Wide Range Of Assumptions Research Articles

Evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas with assortment in finite populations

We investigate conditions for the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas in finite populations with assortment of players by group founders and general payoff functions for cooperation and defection within groups. Using a diffusion approximation in the limit of a large population size that does not depend on the precise updating rule, we show that the first-order effect of selection on the fixation probability of cooperation when represented once can be expressed as the difference between time-averaged payoffs with respect to effective time that cooperators and defectors spend in direct competition in the different group states. Comparing this fixation probability to its value under neutrality and to the corresponding fixation probability for defection, we deduce conditions for the evolution of cooperation. We show that these conditions are generally less stringent as the level of assortment increases under a wide range of assumptions on the payoffs such as additive, synergetic or discounted benefits for cooperation, fixed cost for cooperation and threshold benefit functions. This is not necessarily the case, however, when payoffs in pairwise interactions are multiplicatively compounded within groups.

The impact of progressive era labor regulations on annual earnings and employment in manufacturing in the USA, 1904–1919

AbstractWe analyze the impact of the broad range of state labor regulations on employment and annual earnings in manufacturing for wage earners and salaried workers using a new panel data set for the 48 US states in 1904, 1909, 1914, and 1919. The effects of state labor regulations influenced the labor market for wage earners and had virtually no effect on the market for salaried workers. Fixed effects analysis shows that increases in a newly developed labor law index were associated with a rise in employment and a decline in earnings for wage workers. These changes imply a dominant rise in labor supply that reflected marginal benefits for workers that were higher than the marginal costs or marginal benefits to employers. After the demand and supply shifts were completed, both workers and employers ultimately experienced improved gains from trade. Under a wide range of assumptions about the earnings elasticity of demand, the results are also consistent with the regulation increasing labor demand and thus providing positive marginal benefits to employers. The effects of appropriations per gainfully employed worker were much smaller and depended on the size of the law index.

Constraining cosmic ray transport with observations of the circumgalactic medium

ABSTRACT Recent theoretical studies predict that the circumgalactic medium (CGM) around low-redshift, ∼L* galaxies could have substantial non-thermal pressure support in the form of cosmic rays. However, these predictions are sensitive to the specific model of cosmic ray transport employed, which is theoretically and observationally underconstrained. In this work, we propose a novel observational constraint for calculating the lower limit of the radially averaged, effective cosmic ray transport rate, ${\kappa _{\rm eff}^{\rm min}}$. Under a wide range of assumptions (so long as cosmic rays do not lose a significant fraction of their energy in the galactic disc, regardless of whether the cosmic ray pressure is important or not in the CGM), we demonstrate a well-defined relationship between ${\kappa _{\rm eff}^{\rm min}}$ and three observable galaxy properties: the total hydrogen column density, the average star formation rate, and the gas circular velocity. We use a suite of Feedback in Realistic Environments 2 galaxy simulations with a variety of cosmic ray transport physics to demonstrate that our analytical model of ${\kappa _{\rm eff}^{\rm min}}$ is a robust lower limit of the true cosmic ray transport rate. We then apply our new model to calculate ${\kappa _{\rm eff}^{\rm min}}$ for galaxies in the COS-Halos sample, and confirm this already reveals strong evidence for an effective transport rate that rises rapidly away from the interstellar medium to values ${\kappa _{\rm eff}^{\rm min}}\gtrsim 10^{30\!-\!31}\, {\rm cm}^2\, {\rm s}^{-1}$ (corresponding to anisotropic streaming velocities of $v^{\rm stream}_{\rm eff} \gtrsim 1000\, {\rm km}\, {\rm s}^{-1}$) in the diffuse CGM, at impact parameters larger than 50–100 kpc. We discuss how future observations can provide qualitatively new constraints in our understanding of cosmic rays in the CGM and intergalactic medium.

