China After the Reform Era

China’s reform era is ending. Core factors that characterized it – political stability, ideological openness, and rapid economic growth – are unraveling. In part, this is the result of Beijing’s steadfast refusal to contemplate fundamental political reform. Since the early 1990s, this has fueled the rise of entrenched interests within the Communist Party itself. It has also contributed to the systematic underdevelopment of institutions of governance among state and society at large. Now, to address looming problems confronting the nation, Chinese leaders are progressively cannibalizing institutional norms and practices that have formed the bedrock of the regime\u27s stability in the post-Mao era

An analysis of the errors associated with the determination of atmospheric temperature from atmospheric pressure and density data

A graph was developed for relating delta T/T, the relative uncertainty in atmospheric temperature T, to delta p/p, the relative uncertainty in the atmospheric pressure p, for situations, when T is derived from the slope of the pressure-height profile. A similar graph relates delta T/T to delta roh/rho, the relative uncertainty in the atmospheric density rho, for those cases when T is derived from the downward integration of the density-height profile. A comparison of these two graphs shows that for equal uncertainties in the respective basic parameters, p or rho, smaller uncertainties in the derived temperatures are associated with density-height rather than with pressure-height data. The value of delta T/T is seen to depend not only upon delta p or delta rho, and to a small extent upon the value of T or the related scale height H, but also upon the inverse of delta h, the height increment between successive observations of p or rho. In the case of pressure-height data, delta T/T is dominated by 1/delta h for all values of delta h; for density-height data, delta T/T is dominated by delta rho/rho for delta h smaller than about 5 km. In the case of T derived from density-height data, this inverse relationship between delta T/T and delta h applies only for large values of delta h, that is, for delta h 35 km. No limit exists in the fineness of usable height resolution of T which may be derived from densities, while a fine height resolution in pressure-height data leads to temperature with unacceptably large uncertainties

Studies of atmospheric structure and the variability of the earth's atmosphere Final report

Atmospheric structure and variability of earth atmospher

Atmospheric density models and observations Status report

Atmospheric density model

For-Profit Public Enforcement

This Article investigates an important yet undertheorized phenomenon: financial incentives in public enforcement. Each year, public enforcers assess billions of dollars in penalties and other financial sanctions for violations of state and federal law. Why? If the awards in question were the result of private lawsuits, the answer would be obvious. We expect that private enforcers—the victims of law violations and their fee-seeking attorneys—will attempt to maximize financial recoveries. Record recoveries come as no surprise in private class actions, for example. But dollar signs are harder to explain in the context of public enforcement. Unlike private attorneys, public enforcers are paid by salary. They have no direct financial stake in successful enforcement efforts. We assume that public enforcers pursue financial awards only for their deterrent value, not for the benefits that such recoveries can bring the enforcement agency itself. Or do they? This Article argues, contrary to the conventional wisdom on the division between public and private enforcement, that public enforcers often seek large monetary awards for self-interested reasons divorced from the public interest in deterrence. The incentives are strongest when enforcement agencies are permitted to retain all or some of the proceeds of enforcement—an institutional arrangement that is common at the state level and beginning to crop up in federal law. Yet even when public enforcers must turn over their winnings to the general treasury, they may have reputational incentives to focus their efforts on measurable units like dollars earned. Financially motivated public enforcers are likely to behave more like private enforcers than is commonly appreciated: they will undertake more enforcement actions, focus on maximizing financial recoveries rather than securing injunctive relief, and compete with other would-be enforcers for lucrative cases. Those effects will often be undesirable, particularly in circumstances where the risk of over-enforcement is high. But financial incentives might provide a valuable spur to action for agencies that currently are performing well below optimal levels. Policymakers recognize as much when they seek to boost private enforcement by promising prevailing plaintiffs supra-compensatory damages. We show that financial incentives can serve a similar purpose in the public sphere, offering policymakers an additional tool for calibrating the level of public enforcement

Structure and variability of earth's atmosphere Final report

Structure and density variations of earth atmosphere associated with solar flu