Natural law, natural philosophy, natural rights

Who or what is the creator (and how is that we can presume to read his mind and know his intentions) and how do we know there are inalienable rights? As will become clear in the pages below, the idea of the creator is a powerful concept that permeates western thought from at least the period of ancient Greeks to Jefferson\u27s day. In fact, it is the confluence of ancient pagan philosophy (here represented by Cicero)and seventeenth century science, with only a dollop of Christian thought, that combines to create the ideas so fundamental to the American civil experience

Socioeconomic Differences in Antenatal Care between the United States and Scandinavia

Despite their analogous status as economically developed nations, the United States and Scandinavian countries have marked differences in their healthcare systems. In particular both areas discernibly differ in the antenatal treatment provided for expecting women and their babies. Sweden and Denmark’s healthcare systems are universal, run primarily on taxpayer dollars, and provide equal antenatal care regardless of socioeconomic status. The United States’ healthcare system is run on a combination of private and government run insurance, in which socioeconomic status often determines insurance coverage. This variability in insurance coverage often results in differing levels of antenatal care. An overarching question remains as to how women of low socioeconomic status receive differing antenatal care in the United States and Scandinavia. Antenatal care discrepancies between the two systems emanate a difference in patient outcomes and patient satisfaction of their treatment. Analyzing the differences in these outcomes can better point to which health care system provides more effective antenatal care. Women of lower socioeconomic status in Sweden and Denmark receive superior antenatal care than women of a comparable socioeconomic status in the United States. [excerpt

Rippled Graphene in an In-Plane Magnetic Field: Effects of a Random Vector Potential

We report measurements of the effects of a random vector potential generated by applying an in-plane magnetic field to a graphene flake. Magnetic flux through the ripples cause orbital effects: phase-coherent weak localization is suppressed, while quasi-random Lorentz forces lead to anisotropic magnetoresistance. Distinct signatures of these two effects enable an independent estimation of the ripple amplitude and correlation length.Comment: Various changes; added appendix for Boltzmann calculation of anisotropic magnetoresistanc

The evolution of complex gene regulation by low specificity binding sites

Transcription factor binding sites vary in their specificity, both within and between species. Binding specificity has a strong impact on the evolution of gene expression, because it determines how easily regulatory interactions are gained and lost. Nevertheless, we have a relatively poor understanding of what evolutionary forces determine the specificity of binding sites. Here we address this question by studying regulatory modules composed of multiple binding sites. Using a population-genetic model, we show that more complex regulatory modules, composed of a greater number of binding sites, must employ binding sites that are individually less specific, compared to less complex regulatory modules. This effect is extremely general, and it hold regardless of the regulatory logic of a module. We attribute this phenomenon to the inability of stabilising selection to maintain highly specific sites in large regulatory modules. Our analysis helps to explain broad empirical trends in the yeast regulatory network: those genes with a greater number of transcriptional regulators feature by less specific binding sites, and there is less variance in their specificity, compared to genes with fewer regulators. Likewise, our results also help to explain the well-known trend towards lower specificity in the transcription factor binding sites of higher eukaryotes, which perform complex regulatory tasks, compared to prokaryotes

The collapse of cooperation in evolving games

Game theory provides a quantitative framework for analyzing the behavior of rational agents. The Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma in particular has become a standard model for studying cooperation and cheating, with cooperation often emerging as a robust outcome in evolving populations. Here we extend evolutionary game theory by allowing players' strategies as well as their payoffs to evolve in response to selection on heritable mutations. In nature, many organisms engage in mutually beneficial interactions, and individuals may seek to change the ratio of risk to reward for cooperation by altering the resources they commit to cooperative interactions. To study this, we construct a general framework for the co-evolution of strategies and payoffs in arbitrary iterated games. We show that, as payoffs evolve, a trade-off between the benefits and costs of cooperation precipitates a dramatic loss of cooperation under the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma; and eventually to evolution away from the Prisoner's Dilemma altogether. The collapse of cooperation is so extreme that the average payoff in a population may decline, even as the potential payoff for mutual cooperation increases. Our work offers a new perspective on the Prisoner's Dilemma and its predictions for cooperation in natural populations; and it provides a general framework to understand the co-evolution of strategies and payoffs in iterated interactions.Comment: 33 pages, 13 figure

How pensions contribute to the premium paid to experienced public school teachers

Many argue that public school systems should stop linking teachers’ salaries so closely to their years of experience. However, the effect of deferred retirement compensation on the premium paid to experienced teachers has, to date, been underappreciated. To shed more light on this issue, we calculate the total compensation earned by teachers in New York City and Philadelphia from both salary and deferred retirement compensation under each system’s currently operating defined-benefit plan. Retirement compensation in both cities is back-loaded, which substantially increases the premium paid to highly experienced teachers. In late-career years, teachers often earn a larger compensation premium from the accrual of pension benefits than from salary. We show that cash-balance retirement plans, which are less back-loaded, would substantially reduce experience premiums without reducing the total compensation for the average entering teacher.http://sites.bu.edu/marcuswinters/files/2017/09/Pensions-and-Experience-Premium.pdfAccepted manuscrip