4,812 research outputs found
The Utility of Text: The Case of Amicus Briefs and the Supreme Court
We explore the idea that authoring a piece of text is an act of maximizing
one's expected utility. To make this idea concrete, we consider the societally
important decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Extensive past
work in quantitative political science provides a framework for empirically
modeling the decisions of justices and how they relate to text. We incorporate
into such a model texts authored by amici curiae ("friends of the court"
separate from the litigants) who seek to weigh in on the decision, then
explicitly model their goals in a random utility model. We demonstrate the
benefits of this approach in improved vote prediction and the ability to
perform counterfactual analysis.Comment: Working draf
Rapid thermal cycling of solar array blanket coupons for Space Station Freedom
The NASA Lewis Research Center has been conducting rapid thermal cycling on blanket coupons for Space Station Freedom. This testing includes two designs (8 coupons total) of the solar array. Four coupons were fabricated as part of the Photovoltaic Array Environmental Protection Program (PAEP), NAS3-25079, at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. These coupons began cycling in early 1989 and have completed 172,000 thermal cycles. Four other coupons were fabricated a year later and included several design changes; cycling of these began in early 1990 and has reached 90,000 cycles. The objective of this testing is to demonstrate the durability or operational lifetime (15 yrs.) of the welded interconnects within a low earth orbit (LEO) thermal cycling environment. The blanket coupons, design changes, test description, status to date including performance and observed anomalies, and any insights related to the testing of these coupons are described. The description of a third design is included
Character Sequence Models for ColorfulWords
We present a neural network architecture to predict a point in color space
from the sequence of characters in the color's name. Using large scale
color--name pairs obtained from an online color design forum, we evaluate our
model on a "color Turing test" and find that, given a name, the colors
predicted by our model are preferred by annotators to color names created by
humans. Our datasets and demo system are available online at colorlab.us
Collider Signatures of SuperWIMP Warm Dark Matter
SuperWeakly-Interacting Massive Particles (superWIMPs) produced in the late
decays of other particles are well-motivated dark matter candidates and may be
favored over standard Weakly-Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) by small
scale structure observations. Among the most promising frameworks that
incorporate superWIMPs are R-parity conserving supersymmetry models in which
the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) is the gravitino or the axino. In
these well-defined particle models, astrophysical observations have direct
implications for possible measurements at future colliders.Comment: Contributed to the 2005 International Linear Collider Physics and
Detector Workshop and 2nd ILC Accelerator Workshop, Snowmass, Colorado, 14-27
Aug 2005. 3 pages, LaTeX, 1 figur
The Changing Demand for Culture: Estimation of Cultural Elasticities
Much past research on the nature of demand for recreation or cultural activities has been either economic models based on unrealistic assumptions about willingness-to-pay or sociological models that fail to provide an in-depth analysis of the forces actually affecting the decision to participate. This paper presents an attempt to combine some of the strengths of the traditional economic and sociological methods, while avoiding some of their weaknesses. The method developed produces an index called a cultural elasticity that quantitatively indicates how rates of participation maw be expected to change when certain economic and sociological characteristics in the population change. A numerical example is provided using a recent Canadian national survey on performing arts audiences. Strengths and limitations in the approach are also identified
In Situ ATR-SEIRAS of Carbon Dioxide Reduction at a Plasmonic Silver Cathode.
Illumination of a voltage-biased plasmonic Ag cathode during CO2 reduction results in a suppression of the H2 evolution reaction while enhancing CO2 reduction. This effect has been shown to be photonic rather than thermal, but the exact plasmonic mechanism is unknown. Here, we conduct an in situ ATR-SEIRAS (attenuated total reflectance-surface-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy) study of a sputtered thin film Ag cathode on a Ge ATR crystal in CO2-saturated 0.1 M KHCO3 over a range of potentials under both dark and illuminated (365 nm, 125 mW cm-2) conditions to elucidate the nature of this plasmonic enhancement. We find that the onset potential of CO2 reduction to adsorbed CO on the Ag surface is -0.25 VRHE and is identical in the light and the dark. As the production of gaseous CO is detected in the light near this onset potential but is not observed in the dark until -0.5 VRHE, we conclude that the light must be assisting the desorption of CO from the surface. Furthermore, the HCO3- wavenumber and peak area increase immediately upon illumination, precluding a thermal effect. We propose that the enhanced local electric field that results from the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) is strengthening the HCO3- bond, further increasing the local pH. This would account for the decrease in H2 formation and increase the CO2 reduction products in the light
Looking to the future to understand the past: a survey of pre-service history teachers' experiences with digital technology and content knowledge
Digital technologies have the potential to enable history teachers to engage student learning, meet diverse learning styles, present a diversity of perspectives, and foster historical inquiry. Pre-service teachers entering today’s Canadian faculties of education are surrounded by more technology than their predecessors. But are they equipped with requisite knowledge and strategies to integrate these technologies effectively into their classrooms? This exploratory study used a cross-sectional survey to investigate pre-service teachers’ experiences with digital technologies in relation to teaching history. By doing so it provides a context for further research into the pedagogical impacts of integrating digital technologies into history classrooms
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