The Coming Showdown Over University Endowments: Enlisting the Donors

This Essay focuses on the discordance between universities with particularly large endowments and what is occurring in the rest of higher education, particularly with respect to skyrocketing tuition and a growing institutional wealth gap. The Essay considers absolute endowment values, the amount of endowment per student, and expense-endowment ratios at sixty private universities. It concludes that a small number of schools have an excess endowment, and then provides a convenient proxy for determining when an endowment is so large that it should receive less preferential tax treatment. The Essay then considers the effects that large endowments have at their home institutions and throughout higher education, the arguments in defense of large endowments, and some frequently proposed modifications to the tax code. The Essay recommends that policymakers modify the charitable deduction for gifts to universities with mega-endowments, as part of a multifaceted effort to spur endowment spending and control tuition

Rethinking the Intersection of Inheritance and the Law of Tenancy in Common

The article discusses the rules of tenancy and standard doctrine in relation to identity property. It explains the result for property law and suggests reforms that would decrease conflict among heirs to identity property to successfully own and manage the property. It states that co-tenants receive a proportional share of rents and profits earned and should pay taxes and mortgages. It informs that steps could be taken to encourage the interest of co-tenants

Rethinking the Intersection of Inheritance and the Law of Tenancy in Common

The article discusses the rules of tenancy and standard doctrine in relation to identity property. It explains the result for property law and suggests reforms that would decrease conflict among heirs to identity property to successfully own and manage the property. It states that co-tenants receive a proportional share of rents and profits earned and should pay taxes and mortgages. It informs that steps could be taken to encourage the interest of co-tenants

Cash, Credit or Cell Phone? How to Influence Public Preferences about Payment Systems

The paper examines how the government can influence the public’s choice of a particular payment system: not only existing systems like credit and debit cards, but innovative products such as stored value cards, electronic checks and electronic money. The success or failure of a new payment system can have a large economic impact, with shifts toward electronic payment options in particular having the potential to save up to one percent of a nation’s gross domestic product. For the United States, that translates to approximately one hundred billion dollars worth of savings. Whether a new payment system succeeds or fails depends upon social acceptance; that is, consumers and merchants have to simultaneously embrace the new payment option. Government action, both direct and indirect, can strongly influence consumer and merchant behavior. Whether and how the government affects payment preferences depends on whether the government is acting as fiduciary, seller, or law-maker; its precise goal; and the particular sort of payment system at issue. Depending on the situation, the government may (1) provide information that allows individuals to coordinate behavior, (2) pass legislation or adopt policies aimed at reducing concerns about a particular system, (3) provide incentives to induce individuals to adopt new payment systems, or (4) force change by eliminating or curtailing the older payment form. The paper suggests that in the realm of payments, governmental efforts to influence behavior will be most successful if they force change, not if they gently influence public preferences. This conclusion runs counter to the common wisdom in the social norms literature that law most effectively influences behavior when it promotes incremental advancement, not wholesale change. Because payment methods are poised to continue the massive evolution that has occurred over the past twenty-five years, advocates of new systems are increasingly likely to attempt to involve government in promoting their fledging payment mechanisms. The paper suggests that government intervention, although often successful, is usually unwise for at least three reasons. First, technology moves quickly and the government usually moves slowly. Second, with a bit of time, new payment systems that are sufficiently advantageous to the public are likely to flourish without governmental intervention. Third and finally, governmental intervention may have the unintended consequence of undermining the incentive to invest in new payment technologies in the first instance

The New Tipping Point: Disruptive Politics and Habituating Equality

This Essay argues that the events of 2020 opened a window of political opportunity to implement policies aimed at dismantling structural injustice and systemic racism. Building on the work of philosopher Charles Mills and political scientist Clarissa Rile Hayward, we argue that the Black Lives Matter Movement constituted the “disruptive politics” necessary to shift dispositions of many in the United States toward racial equity by interrupting the white “epistemologies of ignorance.” Moreover, because policies that correct structural injustice are beneficial for people across race, even those whose hearts and minds remained closed may embrace legislative policies that function to dismantle systemic racism. As people become habituated to structures that facilitate equality and the policies that underlie them, the United States will finally begin to tip toward equality and a society of belonging

Probing Electron Tunneling Pathways: Electrochemical Study of Rat Heart Cytochromecand Its Mutant on Pyridine-Terminated SAMs

