The Desirability of Forgiveness in Regulatory Enforcement

I present a model that explains two common features of regulatory enforcement: selective forgiveness of noncompliance, and the collection of information on a firm’s compliance activities and not just its compliance status. I show that forgiving noncompliance is optimal if the information on a firm’s compliance activities constitutes sufficiently strong evidence of the firm having exerted a high level of compliance effort. The key benefit of forgiving noncompliance is a reduction in the probability with which the firm needs to be monitored. If fines are costly, a further benefit is a reduction in fine costs.enforcement of regulation, selective enforcement, forgiving noncompliance

Thermal SZ effect in a magnetized IGM dominated by interacting DM decay/annihilation during dark ages

During cosmic dawn, the thermal history of the universe is well studied, and a study of this era can give us some of the most useful insight into the universe before the recombination epoch. Its precise modeling and future high-precision measurements will be a valuable tool for determining the thermal history of the universe. In the present work, we study the thermal and ionization history of IGM in the presence of decaying magnetic fields via ambipolar and turbulent decay, Baryon-Dark matter (BDM) interaction, including the DM decay/annihilation. The BDM interaction cross-sections considered are of the form $\sigma=\sigma_0 v^{n}$, where $n=-2$ and $n=-4$. In this work, we show that in the current scenario, the decay/annihilation of the DM particles have a considerable impact on the temperature and ionization histories at low redshift. With the addition of the concept of fractional interaction, which states that if a fraction of the DM particles interacts with the baryons, the temperature and ionization fraction of the baryons show a strong dependence on the percentage of DM particles interacting with the baryons. We have also studied the interesting consequences of the present scenario on the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) effect. We show that the highest value of the absolute value of the mean $y-$parameter in the current DM decay/annihilation scenario is well within the values derived from experimental data such as PLANCK, FIRAS, and PIXIE. Later we calculate the bound on the ordinary magnetic fields originating from the Dark photons.Comment: 16 page, 23 Figures (Comments and suggestions are welcome

A Novel Design to Minimise the Energy Consumption and Node Traversing in Blockchain Over Cloud Using Ensemble Cuckoo Model

The article outlines the Blockchain’s behavioral model for services. Their reliability is proven through the use of experimental evidence. The authors highlight the major technical aspects and characteristics that are associated with the transmission of data through the network. The authors define the scheme for the network, which works with blockchain transactions, and the relationship between network characteristics on parameters used by the application. They examine the use of this model to identification of the blockchain service and also the likelihood of existing security mechanisms that are based on the technology being bypassed. Additionally, the article provides guidelines to conceal the Blockchain's traffic profile to make it more difficult for its detection in the information network. This study offers a thorough analysis of blockchain-based trust models applied to cloud computing. The paper highlights the challenges that remain unsolved and offers suggestions for future studies in the area based on new cloud-edge trust management system and double-blockchain structure, which is a cloud-based transaction model. The paper also identifies the existing challenges and offers suggestions for future studies in the area based on new cloud-edge trust management system and double-blockchain structure, which is a cloud-based transaction model. The flow of the network will be supported by models that are enhanced by cuckoo to frame the perfect network transform of data from one point to cluster, or alternatively

Pollution or Crime: The Effect of Driving Restrictions on Criminal Activity

Driving restriction programs have been implemented in many cities around the world to alleviate pollution and congestion problems. Enforcement of such programs is costly and can potentially displace policing resources used for crime prevention and crime detection. Hence, driving restrictions may increase crime. To test this hypothesis, this paper exploits both temporal and spatial variation in the implementation of Quito, Ecuador's Pico y Placa program and evaluates its effect on crime. Both difference-in-difference and spatial regression discontinuity estimates provide credible evidence that driving restrictions can increase crime rates. Document type: Articl

INAA of agate sources and artifacts from the Indus, Helmand, and Thailand regions

