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Background: The opioid epidemic is an ongoing public health emergency, exacerbated in recent years by the introduction and rising prevalence of synthetic opioids. The National EMS Scope of Practice Model was changed in 2017 to recommend allowing basic life support (BLS) clinicians to administer intranasal (IN) naloxone. This study examines local IN naloxone administration rates for 4 years after the new recommendation, and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores and respiratory rates before and after naloxone administration. Methods: This retrospective cohort study evaluated naloxone administrations between April 1st 2017 and March 31st 2021 in a mixed urban-suburban EMS system. Naloxone dosages, routes of administration, and frequency of administrations were captured along with demographic information. Analysis of change in the ratio of IN to intravenous (IV) naloxone administrations per patient was performed, with the intention of capturing administration patterns in the area. Analyses were performed for change over time of IN naloxone rates of administration, change in respiratory rates, and change in GCS scores after antidote administration. ALS and BLS clinician certification levels were also identified. Bootstrapping procedures were used to estimate 95% confidence intervals for correlation coefficients. Results: Two thousand and ninety patients were analyzed. There was no statistically significant change in the IN/parenteral ratio over time (p = 0.79). Repeat dosing increased over time from 1.2 ± 0.4 administrations per patient to 1.3 ± 0.5 administrations per patient (r = 0.078, 95% CI: 0.036 − 0.120; p = 0.036). Mean respiratory rates before (mean = 12.6 − 12.6, r = −0.04, 95% CI: −0.09 − 0.01; p = 0.1) and after (mean = 15.2 − 14.9, r = −0.03, 95% CI: −0.08 − 0.01; p = 0.172) naloxone administration have not changed. While initial GCS scores have become significantly lower, GCS scores after administration of naloxone have not changed (initial median GCS 10 − 6, p < 0.001; final median GCS 15 – 15, p = 0.23). Conclusions: Current dosing protocols of naloxone appear effective in the era of synthetic opioids in our region, although patients may be marginally more likely to require repeat naloxone doses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With democratic governance under threat in the United States and abroad, legal scholars have endeavored to defend the institutions considered integral to a well-functioning democracy. According to an increasing number of civil procedure scholars, civil litigation should be included among those institutions, with many contending that litigation performs several important "democratic" functions. This Article draws on political theory to explicate and evaluate this emerging democratic defense of civil litigation, as well as to situate the defense in the broader context of democratic argumentation about non-representative institutions in legal theory. Democracy is just as complex as any other normative concept, and that complexity pervades the democratic defense of civil litigation. Not only do civil procedure scholars identify several distinct democratic functions that litigation ostensibly serves, establishing several distinct potential connections between the institution and democracy; they also rely (often implicitly) on several distinct conceptions of the ideal to draw those connections. More specifcally, when the democratic defense runs up against litigation's many incontrovertibly non-majoritarian features, proponents tend to resort to what political theorists have described as less political conceptions of democracy--that is, conceptions that see democracy less as a procedure for negotiating persistent disagreements between competing segments of society through ongoing contestation over political power and more as a set of social activities further removed from the exercise of political power or even a set of substantive moral ends to be imposed via that power once and for all. This Article argues that such depoliticization of democracy has considerable drawbacks in the civil justice context. In recent decades, the institution of civil litigation has come under assault from both the right and the left. Yet the less political conceptions of democracy underwriting signifcant facets of the democratic defense are unlikely to vindicate litigation against those attacks. For, in order to assimilate litigation to other, representative institutions, the democratic defense must subsume disparate, often-competing values under the single heading of "democracy." Such confation not only elides the many inevitable tradeoffs between those values, but also distracts us from what's distinctive and most valuable about litigation--what functions litigation can perform but other political institutions can't. And without a clear sense of litigation's unique role in our political system, defenders of litigation will struggle to parry calls for civil justice "reform," which on a wide range of policy issues--from arbitration to aggregate litigation to private enforcement--often posit a set of alternative institutions that supposedly serve the same purposes as litigation, only better. In its tendency to depoliticize democracy, the democratic defense of civil litigation refects similar trends in