The electron-transfer rates between gold electrodes and adsorbed cytochromes are compared for native cytochrome c and its mutant (K13A) using two different immobilization strategies. A recent study by Niki (Niki, K.; Hardy, W. R.; Hill, M. G.; Li, H.; Sprinkle, J. R.; Margoliash, E.; Fujita, K.; Tanimura, R.; Nakamura, N.; Ohno, H.; Richards, J. H.; Gray, H. B. J. Phys. Chem. B 2003, 107, 9947) showed that the electron-transfer rate for a particular mutant cytochrome c (K13A) is orders of magnitude slower than the native form when electrostatically adsorbed on SAM-coated gold electrodes. The current study directly “links” the protein's heme unit to the SAM, thereby “short circuiting” the electron tunneling pathway. These findings demonstrate that the immobilization strategy can modify the electron-transfer rate by changing the tunneling pathway

Chiral molecule adsorption on helical polymers

We present a lattice model for helicity induction on an optically inactive polymer due to the adsorption of exogenous chiral amine molecules. The system is mapped onto a one-dimensional Ising model characterized by an on-site polymer helicity variable and an amine occupancy one. The equilibrium properties are analyzed at the limit of strong coupling between helicity induction and amine adsorption and that of non-interacting adsorbant molecules. We discuss our results in view of recent experimental results

Adaptability and Social Support: Examining Links with Psychological Wellbeing Among UK Students and Non-students

The purpose of this multi-study article was to investigate the roles of adaptability and social support in predicting a variety of psychological outcomes. Data were collected from Year 12 college students (N = 73; Study 1), university students (N = 102; Study 2), and non-studying members of the general public (N = 141; Study 3). Findings showed that, beyond variance attributable to social support, adaptability made a significant independent contribution to psychological wellbeing (life satisfaction, psychological wellbeing, flourishing, and general affect) and psychological distress across all studies. Beyond the effects of adaptability, social support was found to make a significant independent contribution to most wellbeing outcomes (but not psychological distress in university students). In a multi-group analysis comparing predictors of psychological wellbeing in university students and non-studying adults, where the same outcome measures were used (Study 4; N = 243), it was found that adaptability played a stronger role (relative to social support) for university students, whereas social support played a stronger role for non-studying adults. Finally, (contrary to expectations) there was no evidence of an interaction between adaptability and social support predicting psychological outcomes—adaptability and social support operated as independent main effects. These findings demonstrate the importance of adaptability and social support in uniquely predicting psychological wellbeing in different sample groups. It is argued here that these two factors, should be given greater consideration in discussions of psychological wellbeing, and are relevant to psychological wellbeing at different major developmental life stages

Nutzungsdifferenzierung der Bodenkarte 1:50.000 Niedersachsen

Die neue Kartenserie der Bodenkarte von Niedersachsen im Maßstab 1:50.000 (BK50) liegt flächendeckend digital vor und ist räumlich und inhaltlich eng mit anderen Kartenwerken bzw. Datenbanken des LBEG (Geologische Karte, Bodenschätzung, Forstliche Standortskartierung, Profil- und Labordatenbank u.a.) abgestimmt. Innerhalb des Niedersächsischen Bodeninformationssystems NIBIS dient sie im Wesentlichen dem Bedarf der mittleren Planungsebene für Fragen der Landes- und Umweltplanung insbesondere des Bodenschutzes. Die tatsächliche Bodennutzung beeinflusst unmittelbar den Aufbau und die Eigenschaften des Bodens. Land- und Forstwirtschaft führen zu Modifikationen der Standorteigenschaften vergleichbarer Böden, die dann nutzungstypische Merkmalsausprägungen aufweisen (z.B. Grundwasserabsenkung und Erosion unter Ackernutzung, Auflagehumusformen und Podsolierung unter Waldnutzung). Um diese Umgestaltung systematisch in der Bodenkarte von Niedersachsen zu hinterlegen, werden fünf Bedeckungs-/Nutzungstypen (Acker, Grünland, Laubwald, Nadelwald und Sonstige Nutzung) aus Daten des Amtlichen Topographisch-Kartographischen Informationssystems (ATKIS) und z.T. CORINE Land Cover (CLC) abgeleitet und sowohl die Bodenflächengeometrien als auch deren beschreibende Bodenflächendaten als nutzungsspezifische Varianten entsprechend angepasst. Im Poster werden diese Grundlagen zur Konzeption der nutzungsdifferenzierten Bodenkarte zusammenfassend dargestellt und erläutert

MHz Unidirectional Rotation of Molecular Rotary Motors

A combination of cryogenic UV-vis and CD spectroscopy and transient absorption spectroscopy at ambient temperature is used to study a new class of unidirectional rotary molecular motors. Stabilization of unstable intermediates is achieved below 95 K in propane solution for the structure with the fastest rotation rate, and below this temperature measurements on the rate limiting step in the rotation cycle can be performed to obtain activation parameters. The results are compared to measurements at ambient temperature using transient absorption spectroscopy, which show that behavior of these motors is similar over the full temperature range investigated, thereby allowing a maximum rotation rate of 3 MHz at room temperature under suitable irradiation conditions