Competitiveness of Slovak power plants in connection with global changes in the development of electric energy prices

A cost framework we applied to provide an overview of bioenergy issues related to the process with renewable fuels and focuses on several possible profitability scenarios and the future development of Slovak power plants in a competitive electricity market. The aim of the paper is to propose alternative scenarios and forecast the development of Slovak power plants. The economic benefits of transitioning to alternative biofuel were analysed within the research in cooperation with the Vojany Black Coal Power Plant (EVO). To confirm the most economically efficient types of fuels used in the combustion process was used Data Envelopment analysis (DEA). Within the methodology used were also identified the factors influencing the price of electric energy (EE) on the market and subsequently the profitability of power plants. Scenarios for the future development of EE prices were identified using the statistical method FORECAST.FUNCTION. Despite the predicted increase in the market price of EE we conclude that the use of co-combustion fuels is socially beneficial compared to the use of biofuels under a wide range of assumptions regarding technical, economic and environmental characteristics. The relationship and extent of influence between coal, emission allowance and oil prices, determining EE prices were quantified by regression analysis and Analysis of Variances (ANOVA). The paper contains current data from available databases and market forecasts and the absence of analyses for economic development, sustainability, and competitiveness of Slovak power plants in the unfavourable period of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and war conflict Russia-Ukraine.

A critical review and normalization of the life cycle assessment outcomes in the naval sector. Articles description

Most of the actual industrial research efforts are aimed at reducing environmental burdens associated with human activities in the context of sustainable development. This trend has become increasingly prevalent in the naval transportation sector shown by a growing number of scientific publications dealing with life cycle assessments of maritime-related activities. However, the life cycle assessment framework provides practitioners with a variety of alternatives for conducting the analyses, giving room for defining key factors, such as functional units, system boundaries, and impact assessment methods, among others. This lack of standardization resulted in a wide range of assumptions and findings that are seldom comparable. The goal of this review is providing a systematic literature analysis, focusing on the characteristics of life cycle assessments dealing with the environmental impacts of various maritime vessel categories. In the first part, a qualitative analysis of the available scientific literature has been performed, providing a bibliometric analysis and a general overview of the characteristics of the studies (i.e., life cycle impact assessment methodologies, background data, and software tools used). The outcomes of the bibliometric analysis are then summarized and discussed to understand current practices and future trends in this field, providing the basis for the normalization phase of the results. The second section of the paper offers advice for naval practitioners on how to perform results normalization to produce comparable analyses. Two approaches for normalization have been proposed in the frame of this study: an “horizontal” one, which is based on vessel features and allows a comparison among different vessel typologies, and a “vertical” one that enables to fairly compare vessels of the same category to one another. In addition, each section reports the outcomes of greenhouse gas-related impact categories, which have been subjected to the proposed normalization procedure, along with the order of magnitude of the results for each life cycle phase. The overall work provides an overview of LCA impact results as well as a collection of procedures and recommendations for future life cycle assessments based on specific vessel types, in terms of functional unit selection, system boundary definition, impact assessment approach, presentation of the outcomes, and normalization basis.

In vitro fertilization with preimplantation genetic testing for monogenetic diseases versus unassisted conception with prenatal diagnosis for Huntington disease: a cost-effectiveness analysis

To investigate if invitro fertilization (IVF) with preimplantation genetic testing for monogenic disease is cost effective for heterozygous individuals with Huntington disease vs. unassisted conception with prenatal diagnosis. Cost-effectiveness analysis in a theoretical cohort of 3,851 couples, where one individual is heterozygous for Huntington disease. N/A. None. Invitro fertilization preimplantation genetic testing for couples attempting conception. Outcomes included cost and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) for both parents in addition to secondary outcomes of procedure-related loss, spontaneous abortion, termination of pregnancy, and early/normal/late-onset Huntington disease. A willingness-to-pay threshold was set at $100,000/QALY. Invitro fertilization preimplantation genetic testing is lower in cost and higher in effectiveness compared to unassisted conception with prenatal diagnosis among couples with one heterozygous Huntington disease individual, making it the dominant strategy. Invitro fertilization preimplantation genetic testing was associated with 77 more QALYs and a cost savings of $46,394,268. All measured outcomes were lower in the IVF preimplantation genetic testing strategy, including 39 fewer procedure-related losses, 39 fewer spontaneous abortions, and 462 fewer terminations of pregnancy. Most notably, in our theoretical cohort of couples, IVF preimplantation genetic testing resulted in 1,079 fewer Huntington disease-affected offspring. Our results were robust over a wide range of assumptions. Invitro fertilization preimplantation genetic testing is a cost-effective conception strategy compared to unassisted conception with prenatal diagnosis when one individual is heterozygous for Huntington disease. Not only can morbidity and mortality incurred by Huntington disease be mitigated for the offspring with the use of IVF preimplantation genetic testing, but this study demonstrates the cost-effectiveness of using IVF preimplantation genetic testing for those with Huntington disease.

