Costly and discrete communication: An experimental investigation

Language is an imperfect and uneven means of communicating information about a complex and nuanced world. We run an experimental investigation of a setting in which the messages available to the sender imperfectly describe the state of the world, however the sender can improve communication, at a cost, by increasing the complexity or elaborateness of the message. As is standard in the communication literature, the sender learns the state of the world then sends a message to the receiver. The receiver observes the message and provides a best guess about the state. The incentives of the players are aligned in the sense that both sender and receiver are paid an amount which is increasing in the accuracy of the receiver's guess. As would be expected, we find that larger communication costs are associated with worse outcomes for both sender and receiver. Consistent with the communication literature, albeit in very different setting, we find that there is overcommunication. For the receiver, there is a positive relationship between the payoffs relative to the equilibrium predictions and communication costs. This relationship is negative for the senders. We also find that the response time of both the sender and receiver are positively related to their payoffs.communication; cheap talk; overcommunication

The Bawdy Bluff: Prostitution in Memphis, Tennessee, 1820-1900

The “Bawdy Bluff” is a study of prostitution in Memphis, Tennessee, between the city’s founding and the end of the nineteenth century. Its focus is on the relationship of prostitutes to the wider community as well as their lived experience. The bulk of scholarship on prostitution in nineteenth century America examines Northeastern cities and Western mining camps. Outside of New Orleans, there is a dearth of research into prostitution in the urban South. This dissertation seeks to correct this oversight. By examining prostitution through the lenses of race, class, and gender, the “Bawdy Bluff” illuminates the ways power operated in Memphis. Chapter One traces the rise of prostitution in Memphis from the city’s founding to the eve of the Civil War. During this period, Memphians attempted to drive prostitutes from town through vigilante action. By the late 1850s, merchants, city officials, and the police began to make comcause with prostitutes, thus ensuring brothels would remain a fixture of the city’s landscape. Chapter Two addresses the Civil War, a time when prostitution expanded rapidly. The primary focus of this chapter is on the ways in which military authorities regulated prostitution. The Union military’s program of regulation failed to stop the spread of venereal disease or improve the lives of prostitutes. The end of the war lifted pro-prostitution merchants into political power, ensuring prostitution would grow over the coming decade. Chapter three addresses the lives of prostitutes and is divided into four sections: the prostitution of children, interactions with reformers, relationships, and health. The intent is to present the multivalent and often contradictory experiences of women in the sex trade. Many women entered prostitution through coercion or lack of resources, but others embraced it for the excitement and participation in youth culture it promised. The final chapter discusses madams and the business of prostitution. Memphis madams are popularly remembered as martyrs or ostentatiously bejeweled women of wealth. This chapter challenges these notions and presents madams as entrepreneurial figures who possessed business acumen and managerial skills

Virtual Structures Based Autonomous Formation Flying Control for Small Satellites

Many space organizations have a growing need to fly several small satellites close together in order to collect and correlate data from different satellite sensors. To do this requires teams of engineers monitoring the satellites orbits and planning maneuvers for the satellites every time the satellite leaves its desired trajectory or formation. This task of maintaining the satellites orbits quickly becomes an arduous and expensive feat for satellite operations centers. This research develops and analyzes algorithms that allow satellites to autonomously control their orbit and formation without human intervention. This goal is accomplished by developing and evaluating a decentralized, optimization-based control that can be used for autonomous formation flight of small satellites. To do this, virtual structures, model predictive control, and switching surfaces are used. An optimized guidance trajectory is also develop to reduce fuel usage of the system. The Hill-Clohessy-Wiltshire equations and the D\u27Amico relative orbital elements are used to describe the relative motion of the satellites. And a performance comparison of the L1, L2, and L∞ norms is completed as part of this work. The virtual structure, MPC based framework combined with the switching surfaces enables a scalable method that allows satellites to maneuver safely within their formation, while also minimizing fuel usage

Researcher Examines Molecular Causes Behind Heart Disease

Biomedical engineer Nikki Reinemann lands American Heart Association gran

Sequence stratigraphy and stratigraphic architecture of the upper Mississippian lower Hinton Formation: Appalachian Basin, West Virginia, USA

Cyclothems are a characteristic feature of Pennsylvanian Appalachian basin stratigraphy. These high frequency transgressive-regressive cycles have been attributed to glacioeustatic fluctuation, but comparatively little work has been done until recent with regards to identification of similar cycles in the upper Mississippian despite the presence of continental ice sheets during that time. This study provides evidence for the presence of high frequency, transgressive-regressive cycles during the late Mississippian, similar to Pennsylvanian cyclothems. The eight trangressive-regressive episodes identified within the study interval occurred over a roughly 2.5 million year span in the late Mississippian. Assuming that these are cyclic in nature, they exhibit a 4th order periodicity of ~300 thousand years. The character of these cycles appears to be modulated by a 3rd order lowstand and transgressive trend. This study documents how multiple controls on relative sea level, which operate on different timescales, influence sedimentation and subsequently shape the sedimentary record

Navigating a Calculus Course During a Pandemic: A USMA Perspective

In this article we analyze publications written about different teaching modalities and evaluate how each applies to a calculus class during the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on the positives and negatives of teaching and learning in a virtual, classroom, or HyFlex environment. Although arguments could be made for each environment, especially given different institutional objectives, this work aims to explain why we eventually preferred teaching our Fall 2020 multivariable calculus course in a face-to-face classroom setting at the United States Military Academy at West Point. We also offer measures of performance to compare the current COVID-19 semester with previous semesters. The results support two major conclusions drawn from our decision to teach in-person under in a time constrained environment: learning modality matters in mathematics and this pandemic will influence student-teacher interaction for semesters to come