The drama and the short-story: a comparison

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Breath Testing and the Demand for Drunk Driving

This paper presents an empirical investigation of the effect of a preliminary breath test law on drunk driving behavior. A preliminary breath test law reduces the procedural problems associated with obtaining evidence of drunk driving and thus increases the probability that a drunk driver will be arrested. In 1985, only 23 states had a preliminary breath test law. According to the theory of deterrence, increasing the probability of arrest for drunk driving will reduce the future occurrence of this behavior. The data set employed to test the theory is a time series from 1980 to 1985 of cross sections of the 48 contiguous states. Four highway mortality rates are used as measures of drunk driving. The effect of the breath test law was estimated using four independent variable models and 12 dummy variable models. The four independent variable models were also estimated using Leamer's specification test. The purpose of using these alternative specifications and Leamer's specification test was to examine the breath test coefficients for specification bias. The econometric results show that the passage of a breath test law has a significant deterrent effect on drunk driving. Simulations with these results suggest that if all states had a preliminary breath test law, highway mortality could be reduced by about 2000 deaths per year.

State Drug Control and Illicit Drug Participation

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effect of state criminal justice expenditures and state public health expenditures on deterring illicit drug use. The empirical model is based on a demand and supply model of drug markets. The effect of a given expenditure on criminal justice or public health programs is dependent on the magnitude of the resulting shifts in the two functions and the demand price elasticity. A reduced form of the demand and supply model is also estimated. The data employed come from the 1990 and 1991 National Household Surveys on Drug Abuse (NHSDA). Data on state and local spending for drug related criminal justice and drug related public health programs were merged with the NHSDA. The main findings from the regression results are that drug control spending reduces drug use. However, the results suggest for marijuana users, the marginal cost of drug control exceeds the social benefits of drug control. This may not be the case for users of other illicit drugs. Spending for drug enforcement by police and drug treatment are found most effective in deterring drug use. However, spending for correctional facilities is never significant which suggests that a more efficient method of reducing drug use might be to reduce correctional facilities spending and increase spending on treatment.

Price, Tobacco Control Policies and Smoking Among Young Adults

The effects of cigarette prices and tobacco control policies (including restrictions on smoking in public places and limits on the availability of tobacco products to youths) on cigarette smoking among youths and young adults are estimated using data from a nationally representative survey of students in U.S. colleges and universities. Smoking participation rates, the quantity of cigarettes smoked by smokers, and level of smoking equations are estimated using appropriate econometric methods. The estimates indicate that college students are quite sensitive to the price of cigarettes, with an average estimated price elasticity of smoking participation of -0.66 and an overall average estimated price elasticity of cigarette smoking of -1.43. In addition, relatively stringent restrictions on smoking in public places are found to reduce smoking participation rates among college students, while the quantity of cigarettes consumed by smokers is lowered by any restrictions on public smoking. Finally, limits on the availability of tobacco products to underage youths have no impact on college students, almost all of whom can legally purchase these products.

The Demand For Cigarettes and Restrictions on Smoking in the Workplace

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the effect that restrictive clean air laws have on the level of smoking. Restrictive clean air laws refers to the laws which prohibit smoking in private workplaces as well as in public places. The data employed in this study consist of a time series of cross sections of the fifty states of the U.S., and Washington D.C., over the time period from 1975 through 1985, Since states where sentiment is strongly against cigarettes are more likely to pass a clean air law, endogeneity between cigarette demand and the clean air law is a problem. A two step estimation model is used to control for endogeneity. Both a single equation and a two equation model of cigarette demand were estimated. The single equation results indicate that a clean air law has a significant negative effect on cigarette demand. However, the two equation model indicates that cigarette demand has a significant negative effect on the probability of passing a clean air law. The results indicate that when endogeneity is controlled for the clean air law dose not have a significant effect on cigarette demand. This does not imply that the enactment of a clean air law would not reduce the level of smoking if such a law were imposed in all states, but rather that only states with low levels of smoking are able to pass restrictive clean sir laws.

Metaphor Aptness And Conventionality: A Processing Fluency Account

Conventionality and aptness are two dimensions of metaphorical sentences thought to play an important role in determining how quick and easy it is to process a metaphor. Conventionality reflects the familiarity of a metaphor whereas aptness reflects the degree to which a metaphor vehicle captures important features of a metaphor topic. In recent years it has become clear that operationalizing these two constructs is not as simple as asking naïve raters for subjective judgments. It has been found that ratings of aptness and conventionality are highly correlated, which has led some researchers to pursue alternative methods for measuring the constructs. Here, in four experiments, we explore the underlying reasons for the high correlation in ratings of aptness and conventionality, and question the construct validity of various methods for measuring the two dimensions. We find that manipulating the processing fluency of a metaphorical sentence by means of familiarization to similar senses of the metaphor (“in vivo conventionalization”) influences ratings of the sentence\u27s aptness. This misattribution may help explain why subjective ratings of aptness and conventionality are highly correlated. In addition, we find other reasons to question the construct validity of conventionality and aptness measures: for instance, we find that conventionality is context dependent and thus not attributable to a metaphor vehicle alone, and we find that ratings of aptness take more into account than they should

The Impact of Price, Availability, and Alcohol Control Policies on Binge Drinking in College

The effects of beer prices, alcohol availability, and policies related to driving under the influence of alcohol on drinking and binge drinking among youths and young adults are estimated using data from a nationally representative survey of students in U.S. colleges and universities. Drinking participation, participation in binge drinking and level of drinking equations are estimated using appropriate econometric methods. The estimates indicate that the drinking practices of college students are sensitive to the price of beer, with an average estimated price elasticity of drinking participation of -0.066 and an average estimated price elasticity of binge drinking of -0.145. However, when dividing the sample by gender, one finds that the effects of prices on drinking are limited to young women. In addition, a significant negative relationship is found for the strength of policies related to drinking and driving among youths and young adults and drinking by college students. However, the results indicate that many elements of campus life, (including participation in a fraternity or sorority, living on campus, and the ready availability of alcoholic beverages) are among the most important determinants of drinking and binge drinking among college students.

Multicolor pyrometer for materials processing in space

The program goals are to design, construct, and program a prototype imaging pyrometer capable of measuring the temperature distribution across the surface of a moving object suspended in space. The approach is to utilize an optical system which operates at short wavelengths compared to the peak of the blackbody spectrum for the temperature range of interest, thus minimizing errors associated with a lack of knowledge about heated sample emissivity. An analysis of the system's temperature measurement capability based on the camera's responsivity was performed and bound to be satisfactory. Details for the evolving optical design and the progress towards construction of a working model are discussed. Details of the algorithm developed for selecting the optimum colors to be used by the pyrometer are reported. Though final selection of the colors will have to await a final design of the optical system, results using a preliminary optical design are presented