Health economic evaluation of endodontic therapies.

Healthcare is an expensive endeavour, and it is likely that costs for endodontic treatment will grow over the next decade. The assessment of costs and, in most cases, health outcomes, and the comparison of the cost-health ratio of interventions, is at the heart of health economics. The present review aims to introduce the main concepts of health economic analysis, to systematically review the existing economic endodontic literature, and to deduce further action for the community. Overall, the identified body of evidence on the health economics of endodontic therapies is heterogenous and has several limitations: Not all studies identified robust data to inform their analyses and many relied on a wide range of assumptions, which were only explored for their impact in a limited way. However, a number of themes were identified from the review: (1) Maintaining pulpal vitality is preferable over root canal treatment if possible when it comes to cost-effectiveness. (2) Retaining teeth is usually more cost-effective than removing and replacing them. (3) Endodontic retreatment may be clinically indicated, but not always cost-effective, and should hence be considered carefully. In conclusion, the general sparsity of economic analyses is a concern, as decision makers such as commissioners or those funding dental care increasingly rely on them. The endodontic community is called to action to improve the competency of both researchers to conduct such analyses and consider them when planning research, but also clinicians who should factor in health economics when assigning interventions. Health economics should become an accepted pillar of endodontic research.

ForBackBench

The problems of Data Integration/Exchange (DE) and Ontology Based Data Access (OBDA) have been extensively studied across different communities. The underlying problem is common: using a number of differently structured data-sources mapped to a mediating schema/ontology/knowledge-graph, answer a query posed on the latter. In DE, forward-chaining algorithms, collectively known as the chase, transform source data to a new materialised instance that satisfies the ontology and can be directly queried. In OBDA, backward-chaining algorithms rewrite the query over the source schema, taking the ontology into account, in order to execute the rewriting directly on the sources. These two reasoning approaches have seen an individual rise in algorithms, practical implementations, and benchmarks. However, there has not been a principled methodology to compare solutions across both areas. In this paper we provide an original methodology and a benchmark infrastructure - a set of test scenarios, generator and translator tools, and an experimental infrastructure - to allow the translation and execution of a DE/OBDA scenario across areas and among different chase and query-rewriting systems. In the process, we also present a syntactic restriction of linear Tuple Generating Dependencies that precisely captures DL-Lite R , a correspondence previously uninvestigated. We perform cross-approach experiments under a wide range of assumptions, such as the use of different source-to-target mapping languages, shedding light to the interplay between forward-and backward-chaining. Our preliminary results show that, indeed, chase can compete and might overcome query rewriting even in the face of large data especially for complex mapping languages.

Phylogenetic inference of changes in amino acid propensities with single-position resolution.

Fitness conferred by the same allele may differ between genotypes and environments, and these differences shape variation and evolution. Changes in amino acid propensities at protein sites over the course of evolution have been inferred from sequence alignments statistically, but the existing methods are data-intensive and aggregate multiple sites. Here, we develop an approach to detect individual amino acids that confer different fitness in different groups of species from combined sequence and phylogenetic data. Using the fact that the probability of a substitution to an amino acid depends on its fitness, our method looks for amino acids such that substitutions to them occur more frequently in one group of lineages than in another. We validate our method using simulated evolution of a protein site under different scenarios and show that it has high specificity for a wide range of assumptions regarding the underlying changes in selection, while its sensitivity differs between scenarios. We apply our method to the env gene of two HIV-1 subtypes, A and B, and to the HA gene of two influenza A subtypes, H1 and H3, and show that the inferred fitness changes are consistent with the fitness differences observed in deep mutational scanning experiments. We find that changes in relative fitness of different amino acid variants within a site do not always trigger episodes of positive selection and therefore may not result in an overall increase in the frequency of substitutions, but can still be detected from changes in relative frequencies of different substitutions.

