Automated census record linking: a machine learning approach

Thanks to the availability of new historical census sources and advances in record linking technology, economic historians are becoming big data genealogists. Linking individuals over time and between databases has opened up new avenues for research into intergenerational mobility, assimilation, discrimination, and the returns to education. To take advantage of these new research opportunities, scholars need to be able to accurately and efficiently match historical records and produce an unbiased dataset of links for downstream analysis. I detail a standard and transparent census matching technique for constructing linked samples that can be replicated across a variety of cases. The procedure applies insights from machine learning classification and text comparison to the well known problem of record linkage, but with a focus on the sorts of costs and benefits of working with historical data. I begin by extracting a subset of possible matches for each record, and then use training data to tune a matching algorithm that attempts to minimize both false positives and false negatives, taking into account the inherent noise in historical records. To make the procedure precise, I trace its application to an example from my own work, linking children from the 1915 Iowa State Census to their adult-selves in the 1940 Federal Census. In addition, I provide guidance on a number of practical questions, including how large the training data needs to be relative to the sample.This research has been supported by the NSF-IGERT Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy at Harvard University (Grant No. 0333403)

Protecting America\u27s Cultural and Historical Patrimony

This Article suggests the procedures which the authors believe would effectively regulate the legal export of art works and be consistent with other foreign trade policies, while not unduly restricting free trade nor discouraging cultural exchange

A Comparative Analysis of Public and Private Political Risk Insurance Policies with Strategic Applications for Risk Mitigation

Generation of non-classical light is both of fundamental interest and a common condition for quantum information applications (QIA). One feasible type of single photon emitter for QIA is based on semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), due to their atomic-like energy structure and their possibility to be integrated with other semiconductor devices on the same chip. Sitecontrolled QDs with highly linear polarized emission are a prerequisite for certain QIA and a close to room temperature operation is demanded for widespread applications. III-nitride QD can have the deep connement potentials needed for high temperature operation, and the demonstration of single photon emission at room temperature was recently reported for a GaN QD [Nano Lett. 14, 982 (2014)]. Asymmetric III-nitride QD emits light with a high degree of linear polarization. To make site-controlled nitride-based QDs a promising approach is to deposit a thin layer of InGaN on top of hexagonal GaN micropyramids. QDs formed on the apex of the pyramids grown with this approach have been shown to exhibit single and sharp InGaN related emission lines with a high degree of linear polarization [Nano Lett. 11, 2415 (2011)]. A simple elongation of the pyramid base gives control of the polarization direction [Light: Sci. Appl. 3, e139 (2014)]. The work presented in this thesis deals with time correlation measurements, to measure, for the rst time, the single photon properties of these pyramidal QDs. A time correlated single photon spectroscopy (TCSPS) setup was assembled, tested and used to perform measurements on these pyramidal QDs. The TCSPS apparatus measures the time dierences between subsequent photons emitted from the sample. In the spectrally ltered light of one emission line in the emission spectra, e.g. exciton emission, of a QD two or more photons cannot be emitted simultaneously, i.e. the photons are sent out one by one. A histogram of the ensemble of measured time dierences (~106 events) will then for the ideal case have no events for τ = 0, and very few for close to zero. This histogram, when normalized, is under certain conditions equal to the second order coherence function g(2)(τ ). In reality, however, there are photons coming from other sources close to the QD, i.e. background emission, that reach the detector and reduce the dip in the correlation histogram for small τ. There is also an statistical uncertainty in the measured time dierences and nally the nite bin width used in the histogram that deteriorate the measured correlation function. To understand the in uence on g(2)(τ) from background emission, instrument response function and the bin width, on the measurement on excitonic emission, simulations and calculations were made. The crucial variables were, for our samples and setup, the level of the background emission and the instrument response function. A post growth process was developed to cover the lower parts of the pyramid sides as well as the area between the pyramids with a metal lm, to reduce the background emission. This reduces the background emission and largely improves the relative QD signal. As a result, signicant improved single photon characteristics were demonstrated. A measurement of the second order coherence function for the excitonic autocorrelation at a temperature of 12 K, gave for zero time delay ( = 0) a value of g(2)(0) = 0.24 and the residual value of the second order coherence function (0.24) could be in full explained by the three variables, background emission, instrument response function and bin width. The g(2)(0) value for correlation measurements at higher temperatures of 50 K and 80 K is also fully explained by the three variables, showing that the emission from the QD itself is ideal up to 80 K. This result underlines the great potential of these site controlled pyramidal dots as sources of fast polarized single photon emission, and provides the rst rigorous evidence of InGaN quantum dot formation on hexagonal GaN pyramids. We also show the rst proof of biexcitonic emission in this pyramidal QDs

Dunkley\u27s Reset your child’s brain: A four-week plan to end meltdowns, raise grades, and boost social skills by reversing the effects of electronic screen-time (Book Review)

A review of Dunkley, V. (2015). Reset your child’s brain: A four-week plan to end meltdowns, raise grades, and boost social skills by reversing the effects of electronic screen-time. Novato, CA: New World Library, 384 pp. $18.95 ISBN: 978160868284