Cutoff for the Transposition Walk on Permutations with One-Sided Restrictions

This paper explores the mixing time of the random transposition walk on permutations with one-sided interval restrictions. In particular, we're interested in the notion of cutoff, a phenomenon which occurs when mixing occurs in a window of order smaller than the mixing time. One of the main tools of the paper is the diagonalization obtained by Hanlon; the use of the spectral information is inspired by the famous paper of Diaconis and Shahshahani on the mixing time of the random transposition walk on the entire symmetric group. The diagonalization allows us to prove chi-squared cutoff for a broad class of one-sided restriction matrices. Furthermore, under an extra condition, the walk also undergoes total variation cutoff. Finally, a large collection of examples which undergo chi-squared cutoff but in which total variation mixing occurs substantially earlier and without cutoff is produced. These results resolve a conjecture of Diaconis and Hanlon from Section 5 of Hanlon's paper

Counterfactual Attitudes and the Relational Analysis

In this paper, I raise a problem for standard precisifications of the Relational Analysis of attitude reports. The problem I raise involves counterfactual attitude verbs. such as ‘wish’. In short, the trouble is this: there are true attitude reports ‘ S wishes that P ’ but there is no suitable referent for the term ‘that P ’. The problematic reports illustrate that the content of a subject’s wish is intimately related to the content of their beliefs. I capture this fact by moving to a framework in which ‘wish’ relates subjects to sets of pairs of worlds, or paired propositions, rather than—as is standardly assumed—sets of worlds. Although other types of counterfactual attitude reports, for example those involving ‘imagine’, may be similarly problematic, at this stage it is unclear whether they can be handled the same way

How Will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Affect Small, Medium, and Large Businesses?

Outlines how the 2010 healthcare reform's insurance mandates, state exchanges, and tax credits will affect businesses in each category and according to whether they currently offer insurance, including new options and financial obligations or assistance

How Will the PPACA Impact Individual and Small Group Premiums in the Short and Long Term?

Outlines the changes to non- and small group premiums to be implemented in 2010 and 2014 and their potential effects on out-of-pocket costs, pre-existing condition exclusions, and premiums, as well as determining factors such as provider payment rates

Demonstratives, definite descriptions and non-redundancy

In some sentences, demonstratives can be substituted with definite descriptions without any change in meaning. In light of this, many have maintained that demonstratives are just a type of definite description. However, several theorists have drawn attention to a range of cases where definite descriptions are acceptable, but their demonstrative counterparts are not. Some have tried to account for this data by appealing to presupposition. I argue that such presuppositional approaches are problematic, and present a pragmatic account of the target contrasts. On this approach, demonstratives take two arguments and generally require that the first, covert argument is non-redundant with respect to the second, overt argument. I derive this condition through an economy principle discussed by Schlenker (2005)

Ignorance Implicatures and Non-doxastic Attitude Verbs

This paper is about conjunctions and disjunctions in the scope of non-doxastic atti- tude verbs. These constructions generate a certain type of ignorance implicature. I argue that the best way to account for these implicatures is by appealing to a notion of contex- tual redundancy (Schlenker, 2008; Fox, 2008; Mayr and Romoli, 2016). This pragmatic approach to ignorance implicatures is contrasted with a semantic account of disjunctions under `wonder' that appeals to exhaustication (Roelofsen and Uegaki, 2016). I argue that exhaustication-based theories cannot handle embedded conjunctions, so a pragmatic account of ignorance implicatures is superior

Multi-State Health Insurance Exchanges

Considers possible advantages of creating multi-state exchanges: administrative economies of scale, ability to serve multi-state metropolitan areas, pooling across state lines, and a critical mass of insured persons to establish stable risk pools