A Lab Experiment on Committee Hearings: Preferences, Power, and a Quest for Information

In principle, committees hold hearings to gather and provide information to their principals, but some hearings are characterized as political showcases. This article investigates conditions that moderate committee members' incentives to hold an informative hearing by presenting a game‐theoretic model and a lab experiment. Specifically, it studies when committees hold hearings and which types of hearing they hold by varying policy preferences of committee members and the principal and political gains from posturing. Findings provide new insights to how preferences and power distribution affect individuals' incentives to be informed when they make decisions as members of a committee in many contexts

Factors Associated with Health Status and Health Care Utilization among Korean Older Adults

This study described the individual characteristics of physician and inpatient service users that affected health status and health care utilization and examined the factors that are associated with health status and health services utilization among Korean older adults. Based on the 2010 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey which was conducted by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, descriptive and logistic regression analysis was performed. The sample for this study was 1,478 individuals who indicated older than 65 years and older. Self-rated health status was ranked lower among lower-income families, married persons, and those with chronic diseases. The presence of chronic diseases was significant in predicting the likelihood of poor health status, with socio-economic and health-related need factors having predictive power of the use of inpatient hospital services. The study findings show that elderly Koreans who were in poor health status were married, poorer, and had chronic diseases. The implications of these results are discussed in terms of more effectively targeting interventions to older Koreans in poor health and the factors having predictive power of physician and inpatient utilization

A Black-Point Adaption model for color reproduction

Based on the current state of CIECAM97s, there is a missing adjustment associated with a black-point unlike a white-point. As an attempt to improve the performance of CIECAM97s for color reproduction, six algorithms focusing on black-point adaptation were generated based on previous work on white-point adaptation methods and gamut mapping methods. The six algorithms were used to reproduce four original images targeted to four simulated hard-copy viewing environments that were only differentiated by their black-point settings. Then, the six algorithms were tested in a psychophysical experiment with 32 observers. As a result, linear lightness rescaling under the luminances of white and black of a specific setting was demonstrated to be the best color reproduction method across different black-point settings. The adapted black-point was defined as having the lowest lightness value with its default chromatic appearance correlates predicted by the current state of CIECAM97s under the input viewing environment and was reproduced accordingly with the same appearance correlates

Punishing without rewards? A comprehensive examination of the asymmetry in economic voting

It has been controversial whether incumbents are punished more for a bad economy than they are rewarded for a good economy due to mixed results from previous studies on one or handful number of countries. This paper makes an empirical contribution to this lingering question by conducting extensive tests on whether this asymmetry hypothesis is a cross-nationally generalizable phenomenon using all currently available modules of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems survey from 122 elections in 42 representative democracies between 1996 and 2016, as well as macro-economic indicators and individual-level economic perception. In general, this paper finds little support for the asymmetry hypothesis; although the evidence of such asymmetric economic voting is found in some subpopulations using certain economic indicators, these conditional effects are largely inconsistent, suggesting that it is still safe to assume a linear relationship between economic conditions and support for the incumbent

Modeling and simulation of selected distributed generation sources and their assessment

The models of small turbine generators (i.e. a combustion turbine, a diesel engine, etc), that are used for distributed generation will be obtained as dynamic. Also, the detailed synchronous machine and the excitation system model are obtained for the standard simulation. The simulation will be performed with an infinite bus system model. The synchronous machine is connected with a local load in order to develop the terminal voltage, avoiding the differentiation.;In order to use fuel cells and solar cells, which are new forms of technology, have the potential to reduce costs, and can be used for the DG in the near future, the inverter (DC-AC) model is necessary. In this thesis, the power delivered to voltage sources is examined with the DC current