An Empirical Analysis of Cigarette Addiction

We use a framework suggested by a model of rational addiction to analyze empirically the demand for cigarettes. The data consist of per capita cigarettes sales (in packs) annually by state for the period 1955 through 1985. The empirical results provide support for the implications of a rational addiction model that cross price effects are negative (consumption in different periods are complements), that long-run price responses exceed short-run responses, and that permanent price effects exceed temporary price effects. A 10 percent permanent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces current consumption by 4 percent in the short run and by 7.5 percent in the long run. In contrast, a 10 percent increase in the price for only one period decreases consumption by only 3 percent. In addition, a one period price increase of 10 percent reduces consumption in the previous period by approximately .7 percent and consumption in the subsequent period by 1.5 percent. These estimates illustrate the importance of the intertemporal linkages in cigarette demand implied by rational addictive behavior.

The Economic Theory of Illegal Goods: The Case of Drugs

This paper concentrates on both the positive and normative effects of punishments that enforce laws to make production and consumption of particular goods illegal, with illegal drugs as the main example. Optimal public expenditures on apprehension and conviction of illegal suppliers obviously depend on the extent of the difference between the social and private value of consumption of illegal goods, but they also depend crucially on the elasticity of demand for these goods. In particular, when demand is inelastic, it does not pay to enforce any prohibition unless the social value is negative and not merely less than the private value. We also compare outputs and prices when a good is legal and taxed with outputs and prices when the good is illegal. We show that a monetary tax on a legal good could cause a greater reduction in output and increase in price than would optimal enforcement, even recognizing that producers may want to go underground to try to avoid a monetary tax. This means that fighting a war on drugs by legalizing drug use and taxing consumption may be more effective than continuing to prohibit the legal use of drugs.

More than a game: evaluation report

&lsquo;More than a Game&rsquo; is a sport-based youth mentoring program developed and implemented by Western Bulldogs in partnership with Newport Islamic Society (NIS), the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and Hobsons Bay City Council, with funding from the Attorney General&rsquo;s Department Building Community Resilience (BCR) grant scheme. The program aimed to develop a community-based resilience model that would use team-based sports to address issues of identity, sense of belonging and cultural isolation amongst young men of Islamic faith, all of which are identified as factors that may promote forms of violent extremism. The program involved 60 young men, aged 15-25, from the Newport Islamic Society in Melbourne&rsquo;s Western suburbs. The boys were engaged in numerous activities where they were mentored by staff from Western Bulldogs, Victoria Police and Australian Federal Police, who worked in conjunction with community leaders from the Newport Islamic Society.Through sports-based training, mentoring programs, and community dialogue, &lsquo;More Than a Game&rsquo; aimed to develop participants&rsquo; leadership, communication, and cross-cultural engagement skills; to identify and facilitate the development of young role models in the community; to enhance greater understanding of the Muslim community in Melbourne&rsquo;s West, and to foster greater intercultural contact and understanding between participants and other cultural groups. A number of activities were developed and implemented as a part of the program</span

"More than a game": the impact of sport-based youth mentoring schemes on developing resilience toward violent extremism

This paper draws upon the findings of an evaluation of “More than a Game”, a sport-focused youth mentoring program in Melbourne, Australia that aimed to develop a community-based resilience model using team-based sports to address issues of identity, belonging, and cultural isolation amongst young Muslim men in order to counter forms of violent extremism. In this essay we focus specifically on whether the intense embodied encounters and emotions experienced in team sports can help break down barriers of cultural and religious difference between young people and facilitate experiences of resilience, mutual respect, trust, social inclusion and belonging. Whilst the project findings are directly relevant to the domain of countering violent extremism, they also contribute to a growing body of literature which considers the relationship between team-based sport, cross-cultural engagement and the development of social resilience, inclusion and belonging in other domains of youth engagement and community-building

CP Violation in Three-Body Chargino Decays

CP violation in supersymmetry can give rise to rate asymmetries in the decays of supersymmetric particles. In this work we compute the rate asymmetries for the three-body chargino decays \tilde\chi^\pm_2 \to \tilde\chi^\pm_1 HH, \tilde\chi^\pm_2 \to \tilde\chi^\pm_1 ZZ, \tilde\chi^\pm_2 \to \tilde\chi^\pm_1 W^+ W^- and \tilde\chi^\pm_2 \to tilde\chi^\pm_1 ZH. Each of the decays contains contributions mediated by neutral Higgs bosons that can possibly go on shell. Such contributions receive a resonant enhancement; furthermore, the strong phases required for the CP asymmetries come from the widths of the exchanged Higgs bosons. Our results indicate that the rate asymmetries can be relatively large in some cases, while still respecting a number of important low-energy bounds such as those coming from B meson observables and electric dipole moments. For the parameters that we consider, rate asymmetries of order 10% are possible in some cases.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, published versio

The Effect of Breathing Patterns Common to Competitive Swimming on Gas Exchange and Muscle Deoxygenation During Heavy-Intensity Fartlek Exercise

