Dear Kanye West

pages 53-5

Examining the Effectiveness of NBA General Managers at Determining Value in the NBA draft, and the Impact of Drafting Team on Player Future Value

This study examines the effectiveness of NBA general managers at accurately drafting in accordance with the future values of players. Using draft position as a metric representing perceived value at the time of the draft, and second contract size to represent value of a player at the time of free agency, I compare the effects of different draft positions on the expected size of a players second contract. By examining divergences in the expected negative linear trend, I can identify positions in the draft which are being over/undervalued. I additionally look at the effect of team on second contract size and acquisition rate to determine if drafting team has a significant impact on a player’s career, as well as which positions in the NBA draft seem to have consensus value across NBA general managers. Results indicate that while NBA managers do a good job drafting accurately at most draft positions, there is a league-wide consensus overvaluation of the second overall pick. Additionally, team environment or “culture” does not seem to be a key predictor among drafting teams on a player’s expected second contract size but being drafted by some teams does have a significant impact on the probability of second contract acquisition

On the Evaluation of Semantic Phenomena in Neural Machine Translation Using Natural Language Inference

We propose a process for investigating the extent to which sentence representations arising from neural machine translation (NMT) systems encode distinct semantic phenomena. We use these representations as features to train a natural language inference (NLI) classifier based on datasets recast from existing semantic annotations. In applying this process to a representative NMT system, we find its encoder appears most suited to supporting inferences at the syntax-semantics interface, as compared to anaphora resolution requiring world-knowledge. We conclude with a discussion on the merits and potential deficiencies of the existing process, and how it may be improved and extended as a broader framework for evaluating semantic coverage.Comment: To be presented at NAACL 2018 - 11 page

Attending to inattention: Identification of deadweight loss under nonsalient taxes

Recent developments in behavioral public economics have shown that heterogeneous biases prevent point identification of deadweight loss. We replicate this result for an arbitrary (closed) consumption set, whereas previous results on heterogeneous attention focused on binary choice. We find that one can bound the efficiency costs of taxation based on aggregate features of demand. When individuals have linear demand functions, the bounds for deadweight loss are easy to calculate from linear regressions.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153717/1/jpet12401-sup-0001-BruscoGlass_attending_to_inattention_Online_Appendix.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153717/2/jpet12401_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153717/3/jpet12401.pd

Privacy Ethics in Biblical Literature

This paper combines modern legal scholars\u27 and biblical literature\u27s treatment of a right to privacy. Beginning with a reassessment of Warren & Brandeis\u27 right to be let alone as the first legal treatment of a right to privacy, the authors explore the right to privacy’s roots in ancient ethical standards. This is done via a study of privacy as it is treated in biblical literature. What emerge are two themes that are central to ethical decision-making with regard to privacy. The first is that breaches of privacy are irreversible, an idea that is informative as to why privacy is valued so highly. The second addresses the decision dilemmas that arise when privacy and its underlying values conflict with other rights and values. These dilemmas confront business executives, technology developers and engineers, government agents, press and media managers, and others who need to decide how to protect privacy in situations not yet covered by existing privacy laws. These front-line decision makers must make judgments based on pre-existing ethical precepts and traditions because often privacy laws lag behind the problems they are written to address

Counting Arithmetical Structures on Paths and Cycles

Let G be a finite, connected graph. An arithmetical structure on G is a pair of positive integer vectors d, r such that (diag (d) - A) r=0 , where A is the adjacency matrix of G. We investigate the combinatorics of arithmetical structures on path and cycle graphs, as well as the associated critical groups (the torsion part of the cokernels of the matrices (diag (d) - A)). For paths, we prove that arithmetical structures are enumerated by the Catalan numbers, and we obtain refined enumeration results related to ballot sequences. For cycles, we prove that arithmetical structures are enumerated by the binomial coefficients ((2n-1)/(n-1)) , and we obtain refined enumeration results related to multisets. In addition, we determine the critical groups for all arithmetical structures on paths and cycles

Counting Arithmetical Structures on Paths and Cycles

Let G be a finite, connected graph. An arithmetical structure on G is a pair of positive integer vectors d, r such that (diag (d) - A) r=0 , where A is the adjacency matrix of G. We investigate the combinatorics of arithmetical structures on path and cycle graphs, as well as the associated critical groups (the torsion part of the cokernels of the matrices (diag (d) - A)). For paths, we prove that arithmetical structures are enumerated by the Catalan numbers, and we obtain refined enumeration results related to ballot sequences. For cycles, we prove that arithmetical structures are enumerated by the binomial coefficients ((2n-1)/(n-1)) , and we obtain refined enumeration results related to multisets. In addition, we determine the critical groups for all arithmetical structures on paths and cycles

Thermal and Mechanical Properties of Polymers using Molecular Dynamics

Polymer systems have gained attention during the past years because of their technological and industrial applications. Simulations, particularly molecular dynamics, are very useful for exploring properties of amorphous polymers, without using experiments. Our goal is to create a readily-available tool that will perform MD simulations in order to get thermal and mechanical properties (Glass transition temperature, Young Modulus) of the polymers. The work that has been done will be part of a tool to help people to learn about polymer properties including Glass Transition Temperature. We model some polymers at a scale of 10,000 atoms. The tool uses LAMMPS to perform MD simulations, with the DREIDING force field. The polymer structures were obtained using Polymer Modeler and the post processing is done using a created Python code. Thus far the problems in modeling the glass transition temperature have been many, but we have been able to model it to a relatively good degree. This tool is intended to be open for general use on NanoHUB. In the future, this tool will likely be expanded to cover further physical properties of further polymers

B3: Paleo-Dunes and Other Post-Glacial Oddities in the Woods and Fields of New Sharon and Chesterville, ME

Guidebook for field trips in Western Maine and Northern New Hampshire: New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference, p. 161-176