10 pages.Agate was one of the ancient world’s premier prestigevgoods, especially the red-orange variety known as carnelian. The stone was utilized by and traded between societies from Africa to eastern Asia (Inizan 1993; Insollet al. 2004; Theunissen et al. 2000). In this paper, we present the results of a series of instrumental neutron activation analyses (INAA) of agate samples and artifacts from sources and/or sites in the Indus, Helmand, and Thailand regions. This study represents the beginning of a broad-scale, long-term project aimed at identifying Old World agate sources and the regional and inter-regional trade networks through which this important stone was exchanged in both raw and finished form.The authors wish to thank Drs Richard Meadow and J. Mark Kenoyer – co-directors of the Harappa Archaeological Research Project, for providing us access to the agate artifacts from Harappa and to Dr. Fazal Dad Kakar – Director-General of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Pakistan, for allowing us to analyze those artifacts in the United States. In addition, we are deeply grateful to Professor Maurizio Tosi and Dr. Massimo Vidale for supplementing this study with agate fragments from the site of Shahr-i-Sokhta. Thanks also to Dr. Nigel Chang, Dr. Bill Boyd, and Sompong Paekosae. Special thanks to Robert Agasie and Kevin Austin at the University of Wisconsin’s Nuclear Reactor Laboratory. Support for this project was provided by the United States Department of Energy Reactor Sharing Program, the Wenner-Gren Foundation (Gr. 7066), the Bead Society of Greater Chicago, the Ruth Dickie Graduate Women in Science Grants-in-Aid program, and the National Science Foundation (BCS-0327246 & BCS0504015)

Riboflavin/UVA Collagen Cross-Linking-Induced Changes in Normal and Keratoconus Corneal Stroma

Purpose To determine the effect of Ultraviolet-A collagen cross-linking with hypo-osmolar and iso-osmolar riboflavin solutions on stromal collagen ultrastructure in normal and keratoconus ex vivo human corneas. Methods Using small-angle X-ray scattering, measurements of collagen D-periodicity, fibril diameter and interfibrillar spacing were made at 1 mm intervals across six normal post-mortem corneas (two above physiological hydration (swollen) and four below (unswollen)) and two post-transplant keratoconus corneal buttons (one swollen; one unswollen), before and after hypo-osmolar cross-linking. The same parameters were measured in three other unswollen normal corneas before and after iso-osmolar cross-linking and in three pairs of swollen normal corneas, in which only the left was cross-linked (with iso-osmolar riboflavin). Results Hypo-osmolar cross-linking resulted in an increase in corneal hydration in all corneas. In the keratoconus corneas and unswollen normal corneas, this was accompanied by an increase in collagen interfibrillar spacing (p<0.001); an increase in fibril diameter was also seen in two out of four unswollen normal corneas and one unswollen keratoconus cornea (p<0.001). Iso-osmolar cross-linking resulted in a decrease in tissue hydration in the swollen normal corneas only. Although there was no consistent treatment-induced change in hydration in the unswollen normal samples, iso-osmolar cross-linking of these corneas did result in a compaction of collagen fibrils and a reduced fibril diameter (p<0.001); these changes were not seen in the swollen normal corneas. Collagen D-periodicity was not affected by either treatment. Conclusion The observed structural changes following Ultraviolet-A cross-linking with hypo-osmolar or iso-osmolar riboflavin solutions are more likely a consequence of treatment-induced changes in tissue hydration rather than cross-linking

A fully automatic nerve segmentation and morphometric parameter quantification system for early diagnosis of diabetic neuropathy in corneal images

Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy (DPN) is one of the most common types of diabetes that can affect the cornea. An accurate analysis of the nerve structures can assist the early diagnosis of this disease. This paper proposes a robust, fast and fully automatic nerve segmentation and morphometric parameter quantification system for corneal confocal microscope images. The segmentation part consists of three main steps. First, a preprocessing step is applied to enhance the visibility of the nerves and remove noise using anisotropic diffusion filtering, specifically a Coherence filter followed by Gaussian filtering. Second, morphological operations are applied to remove unwanted objects in the input image such as epithelial cells and small nerve segments. Finally, an edge detection step is applied to detect all the nerves in the input image. In this step, an efficient algorithm for connecting discontinuous nerves is proposed. In the morphometric parameters quantification part, a number of features are extracted, including thickness, tortuosity and length of nerve, which may be used for the early diagnosis of diabetic polyneuropathy and when planning Laser-Assisted in situ Keratomileusis (LASIK) or Photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). The performance of the proposed segmentation system is evaluated against manually traced ground-truth images based on a database consisting of 498 corneal sub-basal nerve images (238 are normal and 260 are abnormal). In addition, the robustness and efficiency of the proposed system in extracting morphometric features with clinical utility was evaluated in 919 images taken from healthy subjects and diabetic patients with and without neuropathy. We demonstrate rapid (13 seconds/image), robust and effective automated corneal nerve quantification. The proposed system will be deployed as a useful clinical tool to support the expertise of ophthalmologists and save the clinician time in a busy clinical setting