Capital Wealth Inequality and Public Bads: A Mathematical Analysis

In A Future for Socialism (1994), John Roerrre'r argues that the highly unequal distribution of capital wealth under contemporary capitalism results in a level of public bads (e.g., environmental degradation) higher than that which would be preferred by the large majority of the population. This contention is examined using an alternative formal model, of arguably greater economic content and realism, from which the result is obtained that the household's share of capital property return has an uncertain effect on its preferred level of the public bad. In the CES special case, the effect of household capital wealth on its preferred level of public bad is determined by the elasticities of substitution in the production and utility functions.Distribution; Wealth; Inequality

The Equity-Efficiency Tradeoff under Capitalism and Market Socialism

This paper utilizes a simple general equilibrium tax policy model and empirical data on labor income and capital wealth distribution in the United States to examine the equity-efficiency tradeoff under capitalism and a specific variant of market socialism designated "pragmatic market socialism." Under this variant of market socialism, property return produced by a publicly owned, but commercially oriented, business enterprise sector would be distributed on the basis of labor income rather than financial capital ownership. Under arguably reasonable assumptions, the pragmatic market socialist economy would display both higher output and greater consumption equality than the equivalent capitalist economy.Capitalism; Socialism

Socialization of Pain Memories:Parent-Child Reminiscing About Past Painful and Sad Events

Parent-child reminiscing about past negative events has been linked to a host of developmental outcomes. Previous research has identified two distinct between-parent reminiscing styles, wherein parents who are more elaborative (vs. repetitive) have children with more optimal outcomes. To date, however, research has not examined how parents and children talk about past painful experiences nor compared parent-child reminiscing about past painful versus other distressing events despite key developmental differences in how young children respond to pain versus sadness in others. This study aimed to fill that gap

The Role of Narrative in the Development of Children’s Pain Memories: Influences of Father- and Mother-Child Reminiscing on Children’s Recall of Pain

Negatively biased memories for pain (ie, recalled pain is higher than initial report) robustly predict future pain experiences. During early childhood, parent-child reminiscing has been posited as playing a critical role in how children's memories are constructed and reconstructed; however, this has not been empirically demonstrated. This study examined the role of parent-child reminiscing about a recent painful surgery in young children's pain memory development. Participants included 112 children (Mage = 5.3 years; 60% boys) who underwent a tonsillectomy and one of their parents (34% fathers). Pain was assessed in hospital and during the recovery phase at home. Two weeks after surgery, parents and children attended a laboratory visit to participate in a structured narrative elicitation task wherein they reminisced about the surgery. Four weeks after surgery, children completed an established pain memory interview using the same previously administered scales through telephone. Narratives were coded for style (elaboration) and content (pain and emotion) based on coding schemes drawn from the developmental psychology literature. Findings revealed that a more elaborative parental reminiscing style in addition to greater use of emotional words predicted more accurate/positively biased pain memories. Greater parental use of pain words predicted more negatively biased pain memories. Although there were no sex and parent-role differences in pain memory biases, mothers and fathers differed in how they reminisced with their boys vs girls. This research underscores the importance of parent-child reminiscing in children's pain memory development and may be used to inform the development of a parent-led memory reframing intervention to improve pediatric pain management.</p

Role of Anxiety in Young Children’s Pain Memory Development after Surgery

Pediatric pain is common, and memory for it may be distressing and have long-lasting effects. Children who develop more negatively biased memories for pain (i.e., recalled pain is higher than initial pain report) are at risk of worse future pain outcomes. In adolescent samples, higher child and parent catastrophic thinking about pain was associated with negatively biased memories for post-surgical pain. This study examined the influence of child and parent anxiety on the development of younger children's post-surgical pain memories. Seventy-eight children undergoing a tonsillectomy and one of their parents participated. Parents reported on their anxiety (state and trait) before surgery, and trained researchers observationally-coded children's anxiety at anaesthesia induction. Children reported on their post-surgical pain intensity and pain-related fear for 3 days after discharge. One month after surgery, children recalled their pain intensity and pain-related fear using the same scales previously administered. Results revealed that higher levels of post-surgical pain and higher parent trait anxiety predicted more negatively biased memories for pain-related fear. Parent state anxiety and child preoperative anxiety were not associated with children's recall. Children who developed negatively biased pain memories had worse post-surgical pain several days after surgery. These findings underscore the importance of reducing parental anxiety and effective post-surgical pain management to potentially buffer against the development of negatively biased pain memories in young children

Hybridization in natural sympatric populations of Dermacentor ticks in northwestern North America.