recent legal theory. This Article shows how scholars of both private and public law increasingly invoke democracy to justify the work of non-representative institutions such as courts and administrative agencies but rely on less political conceptions of the ideal to do so. Such depoliticization risks obscuring the institutions' most distinctive normative contributions, as well as the inevitable conficts between those contributions and other fundamental values, including a democratic commitment to popular sovereignty. Absent consensus about how to resolve such conficts, the best we may be able to do is to render nonrepresentative institutions such as litigation more accountable to other, representative institutions that are better situated to negotiate persistent disagreements about fundamental values. Democratic defenses of litigation and other non-representative institutions, by contrast, attempt to account for those institutions' non-majoritarian qualities at the steep price of taking much of the disagreement--and thus much of the politics--out of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With democratic governance under threat in the United States and abroad, legal scholars have endeavored to defend the institutions considered integral to a well-functioning democracy. According to an increasing number of civil procedure scholars, civil litigation should be included among those institutions, with many contending that litigation performs several important "democratic" functions. This Article draws on political theory to explicate and evaluate this emerging democratic defense of civil litigation, as well as to situate the defense in the broader context of democratic argumentation about non-representative institutions in legal theory. Democracy is just as complex as any other normative concept, and that complexity pervades the democratic defense of civil litigation. Not only do civil procedure scholars identify several distinct democratic functions that litigation ostensibly serves, establishing several distinct potential connections between the institution and democracy; they also rely (often implicitly) on several distinct conceptions of the ideal to draw those connections. More specifically, when the democratic defense runs up against litigation's many incontrovertibly non-majoritarian features, proponents tend to resort to what political theorists have described as less "political" conceptions of democracy--that is, conceptions that see democracy less as a procedure for negotiating persistent disagreements between competing segments of society through ongoing contestation over political power and more as a set of social activities further removed from the exercise of political power or even a set of substantive moral ends to be imposed via that power once and for all. This Article argues that such depoliticization of democracy has considerable drawbacks in the civil justice context. In recent decades, the institution of civil litigation has come under assault from both the right and the left. Yet the less political conceptions of democracy underwriting significant facets of the democratic defense are unlikely to vindicate litigation against those attacks. For, in order to assimilate litigation to other, representative institutions, the democratic defense must subsume disparate, often-competing values under the single heading of "democracy." Such conflation not only elides the many inevitable tradeoffs between those values, but also distracts us from what's distinctive and most valuable about litigation--what functions litigation can perform but other political institutions can't. And without a clear sense of litigation's unique role in our political system, defenders of litigation will struggle to parry calls for civil justice "reform," which on a wide range of policy issues--from arbitration to aggregate litigation to private enforcement--often posit a set of alternative institutions that supposedly serve the same purposes as litigation, only better. In its tendency to depoliticize democracy, the democratic defense of civil litigation reflects similar trends in recent legal theory. This Article shows how scholars of both private and public law increasingly invoke democracy to justify the work of non-representative institutions such as courts and administrative agencies but rely on less political conceptions of the ideal to do so. Such depoliticization risks obscuring the institutions' most distinctive normative contributions, as well as the inevitable conflicts between those contributions and other fundamental values, including a democratic commitment to popular sovereignty. Absent consensus about how to resolve such conflicts, the best we may be able to do is to render non-representative institutions such as litigation more accountable to other, representative institutions that are better situated to negotiate persistent disagreements about fundamental values. Democratic defenses of litigation and other non-representative institutions, by contrast, attempt to account for those institutions' non-majoritarian qualities at the steep price of taking much of the disagreement--and thus much of the politics--out of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linkage errors in probabilistically matched data sets can cause biases in the estimation of regression coefficients. This