A Constitutional Tango of Judicial Interpretation: The Instability of Bankruptcy Court Authority under Article III

Despite historical and modern developments, the heart of bankruptcy law centers around providing fresh starts to those who find themselves in severe financial distress. Congress created bankruptcy courts to help efficiently and effectively facilitate this goal. However, the complexity of debtor-creditor relationships necessitates that most bankruptcy proceedings hear a variety of claims, some of which may not arise out of the bankruptcy itself but are still required for bankruptcy resolution. Consequently, the authority of bankruptcy courts to hear all relevant claims is an essential component of bankruptcy relief. Bankruptcy Courts are not granted authority under Article III of the Constitution, but under Article I. This Comment explores the dynamic relationship between non-Article III bankruptcy courts and Article III judicial authority, and how this unstable relationship affects the facilitation of bankruptcy goal

Write-limited sorts and joins for persistent memory

To mitigate the impact of the widening gap between the memory needs of CPUs and what standard memory technology can deliver, system architects have introduced a new class of memory technology termed persistent memory. Persistent memory is byteaddressable, but exhibits asymmetric I/O: writes are typically one order of magnitude more expensive than reads. Byte addressability combined with I/O asymmetry render the performance profile of persistent memory unique. Thus, it becomes imperative to find new ways to seamlessly incorporate it into database systems. We do so in the context of query processing. We focus on the fundamental operations of sort and join processing. We introduce the notion of write-limited algorithms that effectively minimize the I/O cost. We give a high-level API that enables the system to dynamically optimize the workflow of the algorithms; or, alternatively, allows the developer to tune the write profile of the algorithms. We present four different techniques to incorporate persistent memory into the database processing stack in light of this API. We have implemented and extensively evaluated all our proposals. Our results show that the algorithms deliver on their promise of I/O-minimality and tunable performance. We showcase the merits and deficiencies of each implementation technique, thus taking a solid first step towards incorporating persistent memory into query processing. 1

Beyond point forecasting: evaluation of alternative prediction intervals for tourist arrivals

This paper evaluates the performance of prediction intervals generated from alternative time series models, in the context of tourism forecasting. The forecasting methods considered include the autoregressive (AR) model, the AR model using the bias-corrected bootstrap, seasonal ARIMA models, innovations state-space models for exponential smoothing, and Harvey's structural time series models. We use thirteen monthly time series for the number of tourist arrivals to Hong Kong and to Australia. The mean coverage rate and length of alternative prediction intervals are evaluated in an empirical setting. It is found that the prediction intervals from all models show satisfactory performance, except for those from the autoregressive model. In particular, those based on the bias-corrected bootstrap in general perform best, providing tight intervals with accurate coverage rates, especially when the forecast horizon is long.Automatic forecasting, Bootstrapping, Interval forecasting

School-Based Telemedicine Interventions for Asthma: A Systematic Review.

BackgroundSchool health systems are increasingly investing in telemedicine platforms to address acute and chronic illnesses. Asthma, the most common chronic illness in childhood, is of particular interest given its high burden on school absenteeism.ObjectiveConduct a systematic review evaluating impact of school-based telemedicine programs on improving asthma-related outcomes.Data sourcesPubMed, Cochrane CENTRAL, CINAHL, ERIC, PsycINFO, Embase, and Google Scholar.Study eligibility criteriaOriginal research, including quasi-experimental studies, without restriction on the type of telemedicine.ParticipantsSchool-aged pediatric patients with asthma and their families.InterventionsSchool-based telemedicine.Study appraisal and synthesis methodsTwo authors independently screened each abstract, conducted full-text review, assessed study quality, and extracted information. A third author resolved disagreements.ResultsOf 371 articles identified, 7 were included for the review. Outcomes of interest were asthma symptom-free days, asthma symptom frequency, quality of life, health care utilization, school absences, and spirometry. Four of 7 studies reported significant increases in symptom-free days and/or decrease in symptom frequency. Five of 6 reported increases in at least one quality-of-life metric, 2 of 7 reported a decrease in at least 1 health care utilization metric, 1 of 3 showed reductions in school absences, and 1 of 2 reported improvements in spirometry measures.LimitationsVariability in intervention designs and outcome measures make comparisons and quantitative analyses across studies difficult. Only 2 of 7 studies were randomized controlled trials.Conclusions and implications of key findingsHigh-quality evidence supporting the use of school-based telemedicine programs to improve patient outcomes is limited. While available evidence suggests benefit, only 2 comparative trials were identified, and the contribution of telemedicine to these studies' results is unclear

