Reducing the federal deficit: approaches in some other countries

The United States is not the first advanced modern economy to face a serious federal budget challenge. A number of countries have seen their debt rise to unacceptable levels in recent decades, and they have taken steps to rein it in. We explore the approaches that Canada and the United Kingdom have used. Though there are important differences in approaches and countries, we draw five useful lessons for the reforms that may be proposed in the U.S. as it addresses its fiscal challenges.Debts, Public - Canada ; Deficit financing ; Debt - United States ; Debts, Public - United Kingdom

Dark matter and U(1)' symmetry for the right-handed neutrinos

We consider a U(1)' gauge symmetry acting on three generations of right-handed neutrinos. The U(1)' symmetry is broken at the TeV scale and its remnant discrete symmetry makes one of the right-handed neutrinos stable. As a natural consequence of the anomaly cancellation, the neutrino mass matrix consists of a combination of Type I (TeV scale) seesaw and radiative correction. The stable right-handed neutrino communicates with the Standard Model via s-channel exchange of the Higgs field and the U(1)' gauge boson, so that the observed relic density for dark matter is obtained in a wide range of the parameter space. The experimental signatures in collider and other experiments are briefly discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

Elliptic Rydberg states as direction indicators

The orientation in space of a Cartesian coordinate system can be indicated by the two vectorial constants of motion of a classical Keplerian orbit: the angular momentum and the Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector. In quantum mechanics, the states of a hydrogen atom that mimic classical elliptic orbits are the coherent states of the SO(4) rotation group.It is known how to produce these states experimentally. They have minimal dispersions of the two conserved vectors and can be used as direction indicators. We compare the fidelity of this transmission method with that of the idealized optimal method

America’s Most Divided Sport: Polarization and Inequality in Attitudes about Youth Football

Football may be America’s most popular sport, but with growing evidence of the risk of sport-associated concussions, some adults are reconsidering which sports to encourage children to play. Using data from a nationally representative sample of 958 respondents, we examine how political party, belief in patriotic displays in sport, attention to concussion news, social class, and race are associated with support for children playing each of the five major U.S. sports: baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, and football. Our findings suggest that unlike other sports, attitudes about youth participation in football are divided by views on patriotism in sport, age, race, education, and attention to concussion news. For many Americans, football is connected to participation in a civil religion, which celebrates national pride and respect for the military. We argue that child safety advocates who aim to steer children away from football must grapple with the deeper cultural and identity-based framework associated with the sport

Why the NBA Shut Down First: How Partisan Polarization Informs Sports and Public Health

owners concluded a conference call regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. They believed that Commissioner Adam Silver would soon announce that games would proceed in empty arenas. While European soccer leagues had canceled matches, just the day before the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) had taken the more tepid step of announcing that the March Madness tournaments would be played without fans in the stands. There were only about a thousand confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States at that time, and the NBA owners were divided on how to proceed. According to Ramona Shelburne’s (2020) reporting for ESPN, the respective owners of the Golden State Warriors, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Houston Rockets argued for a temporary postponement of games. But the majority of owners prevailed in support of the less drastic plan in which the season would continue as scheduled, albeit without the presence of spectators. Meanwhile, in Oklahoma City, Rudy Gobert, star center for the Utah Jazz, was confined to a hotel room, awaiting the results of a Covid-19 test he had taken that morning. As his teammates warmed up on the Thunder’s court and fans took their seats, Gobert received the news that he had tested positive for the contagious and potentially deadly virus. Minutes from the 8:00 PM EST tipoff, as the general managers of the Jazz and Thunder, Oklahoma City public health officials, and Adam Silver scrambled to formulate a new plan, the arena announcer told fans that there would be a thirty-minute delay of game (Shelburne 2020; Cacciola and Deb 2020). The referees directed players to the locker room where they would don protective gear and wait. Shortly thereafter, arena loudspeakers reassured fans that they were safe, but informed them the game was postponed and they were to exit the arena. For Americans at home, the evening of March 11 offered a startling line-up of television, beginning with a halting and hesitant declaration of a national state of emergency from the White House, followed by news of plummeting stock futures and an announcement that beloved Hollywood couple, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, had contracted the disease. Finally, viewers watched a surreal scene unfold at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City as the NBA announced that an unnamed player had tested positive for the Covid-19 virus, leading to an immediate suspension of all games. Silver characterized the suspension order as “a split-second decision” (Shelburne 2020). In the twenty-four hours that followed, the National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Baseball (MLB), Major League Soccer (MLS), and the NCAA all followed suit, but by early March, the conditions were such that it seemed pre-ordained that the NBA should be the league to lead the way. In this chapter, we argue that beyond practical considerations, the NBA’s position as the most socially and culturally progressive of the major U.S. sports leagues informed its decision to suspend games, even as both government officials and other sporting entities dithered

Education, Political Party, and Football Viewership Predict Americans\u27 Attention to News About Concussions in Sports

News outlets, sports coverage, and even Hollywood movies have highlighted the growing body of research documenting the long-term negative consequences of traumatic injury in athletics, particularly, (sports-related) concussions. Despite so much media coverage, little is known about how much attention members of the American public pay to sports concussion news. Disparities in attention to concussion news among sociodemographic groups may contribute to further inequalities in rates of concussions that stem from participation in collision sports. In this study, using a 2017 nationally representative survey of US residents (n = 964), we examine the social, political, and demographic correlates of individuals’ attention to news about concussions in sports. Regression results indicate that older, more educated, Democratic-leaning respondents reported that they pay more attention to news about concussions. Additionally, respondents with a greater past competitive athletic participation and those who regularly watch baseball and football reported higher levels of attention to concussion news. These findings are consistent with previous research showing higher levels of news consumption and trust in science among the highly educated and Democrats. The increased levels among football viewers may be in response to the inclusion of concussion news in game coverage

