/sexuality identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Price momentum is a well‐documented anomaly in many of the world's equity markets, and refers to the excess returns due to buying (selling) past winner (loser) stocks. Industry momentum refers to the excess returns due to buying (selling) stocks from past winner (loser) industries, and has been demonstrated to be more profitable than individual stock momentum in the United States. We investigate whether industry momentum can be captured by investing with sector exchange‐traded funds (ETFs). The performance of sector ETF‐based industry momentum is very different to stock momentum, and the strong performance of an unexpected group of sector ETF momentum portfolios remains robust after controlling for risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its outbreak, COVID-19 has impacted world regions differentially. Whereas some regions still record tens of thousands of new infections daily, other regions have contained the virus. What explains these striking regional differences? We advance a cultural psychological perspective on mask usage, a precautionary measure vital for curbing the pandemic. Four large-scale studies provide evidence that collectivism (versus individualism) positively predicts mask usage-both within the United States and across the world. Analyzing a dataset of all 3,141 counties of the 50 US states (based on 248,941 individuals), Study 1a revealed that mask usage was higher in more collectivistic US states. Study 1b replicated this finding in another dataset of 16,737 individuals in the 50 US states. Analyzing a dataset of 367,109 individuals in 29 countries, Study 2 revealed that mask usage was higher in more collectivistic countries. Study 3 replicated this finding in a dataset of 277,219 Facebook users in 67 countries. The link between collectivism and mask usage was robust to a host of control variables, including cultural tightness-looseness, political affiliation, demographics, population density, socioeconomic indicators, universal health coverage, government response stringency, and time. Our research suggests that culture fundamentally shapes how people respond to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding cultural differences not only provides insight into the current pandemic, but also helps the world prepare for future crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2012 grants undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children a temporary reprieve from deportation and authorization to work legally, potentially increasing their opportunity costs of committing crimes. In this article, I examine the impact of DACA on crime. The analysis yields a few main results. First, at the individual level, comparing the difference in the likelihood of being incarcerated between DACA-eligible population with its counterpart before and after the implementation of DACA, I fail to find evidence that DACA statistically significantly affected the incarceration rate of undocumented youth. This result is robust to controlling for the differences in characteristics associated with DACA eligibility, such as age and age at arrival. Second, using the variation in the number of DACA applications approved across the U.S. states, the evidence suggests that DACA is associated with a reduction in property crime rates. An increase of one DACA application approved per 1000 population is associated with a 1.6% decline in overall property crime rate. Further analysis shows that this reduction is driven by the decline in burglary and larceny rates. This finding suggests that policies that expand the employment opportunities of immigrants may reduce crimes committed for financial gains that often do not lead to incarceration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies of liquidity span short time periods and focus on the individual security. In contrast, we study aggregate market spreads, depths, and trading activity for U.S. equities over an extended time sample. Daily changes in market averages of liquidity and trading activity are highly volatile and negatively serially dependent. Liquidity plummets significantly in down markets. Recent market volatility induces a decrease in trading activity and spreads. There are strong day-of-the-week effects; Fridays accompany a significant decrease in trading activity and liquidity, while Tuesdays display the opposite pattern. Long- and short-term interest rates influence liquidity. Depth and trading activity increase just prior to major macroeconomic announcements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011 researchers published a paper that exposed a puzzling paradox: the happiest states in the U.S. also tend to have the highest suicide rates. In the current study, we re-examine this relationship by combining data from the Multiple Mortality Cause-of-Death Records, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and the American Communities Survey to determine how subjective well-being and suicide are related across 1563 U.S. counties. We extend the original study in important ways: by incorporating both absolute and relative measures of subjective well-being; by examining the happiness-suicide association at a more suitable level of analysis; and by including a more robust set of control variables in the model. Contrary to the previous study, we do not observe any significant relationship, negative or positive, between the absolute and relative well-being of places and suicide rates at the county-level. Implications for the study of suicide rates and relative deprivation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does income inequality reduce social trust? Although both popular and scholarly accounts have argued that income inequality reduces trust, some recent research has been more skeptical, noting these claims are more robust cross-sectionally than longitudinally. Furthermore, although multiple mechanisms have been proposed for why inequality could affect trust, these have rarely been tested explicitly. I examine the effect of state-level income inequality on trust using the 1973–2012 General Social Surveys. I find little evidence that states that have been more unequal over time have less trusting people. There is some evidence that the growth in income inequality is linked with a decrease in trust, but these effects are sensitive to how time is accounted for. While much previous inequality and trust research has focused on status anxiety, this mechanism receives the little support, but mechanisms based on social fractionalization and on exploitation and resentment receive some support. This analysis improves on previous estimates of the effect of state-level inequality on trust by using far more available observations, accounting for more potential individual and state level confounders, and using higher-quality income inequality data based on annual IRS tax returns. It also contributes to our understanding of the mechanism(s) through which inequality may affect trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability assessment of agricultural systems is frequently hampered by data availability. Elicitation of expert opinions combined with multi-criteria assessment (MCA) could be a useful approach for sustainability assessments in data-scarce situations. To our knowledge, the validity of expert opinion used to score sustainability performance of agricultural systems, however, has not been addressed. Also, robustness of the overall outcome of MCA to uncertainty about scores obtained from expert elicitation and weights used to aggregate scores is generally not addressed. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the validity of expert opinion, and to evaluate the robustness of the overall MCA outcome to uncertainty about scores and weights. The case study considers three soybean agricultural systems in Latin America: conventional agricultural system, with either genetically modified (GM) or non-genetically modified (non-GM) soybeans, and organic agricultural system. The validation was carried out by comparing the sustainability scores of experts with values from scientific studies. The robustness of the overall outcome of the MCA to uncertainty about scores and weights was assessed using Monte Carlo simulation. The comparison of expert opinion with reviewed studies showed that expert opinions are a potential alternative to extensive data-rich methods. The validity of expert opinions can be increased by considering a larger group of experts, with a high level of knowledge about agricultural systems and sustainability issues. With regard to robustness, the overall outcome of the MCA showed higher variation for organic soybean agricultural systems compared with GM and non-GM, in both Brazil and Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite evidence that shows how the support for space programs correlates with liberal political views and a lower level of religiosity, recent data suggest that more conservative positions may have an even more substantial effect under the appropriate conditions. Using the available data from Pew's American Trends Panel, we seek to clarify this interactional effect of political and religious preferences on the level of interest in the space programs and commitment to space politics support among Evangelicals as it changed during Trump's presidency. Our research hypothesizes that during this time, the simultaneous presence of nationalist views in both accounts of politics and religion may be linked to the underlying concept of "space nationalism," that is, the belief that the United States should lead in space exploration, resulting in an increased level of support for space programs. This article presents the results of several iterations of linear regression models. Controlling for robust sociodemographic variables, our findings show a statistically significant effect of nationalist views and religious beliefs. Our results confirm that a combination of nationalism and religious views is a robust predictor of Evangelicals' space exploration support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes to our climate and oceans are already affecting living marine resources (LMRs) and the people, businesses, and economies that depend on them. As a result, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has developed a Climate Science Strategy (CSS) to increase the production and use of the climate-related information necessary to fulfill its LMR stewardship mission for fisheries management and protected species conservation. The CSS establishes seven objectives: (1) determine appropriate, climate-informed reference points; (2) identify robust strategies for managing LMRs under changing climate conditions; (3) design decision processes that are robust to climate-change scenarios; (4) predict future states of ecosystems, LMRs, and LMR-dependent human communities; (5) determine the mechanisms of climate-change related effects on ecosystems, LMRs, and LMR-dependent human communities; (6) track trends in ecosystems, LMRs, and LMR-dependent human communities and provide early warning of change; and (7) build and maintain the science infrastructure required to fulfill NMFS mandates under changing climate conditions. These objectives provide a nationally consistent approach to addressing climate-LMR science needs that supports informed decision-making and effective implementation of the NMFS legislative mandates in each region. Near term actions that will address all objectives include: (1) conducting climate vulnerability analyses in each region for all LMRs; (2) establishing and strengthening ecosystem indicators and status reports in all regions; and (3) developing a capacity to conduct management strategy evaluations of climate-related impacts on management targets, priorities, and goals. Implementation of the Strategy over the next few years and beyond is critical for effective fulfillment of the NMFS mission and mandates in a changing climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on coupled networks, taking node load, capacity and load redistribution between two networks into consideration, we propose functionally identical coupled networks, which consist of two networks connected by interlinks. Functionally identical coupled networks are derived from the power grid of the United States, which consists of many independent grids. Many power transmission lines are planned to interconnect those grids and, therefore, the study of the robustness of functionally identical coupled networks becomes important. In this paper, we find that functionally identical coupled networks are more robust than single networks under random attack. By studying the effect of the broadness and average degree of the degree distribution on the robustness of the network, we find that a broader degree distribution and a higher average degree increase the robustness of functionally identical coupled networks under random failure. And SF-SF (two coupled scale-free networks) is more robust than ER-ER (two coupled random networks) or SF-ER (coupled random network and scale-free network). This research is useful to construct robust functionally identical coupled networks such as two cooperative power grids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the development effort that created a robust representation of the combined capacity expansion of the U.S. and Canadian electric sectors within the NREL ReEDS model. The abbreviated scenario analysis effort was designed to understand drivers behind various Canadian–U.S. power sector futures out to 2036. We model the impact of natural gas prices, increased Canadian hydropower deployment, and increased renewable energy (RE) penetrations. The sample results analyzed in this paper show the highly dynamic nature of the modeling tool as it performs a simultaneous optimization of the two countries’ generation portfolios. The interactions between the two countries go beyond energy generation and also include firm capacity contracts and renewable energy certificates (RECs). The