article proposes an approach to obtain consistent estimates and valid inference that relies on instrumental variables. The novelty of the method is to show that instrumental variables arise naturally in the course of probabilistic record linkage thereby allowing for off-the-shelf implementation. Relative to existing approaches, the instrumental variable approach does not require integration of the record linkage and regression analysis steps, the estimation of complex models of linkage error, or computationally expensive methods to estimate standard errors. The instrumental variables approach performs well in Monte Carlo simulations of an environment highlighting a many-to-one linkage problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adapting flexibly to changing circumstances is guided by memory of past choices, their outcomes in similar circumstances, and a method for choosing among potential actions. The hippocampus (HPC) is needed to remember episodes, and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) helps guide memory retrieval. Single-unit activity in the HPC and PFC correlates with such cognitive functions. Previous work recorded CA1 and mPFC activity as male rats performed a spatial reversal task in a plus maze that requires both structures, found that PFC activity helps reactivate HPC representations of pending goal choices but did not describe frontotemporal interactions after choices. We describe these interactions after choices here. CA1 activity tracked both current goal location and the past starting location of single trials; PFC activity tracked current goal location better than past start location. CA1 and PFC reciprocally modulated representations of each other both before and after goal choices. After choices, CA1 activity predicted changes in PFC activity in subsequent trials, and the magnitude of this prediction correlated with faster learning. In contrast, PFC start arm activity more strongly modulated CA1 activity after choices correlated with slower learning. Together, the results suggest post-choice HPC activity conveys retrospective signals to the PFC, which combines different paths to common goals into rules. In subsequent trials, prechoice mPFC activity modulates prospective CA1 signals informing goal selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adenosine has been safely used by paramedics for the treatment of stable supraventricular tachycardia since the mid-1990s. However, there continues to be variability in paramedics' ability to identify appropriate indications for adenosine administration. As the first of a planned series of studies aimed at improving the accuracy of SVT diagnosis and successful administration of adenosine by paramedics, this study details the current usage patterns of adenosine by paramedics. This cross-sectional retrospective study investigated adenosine use within a large northeast EMS region from January 1, 2019, through September 30, 2021. Excluding pediatric and duplicate case reports, we created a dataset containing patient age, sex, and vital signs before, during, and after adenosine administration; intravenous line location; and coded medical history from paramedic narrative documentation, including a history of atrial fibrillation, suspected arrhythmia diagnosis, and effect of adenosine. In cases with available prehospital electrocardiograms (EKGs) for review, two physicians independently coded the arrhythmia diagnosis and outcome of adenosine administration. Statistical analysis included interrater reliability with Cohen's kappa statistic. One hundred eighty-three cases were included for final analysis, 84 did not have a documented EKG for review. Categorization of presenting rhythms in these cases occurred by a physician reviewing EMS narrative and documentation. Forty of these 84 cases (48%) were adjudicated as SVT likely, 32 (38%) as SVT unlikely and 12 (14%) as uncategorized due to lack of supporting documentation. Of the 99 cases with EKGs available to review, there was substantial agreement of arrhythmia diagnosis interpretation between physician reviewers (Cohen's kappa 0.77–1.0); 54 cases were adjudicated as SVT by two physician reviewers. Other identified cardiac rhythms included atrial fibrillation (16), sinus tachycardia (11), and ventricular tachycardia (2). Adenosine cardioversion occurred in 47 of the 99 cases with EKGs available for physician review (47.5%). Adenosine cardioversion was also deemed to occur in 87% (47/54) of cases when the EKG rhythm was physician adjudicated SVT. This study supports the use of adenosine as a prehospital treatment for SVT while highlighting the need for continued efforts to improve paramedics' identification and management of tachyarrhythmias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: COVID-19 infections in the community have the potential to overwhelm both prehospital and in-hospital resources. Transport of well-appearing patients, in the absence of available emergency department treatment capacity, increases strain on the hospital and EMS system. In May of 2020, the Connecticut Office of EMS issued a voluntary, EMS-initiated, non-transport protocol for selected low-risk patients with symptoms consistent with COVID-19. We evaluated the implementation of this non-transport protocol in a mixed urban/suburban EMS system. Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of contemporaneously recorded quality improvement documentation for uses of the Connecticut COVID-19 non-transport protocol by EMS clinicians within our EMS system during two implementations: from 12/14/2020 to 5/1/21, and again from 1/3/22 to 2/18/22, which coincided with large COVID-19 case surges in our region. Results: The vast majority of patients treated under the non-transport protocol were not reevaluated by EMS or in our emergency departments in the subsequent 24 hours. There was reasonable adherence to the protocol, with 83% of cases appropriate for the non-transport protocol. The most common reasons for protocol violations were age outside of protocol scope (pediatric patients), failure of documentation, or vital signs outside of the established protocol parameters. We did not find an increased 24-hour ED visit rate in patients who were inappropriately triaged to the protocol. Of patients who had ED visits within 24 hours, only two were admitted, none to higher levels of care. Conclusion: Within this small study, EMS clinicians in our system were able to safely and accurately apply a non-transport protocol for patients presenting with symptoms consistent with COVID-19. This is consistent with previous literature suggesting that EMS-initiated non-transport is a viable strategy to reduce the burden on health systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to explore whether hypersensitivity in patients with subacromial pain syndrome (SPS) manifests purely as localized peripheral sensitization or central sensitization, is influenced by the presence of subacromial pain, and presents similarly in male and female patients. Pressure pain threshold was assessed in both a patient cohort with unilateral SPS and an uninjured matched control group. Control subjects were assessed twice, with a 15 minute rest period between testing, while patients were assessed at baseline and after an almost instantaneous reduction in pain arising from an anesthetic injection in patients. Patients received a subacromial injection consisting of both anesthetics (3 cc of 2% lidocaine and 6 cc 0.5% Marcaine with Epinephrine) and a corticosteroid agent (1 cc DepoMedrol). Patients demonstrated hypersensitivity across the involved shoulder only, providing evidence for peripheral sensitization. There were trends for hypersensitivity across remote joints, however when separated by sex, only female patients demonstrated both peripheral and central sensitization. Immediate pain reduction had no influence on hypersensitivity in the short‐term. Clinical Significance: Neuropathic components are likely present in some patients with subacromial pain syndrome, and female patients may be particularly at risk for presenting with neuropathic pain. These findings are applicable towards understanding the heterogeneous etiology underlying subacromial pain syndrome and informing clinical management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low liquidity and a high marginal propensity to consume are tightly linked. This paper analyzes this link in the context of income tax withholding and refunds. A theory of rational cash management with income uncertainty endogenizes the relationship between illiquidity and the marginal propensity to consume, and can explain the finding that households tend to spend tax refunds as if they valued liquidity, yet do not act to increase liquidity by reducing their withholding. The theory is supported by individual-level evidence based on financial account records, including a positive correlation between the size of tax refunds and the marginal propensity to consume out of those refunds. (JEL E21, G51, H24, H31) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The systematic monitoring of private communications through the use of information technology pervades the digital age. One result of this is the potential availability of vast amount of data tracking the characteristics of mobile network users. Such data is becoming increasingly accessible for commercial use, while the accessibility of such data raises questions about the degree to which personal information can be protected. Existing regulations may require the removal of personally-identifiable information (PII) from datasets before they can be processed, but research now suggests that powerful machine learning classification methods are capable of targeting individuals for personalized marketing purposes, even in the absence of PII. This study aims to demonstrate how machine learning methods can be deployed to extract demographic characteristics. Specifically, we investigate whether key demographics—gender and age—of mobile users can be accurately identified by third parties using deep learning techniques based solely on observations of the user's interactions within the network. Using an anonymized dataset from a Latin American country, we show the relative ease by which PII in terms of the age and gender demographics can be inferred; specifically, our neural networks model generates an estimate for gender with an accuracy rate of 67%, outperforming decision tree, random forest, and gradient boosting models by a significant margin. Neural networks achieve an even higher accuracy rate of 78% in predicting the subscriber age. These results suggest the need for a more robust regulatory framework governing the