How Infectious Was #Deflategate?

On Monday January 19, 2015 a story broke that the National Football League (NFL) had started an investigation into whether the New England Patriots deliberately deflated the footballs they used during their championship win over the Indianapolis Colts. Like an infectious disease, discussion regarding Deflategate grew rapidly on social media sites in the hours and days after the release of the story. However, after the Super Bowl was over, the scandal slowly began to dissipate and lost much of the attention it had originally had, as interest in the NFL wained at the completion of its season. We construct a simple epidemic model for the infectiousness of the Deflategate news story. We then use data from the social media site Twitter to estimate the parameters of this model using standard techniques from the study of inverse problems. We find that the infectiousness (as measured by the basic reproduction number) of Deflategate rivals that of any infectious disease that we are aware of, and is actually more infectious than recent news stories of greater importance - both in terms of the basic reproduction number and in terms of the average amount of time the average tweeter continued to tweet about the news story.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Exponential Networks and Representations of Quivers

We study the geometric description of BPS states in supersymmetric theories with eight supercharges in terms of geodesic networks on suitable spectral curves. We lift and extend several constructions of Gaiotto-Moore-Neitzke from gauge theory to local Calabi-Yau threefolds and related models. The differential is multi-valued on the covering curve and features a new type of logarithmic singularity in order to account for D0-branes and non-compact D4-branes, respectively. We describe local rules for the three-way junctions of BPS trajectories relative to a particular framing of the curve. We reproduce BPS quivers of local geometries and illustrate the wall-crossing of finite-mass bound states in several new examples. We describe first steps toward understanding the spectrum of framed BPS states in terms of such "exponential networks."Comment: 82 pages, 60 figures, typos fixe

The Downturn of Representative Democracy: An Analysis of How Strategic Voting Drives Political Polarization

Over the years, polarization in America has not only increased but also become more ideologically focused on in government. Furthermore, scholarship on polarization has ignored the payoffs that political actors seek while they pursue re-election. Elected representatives have numerous objectives to balance while in office. Not only do they need to manage the preferences of the people and the party, but re-election is at the centerfold of their decision-making process. To evaluate this decision-making process a difference is identified between actual vs. perceived polarization. By illustrating a gap between the constituents’ preferences and representatives’ voting choices via actual and perceived polarization, it is shown that there is a difference in the ideological outcomes representatives seek from what their constituents truly want. This gap then helps explain the strategic voting process done by political actors to drive polarization. Although an uncommon route, to evaluate polarization, I utilize game theory. The game theoretical framework within this analysis demonstrates that in America, representative democracy has changed and no longer serves the purpose it was intended to because of polarization

Effective Demand and Its Impact on Homeownership in Wisconsin

The following study observes certain indicators that impact homeownership in the state of Wisconsin. By utilizing effective demand as the theoretical framework, it is established that the utility and budget of an individual is what creates the decision to own their home. If a home can provide a service the consumer needs and fulfills their utility, the consumer will make the decision to buy the home given they have the ability to pay. By comparing Rural vs. Non-Rural areas, it is found that when an individual lives in a rural area they are more likely to own their home. Additionally, other indicators such as race and poverty level status create an increased likelihood of homeownership. By assessing these indicators, it is made clear that certain policy implications like educational programs or cheaper housing in certain areas could help those who are less likely to obtain homeownership be given a greater opportunity to own. Additionally, these factors can assist lenders on the banking side in understanding which customers are more likely to be able to own their home

Palliative Players: Project Development and Initial Implementation

The Palliative Players are screened and trained hospice volunteers who provide a low-cost, sustainable, role-playing resource for use teaching communication skills to healthcare workers who discuss serious illness with patients and their families. The Palliative Players project was conceived and developed in early 2017 by Dr. Lauren Michalakes, Medical Director of Palliative Care at Coastal Healthcare Alliance (CHA); Sarah Dwelley, RN; Flic Shooter, Director of Hospice Volunteers of Waldo County (HVOWC); and Eliza Eager, Project Coordinator; to provide believable, emotive simulated patients (SPs) for role-play in workshops teaching healthcare workers communication tools and skills for use in conversations with patients and families facing serious illness. Nationally, there are excellent tools and systems for teaching serious illness conversation skills to physicians and nurse practitioners, including VitalTalk (VitalTalk, 2017), and the Serious Illness Conversation Program (SICP) (Ariadne Labs, 2017). As designed, however, neither of these tools entirely fits all the needs and system constraints of rural Maine; nor were they designed for use teaching goals of care conversation skills to the nurses, social workers and other healthcare workers who can and do have these conversations with patients. The Palliative Players project adapts, expands, and combines existing tools, training hospice volunteers to be dynamic teaching resource for role-play of serious illness conversations. This capstone paper describes the development of the Palliative Players project, including training and management details and lessons learned in project implementation to date. Training materials used and developed are found in the Appendices