reference scenario results show a significant increase in wind generation in both the United States and Canada with a gradual retirement of coal and nuclear energy. The evolution of net energy and firm capacity exchange was very dynamic through the span of the analysis period and drives significant investment in transmission capacity across the border, almost doubling the existing capacity of transmission lines. The exchange of energy was driven by regional stories. ISO-NE and NYISO import energy throughout the analysis period. However, in the Western Interconnection we observed increasing imports to Canada from the United States, whereas the exchanges with MISO switched directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuing development of the organic-rich and extremely low permeability shale reservoirs in the United States has the potential to positively impact the future of carbon storage. Due to the unique characteristics of shale reservoirs, not only can CO 2 be safely stored, it also can be preferentially adsorbed and displace methane, leading to enhanced gas recovery. However, CO 2 storage in depleted or nearly depleted shale formations is not completely risk free. Thus, prior to making the economic commitment to a full-field CO 2 sequestration project, a systematic analysis of the complete set of variables must be considered in the planning of a shale-CO 2 storage initiative. Numerical modeling and simulation is a robust tool that can provide an insight into how the system may operate in order to further understand the feasibility and assist in the design and operation of such a project, and to predict changes that may occur. In order to perform a comprehensive uncertainty analysis, a large number of simulation runs are required. Designing and running simulation cases to model enhanced gas recovery and storage in shale by applying the Explicit Hydraulic Fracture modeling technique (EHF) is long and laborious, and its implementation is computationally expensive. In this paper, a data-driven approach with pattern recognition algorithms is used to develop a new generation of a shale proxy model at the hydraulic fracture cluster level, as a replica of a reservoir simulation model. For more accurate analysis, instead of commonly used mechanistic models, a history-matched hydraulic fractured Marcellus shale pad with multiple stages/clusters is used as a base case to perform the analysis. The detailed procedure for development of the Data-driven proxy model is explained and the model is validated using blind simulation runs. The developed Data-driven proxy model is capable of accurately reproducing the calculated CO 2 injection, CO 2 /CH 4 production profiles, and CO 2 breakthrough time from the numerical simulation model, for each cluster/stage and horizontal lateral. Joint use of the deterministic reservoir model with the Data-driven proxy model can serve as a novel screening and optimization tool for the techno-economic evaluation of the CO 2 -Enhanced Gas Recovery (EGR) and Storage process in shale systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a robust and stable lattice method which permits to obtain very accurate American option prices under the Cox-Ingersoll-Ross stochastic interest rate model without any numerical restriction on its parameters. Numerical results show the reliability and the accuracy of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant changes in the water cycle are expected under current global environmental change. Robust assessment of present-day water cycle dynamics at continental to global scales is confounded by shortcomings in the observed record. Modeled assessments also yield conflicting results which are linked to differences in model structure and simulation protocol. Here we compare simulated gridded (1° spatial resolution) runoff from six terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs), seven reanalysis products, and one gridded surface station product in the contiguous United States (CONUS) from 2001 to 2005. We evaluate the consistency of these 14 estimates with stream gauge data, both as depleted flow and corrected for net withdrawals (2005 only), at the CONUS and water resource region scale, as well as examining similarity across TBMs and reanalysis products at the grid cell scale. Mean runoff across all simulated products and regions varies widely (range: 71 to 356 mm yr −1 ) relative to observed continental-scale runoff (209 or 280 mm yr −1 when corrected for net withdrawals). Across all 14 products 8 exhibit Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency values in excess of 0.8 and three are within 10% of the observed value. Region-level mismatch exhibits a weak pattern of overestimation in western and underestimation in eastern regions—although two products are systematically biased across all regions—and largely scales with water use. Although gridded composite TBM and reanalysis runoff show some regional similarities, individual product values are highly variable. At the coarse scales used here we find that progress in better constraining simulated runoff requires standardized forcing data and the explicit incorporation of human effects (e.g., water withdrawals by source, fire, and land use change). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A careful examination of the multigenerational relationship between immigrant status and mental disorders can provide important information about the robustness and nature of the immigrant-mental health link. We examine immigrant status as a protective factor against mental illness, assess intergenerational effects, examine differences across race/ethnicity, and report the prevalence of mood, anxiety, and personality disorders of immigrants across major world regions. We employ data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) and compare first ( n =5363) and second-generation ( n =4826) immigrants from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America to native-born Americans ( n =24,461) with respect to mental disorders. First-generation immigrants are significantly less likely than native-born Americans to be diagnosed with a mood, anxiety, or personality disorder, though the prevalence of mental health diagnoses increases among second generation immigrants. Similar results were observed for immigrants from major world regions as the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity was lower among immigrants from Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Asia compared to native-born Americans. Findings provide evidence in support of the notion that the immigrant paradox may be extended to include mood, anxiety, and personality disorders in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Barometers deployed as part of the USArray Transportable Array (TA) recorded large (300 Pa peak-to-peak) gravity waves, or gust fronts, that originated near a severe tornadic storm system in the southern United States on April 27, 2011. We present a new method in which the TA is divided into a large number