collection of personal data to safeguard users from predatory practices motivated by fraudulent intentions, prejudices, or consumer manipulation. We discuss in particular how advances in machine learning have chiseled away a number of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) articles designed to protect consumers from the imminent threat of privacy violations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade has witnessed a growth in the use of knowledge graph technologies for advanced data search, data integration, and query‐answering applications. The leading example of a public, general‐purpose open knowledge network (aka knowledge graph) is Wikidata, which has demonstrated remarkable advances in quality and coverage over this time. Proprietary knowledge graphs drive some of the leading applications of the day including, for example, Google Search, Alexa, Siri, and Cortana. Open Knowledge Networks are exciting: they promise the power of structured database‐like queries with the potential for the wide coverage that is today only provided by the Web. With the current state of the art, building, using, and scaling large knowledge networks can still be frustratingly slow. This article describes a National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator project to build a set of Knowledge Network Programming Infrastructure systems to address this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade has witnessed a growth in the use of knowledge graph technologies for advanced data search, data integration, and query-answering applications. The leading example of a public, general-purpose open knowledge network (aka knowledge graph) is Wikidata, which has demonstrated remarkable advances in quality and coverage over this time. Proprietary knowledge graphs drive some of the leading applications of the day including, for example, Google Search, Alexa, Siri, and Cortana. Open Knowledge Networks are exciting: they promise the power of structured database-like queries with the potential for the wide coverage that is today only provided by the Web. With the current state of the art, building, using, and scaling large knowledge networks can still be frustratingly slow. This article describes a National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator project to build a set of Knowledge Network Programming Infrastructure systems to address this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we aimed to determine if electromyography (EMG) normalization to maximal voluntary isometric contractions (MVIC) was influenced by subacromial pain in patients with subacromial impingement syndrome. Patients performed MVICs in unique testing positions for each shoulder muscle tested before and after subacromial injection of local anesthetic. In addition to collection of MVIC data, EMG data during an arm elevation task were recorded before and after injection. From a visual analog pain scale, patients had a 64% decrease in pain following the injection. Significant increases in MVICs were noted in 4 of the 7 shoulder muscles tested: anterior, middle and posterior deltoid, and lower trapezius. No significant differences were noticed for the upper trapezius, latissimus dorsi, or serratus anterior. MVIC condition (pre and post injection) had a significant influence on EMG normalization for the anterior deltoid and lower trapezius muscle. Results indicate that subacromial pain can influence shoulder muscle activity, especially for the deltoid muscles and lower trapezius. In addition, normalization to MVIC in the presence of pain can have unpredictable results. Caution should be taken when normalizing EMG data to MVIC in the presence of pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When faced with changing contingencies, animals can use memory to flexibly guide actions, engaging both frontal and temporal lobe brain structures. Damage to the hippocampus (HPC) impairs episodic memory, and damage to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) impairs cognitive flexibility, but the circuit mechanisms by which these areas support flexible memory processing remain unclear. The present study investigated these mechanisms by temporarily inactivating the medial PFC (mPFC), the dorsal HPC (dHPC), and the ventral HPC (vHPC), individually and in combination, as rats learned spatial discriminations and reversals in a plus maze. Bilateral inactivation of either the dHPC or vHPC profoundly impaired spatial learning and memory, whereas bilateral mPFC inactivation primarily impaired reversal versus discrimination learning. Inactivation of unilateral mPFC together with the contralateral dHPC or vHPC impaired spatial discrimination and reversal learning, whereas ipsilateral inactivation did not. Flexible spatial learning thus depends on both the dHPC and vHPC and their functional interactions with the mPFC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article jointly estimates the relationship between stock share and expectations and risk preferences. The survey allows individual-level, quantitative estimates of risk tolerance and of the perceived mean, and variance of stock returns. These estimates have economically and statistically significant association for the distribution of stock shares with relative magnitudes in proportion with the predictions of theories. Incorporating