Nutrition, Education and Development: The Case of Vitamin D Milk

Micronutrient deficiencies that reduce the health of children risk impeding human capital investments critical for economic development. While the developed world has largely eliminated the most pernicious of these deficiencies, they remain widespread in poorer countries. This study looks at the effects of the introduction of fortified milk, which contributed to the decline of one such micronutrient deficiency in the United States: vitamin D. At the time of vitamin D milk’s introduction in the early 1930s, vitamin D deficiency, manifested most prominently in the form of rickets, affected large numbers of children. Using previously unexamined historical sources, I compile and introduce an original dataset describing the rollout of vitamin D fortified milk across the United States throughout the decade. I then use this dataset to examine the impact of fortified milk on schooling. The gradual expansion of vitamin D milk, along with natural variation in susceptibility to vitamin D deficiency due to geographic and racial factors, permits the identification of fortification’s impact from other regional and temporal trends. Using a difference-in-difference-in-difference (DDD) estimator, I find that the availability of vitamin D milk increased schooling for the group at highest risk for vitamin D deficiency: African-American children from cities with low sunlight. A variety of sensitivity tests supports the validity of the results. They indicate that large scale food fortification initiatives merit further consideration from economists and policy makers concerned with achieving development outcomes.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

ANT COLONY ALGORITHM APPLIED TO AUTOMATIC SPEECH RECOGNITION GRAPH DECODING

International audienceIn this article we propose an original approach that allows the decoding of Automatic Speech Recognition Graphs by using a constructive algorithm based on ant colonies. In classical approaches, when a graph is decoded with higher order language models; the algorithm must expand the graph in order to develop each new observed n-gram. This extension process increases the computation time and memory consumption. We propose to use an ant colony algorithm in order to explore ASR graphs with a new language model, without the necessity of expanding it. We first present results based on the TED English corpus where 2-grams graph are decoded with a 4-grams language model. Then, we show that our approach performs better than a conventional Viterbi algorithm when computing time is constrained and allows a highly threaded decoding process with a single graph and a strict control of computation time and memory consumption

Ant Colony Algorithm Applied to Automatic speech Recognition Graph Decoding

International audienc

Characteristics of farms applying for cannabis cultivation permits

Cannabis producers in California can now participate in a regulated supply chain — but little is known, despite considerable speculation, about which types of producers are likely to seek legal status. Growers' decisions about joining the legal market are central to questions about how formalization will transform cannabis production in California, and in particular whether small farms, which were encouraged under Proposition 64, can remain part of the industry. We combine data on the location and characteristics of cannabis farms in 2012 and 2016 with applications for cultivation permits from 2018 to investigate farm characteristics associated with cannabis formalization in Humboldt County. We find strong evidence that the farms most likely to start the permit process are larger, existed in 2012 prior to the start of the “green rush” and expanded at greater rates between 2012 and 2016. The evidence is consistent with concerns that formalization of the cannabis industry may lead to industry consolidation, as has been the trend in California's agricultural and timber industries more broadly

Sense Embeddings in Knowledge-Based Word Sense Disambiguation

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Sprachniveau in Online- und TV-Nachrichten: Eine quantitative computergestützte Textanalyse der Online- und TV-Berichterstattung von ARD, ZDF, Sat.1 und RTL

Nachrichten stellen ein beliebtes Forschungsfeld der Kommunikationsforschung dar. In der entsprechenden deutschsprachigen Forschung werden vielfach die Hauptnachrichten der beiden deutschen Rundfunksysteme (öffentlich-rechtlich vs. privat) miteinander verglichen – zuletzt z. B. hinsichtlich ihres Sprachniveaus. Allerdings existiert wenig Forschung, die sich dem Online-Nachrichtenangebot widmet. Daher lag unser Ziel in der Analyse des Sprachniveaus von deutschen Online-Nachrichtenangeboten beider Systeme sowie einzelner Sender (ARD, ZDF, RTL SAT.1) mit Hilfe von vier Kategorien des Textanalyseprogramms Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count sowie von zwei weiteren Massen (Umgangssprache, Flesch-Index), die unterschiedliche Dimensionen des Sprachniveaus erfassen. In Form einer künstlichen Nachrichtenwoche wurden insgesamt 84 Online-Nachrichtentexte hinsichtlich ihres Sprachniveaus analysiert. Online-Nachrichten der Privatsender wiesen durchschnittlich längere Texte und mehr Wörter pro Satz auf. Ein Unterschied hinsichtlich Wortschatzdiversität und Wortkomplexität konnte nicht gefunden werden. Die Ergebnisse zum Flesch-Index zeigen, dass Online-Nachrichten beider Systeme ähnlich schwer verständlich sind. Diese Ergebnisse wurden aktuellen Daten zum Sprachniveau klassischer TV-Nachrichten gegenübergestellt. Dabei wurde evident, dass Online-Nachrichten höhere Werte bei einigen Markern des Sprachniveaus aufwiesen, was u. a. mit Hilfe des Kontinuums Mündlichkeit-Schriftlichkeit kontextualisierbar ist, und dass sich das Sprachniveau in Online-Nachrichten zwischen den Systemen und Sendern, im Unterschied zu TV-Nachrichten, eher ähnelte, was im ersten Fall als Konvergenz, im zweiten als Konkurrenz interpretiert werden kann

Nonlinear Quantum Dynamics

The vast majority of the literature dealing with quantum dynamics is concerned with linear evolution of the wave function or the density matrix. A complete dynamical description requires a full understanding of the evolution of measured quantum systems, necessary to explain actual experimental results. The dynamics of such systems is intrinsically nonlinear even at the level of distribution functions, both classically as well as quantum mechanically. Aside from being physically more complete, this treatment reveals the existence of dynamical regimes, such as chaos, that have no counterpart in the linear case. Here, we present a short introductory review of some of these aspects, with a few illustrative results and examples.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, invited talk at the NATO Advanced Workshop, "Nonlinear Dynamics and Fundamental Interactions," (October, 2004, Tashkent