Cross-Assignment Discrimination in Pay: A Test Case of Major League Baseball

The traditional Becker/Arrow style model of discrimination depicts majority and minority and workers as perfectly substitutable inputs, implying that all workers have the same job assignment. The model is only appropriate for determining whether pay differences between, for example, whites and non-whites doing job assignment A are attributable to prejudice ('within-assignment discrimination'); It is inappropriate, however, for determining whether pay differences between whites in job assignment A and non-whites in job assignment B reflect discriminatory behaviour ('cross-assignment discrimination'). We test the model of such cross assignment discrimination developed by Bodvarsson and Sessions (2011) using data on Major League Baseball hitters and pitchers for four different seasons during the 1990s, a decade during which monopsony power fell. We find strong evidence of ceteris paribus racial pay differences between hitters and pitchers, as well as evidence that cross-assignment discrimination varies with labour market structure.wage discrimination, complementarity, monopsony power

The Measurement of Racial Discrimination in Pay between Job Categories: Theory and Test

The traditional model of taste discrimination in labor markets presumes perfect substitution, making it unsuitable for the measurement of discrimination across job assignments. We extend the model to explain cross-assignment discrimination and test it on data from Major League Baseball. A competitive firm with a Generalized Leontief production function fills each job assignment with whites and nonwhites in an environment of customer prejudice. According to the model, cross-assignment discrimination depends upon racial productivity differences, the productivity x prejudice interaction, technology, relative labor supply and racial integration. We find strong evidence of ceteris paribus racial salary differences between hitters and pitchers.wages, discrimination, imperfect substitutability, integration

Graph-Based Learning for Leak Detection and Localisation in Water Distribution Networks∗

We propose the application of geometric deep learning techniques to the challenging leak detection and isolation problem in water distribution networks (WDNs). Specifically, we train two Chebyshev polynomial kernel Graph Convolutional Networks for the task of prediction, and reconstruction of nodal pressures in a WDN. Comparing the two network outputs (a predicted healthy model state with a reconstructed observation) a residual signal is obtained and analysed to detect leakages. By exploiting topological properties in the proposed approach, leakage isolation is also performed. We benchmark our method on the BattLeDIM 2020 dataset

Íslensk börn og unglingar með höfuðáverka : hve margir þurfa sérhæfða fræðslu, endurhæfingu eða eftirfylgd og hvers konar íhlutun er við hæfi?

Neðst á síðunni er hægt að nálgast greinina í heild sinni með því að smella á hlekkinn View/OpenTilgangur rannsóknarinnar var að kanna fjölda barna og unglinga, sem lýsa eftirstöðvum fjórum árum eftir höfuðáverka, og skoða eðli þessara kvartana, og meta þannig þörf fyrir sérhæfða íhlutun af mismunandi toga. Gögnum var safnað á framvirkan hátt um alla sjúklinga 0-19 ára, sem greindir voru með höfuðáverka (ICD-9 850-854) á Borgarspítalanum á einu ári, 1992-1993 (n=405). Fjórum árum síðar var spurningalisti um eftirstöðvar áverka sendur til sjúklinga. Alvarleikastig byggt á eðli kvartana var metið samkvæmt viðmiðum Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS), barnaútgáfu. Alls lýstu 39 sjúklingar lýstu eftirstöðvum höfuðáverka fjórum árum síðar. Samkvæmt viðmiðum GOS lýstu 19 þeirra góðri útkomu (e. good outcome), 14 lýstu miðlungs hömlun (e. moderate disability), 2 lýstu alvarlegri hömlun (severe disability) og 4 höfðu látist vegna heilaskaða. Nýleg athugun bendir til þess að ekki hafi orðið fækkun á börnum og unglingum sem hljóta alvarlegri höfuðáverka (ICD-9 851- 854) á ári hverju.Niðurstöður benda til þess að tugir íslenskra barna og unglinga þarfnist sérhæfðrar íhlutunar og eftirfylgdar á ári hverju vegna afleiðinga höfuðáverka. Íhlutunin getur verið mjög breytileg, allt frá fræðslu fyrir foreldra til endurhæfingar og eftirfylgdar til lengri tíma. Íhlutunin þarf að taka mið af vanda hvers og eins

