500 research outputs found
Lower Bounds for Nonrelativistic Atomic Energies
No full textA recently developed lower bound theory for Coulombic problems (E. Pollak, R. Martinazzo, J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2021, 17, 1535) is further developed and applied to the highly accurate calculation of the ground-state energy of two- (He, Li+, and H-) and three- (Li) electron atoms. The method has been implemented with explicitly correlated many-particle basis sets of Gaussian type, on the basis of the highly accurate (Ritz) upper bounds they can provide with relatively small numbers of functions. The use of explicitly correlated Gaussians is developed further for computing the variances, and the necessary modifications are here discussed. The computed lower bounds are of submilli-Hartree (parts per million relative) precision and for Li represent the best lower bounds ever obtained. Although not yet as accurate as the corresponding (Ritz) upper bounds, the computed bounds are orders of magnitude tighter than those obtained with other lower bound methods, thereby demonstrating that the proposed method is viable for lower bound calculations in quantum chemistry applications. Among several aspects, the optimization of the wave function is shown to play a key role for both the optimal solution of the lower bound problem and the internal check of the theory
1995 Sub-Librarians Meeting: Let a Woman in Your Life: the Women in Conan Doyle\u27s Life and Fiction
No full textAt the 23rd (Irregular) meeting, the Sub-Librarians greeted members of multiple Chicago area scion societies at the Harold Washington Library Center. The meeting began with a champagne and dessert reception in the lower lobby and then moved into the video theater for the program. Toasts were given by Katherine Rankin, Deborah Schlesinger and others.
Marsha Pollak, ASH, welcomed everyone and introduced Ely. M. Liebow, professor of English at Northeastern Illinois University and author of Dr. Joe Bell: Model for Sherlock Holmes. Liebow spoke on the topic Let a Woman in Your Life: The Women in Arthur Conan Doyle\u27s Life and Fiction
Gary Becker's Contributions to Family and Household Economics
No full textGary Becker's influence on the economics of the family has been pervasive. His ideas have dominated research in the economics of the family, shaping the tools we use, the questions we ask, and the answers we give. The foundational assumptions of Becker's economic approach to the family -- maximizing behavior and equilibrium -- as well as such primary auxiliary assumptions as household production and interdependent preferences, are now widely accepted not only by economists but also by family sociologists, demographers, and others who study the family. Yet the interesting and provocative implications of Becker's economic approach to the family do not follow from the foundational assumptions or from the primary auxiliary assumptions. Instead they depend on contested auxiliary assumptions to which neoclassical economics has no commitment and which lack empirical support. This paper discusses the crucial role of auxiliary assumptions in Becker's analysis of the family, first in the context of preferences, then in the context of household production, and finally in the context of family or household collective choice.
Worlds apart? Labour Unions, Wages and Monetary Integration in Continental Europe. IHS Political Science Series No. 128, February 2012
No full textThis paper examines the problems of the single currency in light of the organization of labour relations in the member-states and their interaction with monetary policies. Continental (western) Europe consists of two very different systems of employment and labour relations, roughly coinciding with 'coordinated market economies‘ (CME) in the north-west of the continent, and 'Mixed Market Economies‘ in the south. These differences in employment relations and wage-setting systems implied that, against the background of a relatively restrictive one-size-fits-all monetary policy in place since 1999, the north-west of the continent systematically improved its competitiveness, while the south lost competitiveness in parallel. Small differences between the two groups of countries at the start of EMU thus were accentuated and, against the background of low growth and an almost closed E(M)U economy, the northern CMEs accumulated current account surpluses while the GIIPS ran into severe balance of payments problems in 2010 and 2011. The sovereign debt crises of 2010-11, which threatened the survival of the Euro-zone itself in November and December 2011, simply reflected these structural imbalances: current account deficits are financed through debt, private and public. The problem with EMU, in other words, is one of current accounts, not fiscal deficits. The paper reconstructs the construction and emergence of this system through an examination of the development of wage-setting systems against the background of monetary integration in Europe since the second oil shock
Fashions and fads in finance: contingent emulation and the political economy of sovereign wealth fund creation. IHS Political Science Series No. 131, July 2012
No full textSovereign wealth funds (SWFs), government-owned or managed investment vehicles, have proliferated at a remarkable rate over the past decade, even as political controversy has surrounded them. Why? The extant literature depicts the process of SWF creation as driven by functional imperatives associated with “excess” revenue and reserves accumulated from commodity booms and large current account surpluses. I argue that SWF creation also reflects in large part a process of contingent emulation in which first this policy has been constructed as appropriate for countries with given characteristics, and then when countries took on these characteristics, they followed their peers. Put simply, fashions and fads in finance matter for policy diffusion. I assess this argument using a new dataset on SWF creation that covers nearly 80 countries from 1984 to 2007. The results suggest peer-based contingent emulation has been a crucial factor shaping the decision of many countries to create a SWF, especially among fuel exporters.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 2 – 5 September 2010. The author would like to thank Eric Neumayer for his many suggestions and comments on previous versions of the manuscript. The author would also like to thank Zachary Elkins for sharing data. Finally, the author would like to acknowledge the research assistance of Natali Bulamacioglu and Christopher Gandrud
Face-maker : the negotiation between screen performance, extra-filmic persona and conditions of employment within the career of Peter Lorre
No full textPeter Lorre often described his acting as merely "face-making". This disparaging attitude is
reflected within critiques which read the life of Peter Lorre as a tragic narrative of wasted
opportunities and his career as a screen performer as restricted by the nature of his
employment in studio-era Hollywood. Working in the United States, he was unable to escape
from the notoriety of his first major role in the German film, M (1931), or from the murderous
persona that evolved from his portrayal of a psychopathic serial killer. His status as an emigre
positioned him as a European "artist" whose talent was misused by American filmmaking
practices which typecast the actor in line with his nefarious public image.