Identifikation geschlechterspezifischer Mobilitätsbarrieren anhand drittvariablengestützter Mobilitätsverhaltensanalyse

Eine wesentliche Qualitätsanforderung an Smart Cities stellt die sozial nachhaltige Entwicklung der städtischen Infrastruktur dar. Insbesondere die Bereitstellung von Verkehrsinfrastrukturen und Mobilitätsangeboten ist auf bestehende Nutzerbedürfnisse auszurichten und unterliegt dadurch Anforderungen hoher Diversität. Schlüssel zu einer sozial nachhaltigen Mobilität ist die Sicherstellung einer hinreichenden Erreichbarkeit relevanter Ziele, wie Arbeitsplätzen, Bildungs- und Versorgungseinrichtungen oder Freizeitangeboten für alle Personengruppen. Personengruppen können in der Ausübung ihrer Mobilität jedoch durch gruppenspezifische Barrieren eingeschränkt werden. Für Menschen im Rollstuhl können beispielsweise Hochborde, Treppen oder nicht-barrierefreie ÖPNV-Zugangspunkte Barrieren bilden. Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund und begrenzten Deutschkenntnissen können hingegen durch deutschsprachige Fahrgastinformationen in Ihrer Mobilität beschränkt sein. Analog ist davon auszugehen, dass spezifische Barrieren bei der Realisierung geschlechterspezifischer Mobilitätsbedürfnisse vorliegen. Um Männer und Frauen gleichwertige Mobilitätschancen zu ermöglichen, müssen ihre jeweiligen Zugangsvoraussetzungen und Mobilitätsbedürfnisse erkannt und ihre spezifischen Barrieren identifiziert werden. Daher wurde am Institut für Stadtbauwesen und Stadtverkehr anhand der Mobilitätserhebung „Mobilität in Deutschland 2008“ eine umfassende Analyse des geschlechtsspezifischen Mobilitätsverhaltens durchgeführt. Die Analyse erfolgte in zwei aufeinander aufbauenden Stufen. In einer ersten Stufe wurde eine statistisch-deskriptive Analyse der Daten vorgenommen, in der unterschiedliche Mobilitätskennwerte untersucht wurden. Anschließend wurden die gewonnenen Ergebnisse in einer zweiten Stufe durch eine Drittvariablenkontrolle validiert. Anhand der Ergebnisse wurden Personengruppen identifiziert, für die geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede im Mobilitätsverhalten deutlich stärker auftreten, als in der Gesamtstichprobe. Dabei handelte es sich um Personen, die in einem Haushalt mit Kindern bis 14 Jahren leben, Personen ohne Hochschulabschluss, Rentner und Pensionäre, sowie Personen mit moblitätseinschränkender Behinderung

The Scalability-Efficiency/Maintainability-Portability Trade-off in Simulation Software Engineering: Examples and a Preliminary Systematic Literature Review

Large-scale simulations play a central role in science and the industry. Several challenges occur when building simulation software, because simulations require complex software developed in a dynamic construction process. That is why simulation software engineering (SSE) is emerging lately as a research focus. The dichotomous trade-off between scalability and efficiency (SE) on the one hand and maintainability and portability (MP) on the other hand is one of the core challenges. We report on the SE/MP trade-off in the context of an ongoing systematic literature review (SLR). After characterizing the issue of the SE/MP trade-off using two examples from our own research, we (1) review the 33 identified articles that assess the trade-off, (2) summarize the proposed solutions for the trade-off, and (3) discuss the findings for SSE and future work. Overall, we see evidence for the SE/MP trade-off and first solution approaches. However, a strong empirical foundation has yet to be established; general quantitative metrics and methods supporting software developers in addressing the trade-off have to be developed. We foresee considerable future work in SSE across scientific communities.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for presentation at the Fourth International Workshop on Software Engineering for High Performance Computing in Computational Science and Engineering (SEHPCCSE 2016

Time- and Frequency-Domain Dynamic Spectrum Access: Learning Cyclic Medium Access Patterns in Partially Observable Environments

Upcoming communication systems increasingly often tackle the spectrum scarcity problem through the coexistence with legacy systems in the same frequency band. Cognitive Radio presents popular methods for Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) that enable coexistence. Historically, DSA meant a separation solely in the frequency domain, while in recent years it has been extended through the dimension of time, by employing Machine Learning to learn semi-deterministic and cyclic medium access patterns of the legacy system that are observed through channel sensing. When this pattern is learnable, then a new system can utilize a neural network and predict future medium accesses, thus steering its own medium access. We investigate this novel and more fine-grained version of DSA, propose a predictor and show its capability of reliably predicting future medium accesses of a legacy system in an aeronautical coexistence scenario. We extend the predictor to the case of partial observability, where only a narrowband receiver is available, s.t. observations are limited to a single sensed channel per time slot. In particular, we propose a custom loss function that is tailored to partially observable environments. In the spirit of Open Science, all implementation files are released under an open license