Condensation in nongeneric trees

We study nongeneric planar trees and prove the existence of a Gibbs measure on infinite trees obtained as a weak limit of the finite volume measures. It is shown that in the infinite volume limit there arises exactly one vertex of infinite degree and the rest of the tree is distributed like a subcritical Galton-Watson tree with mean offspring probability $m<1$. We calculate the rate of divergence of the degree of the highest order vertex of finite trees in the thermodynamic limit and show it goes like $(1-m)N$ where $N$ is the size of the tree. These trees have infinite spectral dimension with probability one but the spectral dimension calculated from the ensemble average of the generating function for return probabilities is given by $2\beta -2$ if the weight $w_n$ of a vertex of degree $n$ is asymptotic to $n^{-\beta}$.Comment: 57 pages, 14 figures. Minor change

GPs' opinions of public and industrial information regarding drugs: a cross-sectional study

Background: General Practitioners {GP} in Sweden prescribe more than 50% of all prescriptions. Scientific knowledge on the opinions of GPs regarding drug information has been sparse. Such knowledge could be valuable when designing evidence-based drug information to GPs. GPs' opinions on public- and industry-provided drug information are presented in this article. Methods: A cross-sectional study using a questionnaire was answered by 368 GPs at 97 primary-health care centres {PHCC}. The centres were invited to participate by eight out of 29 drug and therapeutic committees {DTCs}. A multilevel model was used to analyse associations between opinions of GPs regarding drug information and whether the GPs worked in public sector or in a private enterprise, their age, sex, and work experience. PHCC and geographical area were included as random effects. Results: About 85% of the GPs perceived they received too much information from the industry, that the quality of public information was high and useful, and that the main task of public authorities was to increase the GPs' knowledge of drugs. Female GPs valued information from public authorities to a much greater extent than male GPs. Out of the GPs, 93% considered the main task of the industry was to promote sales. Differences between the GPs' opinions between PHCCs were generally more visible than differences between areas. Conclusions: Some kind of incentives could be considered for PHCCs that actively reduce drug promotion from the industry. That female GPs valued information from public authorities to a much greater extent than male GPs should be taken into consideration when designing evidence-based drug information from public authorities to make implementation easier

Setting a baseline for global urban virome surveillance in sewage

The rapid development of megacities, and their growing connectedness across the world is becoming a distinct driver for emerging disease outbreaks. Early detection of unusual disease emergence and spread should therefore include such cities as part of risk-based surveillance. A catch-all metagenomic sequencing approach of urban sewage could potentially provide an unbiased insight into the dynamics of viral pathogens circulating in a community irrespective of access to care, a potential which already has been proven for the surveillance of poliovirus. Here, we present a detailed characterization of sewage viromes from a snapshot of 81 high density urban areas across the globe, including in-depth assessment of potential biases, as a proof of concept for catch-all viral pathogen surveillance. We show the ability to detect a wide range of viruses and geographical and seasonal differences for specific viral groups. Our findings offer a cross-sectional baseline for further research in viral surveillance from urban sewage samples and place previous studies in a global perspective

National trends in total cholesterol obscure heterogeneous changes in HDL and non-HDL cholesterol and total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio : a pooled analysis of 458 population-based studies in Asian and Western countries

Background: Although high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and non-HDL cholesterol have opposite associations with coronary heart disease, multi-country reports of lipid trends only use total cholesterol (TC). Our aim was to compare trends in total, HDL and nonHDL cholesterol and the total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio in Asian and Western countries. Methods: We pooled 458 population-based studies with 82.1 million participants in 23 Asian and Western countries. We estimated changes in mean total, HDL and non-HDL cholesterol and mean total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio by country, sex and age group. Results: Since similar to 1980, mean TC increased in Asian countries. In Japan and South Korea, the TC rise was due to rising HDL cholesterol, which increased by up to 0.17 mmol/L per decade in Japanese women; in China, it was due to rising non-HDL cholesterol. TC declined in Western countries, except in Polish men. The decline was largest in Finland and Norway, at similar to 0.4 mmol/L per decade. The decline in TC in most Western countries was the net effect of an increase in HDL cholesterol and a decline in non-HDL cholesterol, with the HDL cholesterol increase largest in New Zealand and Switzerland. Mean total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio declined in Japan, South Korea and most Western countries, by as much as similar to 0.7 per decade in Swiss men (equivalent to similar to 26% decline in coronary heart disease risk per decade). The ratio increased in China. Conclusions: HDL cholesterol has risen and the total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio has declined in many Western countries, Japan and South Korea, with only a weak correlation with changes in TC or non-HDL cholesterol.Peer reviewe