The High Time Resolution Spectral Evolution of Gamma-Ray Bursts

Previous studies of the evolution of gamma-ray burst spectra have generally relied on fitting sequences of spectra. These studies usually were confined to bright bursts and often lacked sufficient temporal resolution. We have developed techniques which sacrifice spectral resolution for temporal resolution. First, the crosscorrelations between intensity lightcurves in different energy bands allow for the classification of the spectral evolution of a large burst sample. Second, the energy correlation of pairs of counts places limits on short-duration, narrowband emission.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, AIPPROC LaTeX, to appear in "Gamma-Ray Bursts, 4th Huntsville Symposium," eds. C. Meegan, R. Preece and T. Koshu

Women, War and Wages: The Effect of Female Labor Supply on the Wage Structure at Mid-Century

This paper investigates the effects of female labor supply on the wage structure. To identify variation in female labor supply, we exploit the military mobilization for World War II, which drew many women into the workforce as males exited civilian employment. The extent of mobilization was not uniform across states, however, with the fraction of eligible males serving ranging from 41 to 54 percent. We find that in states with greater mobilization of men, women worked substantially more after the War and in 1950, though not in 1940. We interpret these differentials as labor supply shifts induced by the War. We find that increases in female labor supply lower female wages, lower male wages, and increase the college and premium and male wage inequality generally. Our findings indicate that at mid-century, women were closer substitutes to high school graduate and relatively low-skill males, but not to those with the lowest skills.

Displaced abomasum (1993)

The abomasum is the fourth, or 'true,' stomach in the cow. It normally lies low down in the right front quadrant of the abdomen, just inside the seventh through 11th ribs. This article discusses the causes and cures of displaced abomasum.Reviewed October 1993 -- Extension website

An Ascending-Price Generalized Vickrey Auction

A simple characterization of the equilibrium conditions required to compute Vickrey payments in the Combinatorial Allocation Problem leads to an ascending price Generalized Vickrey Auction. The ascending auc- tion, iBundle Extend & Adjust (iBEA), maintains non-linear and perhaps non-anonymous prices on bundles of items, and terminates with the ef- cient allocation and the Vickrey payments in ex post Nash equilibrium. Crucially, iBEA is able to implement the Vickrey outcome even when the Vickrey payments are not supported in a single competitive equilibrium. The auction closes with Universal competitive equilibrium prices, which provide enough information to compute individualized discounts to adjust the nal prices and implement Vickrey payments.Engineering and Applied Science

Preventing Strategic Manipulation in Iterative Auctions: Proxy Agents and Price-Adjustment

Iterative auctions have many computational advantages over sealed-bid auctions, but can present new possibilities for strategic manipulation. We propose a two-stage technique to make iterative auctions that compute optimal allocations with myopic best-response bidding strategies more robust to manipulation. First, introduce proxy bidding agents to constrain bidding strategies to (possibly untruthful) myopic bestresponse. Second, after the auction terminates adjust the prices towards those given in the Vickrey auction, a sealedbid auction in which truth-revelation is optimal. We present an application of this methodology to iBundle, an iterative combinatorial auction which gives optimal allocations for myopic best-response agents.Engineering and Applied Science

Iterative Combinatorial Auctions: Theory and Practice

Combinatorial auctions, which allow agents to bid directly for bundles of resources, are necessary for optimal auction-based solutions to resource allocation problems with agents that have non-additive values for resources, such as distributed scheduling and task assignment problems. We introduce iBundle, the first iterative combinatorial auction that is optimal for a reasonable agent bidding strategy, in this case myopic best-response bidding. Its optimality is proved with a novel connection to primal-dual optimization theory. We demonstrate orders of magnitude performance improvements over the only other known optimal combinatorial auction, the Generalized Vickrey Auction.Engineering and Applied Science

The Impact of Disability Benefits on Labor Supply: Evidence from the VA's Disability Compensation Program

Combining administrative data from the US Army, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Social Security Administration, we analyze the effect of the VA's Disability Compensation (DC) program on veterans' labor force participation and earnings. We study the 2001 Agent Orange decision, a unique policy change that expanded DC eligibility for Vietnam veterans who served in theater but did not expand eligibility to other veterans of this era, to assess the causal effects of DC enrollment. We estimate that benefits receipt reduced veterans' labor force participation by 18 percentage points, though measured income net of transfer income rose on average.United States. Social Security Administration (grant #10-P-98363-1-05 to the National Bureau of Economic Research as part of the SSA Retirement Research Consortium

Evaluation of the Researcher Development Program (RDP) of the Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development (PHCRED) Strategy: The Fellows’ perspective

This study examines the extent to which the Researcher Development Program (RDP) has impacted on knowledge, attitudes and practice in relation to research and to develop a profile of RDP participants. RDP fellows (appointed between 2005 and 2009) were invited to complete an on-line survey which looked at issues such as previous research experience, research training and activities during the RDP and time allocated to RDP