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Data Analytics (Ab)Use in Healthcare Fraud Audits
Get PDFThis study explores how government-adopted audit data analytic tools promote the abuse of power by auditors enabling politically sensitive processes that encourage industry-wide normalization of behavior. In an audit setting, we investigate how a governmental organization enables algorithmic decision-making to alter power relationships to effect organizational and industry-wide change. While prior research has identified discriminatory threats emanating from the deployment of algorithmic decision-making, the effects of algorithmic decision-making on inherently imbalanced power relationships have received scant attention. Our results provide empirical evidence of how systemic and episodic power relationships strengthen each other, thereby enabling the governmental organization to effect social change that might be too politically prohibitive to enact directly. Overall, the results suggest that there are potentially negative effects caused by the use of algorithmic decision-making and the resulting power shifts, and these effects create a different view of the level of purported success attained through auditor use of data analytics
Binding Ties in the Supply Chain and Supplier Capital Structure
No full textPrior research documents that suppliers with higher sales concentration have lower leverage ratios, consistent with lenders’ heightened concerns about a large customer switching suppliers. We study whether a supplier\u27s binding ties to its significant customers help mitigate these concerns. We assess the supplier-customer bond using the age of the relationship and the presence of professional network links between directors and officers of the two firms. We find evidence that binding ties boost suppliers’ leverage ratios suggesting that they reassure lenders about the stability of the supplier\u27s operations. We also find that the effect of relationship age is more relevant for suppliers that operate in more competitive industries and have low levels of relationship specific investments, thus exposing them to higher switching risks
Scattering of Two Particles in a One-Dimensional Lattice
Get PDFThis study concerns the two-body scattering of particles in a one-dimensional periodic potential. A convenient ansatz allows for the separation of center-of-mass and relative motion, leading to a discrete Schrödinger equation in the relative motion that resembles a tight-binding model. A lattice Green\u27s function is used to develop the Lippmann-Schwinger equation, and ultimately derive a multiband scattering Κ matrix which is described in detail in the two-band approximation. Two distinct scattering lengths are defined according to the limits of zero relative quasimomentum at the top and bottom edges of the two-body collision band. Scattering resonances occur in the collision band when the energy is coincident with a bound state attached to another higher or lower band. Notably, repulsive on-site interactions in an energetically closed lower band lead to collision resonances in an excited band
Mapping the Hidden Diversity of the \u3cem\u3eGeophagus sensu stricto\u3c/em\u3e Species Group (Cichlidae: Geophagini) From the Amazon Basin
Get PDFSouth American freshwater ichthyofauna is taxonomically the most diverse on the planet, yet its diversity is still vastly underestimated. The Amazon basin alone holds more than half of this diversity. The evidence of this underestimation comes from the backlog of morphologically distinct, yet undescribed forms deposited in museum collections, and from DNA-based inventories which consistently identify large numbers of divergent lineages within even well-studied species groups. In the present study, we investigated lineage diversity within the Geophagus sensu stricto species group. To achieve these objectives, we analyzed 337 individuals sampled from 77 locations within and outside the Amazon basin representing 10 nominal and six morphologically distinct but undescribed species. We sequenced the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) and delimited lineages using four different single-locus species discovery methods (mPTP-15 lineages; LocMin-14 lineages; bGMYC-18 lineages; and GMYC-30 lineages). The six morphologically distinct but undescribed species were also delimited by the majority of the species discovery methods. Five of these lineages are restricted to a single collection site or a watershed and their habitats are threatened by human activities such as deforestation, agricultural activities and construction of hydroelectric plants. Our results also highlight the importance of combining DNA and morphological data in biodiversity assessment studies especially in taxonomically diverse tropical biotas
Rumination: Practicing Retrieval of Autobiographical Memories
Get PDFBackground
People who ruminate about negative personal experiences seem to be engaged in practicing retrieval, with the expected consequences of perpetuating those very memories (see Roediger and Butler in Trends Cogn Sci 15:20–27, 2011). Method
To provide an experimental model of the effect of retrieval practice on subsequent recall of autobiographical memories, we recruited students with low and high scores on the Ruminative Response Scale (Treynor et al. in Cogn Ther Res 27:247–259, 2003), gave them positive and ruminative cues to generate memories, and cued three rounds of practice of half of the memories from each valence. Results
A week later, final cued recall for all memories showed strong practice effects, with the exception that ruminators benefited very little from the request to practice positive memories. Conclusion
Recalling personal memories benefits from prior practice in bringing them to mind. However, these results provide insufficient evidence to recommend training recall of positive autobiographical memories to counteract rumination
Extreme Districts, Moderate Winners: Same-Party Challenges, and Deterrence in Top-Two Primaries
No full textIn an effort to break the link between districts\u27 lack of competitiveness and the election of ideologues, Washington and California recently adopted the “top-two” primary election system. Among other features, the top-two primary allows members of the same party to run against one another in the general election. Although proponents argue that this system encourages the election of more moderate candidates in highly partisan districts, early reports have uncovered mixed evidence of this effect. This study addresses this puzzle by first disentangling the conditions under which one should expect such primaries to encourage the election of more moderate candidates. Using election returns data from the 2008 through 2014 elections, I find that districts facing same-party general-election competition do elect more moderate legislators than similar districts not subject to same-party competition. However, using an application of a common regression discontinuity diagnostic test, I also find that elite actors appear able to strategically avoid this kind of competition—partially explaining why broader effects of the top-two have not been uncovered. The findings contribute not only to ongoing debates about the effectiveness of the top-two primary, but also to our understanding of how political elites may maneuver institutional changes to their own benefit
Resources and Agendas: Combining Walker’s Insights with New Data Sources to Chart a Path Ahead
No full textOne of the central projects of Mobilizing Interest Groups in America was to chart the course that interests take to overcome the collective action problems inherent to founding and maintaining a group to be active in politics. Importantly, Walker found that interests’ pathways to organization and maintenance are dependent on the availability of a natural or existing membership base or the interests’ access to patronage or other resources. Put differently, an interest’s path to mobilization is largely a function of its “niche in the constituency and policy communities of which it is a part.” (Walker 1991, 9). This implies that not all pathways to organization are equally available to all interests. For example, citizens groups are disproportionately reliant on patronage from individual donors and foundations.
Not only are not all paths open to all interests, but, consequentially, the manner by which interest groups originate and maintain themselves structures the rest of a group’s actions and strategy: “the choice of political strategies is intimately connected to the group’s prospects for organizational maintenance” (Walker 1991, 106).f Groups that rely more on patronage, for example, are much more likely to pursue “outside” strategies of influence. Because Walker’s analysis implies that the nature of an interest itself may dictate both its path towards organizational representation and the subsequent strategies and tactics the organization ultimately pursues, he describes a system with serious inherent representational inequalities if some types of activities are more effective than others.
In this essay we explore how contemporary data sources and methods might be brought to bear in assessing these fundamental representational questions. We propose a forward-looking research agenda—using data and tools which have become available since Walker’s work—that incorporates his core insights regarding the political economy of interest representation. Using these tools can allow scholars to continue where Walker left off, examining both how interest origination affects political representation in American politics and how parties and elected officials may affect the landscape of interest representation by bolstering or undermining these organizational roots