of elemental sub-arrays. Each 3-element sub-array (triad) is sufficiently closely spaced so that the long-period gravity wave signal is coherent, but large enough to provide a robust estimate of the signal's direction and speed. The results from each triad are combined to follow the progress of gravity waves as they propagate across the TA over 2 days in late April, 2011. We observe a large, high-amplitude gravity wave, spanning a region over 200,000 km², progressing to the NNW away from the tornadic storm region. We also observe gravity waves with lower amplitudes and smaller spatial extent along the gulf coast, propagating southward, away from the storm region. This study demonstrates the functionality of the USArray pressure sensors for analyzing gravity wave dynamics over periods greater than 40 min and across a wide region. In principle the method could be applied to study other long-period wave phenomena recorded by any dense large-scale network and is not limited to gravity waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the promise of utilizing some relatively new feedback control techniques in ecosystem management. First, we set forth a basic ecological-economic model of a predator-prey-hunting system in which both the predator and prey have use (flow) and non-use (stock) value and when the predator can inflict transboundary damages. We then use new data from the US Mountain West to show how a particular feedback approach-linear parameter-varying (LPV) control-can be utilized in this context. Our LPV model is able to quantify the cost of managing disturbances that inevitably arise as a manager tries to keep the actual path of the system 'close' to its optimum. The results suggest management strategies in mountain ecosystems that feature large, mammalian carnivores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American legal system has proven remarkably robust even in the face of vast and often tumultuous political, social, economic, and technological change. Yet our system of law is not unlike other complex social, biological, and physical systems in exhibiting local fragility in the midst of its global robustness. Understanding how this "robust yet fragile" (RYF) dilemma operates in legal systems is important to the extent law is expected to assist in managing systemic risk--the risk of large local or even system-wide failures--in other social systems. Indeed, legal system failures have been blamed as partly responsible for disasters such as the recent financial system crisis and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. If we cannot effectively manage systemic risk within the legal system, how can we expect the legal system to manage systemic risk elsewhere? This Article employs a complexity science model of the RYF dilemma to explore why systemic risk persists in legal systems and how to manage it. Part I defines complexity in the context of the institutions and instruments that make up the legal system. Part II defines the five dimensions of robustness that support functionality of the legal system: (I) reliability, (2) efficiency, (3) scalability, (4) modularity, and (5) evolvability. Pari III then defines system fragility by examining the internal and external constraints that impede legal system robustness and the fail-safe system control strategies for managing their effects. With those basic elements of the RYF dilemma model in place, Part IV defines systemic risk and explores the paradoxical role of increasingly organized complexity brought about by fail-safe strategies as a source of legal system failure There is no way around the RYF dilemma--some degree of systemic risk is inherent in any complex adaptive system--but the balance between robustness and fragility is something we can hope to influence. To explore how, Part V applies the RYF dilemma model to a concrete systemic risk management context--oil drilling in the deep Gulf of Mexico. The legal regime governing offshore oil exploration and extraction has been blamed as contributing to the set of failures that led to the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon spill and is at the center of reform initiatives. Using this case study, I argue that the RYF dilemma model provides valuable insights into how legal systems fail and how to manage legal systemic risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests the stability of a standard equation for aggregate US imports over the period 1975-2011. It finds evidence of significant parameter instability, though its dating varies with the equation specification and diagnostic. Nonetheless, the analysis finds a significant rise in the long-run income elasticity that is robust across most break dates and specifications. The increase in the long-run income elasticity is consistent with shifts in the composition of aggregate imports toward capital and consumer goods. There is further evidence that vertical specialization may be behind both the structural instability and the apparent rise in the income elasticity of aggregate US imports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Barriers limit robust US high-speed rail (HSR) environmental assessment. [•] Five challenges must be addressed to improve the environmental assessment of HSR. [•] HSR assessment should consider complementary configurations with air. [•] Environmental research objectives are siloed across academics and practitioners. [•] Multi-modal long-distance mobility visions and research support are needed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of education and economic growth, investment in education to increase human development and economic growth, and the role of education in promoting economic well-being. We are specifically interested in how previous research investigated the robustness of the relationship between education and economic outcomes, the association between the returns to college and the decision to attend college, human capital as an engine of economic growth for technological change, and the economic impact of schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using individual-level data from the United States, we empirically investigate the role of lower-tail income inequality in determining rates of early nonmarital childbearing among low socioeconomic status (SES) women. We present robust evidence that young low-SES women are more likely to have a nonmarital birth when they live in places with larger lower-tail income inequality, all else held constant. We calculate that differences in the level of inequality are able to explain a sizeable share of the geographic variation in teen fertility rates. We propose a model of adolescent decision-making that facilitates the interpretation of our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the prediction skill of the contiguous United States (CONUS) precipitation in summer, as well as its potential sources using a set of ensemble hindcasts conducted with the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Climate Forecast System version 2 and