Objective
We evaluate the relationship between economic freedom and incarceration at the U.S. metropolitan statistical area level.
Method
We use economic freedom data at the metropolitan statistical ...area unit and local incarceration data from the Vera Institute in 5‐year intervals from 1977 through 2017.
Results
Our evidence suggests that greater economic freedom is associated with lower rates of incarceration in jails for the overall population. The channel tends to be through both the first and second economic freedom components (“size of government” and “taxation,” respectively). Finally, the results for juvenile incarcerated populations are largely driven by labor market freedoms.
Conclusion
To the extent that reducing incarceration rates continue to be viewed as a positive outcome in line with recent trends, this study suggests that promoting laws and policies aimed at enhancing economic freedom could be an avenue to advancing that goal. For proponents, this policy implication has the rare advantage of bipartisan appeal.
Numerous studies evaluate how a jurisdiction’s institutional and specifically regulatory environment impact firm formation and entrepreneurial activity. This study adds to this by employing a dataset ...measuring the differential impact that federal regulations have on industries across US states. Specifically, the paper addresses how such differences affect several facets of early-stage entrepreneurial activity, including an index measure of early-stage entrepreneurship, opportunity entrepreneurship, job creation at startup, and new firm survival rates all derived from the
Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity
. Overall, the results suggest that early-stage entrepreneurial activity tends to be negatively correlated with a relatively more burdensome federal regulatory environment. While the channels do not indicate an effect through new firm formation or firm survival rates, both opportunity entrepreneurship and job formation are negatively and significantly affected. Implications are discussed.
This Letter reports on a cavity haloscope search for dark matter axions in the Galactic halo in the mass range 2.81-3.31 μeV. This search utilizes the combination of a low-noise Josephson parametric ...amplifier and a large-cavity haloscope to achieve unprecedented sensitivity across this mass range. This search excludes the full range of axion-photon coupling values predicted in benchmark models of the invisible axion that solve the strong CP problem of quantum chromodynamics.
Sickle cell anemia is an inherited blood disorder that is characterized by painful vaso-occlusive crises, for which there are few treatment options. Platelets mediate intercellular adhesion and ...thrombosis during vaso-occlusion in sickle cell anemia, which suggests a role for antiplatelet agents in modifying disease events.
Children and adolescents 2 through 17 years of age with sickle cell anemia were randomly assigned to receive oral prasugrel or placebo for 9 to 24 months. The primary end point was the rate of vaso-occlusive crisis, a composite of painful crisis or acute chest syndrome. The secondary end points were the rate of sickle cell-related pain and the intensity of pain, which were assessed daily with the use of pain diaries.
A total of 341 patients underwent randomization at 51 sites in 13 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The rate of vaso-occlusive crisis events per person-year was 2.30 in the prasugrel group and 2.77 in the placebo group (rate ratio, 0.83; 95% confidence interval, 0.66 to 1.05; P=0.12). There were no significant differences between the groups in the secondary end points of diary-reported events. The safety end points, including the frequency of bleeding events requiring medical intervention, of hemorrhagic and nonhemorrhagic adverse events that occurred while patients were taking prasugrel or placebo, and of discontinuations due to prasugrel or placebo, did not differ significantly between the groups.
Among children and adolescents with sickle cell anemia, the rate of vaso-occlusive crisis was not significantly lower among those who received prasugrel than among those who received placebo. There were no significant between-group differences in the safety findings. (Funded by Daiichi Sankyo and Eli Lilly; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01794000.).
Carbohydrates play a wide range of important roles in the body and, despite the challenges posed by glycobiology, are now tempting targets for drug developers. Although several genomes have been ...sequenced and many protein structures solved, there has been relatively little attention paid, to date, to the various ways in which proteins are "tweaked" through the attachment of sugars. However, the process of glycosylation is far from a decorative function. Carbohydrates help determine the three-dimensional structures of proteins, which are inherently linked to their function and their efficacy as therapeutics. Moreover, in contrast to some of the other chemical tags employed by cells (e.g., phosphates and lipids), carbohydrates exhibit a mind-boggling diversity of structures, can confer cell-type specificity, and are crucial components of cell-to-cell signaling. At the same time, carbohydrates make problematic drug targets; they are the most difficult biological molecules to analyze and synthesize, and are rapidly broken down in the bloodstream. Despite these challenges, recent technological advances have enabled several biotechnology companies to pursue new carbohydrate-based products, sweetening the outlook for glycobiology.
A crucial limit to measurement efficiencies of superconducting circuits comes from losses involved when coupling to an external quantum amplifier. Here, we realize a device circumventing this problem ...by directly embedding an artificial atom, comprised of a transmon qubit, within a flux-pumped Josephson parametric amplifier. This configuration is able to enhance dispersive measurement without exposing the qubit to appreciable excess backaction. Near-optimal backaction is obtained by engineering the circuit to permit high-power operation that reduces information loss to unmonitored channels associated with the amplification and squeezing of quantum noise. By mitigating the effects of off-chip losses downstream, the on-chip gain of this device produces end-to-end measurement efficiencies of up to 80%. Our theoretical model accurately describes the observed interplay of gain and measurement backaction and delineates the parameter space for future improvement. The device is compatible with standard fabrication and measurement techniques and, thus, provides a route for definitive investigations of fundamental quantum effects and quantum control protocols.
Context. The current model of planet formation lacks a good understanding of the growth of dust particles inside the protoplanetary disk beyond mm sizes. A similar collisional regime exists in dense ...planetary rings. In order to investigate the low-velocity collisions between this type of particles, the NanoRocks experiment was flown on the International Space Station (ISS) between September 2014 and March 2016. We present the results of this experiment. Aims. The objectives of our data analysis are the quantification of the damping of energy in systems of multiple particles in the 0.1–1 mm size range while they are in the bouncing regime, and the study of the formation of clusters through sticking collisions between particles. Methods. We developed statistical methods for the analysis of the large quantity of collision data collected by the experiment. We measured the average motion of particles, the moment of clustering, and the cluster size formed. In addition, we ran simple numerical simulations in order to validate our measurements. Results. We computed the average coefficient of restitution (COR) of collisions and find values ranging from 0.55 for systems including a population of fine grains to 0.94 for systems of denser particles. We also measured the sticking threshold velocities and find values around 1 cm s−1, consistent with the current dust collision models based on independently collected experimental data. Conclusions. Our findings have the following implications that can be useful for the simulation of particles in PPDs and planetary rings: (1) The average COR of collisions between same-sized free-floating particles at low speeds (<2 cm s−1) is not dependent on the collision velocity; (2) The simplified approach of using a constant COR value will accurately reproduce the average behavior of a particle system during collisional cooling; (3) At speeds below 5 mm s−1, the influence of particle rotation becomes apparent on the collision behavior; (4) Current dust collision models predicting sticking thresholds are robust.
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