Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatal Injuries in Mining in 2010

[Excerpt] Workers in the mining industry continue to face a higher risk of fatal injury than average American workers. Although the rate of nonfatal injuries and illnesses in mining is less than the average reported for private industry, these injuries are often of a severe nature, as evidenced by the higher median days away from work. Fires and explosions were the leading causes of workplace fatal injuries. Contact with objects and equipment was the leading cause of nonfatal injuries and illnesses

The Rand as a Carry Trade Target: Risk, Returns and Policy Implications

We analyze the returns to targeting the Australian, New Zealand, and South African currencies, through Japanese yen-funded speculation - with a particular focus on the South African rand, for which the carry trade is often seen as a source of exchange rate volatility. Targeting the rand through forward currency speculation produces returns which are as volatile, but with higher mean, and smaller probability of rare but large losses, than a buy-and-hold investment in the stock market - which is stochastically dominated in the second-order sense by the rand-targeting trade; and generates a larger return-to-volatility ratio than the Australian and New Zealand dollars - the two most common carry targets. Speculative positions and debt ‡ows driven by the carry trade cause an exchange rate process characterized by gradual appreciations punctuated by infrequent but potentially large and rapid depreciations. The consequent level of currency instability is a¤ected by whether in‡ows cause overheating, and how the central bank responds to the associated in‡ationary pressureCurrency speculation; carry trade; forward premium; skewness and crash risk; exchange rate instability; capital ‡ows

Cognitive load in the multi-player prisoner's dilemma game

We find that differences in the ability to devote cognitive resources to a strategic interaction imply differences in strategic behavior. In our experiment, we manipulate the availability of cognitive resources by applying a differential cognitive load. In cognitive load experiments, subjects are directed to perform a task which occupies cognitive resources, in addition to making a choice in another domain. The greater the cognitive resources required for the task implies that fewer such resources will be available for deliberation on the choice. Although much is known about how subjects make decisions under a cognitive load, little is known about how this affects behavior in strategic games. We run an experiment in which subjects play a repeated multi-player prisoner's dilemma game under two cognitive load treatments. In one treatment, subjects are placed under a high cognitive load (given a 7 digit number to recall) and subjects in the other are placed under a low cognitive load (given a 2 digit number). We find that the individual behavior of the subjects in the low load condition converges to the Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibrium prediction at a faster rate than those in the high load treatment. However, we do not find the corresponding relationship involving outcomes in the game. Specifically, there is no evidence of a significantly different convergence of game outcomes across treatments. As an explanation of these two results, we find evidence that low load subjects are better able to adjust their choice in response to outcomes in previous periods.cognitive resources; experimental economics; experimental game theory; public goods game

Cognitive load in the multi-player prisoner's dilemma game

We find that differences in the ability to devote cognitive resources to a strategic interaction imply differences in strategic behavior. In our experiment, we manipulate the availability of cognitive resources by applying a differential cognitive load. In cognitive load experiments, subjects are directed to perform a task which occupies cognitive resources, in addition to making a choice in another domain. The greater the cognitive resources required for the task implies that fewer such resources will be available for deliberation on the choice. Although much is known about how subjects make decisions under a cognitive load, little is known about how this affects behavior in strategic games. We run an experiment in which subjects play a repeated multi-player prisoner's dilemma game under two cognitive load treatments. In one treatment, subjects are placed under a high cognitive load (given a 7 digit number to recall) and subjects in the other are placed under a low cognitive load (given a 2 digit number). We find that the behavior of the subjects in the low load condition converges to the Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibrium prediction at a faster rate than those in the high load treatment. However, we do not find the corresponding relationship involving outcomes in the game. Specifically, there is no evidence of a significantly different convergence of game outcomes across treatments. As an explanation of these two results, we find evidence that low load subjects are better able to condition their behavior on the outcomes of previous periods.cognitive resources; experimental economics; experimental game theory; public goods game

Classical Cryptographic Protocols in a Quantum World

Cryptographic protocols, such as protocols for secure function evaluation (SFE), have played a crucial role in the development of modern cryptography. The extensive theory of these protocols, however, deals almost exclusively with classical attackers. If we accept that quantum information processing is the most realistic model of physically feasible computation, then we must ask: what classical protocols remain secure against quantum attackers? Our main contribution is showing the existence of classical two-party protocols for the secure evaluation of any polynomial-time function under reasonable computational assumptions (for example, it suffices that the learning with errors problem be hard for quantum polynomial time). Our result shows that the basic two-party feasibility picture from classical cryptography remains unchanged in a quantum world.Comment: Full version of an old paper in Crypto'11. Invited to IJQI. This is authors' copy with different formattin

Combining constraint satisfaction and local improvement algorithms to construct anaesthetists' rotas

A system is described which was built to compile weekly rotas for the anaesthetists in a large hospital. The rota compilation problem is an optimization problem (the number of tasks which cannot be assigned to an anaesthetist must be minimized) and was formulated as a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). The forward checking algorithm is used to find a feasible rota, but because of the size of the problem, it cannot find an optimal (or even a good enough) solution in an acceptable time. Instead, an algorithm was devised which makes local improvements to a feasible solution. The algorithm makes use of the constraints as expressed in the CSP to ensure that feasibility is maintained, and produces very good rotas which are being used by the hospital involved in the project. It is argued that formulation as a constraint satisfaction problem may be a good approach to solving discrete optimization problems, even if the resulting CSP is too large to be solved exactly in an acceptable time. A CSP algorithm may be able to produce a feasible solution which can then be improved, giving a good, if not provably optimal, solution

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

Ligeti and Stockhausen: A concert of piano and electronics works from the 195

I curated a concert of piano and electronics pieces including the premiere of my new realisation of Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Studie II.

High School Choice in New York City: A Report on the School Choices and Placements of Low-Achieving Students

School choice policies, a fixture of efforts to improve public education in many cities. aim to enable families to choose a school that they believe will best meet their child's needs. In New York City, choice and the development of a diverse portfolio of options have played central roles in the Department of Education's high school reform efforts. This report examines the choices and placements of New York City's lowest-achieving students: those scoring among the bottom 20 percent on standardized state tests in middle school. Focusing on data from 2007 to 2011, the report looks at who these low-achieving students are, including how their demographics compare to other students in NYC, the educational challenges they face, and where they live. The bulk of the report reviews low-achieving students' most preferred schools and the ones to which they were ultimately assigned, assessing how these schools compare to those of their higher-achieving peers. The findings show that low-achieving students attended schools that were lower performing, on average, than those of all other students. This was driven by differences in students' initial choices: low-achieving students' first-choice schools were less selective, lower-performing, and more disadvantaged. Overall, lower-achievingand higher-achieving students were matched to their top choices at the same rate. Importantly, both low- and higher-achieving students appear to prefer schools that are close to home, suggesting that differences in students' choices likely reflect, at least in part, the fact that lower-achieving students are highly concentrated in poor neighborhoods, where options may be more limited

Collaborators or Competitors? Exploring the Relationships between Community Development Financial Institutions and Conventional Lenders in Small Business Finance

This study examines the nature of the interaction of banks and community development financial institutions (CDFIs) in small business lending. We examine the experience of six different CDFIs that vary by size, corporate structure, and market. We explore how they both collaborate and compete with regulated lenders, and how changes in local and national market dynamics affect their activities. Our case studies are not necessarily representative of the CDFI industry, but they offer insights on the factors that shape CDFIs' interactions with and responses to more mainstream institutions. Our findings are therefore more descriptive than prescriptive, although we offer suggestions for both CDFI practice and future research