initialized from four independent ocean analyses. The multiple ocean ensemble mean (MOCN_ESMEAN) hindcasts start from each April for 26 summers (1982-2007), with each oceanic state paired with four atmosphere-land states. A subset of hindcasts from the NCEP CFS Reanalysis and Reforecast (CFSRR) project for the same period, from the same initial month and with the same total ensemble size, is also analyzed. Compared with CFSRR, MOCN_ESMEAN is distinguished by its oceanic ensemble spread that introduces potentially larger perturbations and better spatial representation of the oceanic uncertainty. The prediction skill of the CONUS precipitation in summer shows a similar spatial pattern in both MOCN_ESMEAN and CFSRR, but the results suggested that initialization from multiple ocean analyses may bring more robust signals and additional skills to the seasonal prediction for both sea surface temperature and precipitation. Among the predictable areas for precipitation, the northwestern CONUS (NWUS) is the most robust. A further analysis shows that the enhanced summer precipitation prediction skill in NWUS is mainly associated with the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, with possible influence also from the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Through this work, we argue that a large ensemble is necessary for precipitation forecast in mid-latitudes, such as the CONUS, and taking into account of the oceanic initial state uncertainty is an efficient way to build such an ensemble. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that Dewey's pragmatist aesthetics, and in particular, his concept of consummatory experience, should be engaged anew to rethink the merits of the Philosophy for Children (PFC) programme, which arose in the 1970s in the US as an innovative educational programme that aims to use philosophy to help school children (aged 6-18) improve their ability to become more conscious of and make judgments about the aspects of their experience that have ethical, aesthetic, political, logical, or even metaphysical meaning. Although an international success, the PFC programme has attracted many criticisms from a variety of directions. I claim that Deweyan concept of consummatory aesthetic experience is broad and flexible enough to provide a robust framework to make sense of the pedagogical horizon of PFC and therefore fruitfully engage the various critics of the movement coming from religious and social conservatives, educational psychologists, critical theorists, postmodernists/posthumanists, and professional philosophers themselves. The goal of this paper is to offer in a preliminary fashion the basic elements of Deweyan pragmatist aesthetics, which was principally elucidated in his Art as Experience, to defend PFC as a viable pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper analyzes the state of critical transportation infrastructure in the US, its relationship to security, and how the lack of an updated national policy to resolve the serious weaknesses of the transportation infrastructure negatively impact security. The difficulties in safeguarding transportation networks are identified along with the degree to which changes enacted since 9/11 regarding intelligence and administration, notably the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, have led to increased security. However, these efforts, however successful, must be supplemented by a decision-making approach that goes beyond prevention and recognizes the importance of resiliency and such subsidiary concepts as robustness and redundancy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We apply methodology robust to outliers to an existing event study of the effect of U.S. financial reform on the stock markets of the 10 largest world economies, and obtain results that differ from the original OLS results in important ways. This finding underlines the importance of handling outliers in event studies. We further review closely the population of outliers identified using Cook's distance and find that many of the outliers lie within the event windows. We acknowledge that those data points lead to inaccurate regression fitting; however, we cannot remove them since they carry valuable information regarding the event effect. We study further the residuals of the outliers within event windows and find that the residuals change with application of M-estimators and MM-estimators; in most cases they became larger, meaning the main prediction equation is pulled back towards the main data population and further from the outliers and indicating more proper fitting. We support our empirical results by pseudosimulation experiments and find significant improvement in determination of both types of the event effect - abnormal returns and change in systematic risk. We conclude that robust methods are important for obtaining accurate measurement of event effects in event studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This research examines the relative effectiveness of various smoking control initiatives in lowering U.S. smoking prevalence. The main contribution lies in considering alternate state-level restrictions on retailers as well as smokers. Greater restrictions on smokers lower smoking prevalence, while those directed at retailers are largely ineffective. Upon disaggregation, territorial restrictions banning smoking in restaurants are found to be effective, whereas those in workplaces and in bars do not appreciably lower smoking prevalence. We also find some gender differences in the effectiveness of smoking restrictions. These findings are generally robust to alternate model specifications. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper provides an overview of the aircraft turbine engine control research at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). A brief introduction to the engine control problem is first provided with a description of the state-of-the-art control law structure. A historical aspect of engine control development since the 1940s is then provided with a special emphasis on the contributions of GRC. With the increased emphasis on aircraft safety, enhanced performance, and affordability, as well as the need to reduce the environmental impact of aircraft, there are many new challenges being faced by the designers of aircraft propulsion systems. The Controls and Dynamics Branch (CDB) at the GRC is leading and participating in various projects to develop advanced propulsion controls and diagnostics technologies that will help meet the challenging goals of NASA Aeronautics Research Mission programs. The rest of the paper provides an overview of the various CDB technology development activities in aircraft engine control and diagnostics, both current and some accomplished in the recent past. The motivation for each of the research efforts, the research approach, technical challenges, and the key progress to date are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considered setting a secondary National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for