survey measurement error in the estimation model increases the estimated associations 2-fold, but they are still substantially attenuated being only about 5% of what benchmark finance theories predict. Because of the careful attention in the estimation to measurement error, the attenuation likely arises from economic behavior rather than errors in variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under authoritarian regimes, citizen-led NGOs such as environmental NGOs (ENGOs) often operate under close scrutiny of the government. While this presents a challenge to a single ENGO, we propose here - in line with existing research on network effects - that there are opportunities for multiple ENGOs to coordinate and thus work in ways that supersede government controls, affect public opinion, and contribute to policy revision and/or creation. In this paper, we specifically examine the possibility that the gamut of citizen-based ENGOs in China are coordinating. Based on network analysis of ENGOs web pages as well as interviews with more than a dozen ENGO leaders between 2014 and 2016, we find that ENGOs have few direct and public connections to each other, but social media sites and personal connections offline provide a crucial function in creating bridges. A closer examination of these bridges reveals, however, that they can be substantive to the environmental discussion or functional to the dissemination of web page information but typically not both. In short, ENGOs in China are not directly connected but rather are connected in a way that responds to the available social media and the government's censorship practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older wealth holders spend down assets much more slowly than predicted by classic life-cycle models. This paper introduces health-dependent utility into a model with incomplete markets in which preferences for bequests, expenditures when in need of long-term care, and ordinary consumption combine with health and longevity uncertainty to explain saving behavior. To sharply identify motives, it develops strategic survey questions (SSQs) that elicit stated preferences. The model is estimated using these SSQs and wealth data from the Vanguard Research Initiative. The desire to self-insure against long-term-care risk explains a substantial fraction of the wealth holding of many older Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the "American Economic Journal: Economic Policy," a peer-reviewed journal launched by the American Economic Association (AEA). Topics discussed include its editorial process which follows the same procedures used by "The American Economic Review," the AEA disclosure policy for authors, and its editorial staff including co-editors Lucas Davis and Kirabo Jackson.

Dispute resolution has become increasingly shrouded in secrecy, with the proliferation of protective orders in discovery, confidential settlement agreements, and private arbitration. While many civil procedure scholars have criticized this trend for undermining the systemic benefits of public adjudication, the desirability of secrecy in civil litigation proves to be a much more complicated question. On the one hand, some of those same scholars have recently sought to justify civil litigation in terms that, ironically, highlight the benefits of secrecy. Although this new justification remains somewhat inchoate, it is best understood as a claim that the procedures of civil litigation allow individual plaintiffs to realize one aspect of their dignity--which this Article labels "dignity-asstatus"--by empowering them to call those who have allegedly wronged them to account and to thereby reassert their standing as equals. The problem is that civil litigation can also undermine another aspect of plaintiffs' dignity--which this Article labels "dignity-as-image"--by requiring them to divulge sensitive personal information and thus to cede control over their public self-presentation. Secrecy can help to preserve this second aspect of plaintiffs' dignity. On the other hand, secrecy can also deprive plaintiffs of a potentially powerful expressive weapon in their quest to hold wrongdoers accountable. In conditions of socioeconomic inequality, weaker plaintiffs can sometimes turn the humiliating aspects of civil litigation to their advantage, intentionally revealing sensitive personal information that emphasizes their lower social status in order to shame their more powerful adversaries. It turns out that civil litigation can indeed promote plaintiffs' dignity-as-status, but by affording them a venue in which to deliberately compromise their dignity-as-image--to humiliate, as much as ennoble, themselves. Given the complex nature of dignity and the complex trade-off between secrecy's dignitarian benefits and costs, plaintiffs should be given more control over how much of their personal information is disseminated beyond the immediate parties to a lawsuit--a prescription with implications not only for secrecy in civil litigation, but also potentially for several other prominent procedural issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Science Foundation-Census Bureau Research Network (NCRN) was established in 2011 to create interdisciplinary research nodes on methodological questions of interest and significance to the broader research community and