The purpose of this study was to compare the respiratory and muscle deoxygenation (HHb) responses of regulated breathing versus free-breathing, during continuous exercise (CONLD) and intermittent 5s breath holds (BH) (CONLD-BH), intermittent 5s sprint (FLK) and combined 5s BH and sprint (FLK-BH) followed by 25s of free-breathing. Oxygen uptake(V̇O2)was unchanged between CONLD (2.12±0.35L/min) and CONLD-BH (2.15±0.42L/min; p=0.116), and FLK (2.24±0.40L/min) and FLK-BH (2.20±0.45L/min; p=0.861). Δ[Hbtot]: CONLD (3.3±1.6µM) \u3e CONLD-BH (-2.5±1.2µM; ∆177%; p\u3c0.001), but unchanged between FLK (2.0±1.6µM) and FLK-BH (0.82±1.4µM; p=0.979). Δ[HHb]: CONLD (7.3±1.8µM) \u3e CONLD-BH (7.0±2.0µM; ∆4%; p=0.011), and FLK (6.7±1.8µM) \u3c FLK-BH (8.7±2.4µM; p\u3c0.001). It is suggested that the unchanged V̇O2 between CONLD and CONLD-BH was supported by increased deoxygenation, reflected by decreased ∆[Hbtot] and blunted ∆[HHb], via apneic-driven redistribution of blood flow away from working muscles, which is reflected by the decreased SatO2. However, the preserved V̇O2 during FLK-BH versus FLK has been underpinned by the increase [HHb]

El mercado de bienes ilegales: el caso de la droga

This paper considers the costs of reducing consumption of goods by making their production illegal and punishing illegal producers. We use illegal drugs as a prominent example. We show that the more inelastic either demand for or supply of goods is, the greater the increase in social cost from further reducing its production by greater enforcement efforts. So, optimal public expenditures on the apprehension and conviction of illegal suppliers depend not only on the difference between the social and private values of consumption, but also on this elasticity. When demand and supply are no so elastic, it does not pay to enforce any prohibition unless the social value is negative. We also show that a monetary tax could cause a greater reduction in output and increase in price than optimal enforcement against the same goods if it were illegal, even though some producers may go underground to avoid a monetary tax. When enforcement is costly, excise taxes and quantity restrictions are not equivalent.illegal goods, illegal producers, drugs, monetary tax, decriminalization, elasticity, social cost

Programming Idioms for Transactional Events

Transactional events (TE) are an extension of Concurrent ML (CML), a programming model for synchronous message-passing. Prior work has focused on TE's formal semantics and its implementation. This paper considers programming idioms, particularly those that vary unexpectedly from the corresponding CML idioms. First, we solve a subtle problem with client-server protocols in TE. Second, we argue that CML's wrap and guard primitives do not translate well to TE, and we suggest useful workarounds. Finally, we discuss how to rewrite CML protocols that use abort actions

Low Temperature Regolith Bricks for In-Situ Structural Material

Current technology for producing in-situ structural materials on future missions to Mars or the moon relies heavily on energy-intensive sintering processes to produce solid bricks from regolith. This process requires heating the material up to temperatures in excess of 1000 C and results in solid regolith pieces with compressive strengths in the range of 14000 to 28000 psi, but are heavily dependent on the porosity of the final material and are brittle. This method is currently preferred over a low temperature cementation process to prevent consumption of precious water and other non-renewable materials. A high strength structural material with low energy requirements is still needed for future colonization of other planets. To fulfill these requirements, a nano-functionalization process has been developed to produce structural bricks from regolith simulant and shows promising mechanical strength results. Functionalization of granular silicate particles into alkoxides using a simple low temperature chemical process produces a high surface area zeolite particles that are held together via inter-particle oxygen bonding. Addition of water in the resulting zeolite particles produces a sol-gel reaction called "inorganic polymerization" which gives a strong solid material after a curing process at 60 C. The aqueous solution by-product of the reaction is currently being investigated for its reusability; an essential component of any ISRU technology. For this study, two batches of regolith bricks are synthesized from JSC-1A; the first batch from fresh solvents and chemicals, the second batch made from the water solution by-product of the first batch. This is done to determine the feasibility of recycling necessary components of the synthesis process, mainly water. Characterization including BET surface area, SEM, and EDS has been done on the regolith bricks as well as the constituent particles,. The specific surface area of 17.53 sq m/g (average) of the granular regolith material was obtained from nitrogen adsorption isotherm measurement. The size, shape and textures of regolith from SEM shows that the particles are 25-50 micrometers in size and mostly irregular in shape (Figure 1a). The elemental composition of regolith was identified from EDS analysis showed the presence of Si, Al, Fe, Na, Mg, Ca, Ti, O and C (see figure 1b). Each set of cylindrical brick samples were prepared by low energy process, and cured for 21 and 28 days, respectively to compare their compressive strength. Figure 1c, and d shows the JSC-1A brick and the compressive strength measurements. The results from the 21 day cured bricks (2 bricks) have been done and yielded an aver-age strength of 3050 psi, considerably higher than Portland cement mortars (Type IV and V). This promising technology provides the benefits of construction material similar to concrete, with a low complexity, low energy synthesis process and the likelihood of complete reusability of precious resources. Compressive strength using this method can be improved by increasing the surface area of the particles, using bi-modal particle size distribution, and adding certain additives to increase inter-particle forces