particulate matter (PM) to maintain urban visual air quality (VAQ) above the level that EPA believes results in adverse effects on public welfare. EPA is relying on a type of survey it calls a “VAQ preference study” to determine this level. Individuals are shown photographs of the same vista under a range of different visibility conditions and asked to state whether the VAQ in each photograph is “acceptable” or “unacceptable.” EPA considers the effect on public welfare to be adverse at the VAQ level that at least 50% of respondents deem unacceptable (the “VAQ cutpoint”). Given its central role in setting a NAAQS, the scientific validity of this method is an important question. This study tests the robustness of the VAQ preference study method by replicating the survey instrument from a prior VAQ preference study, and by applying two variants in which the only change was use of a different range of VAQ levels. Tested on split samples, these three variants produced statistically significantly different VAQ cutpoint estimates. In contrast, all three variants produced comparable results for a calibration task at the start of each survey in which respondents were asked to rate the VAQ in each photograph on a scale of 1–7 (without any opinion on the acceptability of each level). The significantly different estimates of VAQ cutpoints across survey variants cannot be attributed to inability on the part of respondents to discern whether they were being shown the entire range of actual visibility conditions. This suggests that VAQ preference surveys do not actually estimate individuals' enduring preferences regarding VAQ, because absolute preferences would not be influenced by the particular levels of VAQ over which their preferences are elicited. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Motor vehicle crashes result in millions of injuries and thousands of deaths each year in the United States. While most crash research datasets use Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) codes to identify injuries, most hospital datasets use the International Classification of Diseases, version 9 (ICD-9) codes. The objective of this research was to establish a one-to-one mapping between AIS and ICD-9 codes for use with motor vehicle crash injury research. This paper presents results from investigating different mapping approaches using the most common AIS 2+ injuries from the National Automotive Sampling System-Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS). The mapping approaches were generated from the National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) (428,637 code pairs), ICDMAP (2500 code pairs), and the Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) (4125 code pairs). Each approach may pair given AIS code with more than one ICD-9 code (mean number of pairs per AIS code: NTDB=211, ICDMAP=7, CIREN=5), and some of the potential pairs are unrelated. The mappings were evaluated using two comparative metrics coupled with qualitative inspection by an expert physician. Based on the number of false mappings and correct pairs, the best mapping was derived from CIREN. AIS and ICD-9 codes in CIREN are both manually coded, leading to more proper mappings between the two. Using the mapping presented herein, data from crash and hospital datasets can be used together to better understand and prevent motor vehicle crash injuries in the future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study examines if health care costs in the United States are affected by Baumol''s cost disease. It relies on an empirical test proposed by Hartwig (2008) and extended by Colombier (2010) and uses a panel data set of 50 states over the 1980–2009 period. The results suggest that health care costs grow more rapidly when economy-wide wage increases exceed productivity gains. The findings are fairly robust with respect to time- and state-fixed effects, individual state time trends, and two-stage least square estimation. Consequently, this study suggests that the U.S. health care sector suffers from Baumol''s cost disease. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Satellite remote sensing technology has contributed to the transformation of multiple earth science domains, putting space observations at the forefront of innovation in earth science. With new satellite missions being launched every year, new types of earth science data are being incorporated into science models and decision-making systems in a broad array of organizations. Policy guidance can influence the degree to which user needs influence mission design and when, and ensure that satellite missions serve both the scientific and user communities without becoming unfocused and overly expensive. By considering the needs of the user community early on in the mission-design process, agencies can ensure that satellites meet the needs of multiple constituencies. This paper describes the mission development process in NASA and ESA and compares and contrasts the successes and challenges faced by these agencies as they try to balance science and applications within their missions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the literature on sanctions effectiveness, scholars have identified a number of factors that may contribute to sanctions success. However, existing empirical studies provide mixed findings concerning the effects of these factors. This research note explores two possible reasons for this lack of consistency in the literature. First, informed by the recent theories that suggest threats are an important part of sanctions episodes, we analyze both threats and imposed sanctions. Second, to lessen model dependency of empirical findings, we employ a methodology that permits us to check systematically the robustness of the empirical results under various model specifications. Using the newly released Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions data, our analyses of both threats and imposed sanctions show that two factors—involvement of international institutions and severe costs on target states—are positively and robustly related to sanctions success at every stage in sanctions episodes. Our analyses also identify a number of other variables that are systematically related to sanctions success, but the significance of these relationships depends on the specific model estimated. Finally, our results point to a number of differences at the threat and imposition stages, which suggests specific selection effects that should be explored in future work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2010, the American College of Medical Toxicology established its Case Registry, the Toxicology Investigators Consortium (ToxIC). ToxIC is a prospective registry, which exclusively compiles suspected and confirmed toxic exposure cases cared for at the bedside by medical toxicologists at its participating sites. The Registry aims to fulfill two important gaps in the field: a real-time toxicosurveillance system to identify current poisoning trends and a powerful research tool in toxicology. ToxIC allows extraction of information from medical records making it the most robust multicenter database on chemical toxicities in existence. All cases seen by medical toxicologists at participating institutions were entered in a database. Information characterizing patients entered in 2011 was tabulated. 