to the Federal Statistical System (FSS), particularly to the Census Bureau. The activities to date have covered both fundamental and applied statistical research and have focused at least in part on the training of current and future generations of researchers in skills of relevance to surveys and alternative measurement of economic units, households, and persons. This article focuses on some of the key research findings of the eight nodes, organized into six topics: (1) improving census and survey data-quality and data collection methods; (2) using alternative sources of data; (3) protecting privacy and confidentiality by improving disclosure avoidance; (4) using spatial and spatio-temporal statistical modeling to improve estimates; (5) assessing data cost and data-quality tradeoffs; and (6) combining information from multiple sources. The article concludes with an evaluation of the ability of the FSS to apply the NCRN's research outcomes, suggests some next steps, and discusses the implications of this research-network model for future federal government research initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have reported that ambient air pollution, which has both local and long-range sources, causes adverse impacts on the environment and human health. Previous studies have investigated the impacts of transboundary air pollution (TAP) in East Asia, albeit primarily through analyses of episodic events. In addition, it is useful to better understand the spatiotemporal variations in TAP and the resultant impact on the environment and human health. This study aimed at assessing and quantifying the air quality impacts in Japan and South Korea due to local emissions and TAP from sources in East Asia - one of the most polluted regions in the world. We applied state-of-the-science atmospheric models to simulate air quality in East Asia and then analyzed the air quality and acid deposition impacts of both local emissions and TAP sources in Japan and South Korea. Our results show that ∼ 30 % of the annual average ambient PM 2.5 concentrations in Japan and South Korea in 2010 were contributed to by local emissions within each country, while the remaining ∼ 70 % were contributed to by TAP from other countries in the region. More detailed analyses also revealed that the local contribution was higher in the metropolises of Japan (∼ 40 %–79 %) and South Korea (∼ 31 %–55 %) and that minimal seasonal variations in surface PM 2.5 occurred in Japan, whereas there was a relatively large variation in South Korea in the winter. Further, among all five studied anthropogenic emission sectors of China, the industrial sector represented the greatest contributor to annual surface PM 2.5 concentrations in Japan and South Korea, followed by the residential and power generation sectors. Results also show that TAP's impact on acid deposition (SO42- and NO3-) was larger than TAP's impact on PM 2.5 concentrations (accounting for over 80 % of the total deposition), and that seasonal variations in acid deposition were similar for both Japan and South Korea (i.e., higher in both the winter and summer). Finally, wet deposition had a greater impact on mixed forests in Japan and savannas in South Korea. Given these significant impacts of TAP in the region, it is paramount that cross-national efforts should be taken to mitigate air pollution problems across East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines partisan communications of incumbent members of Congress during the nine weeks leading up to the 2016 U.S. election. The central premise is rooted in the median voter theorem, which is coupled with theories of political activation and reinforcement, to show how politicians communicate in order to attract support from large swaths of the public. We analyze the partisanship of tweets posted by incumbents in Congress using mixed-effects models to examine the relationships between party, time, and race competitiveness on the degree of partisanship expressed by politicians. Our results reveal that Democrats and Republicans exhibited different partisanship signaling patterns in the weeks before the election. Specifically, Democrats decreased their partisanship, perhaps to appeal to the median voter, while Republicans stayed consistent in their partisanship, potentially using Twitter to activate and reinforce voters rather than to win them over. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of micro and macro levels to measure the prices and quantities. Topics mention including the benefits of digitized data to enhance the measurement of the national economic indicators, methods used in measuring the gross domestic product in the U.S. and changing information in the businesses and households.

The article offers information on the "American Economic Journal: Economic Policy" (AEJ Policy) published by the American Economic Association, featuring papers covering a range of topics, the common theme being the role of economic policy in economic outcomes. A significant element of the operation of the journal is coordination of the review process with the AER. The distribution of journal's submissions by the end of 2018 and the statistics on the journal's data-posting policy are presented.