The Age Old Question, Which Comes First? a Simultaneous Test of Children\u27s Savings and Children\u27s College-Bound Identity

This study has three goals: (1) to provide an extensive review of research on the assets/expectation relationship, (2) to provide a conceptual framework for how children’s savings effects children’s college-bound identity (children’s college expectations are a proxy for children’s college-bound identity), and (3) to conduct a simultaneous test of whether owning a savings account leads to college-bound identity or college-bound identity lead to owning a savings account using path analytic technique with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Our review reveals asset researchers theorize about college-bound identity in two distinct but compatible ways: college-bound identity as a “linking mechanism, and college-bound identity as a mediator. However, there has been little theoretical development on the attitudinal effects of assets. In this study, we posit a conceptual framework for how children’s savings affects children’s college-bound identity. Findings from the simultaneous test of the assets/ college-bound identity relationship suggest that savings has modest effect on college-bound identity and vice versa. a policy implication is that asset building policies that seek to build children’s college-bound identity in addition to their savings may be more effective than policies that only seek to build children’s savings

PLS-Based Model Selection: The Role of Alternative Explanations in Information Systems Research

Exploring theoretically plausible alternative models for explaining the phenomenon under study is a crucial step in advancing scientific knowledge. This paper advocates model selection in information systems (IS) studies that use partial least squares path modeling (PLS) and suggests the use of model selection criteria derived from information theory for this purpose. These criteria allow researchers to compare alternative models and select a parsimonious yet well-fitting model. However, as our review of prior IS research practice shows, their use—while common in the econometrics field and in factor-based SEM—has not found its way into studies using PLS. Using a Monte Carlo study, we compare the performance of several model selection criteria in selecting the best model from a set of competing models under different model set-ups and various conditions of sample size, effect size, and loading patterns. Our results suggest that appropriate model selection cannot be achieved by relying on the PLS criteria (i.e., R2, Adjusted R2, GoF, and Q2), as is the current practice in academic research. Instead, model selection criteria—in particular, the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and the Geweke-Meese criterion (GM)—should be used due to their high model selection accuracy and ease of use. To support researchers in the adoption of these criteria, we introduce a five-step procedure that delineates the roles of model selection and statistical inference and discuss misconceptions that may arise in their use

Making ARPES Measurements on Corrugated Monolayer Crystals: Suspended Exfoliated Single-Crystal Graphene

Free-standing exfoliated monolayer graphene is an ultra-thin flexible membrane, which exhibits out of plane deformation or corrugation. In this paper, a technique is described to measure the band structure of such free-standing graphene by angle-resolved photoemission. Our results show that photoelectron coherence is limited by the crystal corrugation. However, by combining surface morphology measurements of the graphene roughness with angle-resolved photoemission, energy dependent quasiparticle lifetime and bandstructure measurements can be extracted. Our measurements rely on our development of an analytical formulation for relating the crystal corrugation to the photoemission linewidth. Our ARPES measurements show that, despite significant deviation from planarity of the crystal, the electronic structure of exfoliated suspended graphene is nearly that of ideal, undoped graphene; we measure the Dirac point to be within 25 meV of $E_F$ . Further, we show that suspended graphene behaves as a marginal Fermi-liquid, with a quasiparticle lifetime which scales as $(E - E_F)^{-1}$; comparison with other graphene and graphite data is discussed

Roles of Information Technology in Distributed and Open Innovation Process

In the era of open and distributed innovation, Information Technology (IT) must be leveraged by organizations to reach, record and review ideas from internal (eg. employees) and external sources (eg. business partners). IT can support and enable this process, but only when its roles are understood and when properly deployed. Existing research has inadequately established these roles. Using the processvalue- of-IT lens, we apply a two-step exploratory research. First, the integration process is uncovered; second, the roles and potential of IT are discussed. Three distinct conceptual roles have been identified from the literature review and from interviews in 30 US and European companies that successfully collaborate with externals: Understanding and managing sources, Documenting idea history and source interactions, and Distribution and sharing of ideas. Some of the existing and emerging approaches to support cooperative activities (tool kits, idea management software, wikis) have been considered in context to outline opportunities and trends in the era of open, distributed, and IT-enabled innovation.</p