2010 data was also included so that cumulative total numbers could be described as well. The current report is a summary of the data collected in 2011 in comparison to 2010 entries and also includes cumulative data through December 31st, 2011. During 2011, 28 sites with 49 specific institutions contributed a total of 6,456 cases to the Registry. The total number of cases entered into the registry at the end of 2011 was 10,392. Emergency departments remained the most common source of consultations in 2011, accounting for 53 % of cases. The most common reason for consultation was for pharmaceutical overdoses, which occurred in 48 % of patients, including intentional (37 %) and unintentional (11 %) exposures. The most common classes of agents were sedative-hypnotics (1,492 entries in 23 % of cases), non-opioid analgesics (1,368 cases in 21 % of cases), opioids (17 %), antidepressants (16 %), stimulants/sympathomimetics (12 %), and ethanol (8 %). N-acetylcysteine was the most commonly administered antidote during 2011, similar to 2010, followed by the opioid antagonist naloxone, sodium bicarbonate, physostigmine and flumazenil. Anti-crotalid Fab fragments (CroFab) were administered in 106 out of 131 cases in which an envenomation occurred. There were 35 deaths recorded in the Registry during 2011. The most common associated agents, including when reported as sole agent or in combination with other agents, were opioids and analgesics (acetaminophen, aspirin, NSAIDS) with ten and eight deaths, respectively. Oxycodone was reported in six of the ten opioid-related deaths and heroin in three. Acetaminophen was the most common single agent reported overall being identified in all eight of the death cases attributed to analgesics. There were significant trends identified during 2011. Cases involving designer drugs including psychoactive bath salts and synthetic cannabinoids increased substantially from 2010 to 2011. The psychoactive bath salts were responsible for a large increase in stimulant/sympathomimetic-related cases reported to the Registry in 2011 with overall numbers doubling from 6 % of all Registry entries in 2010 to 12 % in 2011. Entries involving psychoactive drugs of abuse also increased twofold from 2010 to 2011 jumping 3 to 6 %, primarily due to increasing frequency of synthetic cannabinoid ('K2') related intoxications as 2011 progressed. The 2011 Registry included over 600 ADR's (10 % of Registry Cases) with 115 agents causing at least 2 ADR's. This is up from only 3 % of cases (116 total cases) in 2010. The ToxIC Case Registry continues to grow. At the end of 2011, over 10,000 cases had been entered into the Registry. As demonstrated by the trends identified in psychoactive bath salt and synthetic cannabinoid reports, the Registry is a valuable toxicosurveillance and research tool. The ToxIC Registry is a unique tool for identifying and characterizing confirmed cases of significant or potential toxicity or complexity to require bedside consultation by a medical toxicologist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past 16 years, the International Training and Research in Environmental and Occupational Health program (ITREOH) has supported projects that link U.S. academic scientists with scientists from low- and middle-income countries in diverse research and research training activities. Twenty-two projects of varied duration have conducted training to enhance the research capabilities of scientists at 75 institutions in 43 countries in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, and have built productive research relationships between these scientists and their U.S. partners. ITREOH investigators and their trainees have produced publications that have advanced basic sciences, developed methods, informed policy outcomes, and built institutional capacity. Today, the changing nature of the health sciences calls for a more strategic approach. Data-rich team science requires greater capacity for information technology and knowledge synthesis at the local institution. More robust systems for ethical review and administrative support are necessary to advance population-based research. Sustainability of institutional research capability depends on linkages to multiple national and international partners. In this context, the Fogarty International Center, the National Institute of Environmental Sciences and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, have reengineered the ITREOH program to support and catalyze a multi-national network of regional hubs for Global Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences (GEOHealth). We anticipate that these networked science hubs will build upon previous investments by the ITREOH program and will serve to advance locally and internationally important health science, train and attract first-class scientists, and provide critical evidence to guide policy discussions. Am. J. Ind. Med. 55:1069-1077, 2012. Published 2012. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1980s and 1990s, Peru’s Marginal Highway became the target of two inextricable conflicts: a bitter counter-insurgency war with the Maoist Shining Path and a US-sponsored effort to suppress a cocaine boom. This essay considers how attempts to transform the material surface of the highway altered the road’s orientation while asserting claims of territorial sovereignty and shaping the kinds of publics brought together. Furrows and walls each expressed singular points around which accounts of regional history would be told. Yet, it was their robust materiality that enabled distinct kinds of encounters, many of them violent: not only collisions but ambushes, confiscations, and executions. Focusing on the surface disruptions of the road, I suggest, offers a ready means for examining highway events as well as their relationship to the lived topographies of law in state frontiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exploits variation in the timing and outcomes of employment discrimination lawsuits against US law enforcement agencies to estimate the cumulative and persistent employment effects of temporary externally-imposed affirmative action (AA). We find AA increased black employment at all ranks by between 4.5 and 6.2 percentage points, relative to national trends. We also find no erosion of these employment gains in the fifteen years following AA termination, although black employment growth was significantly lower in departments after AA ended than in departments whose plans continued. For women, in contrast, we only find marginal employment gains at lower ranks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: When the Federal Reserve was established by the US Congress in 