Recent studies have reported that air pollution causes adverse impacts on the environment and human health. Previous studies have intensively investigated the transboundary air pollution (TAP) impact in East Asia in episode events. From the environmental perspectives, it is necessary to better understand the spatiotemporal variations in TAP and the resultant impact on the environment. This study is aimed at assessing and quantifying the air quality impacts in Japan and South Korea due to their local emissions and TAP in East Asia–one of the polluted regions. We have applied state-of-the-science atmospheric models to simulate air quality in East Asia, and then analyzing the air quality and acid deposition impacts of local emissions and TAP in Japan and South Korea. Our results show that ~30 % of annual ambient PM2.5 in 2010 was on average contributed by local emissions in Japan and South Korea, while the remaining was contributed by TAP from other countries in the region. More detailed analyses also revealed minimal seasonal variation in surface PM2.5 in Japan, whereas there was a relatively large variation in South Korea in the winter. Further, among all five studied anthropogenic emission sectors of China, the industrial sector represented the greatest contributor to annual surface PM2.5 concentrations in Japan and South Korea, followed by the residential and power generation sectors. In terms of acid deposition, our results show that TAP’s impact on acid deposition (SO42− and NO3−) was larger than TAP’s impact on PM2.5 concentration, and that seasonal variations were similar for both Japan and South Korea: higher in both the winter and summer. Finally, wet deposition had a greater impact on mixed forests in Japan and savannas in South Korea. Given these significant impacts of TAP in the region, it is paramount that cross-national efforts be taken to mitigate air pollution problems in across East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under authoritarian regimes, citizen-led NGOs such as environmental NGOs (ENGOs) often operate under close scrutiny of the government. While this presents a challenge to a single ENGO, we propose here - in line with existing research on network effects - that there are opportunities for multiple ENGOs to coordinate and thus work in ways that supersede government controls, affect public opinion, and contribute to policy revision and/or creation. In this paper, we specifically examine the possibility that the gamut of citizen-based ENGOs in China are coordinating. Based on network analysis of ENGOs web pages as well as interviews with more than a dozen ENGO leaders between 2014 and 2016, we find that ENGOs have few direct and public connections to each other, but social media sites and personal connections offline provide a crucial function in creating bridges. A closer examination of these bridges reveals, however, that they can be substantive to the environmental discussion or functional to the dissemination of web page information but typically not both. In short, ENGOs in China are not directly connected but rather are connected in a way that responds to the available social media and the government's censorship practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work demonstrates serious statistical problems with standard volatility tests. This paper proposes new tests that are unbiased in small samples and that do not require assumptions of stationarity. The new tests continue to find evidence against the model positing rational expectations and a constant required rate of return on equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Episodic memory requires the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex to guide decisions by representing events in spatial, temporal, and personal contexts. Both brain regions have been described by cognitive theories that represent events in context as locations in maps or memory spaces. We query whether ensemble spiking in these regions described spatial structures as rats performed memory tasks. From each ensemble, we construct a state-space with each point defined by the coordinated spiking of single and pairs of units in 125-ms bins and investigate how state-space locations discriminate task features. Trajectories through state-spaces correspond with behavioral episodes framed by spatial, temporal, and internal contexts. Both hippocampal and prefrontal ensembles distinguish maze locations, task intervals, and goals by distances between state-space locations, consistent with cognitive mapping and relational memory space theories of episodic memory. Prefrontal modulation of hippocampal activity may guide choices by directing memory representations toward appropriate state-space goal locations. [Display omitted] • Neural activity associated with learning and memory is described by multidimensional maps • Activity spaces represent environmental features to associate goals and behavioral variables • HPC and mPFC activity spaces interact with each other to support goal-directed behavior The HPC and PFC help people and other animals adapt to current circumstances by recalling previous relevant experiences. We show the mechanisms by which memories are organized so appropriate information is readily accessible in cognitive maps, instantiated by multidimensional neural activity spaces. These spaces represent salient environmental features that help associate goals with behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]