12,966 research outputs found
Political Ambition and Legislative Behavior in the European Parliament
Members of the European Parliament (MEP) typically follow one of two career paths, either advancing within the European Parliament itself or returning to higher office in their home states. We argue that these different ambitions condition legislative behavior. Specifically, MEPs seeking domestic careers defect from group-leadership votes more frequently and oppose legislation that expands the purview of supranational institutions. We show how individual, domestic-party, and national level variables shape the careers available to MEPs and, in turn, their voting choices. To test the argument, we analyze MEPs' roll-call voting behavior in the 5th session of the EP (1999-2004) using a random effects model that captures idiosyncrasies in voting behavior across both individual MEPs and specific roll-call votes.published or submitted for publicationnot peer reviewe
Constraining scalar resonances with top-quark pair production at the LHC
Constraints on models which predict resonant top-quark pair production at the
LHC are provided via a reinterpretation of the Standard Model (SM) particle
level measurement of the top-anti-top invariant mass distribution,
. We make use of state-of-the-art Monte Carlo event simulation to
perform a direct comparison with measurements of in the
semi-leptonic channels, considering both the boosted and the resolved regime of
the hadronic top decays. A simplified model to describe various scalar
resonances decaying into top-quarks is considered, including CP-even and
CP-odd, color-singlet and color-octet states, and the excluded regions in the
respective parameter spaces are provided.Comment: 34 pages, 17 figure
The role of stimulus-driven versus goal-directed processes in fight and flight tendencies measured with motor evoked potentials induced by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
This study examines two contrasting explanations for early tendencies to fight and flee. According to a stimulus-driven explanation, goal-incompatible stimuli that are easy/difficult to control lead to the tendency to fight/flee. According to a goal-directed explanation, on the other hand, the tendency to fight/flee occurs when the expected utility of fighting/fleeing is the highest. Participants did a computer task in which they were confronted with goal-incompatible stimuli that were (a) easy to control and fighting had the highest expected utility, (b) easy to control and fleeing had the highest expected utility, and (c) difficult to control and fleeing and fighting had zero expected utility. After participants were trained to use one hand to fight and another hand to flee, they either had to choose a response or merely observe the stimuli. During the observation trials, single-pulse Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) was applied to the primary motor cortex 450 ms post-stimulus onset and motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were measured from the hand muscles. Results showed that participants chose to fight/flee when the expected utility of fighting/fleeing was the highest, and that they responded late when the expected utility of both responses was low. They also showed larger MEPs for the right/left hand when the expected utility of fighting/fleeing was the highest. This result can be interpreted as support for the goal-directed account, but only if it is assumed that we were unable to override the presumed natural mapping between hand (right/left) and response (fight/flight)
Improving NLO-parton shower matched simulations with higher order matrix elements
In recent times the algorithms for the simulation of hadronic collisions have
been subject to two substantial improvements: the inclusion, within parton
showering, of exact higher order tree level matrix elements (MEPS) and,
separately, next-to-leading order corrections (NLOPS). In this work we examine
the key criteria to be met in merging the two approaches in such a way that the
accuracy of both is preserved, in the framework of the POWHEG approach to
NLOPS. We then ask to what extent these requirements may be fulfilled using
existing simulations, without modifications. The result of this study is a
pragmatic proposal for merging MEPS and NLOPS events to yield much improved
MENLOPS event samples. We apply this method to W boson and top quark pair
production. In both cases results for distributions within the remit of the NLO
calculations exhibit no discernible changes with respect to the pure NLOPS
prediction; conversely, those sensitive to the distribution of multiple hard
jets assume, exactly, the form of the corresponding MEPS results.Comment: 38 pages, 17 figures. v2: added citations and brief discussion of
related works, MENLOPS prescription localized in a subsection. v3: cited 4
more MEPS works in introduction
The Urban Institute's Microsimulation Model for Reinsurance: Model Construction and State-Specific Application
Describes the Urban Institute's model for simulating the effects of using state-funded reinsurance to subsidize primary insurance premiums. Details the process of building state-specific baseline databases and modeling reinsurance policy options
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Improving the energy efficiency of room air conditioners in China: Costs and benefits
China is the world's largest consumer of room air conditioners, and it contributes about a quarter of global space cooling CO2 emissions. We model the costs and benefits of recently proposed new room air conditioner minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) in China. Our results suggest that newly proposed MEPS brings accumulative CO2 emissions reductions of 12.8% between 2019 and 2050, and accumulative bill saving of 2620 billion RMB to China's consumers. The benefits of the proposed MEPS decrease with longer MEPS revision intervals and increase with shorter intervals—indicating that the intervals should be balanced to maximize benefits while accommodating constraints due to air conditioner manufacturer design cycles. We also model potential nationwide benefits from higher MEPS. Across two increasingly aggressive MEPS scenarios, China's room air conditioner electricity consumption and CO2 emissions in 2050 are both reduced by 15–53% compared to the proposed MEPS. The highest-efficiency scenario (reaching MEPS of annual performance factor 5.4 in 2025) provides the largest long-term national benefits. These results could inform development of a Chinese regulatory regime that effectively updates room air conditioner MEPS. Because China is the world's largest manufacturer of room air conditioners, the economic, energy, and emissions benefits resulting from higher Chinese MEPS could also have a global reach
Relevance of Negative Links in Graph Partitioning: A Case Study Using Votes From the European Parliament
In this paper, we want to study the informative value of negative links in
signed complex networks. For this purpose, we extract and analyze a collection
of signed networks representing voting sessions of the European Parliament
(EP). We first process some data collected by the VoteWatch Europe Website for
the whole 7 th term (2009-2014), by considering voting similarities between
Members of the EP to define weighted signed links. We then apply a selection of
community detection algorithms, designed to process only positive links, to
these data. We also apply Parallel Iterative Local Search (Parallel ILS), an
algorithm recently proposed to identify balanced partitions in signed networks.
Our results show that, contrary to the conclusions of a previous study focusing
on other data, the partitions detected by ignoring or considering the negative
links are indeed remarkably different for these networks. The relevance of
negative links for graph partitioning therefore is an open question which
should be further explored.Comment: in 2nd European Network Intelligence Conference (ENIC), Sep 2015,
Karlskrona, Swede
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