EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF PASTORAL MIGRATION DECISIONS: GABRA HERDERS IN NORTHERN KENYA

This study investigates empirical evidence on migration decisions made by 40 nomadic herders in Northern Kenya. For 1993 to present, base camp to town distance is regressed on food availability, herd, household and rainfall characteristics. Further analysis of information on herders' most recent migrations generates implicit prices for site characteristics.Livestock Production/Industries,

One-Loop Holographic Weyl Anomaly in Six Dimensions

We compute $\mathcal O(1)$ corrections to the holographic Weyl anomaly for six-dimensional $\mathcal N=(1,0)$ and $(2,0)$ theories using the functional Schr\"odinger method that is conjectured to work for supersymmetric theories on Ricci-flat backgrounds. We show that these corrections vanish for long representations of the $\mathcal N=(1,0)$ theory, and we obtain an expression for $\delta(c-a)$ for short representations with maximum spin two. We also confirm that the one-loop corrections to the $\mathcal N=(2,0)$ M5-brane theory are equal and opposite to the anomaly for the free tensor multiplet. Finally, we discuss the possibility of extending the results to encompass multiplets with spins greater than two.Comment: 28 page

Milk Money and Intra-Household Bargaining: Evidence on Pastoral Migration and Milk Sales from Northern Kenya

In this study, we investigate the impact of new market opportunities on Gabra nomadic pastoralists living in an arid climate in northern Kenya. The Gabra have recently experienced growth of milk marketing opportunities, and this change has caused a renegotiation of intrahousehold arrangements that affect households' location and migration decisions. We model three different outcomes of the household bargaining processes and test them empirically. Our results are consistent with a contested model of the household in which husbands locate households farther from towns in order to limit milk marketing opportunities.Livestock Production/Industries,

The Threat of Deepfakes in Litigation: Raising the Authentication Bar to Combat Falsehood

Deepfakes are all over the internet—from shape-shifting comedians and incoherent politicians to disturbingly realistic fake pornography. Emerging technology makes it easier than ever to create a convincing deepfake. What used to take significant time and money to develop is now widely available, often for free, thanks to rapid advances in deepfake technology. Deepfakes threaten individual rights and even democracy. But their impact on litigation should not be overlooked. The US adversarial system of justice is built on a foundation of seeking out the truth to arrive at a just result. The Federal Rules of Evidence serve as an important framework for this truth-seeking mission, and the authentication rules, in particular, should play a key role in preventing deepfake evidence from corrupting the legal process. This Article looks at the unique threat of deepfakes and how the authentication rules under the Federal Rules of Evidence can adapt to help deal with these new challenges. It examines authentication standards that have emerged for social media evidence and suggests a middle-ground approach that redefines the quantity and quality of circumstantial evidence necessary for a reasonable jury to determine authenticity in the age of deepfakes. This middle-ground approach may raise the evidentiary bar in some cases, but it seeks to balance efficiency with the need to combat falsehood in the litigation process

ARE HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTION DECISIONS COOPERATIVE? EVIDENCE ON MIGRATION AND MILK SALES FROM NORTHERN KENYA

Replaced with revised version of paper 08/29/02.Consumer/Household Economics,

Are Household Production Decisions Cooperative? Evidence on Pastoral Migration and Milk Sales from Northern Kenya

Market-based development efforts frequently create opportunities to generate income from goods previously produced and consumed within the household. Production within the household is often characterized by a gender and age division of labor. Market development efforts to improve well being may lead to unanticipated outcomes if household production decisions are non-cooperative. We develop and test models of household decision-making to investigate intra-household decision making in a nomadic pastoral setting from Kenya. Our results suggest that household decisions are contested, with husbands using migration decisions to resist wives' ability to market milk.Intrahousehold decision-making, household production, Kenya

Platform Immunity Redefined

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) immunizes “interactive computer services” from most claims arising out of third-party content posted on the service. Passed in 1996, section 230 is a vital law for allowing free expression online, but it is ill-suited for addressing some of the harms that arise in the modern platform-based economy. This Article proposes to redefine section 230 immunity for sharing economy platforms and online marketplaces by tying internet platform immunity to the economic relationship between the platform and the third party. It primarily focuses on one key flaw of section 230: its binary classification of online actors as either “interactive computer services” (who are immune under the statute) or “information content providers” (who are not immune). This binary classification, while perhaps adequate for the internet that existed in 1996, fails to account for the full range of economic activities in which modern platforms now engage. This Article argues that courts applying section 230 should incorporate joint enterprise liability theory to better define the contours of platform immunity. A platform should lose immunity when there exists a common business purpose, specific pecuniary interest, and shared right of control in the underlying transaction giving rise to liability. Sharing economy platforms, such as Airbnb and Uber, and online marketplaces, such as Amazon, are primary examples of platforms that may function as joint enterprises. By using joint enterprise theory to redefine platform immunity, this Article seeks to promote greater fairness to tort victims while otherwise retaining section 230’s core free expression purpose

Holography, Supergravity, and the Weak Gravity Conjecture

This dissertation represents my work on three different subjects relating to quantum gravity and the AdS/CFT correspondence. First, we review a holographic computation of the one-loop corrections to the Weyl anomaly on Ricci flat backgrounds in six dimensions. This allows us to determine the correction to one linear combination of the anomaly coefficients. Then, we will show that these corrections may be obtained from the six-dimensional superconformal index. The second section will cover consistent truncations on the Lunin-Maldacena (LM) background cite{Lunin:2005jy}. We show how to restore minimal supersymmetry to the model of cite{Lunin:2005jy} by determining the reduction ansatz which includes the graviton and a gauge field, which comprise the graviton multiplet of $mathcal{N} = 2$ supergravity in five dimensions. Then we discuss our attempt to construct a truncation which includes a scalar field corresponding to the $beta$-deformation parameter of the dual field theory. We show that if such a solution exists, it must differ somewhat drastically from the LM background. Finally, we discuss higher-derivative corrections to black hole solutions and the weak gravity conjecture in a few settings. We consider black holes which are charged under an arbitrary number of $U(1)$ gauge fields in four dimensional flat space. In this setting, we compute the effect of higher-derivative corrections on the extremality bound, and we discuss the constraints placed on the effective field theory coefficients by the requirements that near-extremal black holes are unstable to decay to smaller black holes. Next we consider the shifts to thermodynamic quantities due to higher-derivative corrections to charged black holes in Anti-de Sitter space. We confirm and clarify a previously noted relationship between the shift to the extremality bound and the shift to the Wald entropy. We also show that if the shift in the Wald entropy is assumed to be positive, then the coefficient of the $R_{mu nu rho sigma} R^{mu nu rho sigma}$ term in the effective Lagrangian must be positive as well.PHDPhysicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163204/1/bmcpeak_1.pd