Relating Movement and Adjunction in Syntax and Semantics

In this thesis I explore the syntactic and semantic properties of movement and adjunction in natural language, and suggest that these two phenomena are related in a novel way. In a precise sense, the basic pieces of grammatical machinery that give rise to movement, also give rise to adjunction. In the system I propose, there is no atomic movement operation and no atomic adjunction operation; the terms "movement" and "adjunction" serve only as convenient labels for certain combinations of other, primitive operations. As a result the system makes non-trivial predictions about how movement and adjunction should interact, since we do not have the freedom to stipulate arbitrary properties of movement while leaving the properties of adjunction unchanged, or vice-versa. I focus first on the distinction between arguments and adjuncts, and propose that the differences between these two kinds of syntactic attachment can be thought of as a transparent reflection of the differing ways in which they contribute to neo-Davidsonian logical forms. The details of this proposal rely crucially on a distinctive treatment of movement, and from it I derive accurate predictions concerning the equivocal status of adjuncts as optionally included in or excluded from a maximal projection, and the possibility of counter-cyclic adjunction. The treatment of movement and adjunction as interrelated phenomena furthermore enables us to introduce a single constraint that subsumes two conditions on extraction, namely adjunct island effects and freezing effects. The novel conceptions of movement and semantic composition that underlie these results raise questions about the system's ability to handle semantic variable-binding. I give an unconventional but descriptively adequate account of basic quantificational phenomena, to demonstrate that this important empirical ground is not given up. More generally, this thesis constitutes a case study in (i) deriving explanations for syntactic patterns from a restrictive, independently motivated theory of compositional semantics, and (ii) using a computationally explicit framework to rigourously investigate the primitives and consequences of our theories. The emerging picture that is suggested is one where some central facts about the syntax and semantics of natural language hang together in a way that they otherwise would not

Blacklisted Benefactors: The Political Contestation of Non-Market Strategy

This paper explores whether and how contentious stakeholders can disrupt a firm’s non-market strategy. We offer the first systematic study of the effect of public protest on corporate political activity, using a unique database that allows us to empirically analyze the impact of social movement boycotts on targeted firms’ campaign contributions. We show that boycotts lead to significant reductions in the amount of targets’ campaign contributions and increase the proportion of contributions that politicians refund. These results highlight the importance of considering how a firm’s socio-political environment shapes its non-market strategy. We supplement this primary analysis by drawing from social movement theory to extrapolate and test a number of mechanisms that moderate the extent to which movement challenges effectively disrupt corporate political activity

ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN, ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING, AND THE MARKET VALUE OF THE FIRM

We compare market returns associated with firms' creation of new units focused on e-business. Two aspects of organization design - governance and leadership - are considered with regard to exploitation - and exploration-oriented organization learning. We find that exploitation in governance (high centralization) is associated with a lower mean and variance in returns; that exploitation in leadership (appointment of outsiders) is associated with the same mean yet higher variance; and, among units exhibiting both modes of learning, the variance of returns are not equal

Targeted temperature management in emergency medicine: current perspectives

Landmark trials in 2002 showed that therapeutic hypothermia (TH) after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest due to ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation resulted in improved likelihood of good neurologic recovery compared to standard care without TH. Since that time, TH has been frequently instituted in a wide range of cardiac arrest patients regardless of initial heart rhythm. Recent evidence has evaluated how, when, and to what degree TH should be instituted in cardiac arrest victims. We outline early evidence, as well as recent trials, regarding the use of TH or targeted temperature management in these patients. We also provide evidence-based suggestions for the institution of targeted temperature management/TH in a variety of emergency medicine settings

Arriving on time: estimating travel time distributions on large-scale road networks

Most optimal routing problems focus on minimizing travel time or distance traveled. Oftentimes, a more useful objective is to maximize the probability of on-time arrival, which requires statistical distributions of travel times, rather than just mean values. We propose a method to estimate travel time distributions on large-scale road networks, using probe vehicle data collected from GPS. We present a framework that works with large input of data, and scales linearly with the size of the network. Leveraging the planar topology of the graph, the method computes efficiently the time correlations between neighboring streets. First, raw probe vehicle traces are compressed into pairs of travel times and number of stops for each traversed road segment using a `stop-and-go' algorithm developed for this work. The compressed data is then used as input for training a path travel time model, which couples a Markov model along with a Gaussian Markov random field. Finally, scalable inference algorithms are developed for obtaining path travel time distributions from the composite MM-GMRF model. We illustrate the accuracy and scalability of our model on a 505,000 road link network spanning the San Francisco Bay Area

Corporate Political Power: The Politics of Reputation & Traceability

We live, it is said, in a second Gilded Age, in which politics is dominated by corporate power and elite business interests. But how does corporate money flow into politics? This Article provides an original empirical analysis of when and why corporations engage in particular forms of political activity and uses those findings to develop a novel, empirically-grounded approach to the First Amendment’s treatment of traceability mandates in politics. We analyze the conditions under which firms shift between (1) using their political action committees (PACs) to contribute to candidates and political parties, and (2) engaging in less traceable forms of political activity, like lobbying, in which the specific targets of firms’ influence efforts are unknown. This Article identifies a key variable that explains when and why corporations shift from lighter (more traceable and direct) to darker (less traceable and more indirect) channels of political engagement. We demonstrate that corporate political activity grows darker as a firm’s reputation grows more negative. This dynamic produces the disquieting result that the corporate political interventions that are likely to be the most controversial are also those most likely to be deployed in ways the public is least able to monitor. Our findings indicate that the traceability of money creates a concrete limit on the ability of corporate actors to influence politics—a limit which plausibly applies to political giving more broadly. Corporate donors who are seen as political liabilities find it increasingly difficult to locate politicians who will openly take their money or accept other support. Politicians refuse or return traceable donations from disreputable donors. Our research thus demonstrates that the power of business in politics is more conditional than generally appreciated. This Article uses these empirical findings to interrogate the relationship between traceability mandates in politics and theories of the First Amendment. While the Supreme Court has prominently struck down restrictions on money in politics in cases like Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, it has repeatedly upheld a variety of disclosure requirements. For a range of reasons, including the Supreme Court’s decision in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, however, disclosure mandates are likely to become an increasingly important site of conflict in both policy and litigation, making it ever more important to assess and theorize the justifications for them. Our research suggests an empirically-grounded justification: traceability alters politicians’ behavior, causing them to act more consistently with public opinion. In other words, traceability mandates make politicians more accountable to the people. At the same time, there is evidence that traceability policies, and the reduction of darker corporate money in politics they produce, promote the public’s belief that their views shape the political system. Traceability mandates, in sort, advance both objective and subjective forms of democratic accountability. We thus argue that policies that advance the traceability of corporate money in politics not only further core First Amendment values but may be required by them. By identifying how and why corporate money flows into politics at a fine level of detail, this Article also provides important information that policy makers can use to craft campaign finance and lobbying reforms. Our empirical findings and theoretical analysis support policy changes that increase the traceability of corporate money in politics, including broader and more robust disclosure requirements for corporate lobbying and individual donations made by corporate executives and directors