Hybridization in ticks has been described in a handful of species and mostly as a result of laboratory experiments. We used 148 AFLP loci to describe putative hybridization events between D. andersoni and D. variabilis in sympatric populations from northwestern North America. Recently, D. variabilis has expanded its range westward into the natural range of D. andersoni. Using a sample of 235 D. andersoni and 62 D. variabilis, we identified 31 individuals as putative hybrids: four F2 individuals and 27 backcrosses to D. andersoni (as defined by NewHybrids). We found no evidence of hybrids backcrossing into D. variabilis. Furthermore, all hybrids presented 16S mtDNA signatures characteristic of D. andersoni, which indicates the directionality of the hybrid crosses: female D. andersoni × male D. variabilis. We also discovered 13 species-specific AFLP fragments for D. andersoni. These loci were found to have a decreased occurrence in the putative hybrids and were absent altogether in D. variabilis samples. AFLP profiles were also used to determine the levels of genetic population structure and gene flow among nine populations of D. andersoni and three of D. variabilis. Genetic structure exists in both species (D. andersoni, ΦST = 0.110; D. variabilis, ΦST = 0.304) as well as significant estimates of isolation by distance (D. andersoni, ρ = 0.066, P = 0.001; D. variabilis, ρ = 0.729, P = 0.001)

Macondo-1 well oil-derived polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in mesozooplankton from the northern Gulf of Mexico

Copyright 2012 by the American Geophysical UnionMesozooplankton (>200 μm) collected in August and September of 2010 from the northern Gulf of Mexico show evidence of exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Multivariate statistical analysis revealed that distributions of PAHs extracted from mesozooplankton were related to the oil released from the ruptured British Petroleum Macondo-1 (M-1) well associated with the R/VDeepwater Horizon blowout. Mesozooplankton contained 0.03–97.9 ng g−1 of total PAHs and ratios of fluoranthene to fluoranthene + pyrene less than 0.44, indicating a liquid fossil fuel source. The distribution of PAHs isolated from mesozooplankton extracted in this study shows that the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill may have contributed to contamination in the northern Gulf of Mexico ecosystem

Felony Murder and Capital Punishment: an Examination of the Deterrence Question

A proper test of the deterrent effect of the death penalty must consider capital homicides. However, the criterion variable in most investigations has been total homicides—most of which bear no legal or theoretical relationship to capital punishment. To address this fundamental data problem, this investigation used Federal Bureau of Investigation data for 1976–1987 to examine the relationship between capital punishment and felony murder, the most common type of capital homicide. We conducted time series analyses of monthly felony murder rates, the frequency of executions, and the amount and type of television coverage of executions over the period. The analyses revealed occasional departures (for vehicle theft and narcotics killings) from the null hypotheses. However, on balance, and in line with the vast majority of capital punishment studies, this investigation found no consistent evidence that executions and the television coverage they receive are associated significantly with rates for total, index, or different types of felony murder

Growth propensities under capitalism and profit-oriented market socialism

This research mathematically investigates the hypothesis of slow economic growth under capitalism, relative to potential economic growth under a profit-oriented market socialist alternative. The hypothesis is examined within two different economic models: (1) a current-period model that looks at the optimal level of investment in any period from the respective standpoints of the capitalist minority and the general population, and (2) a steady-state equilibrium model that looks at the optimal capital-labor ratio from the respective standpoints of the capitalist minority and the general population. In both cases, two inequalities are derived for the determination of parameter combinations under which growth retardation will hold, the first under the assumption that the aggregate CES production function is linear homogeneous, and the second under the assumption that this function is homogeneous to any degree. The fact that parameter combinations exist under which growth retardation would hold, and also under which growth retardation would not hold, suggests that this issue is essentially an empirical issue rather than a theoretical issue