Welfare effects of fixed and percentage-expressed child support awards

Over the last decade a large number of states have significantly altered their legal statutes concerning the disposition of divorce cases involving children. In particular, many states have increasingly employed percentage-expressed orders in which child support obligations in a given period are determined as a proportion of the contemporaneous income of the noncustodial parent. In contrast to more traditional systems in which obligations were set in fixed nominal terms at the time of the divorce settlement and were infrequently (or never) updated, the dynamic system has the advantages of allowing children (and the custodial parent) an opportunity to share in the general income gains experienced by the noncustodial parent over the life cycle and of possibly alleviating some noncompliance problems. In this paper we conduct a rather extensive theory-based empirical investigation of the effects of these systems on the income process for divorced fathers and the child support transfer decision. We estimate a flexible statistical model for the income- generation process for divorced fathers which encompasses the period both before and after the divorce. We interpret the estimates from this model to indicate small behavioral effects of the type of order on postdivorce income, but nonrandom assignment (in terms of the means and variances of predivorce income) into the percentage-expressed-order state. Our analysis of the effects of the order type on child support transfers is divided into two parts. In the first, a "reduced form" analysis, we investigate whether or not the divorced father's regime defined as the order type and withholding status can be considered exogenous vis-a-vis the transfer decision, and examine the relative effects of the various regimes on the transfer rate. We further attempt to investigate order-type effects on compliance in the context of a structural model of the compliance decision. The results of the two analyses are for the most part consistent. Percentage orders are generally associated with lower compliance rates, though withholding tends to alleviate the problem. The highest compliance rates are associated with fixed orders coupled with withholding.

Робоча програма і методичні вказівки до самостійного вивчення дисципліни "Основи теорії транспорту"

Гірничовидобувна промисловість України набуває розвитку на базі без- перервного використання досягнень науково-технічного прогресу, застосування комплексної механізації та автоматизації всіх процесів виробництва, поліпшен- ня якісних показників підприємств, підвищення продуктивності й безпеки пра- ці.Гірничовидобувна промисловість України набуває розвитку на базі без- перервного використання досягнень науково-технічного прогресу, застосування комплексної механізації та автоматизації всіх процесів виробництва, поліпшен- ня якісних показників підприємств, підвищення продуктивності й безпеки пра- ці

Evolution of the Stands Established on Degradated Lands in the Diviciorii Mari Area

The introduction of some agricultural land which has partially or totally lost their production capacity is and will be a very important action of Romanian forestry. This extends the forest fund and improves the climatic conditions around the planting areas. The research was carried out in two improvement perimeters near Diviciorii Mari, which assumed measurements of tree diameters, heights and harvesting increment cores. After the analysis of the data and increment cores, the results were associated with climatic data and the stands were found to sufferfrom the effects of prolonged droughts. Also, these trees suffer from drying, windfalls and breaks of crowns due to the combination of droughts with slope and soil. The results obtained from the research were compared with the researches carried out at the Mineci-Ungureni Forest District between 1944 and 1955 and similarities were found regarding the influence of droughts on the radial and, implicitly, forest growths

The AF structure of non commutative toroidal Z/4Z orbifolds

For any irrational theta and rational number p/q such that q|qtheta-p|<1, a projection e of trace q|qtheta-p| is constructed in the the irrational rotation algebra A_theta that is invariant under the Fourier transform. (The latter is the order four automorphism U mapped to V, V mapped to U^{-1}, where U, V are the canonical unitaries generating A_theta.) Further, the projection e is approximately central, the cut down algebra eA_theta e contains a Fourier invariant q x q matrix algebra whose unit is e, and the cut downs eUe, eVe are approximately inside the matrix algebra. (In particular, there are Fourier invariant projections of trace k|qtheta-p| for k=1,...,q.) It is also shown that for all theta the crossed product A_theta rtimes Z_4 satisfies the Universal Coefficient Theorem. (Z_4 := Z/4Z.) As a consequence, using the Classification Theorem of G. Elliott and G. Gong for AH-algebras, a theorem of M. Rieffel, and by recent results of H. Lin, we show that A_theta rtimes Z_4 is an AF-algebra for all irrational theta in a dense G_delta.Comment: 35 page

A DECISION-THEORY APPROACH TO INTERPRETABLE SET ANALYSIS FOR HIGH-DIMENSIONAL DATA

A ubiquitous problem in igh-dimensional analysis is the identification of pre-defined sets that are enriched for features showing an association of interest. In this situation, inference is performed on sets, not individual features. We propose an approach which focuses on estimating the fraction of non-null features in a set. We search for unions of disjoint sets (atoms), using as the loss function a weighted average of the number of false and missed discoveries. We prove that the solution is equivalent to thresholding the atomic false discovery rate and that our approach results in a more interpretable set analysis

IL LATO OSCURO DELLA COLPA!

Francesco Mancini e Amelia Gangemi propongono una tesi duale sul senso di colpa delineando le caratteristiche della colpa deontologica – sensazione di avere trasgredito una norma morale senza che vi sia una vittima – e della colpa altruistica – sensazione di aver violato un principio altruistico senza la trasgressione di una norma morale. Gli autori presentano alcune prove comportamentali, cognitive e neurofisiologiche che dimostrano che i due sensi di colpa hanno tratti distintivi divers

Thomson and Compton scattering with an intense laser pulse

Our paper concerns the scattering of intense laser radiation on free electrons and it is focused on the relation between nonlinear Compton and nonlinear Thomson scattering. The analysis is performed for a laser field modeled by an ideal pulse with a finite duration, a fixed direction of propagation and indefinitely extended in the plane perpendicular to it. We derive the classical limit of the quantum spectral and angular distribution of the emitted radiation, for an arbitrary polarization of the laser pulse. We also rederive our result directly, in the framework of classical electrodynamics, obtaining, at the same time, the distribution for the emitted radiation with a well defined polarization. The results reduce to those established by Krafft et al. [Phys. Rev. E 72, 056502 (2005)] in the particular case of linear polarization of the pulse, orthogonal to the initial electron momentum. Conditions in which the differences between classical and quantum results are visible are discussed and illustrated by graphs