This thesis proposes to investigate the accuracy of these perceptions which approach the actor
via a binary split between "person" and "persona". It will offer an alternative methodology for
analysing the career of the screen actor which recognises that persona-based analyses can
obscure complex negotiations between performance, image and the conditions of employment.
Rather than attempting to reveal the "real" Peter Lorre behind the image, the context of Lorre's
mutable position as an employee within the Hollywood industry and the misconstrued
association between his screen labour and his public persona will be examined. The creative
agency of the actor will also be examined in order to question Lorre's definition of himself as
"face-maker" whose work was reliant upon performative gimmicks.
This alternative approach to the screen actor will be pursued through a chronological
investigation of Lorre's professional labour. Also necessary are an exploration of the features of
Lorre's persona and an understanding of the role played by other media in the construction of
this public image. My methodology will combine close textual analysis of Lorre's screen
performances, archival research into the terms of his employment and extensive analysis of
promotional discourses pertaining to the actor throughout his career.
My historiography of Lorre will consider the relationship between the actor and a number of his
employers to suggest that conditions of employment help to shape screen performance. Lorre's
status as a "face-maker" will also be challenged through a demonstration of the actor's use of
complex performative techniques within his film work. This thesis will demonstrate the limitations
of interpreting Lorre's career as Hollywood's mismanagement of a problematic performer.
Instead, his career can be considered indicative of industrial strategies that exist between acting
labour, promotional personas and employers. One consequence of my research is the reevaluation
of Lorre's persona as "extra-filmic" and his career as "transmedial". As such, this
thesis highlights how the significant labour of a screen performer can potentially become
superseded by the personas used by employers to promote actors away from the cinema
screen
The Time-Course of Phoneme Category Adaptation in Deep Neural Networks
No full textBoth human listeners and machines need to adapt their sound categories whenever a new speaker is encountered. This perceptual learning is driven by lexical information. In previous work, we have shown that deep neural network-based (DNN) ASR systems can learn to adapt their phoneme category boundaries from a few labeled examples after exposure (i.e., training) to ambiguous sounds, as humans have been found to do. Here, we investigate the time-course of phoneme category adaptation in a DNN in more detail, with the ultimate aim to investigate the DNN’s ability to serve as a model of human perceptual learning. We do so by providing the DNN with an increasing number of ambiguous retraining tokens (in 10 bins of 4 ambiguous items), and comparing classification accuracy on the ambiguous items in a held-out test set for the different bins. Results showed that DNNs, similar to human listeners, show a step-like function: The DNNs show perceptual learning already after the first bin (only 4 tokens of the ambiguous phone), with little further adaptation for subsequent bins. In follow-up research, we plan to test specific predictions made by the DNN about human speech processing.Multimedia Computin
Efficiency in Family Bargaining: Living Arrangements and Caregiving Decisions of Adult Children and Disabled Elderly Parents
No full textIn this paper, we use a two-stage bargaining model to analyze the living arrangement of a disabled elderly parent and the assistance provided to the parent by her adult children. The first stage determines the living arrangement: the parent can live in a nursing home, live alone in the community, or live with any child who has invited coresidence. The second stage determines the assistance provided by each child in the family. Working by backward induction, we first calculate the level of assistance that each child would provide to the parent in each possible living arrangement. Using these calculations, we then analyze the living arrangement that would emerge from the first stage game. A key assumption of our model is that family members cannot or will not make binding agreements at the first stage regarding transfers at the second stage. Because coresidence is likely to reduce the bargaining power of the coresident child relative to her siblings, coresidence may fail to emerge as the equilibrium living arrangement even when it is Pareto efficient. That is, the outcome of the two-stage game need not be Pareto efficient.
Family Proximity, Childcare, and Women's Labor Force Attachment
No full textWe show that close geographical proximity to mothers or mothers-in-law has a substantial positive effect on the labor supply of married women with young children. We argue that the mechanism through which proximity increases labor supply is the availability of childcare. We interpret availability broadly enough to include not only regular scheduled childcare during work hours but also an insurance aspect of proximity (e.g., a mother or mother-in-law who can provide irregular or unanticipated childcare). Using two large datasets, the National Survey of Families and Households and the public use files of the U.S. Census, we find that the predicted probability of employment and labor force participation is 4-10 percentage points higher for married women with young children living in close proximity to their mothers or their mothers-in-law compared with those living further away.
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