1913, its charter mandated that the new central bank “promote an elastic currency” and the institution was given extraordinary powers to serve as a lender of last resort to the banking system. Congress was reacting to the cycle of financial panics that had beset the country since the Civil War and had worsened with the Panic of 1907. Congress sought to find a remedy to prevent runs on banks turning into full-fledged financial crises. The term “elastic” in the opening words of the charter was intended to underscore the need for a robust banking system that could withstand shocks and not collapse upon itself. There was no mention whatsoever of a dual mandate of promoting price stability and encouraging full employment. With prodding from the US Congress, the Federal Reserve became highly involved in the management of the economy of the United States after WWII, focusing on inflation and full employment objectives. In 1993 Professor John Taylor set forth an elegant and simple framework (aka, the Taylor Rule) for analyzing the interest rate policy of the Federal Reserve in terms of its dual mandate. This paper examines Federal Reserve behavior from the mid-1950s to 2011 through the lens of the Taylor Rule. Our contribution is to use a dynamic linear model with Bayesian inference to update the evolution through time of the key parameters surrounding the inflation and full employment mandates, using only the information available to the Federal Reserve at each point in time. Our findings provide a more nuanced quantitative view than is previously available in the literature of how the Federal Reserve shifted its management of its dual mandate over time and in response to different economic challenges. Moreover, our research leads to serious questions of how Federal Reserve decision making may change in the future, following the financial panic of 2008, pointing toward numerous avenues for new research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, we present a new approach for speaker diarization. First, we use the prosodic information calculated on the original speech to resynthesize the new speech data utilizing the spectrum modeling technique. The resynthesized data is modeled with sinusoids based on pitch, vibration amplitude, and phase bias. Then, we use the resynthesized speech data to extract cepstral features and integrate them with the cepstral features from original speech for speaker diarization. At last, we show how the two streams of cepstral features can be combined to improve the robustness of speaker diarization. Experiments carried out on the standardized datasets (the US National Institute of Standards and Technology Rich Transcription 04-S multiple distant microphone conditions) show a significant improvement in diarization error rate compared to the system based on only the feature stream from original speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article describes improved techniques to calculate the wind power resource of an offshore area. The method uses publicly available oceanic, environmental and socio-economic data to identify areas less suitable for development due to physical or technical constraints, safety or other hazards, environmental concerns, or competing uses. Using wind speed data from meteorological buoys, annual energy output is calculated for a representative offshore wind turbine. The average power resource is determined by dividing the total available area by a wind regime and the turbine-specific effective turbine footprint, yielding the maximum number of turbines, and then derating the output to account for wake effects and operational availability. These techniques are applied to quantify the previously undocumented offshore wind resource off the coast of Maryland, a U.S. Atlantic coastal state. We consider only the open-ocean Atlantic and not Maryland’s substantial estuary, the Chesapeake Bay. We find that the wind field is fairly uniform, but exclusions of ocean areas due to competing use may be substantial, reducing the energy resource estimate significantly. Nevertheless, we find that even excluding these areas Maryland’s offshore wind resource could supply an annual average of 14,087Megawatts (MWa), or 123,400GWh of energy per year. This is equal to 189% of the state’s annual electricity consumption. Further restricting to only shallower-water foundation technology (monopiles), average power output would still be 70% of electricity demand. We conclude with a discussion of policy options for coastal states. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

ABSTRACT Secure distributed spectrum sensing (DSS) schemes in cognitive radio networks (CRNs) have been proposed to reliably detect the signals of the primary users (PUs) even when compromised nodes generate forged sensing reports. However, they have limited sensing accuracy for PU signals because of the absence of exact signal patterns of PUs. This is caused by Federal Communications Commission restriction on (no modification of) PUs, and thus, the CRNs cannot communicate with the PUs to obtain such patterns. We propose a verification framework utilizing primary user emulation signals that can be applied to existing DSS schemes to address this challenge. This will reinforce the robustness against forged sensing values. We then develop a concrete verification scheme based on this framework and an existing secure DSS scheme. We evaluate our approach via in-depth simulation and analysis compared with the existing scheme. Results show that our approach improves sensing accuracy and fusion speed in the cases of attack. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract--Bacteria exist in a variety of groups of shapes, sizes, and single or multiple cell formations. In this paper, the level set shape reconstruction technique, the method of moments, and the marching cubes methods are integrated in the high frequency band for imaging three dimensional bacteria. The time step and the resolution of the marching cubes method are investigated to smooth the error function of the level set and hence speed up the convergence at high frequencies. The numerical results demonstrate the robustness of the level set algorithm for the detection of bacteria based on their shapes. The three dimensional shape reconstructions of unknown bacteria can be utilized to classify biological warfare agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper provides a solution to address one of the requirements identified in the US Northwest 6th Power Plan, specifically, meeting an increase in the forecasted Pacific Northwest demand with renewable generation. A model is presented which evaluates one source of renewable generation, off-shore wind energy. The model analyzes different wind turbine design characteristics, assigns significance to potential synergistic effects of one design feature on another, and provides an optimized design relative to the cost, environment, robustness, and overall efficiency of an off-shore wind turbine. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]