Do robots really destroy jobs? Evidence from Europe

While citizen opinion polls reveal that Europeans are concerned about the labour market consequences of technological progress, our understanding of the actual significance of this association is still imperfect. In this article, the authors assess the relationship between robot adoption and employment in Europe. Combining industry-level data on employment by skill type with data on robot adoption and using different sets of fixed-effects techniques, the study finds that robot use is associated with an increase in aggregate employment. Contrary to some previous studies, the authors do not find evidence of robots reducing the share of low-skill workers across Europe. Since the overwhelming majority of industrial robots are used in manufacturing, the findings should not be interpreted outside of the manufacturing context. However, the results still hold when including non-manufacturing sectors and they are robust across a wide range of assumptions and econometric specifications.

Cost-Effectiveness of Urea Excipient-Based Drug-Coated Balloons for Chronic Limb-Threatening Ischemia from Femoropopliteal Disease in the Netherlands and Germany.

Drug-coated balloons (DCBs) for femoropopliteal peripheral artery disease have been shown to be clinically superior and cost-effective compared to conventional percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA). However, few studies enrolled patients with chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI). Our objective was to study the cost-effectiveness of endovascular treatment with versus without DCB in CLTI patient populations in the Netherlands and Germany. Target lesion revascularization (TLR) and major amputation rates were obtained from the CLTI subgroup of the IN.PACT Global study. Rates for "status quo" treatment involving PTA with primary or bailout stenting were derived from systematic literature search. Costs and cost-effectiveness were calculated using a decision-analytic Markov model considering, in the base case, a 2-year horizon, and strategy-specific quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gains calculated from survival and health state-specific utilities. A willingness-to-pay threshold of €50,000/QALY was assumed, and extensive sensitivity analyses were performed. Model-projected 24-month probabilities of TLR were 26.2% and 32.8% for treatment with and without DCB, and probabilities for amputation were 2.8% and 11.9%, respectively. DCB added 0.017 QALYs while saving €1,030 in the Dutch setting and €513 in the German setting, respectively. DCB was found dominant or cost-effective across a wide range of assumptions. Urea excipient drug-coated balloon therapy for treating CLTI from femoropopliteal artery disease is associated with improved patient outcomes and expected overall cost savings to payers in the Dutch and German healthcare systems, rendering it a cost-effective and likely dominant treatment strategy.

On Moderate and Radical Government Whistleblowing: Edward Snowden and Julian Assange as Theorists of Whistleblowing Ethics

ABSTRACT Government whistleblowers are those who disclose classified government documents in violation of the law but do so to bring to light serious government wrongdoing. Scholarly debates have identified various procedural requirements for whistleblowing, and this paper expands upon these insights by providing an account of Edward Snowden’s moderate theory and Julian Assange’s radical theory of government whistleblowing ethics. Through the practice of ethical listening, this essay places Snowden and Assange into conversation with academic theories of government whistleblowing. By including the previously neglected voices of real-world government whistleblowers and their publishers, this paper provides a more dynamic understanding of whistleblowing’s procedural requirements, interrogates the ethical paradigms of whistleblowers, and shows that different theories of government whistleblowing depend upon a wide range of assumptions about audience, professionalism, and ultimate aims.

Burn or let them bury? The net social cost of producing district heating from imported waste

In this study, a net social cost framework is applied to provide insights on policy issues relating to the cross-border trade in waste fuel. We estimate the net social cost of using imported waste fuel in a highly efficient combined heat and power plant (CHP) in a cold climate by considering both private costs and benefits as well as external costs related to energy production, alternative waste management and fuel transport. We conclude that using imported waste fuel is beneficial from a societal perspective compared to using biofuel, given the wide range of assumptions regarding technical, economic and environmental characteristics. The net social cost is mainly determined by fuel cost advantages and the external cost of greenhouse gas emissions. External costs associated with transports only marginally impact the net social cost of waste imports for incineration. The results are robust to variation in the excess heat utilisation rate, which implies that importing waste for incineration would also be beneficial in countries with warmer climates where district heating networks already exist.

Clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination in South Africa

Low- and middle-income countries are implementing COVID-19 vaccination strategies in light of varying vaccine efficacies and costs, supply shortages, and resource constraints. Here, we use a microsimulation model to evaluate clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccination program in South Africa. We varied vaccination coverage, pace, acceptance, effectiveness, and cost as well as epidemic dynamics. Providing vaccines to at least 40% of the population and prioritizing vaccine rollout prevented >9 million infections and >73,000 deaths and reduced costs due to fewer hospitalizations. Model results were most sensitive to assumptions about epidemic growth and prevalence of prior immunity to SARS-CoV-2, though the vaccination program still provided high value and decreased both deaths and health care costs across a wide range of assumptions. Vaccination program implementation factors, including prompt procurement, distribution, and rollout, are likely more influential than characteristics of the vaccine itself in maximizing public health benefits and economic efficiency.

The cost of undisturbed landscapes

By 2030, Austria aims to meet 100% of its electricity demand from domestic renewable sources, such as wind energy. Apart from the benefit of reducing CO2 emissions and, potentially, system cost, wind power is also associated with negative impacts at the local level, particularly its interference with landscape aesthetics. Some of these negative impacts might be avoided by using alternative renewable energy technologies. To better understand the trade-offs involved, we quantify the opportunity cost of wind power versus its best feasible alternative, which is solar photovoltaics in Austria. Methodologically, our analysis relies on the power system model medea, a technology-rich, partial-equilibrium model of the Austro-German electricity and district heating markets. Our findings suggest that the cost of undisturbed landscapes is considerable, even more so when solar PV is mainly realised on rooftops. Under a wide range of assumptions, the opportunity cost of wind power is high enough to allow for significant compensation of the ones affected by local, negative wind turbine externalities.

Signatures of hierarchical mergers in black hole spin and mass distribution

ABSTRACT Recent gravitational wave (GW) observations by LIGO/Virgo show evidence for hierarchical mergers, where the merging BHs are the remnants of previous BH merger events. These events may carry important clues about the astrophysical host environments of the GW sources. In this paper, we present the distributions of the effective spin parameter (χeff), the precession spin parameter (χp), and the chirp mass (mchirp) expected in hierarchical mergers. Under a wide range of assumptions, hierarchical mergers produce (i) a monotonic increase of the average of the typical total spin for merging binaries, which we characterize with $\scriptstyle{{\bar{\chi }}_\mathrm{typ}\equiv \overline{(\chi _\mathrm{eff}^2+\chi _\mathrm{p}^2)^{1/2}}}$, up to roughly the maximum mchirp among first-generation (1g) BHs, and (ii) a plateau at ${\bar{\chi }}_\mathrm{typ}\sim 0.6$ at higher mchirp. We suggest that the maximum mass and typical spin magnitudes for 1g BHs can be estimated from ${\bar{\chi }}_\mathrm{typ}$ as a function of mchirp. The GW data observed in LIGO/Virgo O1–O3a prefers an increase in ${\bar{\chi }}_\mathrm{typ}$ at low mchirp, which is consistent with the growth of the BH spin magnitude by hierarchical mergers at ∼2σ confidence. A Bayesian analysis using the χeff, χp, and mchirp distributions suggests that 1g BHs have the maximum mass of ∼15–$30\, {\rm M}_\odot$ if the majority of mergers are of high-generation BHs (not among 1g–1g BHs), which is consistent with mergers in active galactic nucleus discs and/or nuclear star clusters, while if mergers mainly originate from globular clusters, 1g BHs are favoured to have non-zero spin magnitudes of ∼0.3. We also forecast that signatures for hierarchical mergers in the ${\bar{\chi }}_\mathrm{typ}$ distribution can be confidently recovered once the number of GW events increases to ≳ O(100).

Are consumers attentive to local energy costs? Evidence from the appliance market

We estimate whether consumers respond to local energy costs when purchasing appliances. Using a dataset from an appliance retailer, we compare demand responsiveness to a measure of energy costs that varies with local energy prices versus purchase prices. We cannot reject that consumers respond to lifetime energy costs in the same way they respond to purchase prices under a wide range of assumptions. These findings run counter to the popular wisdom, which motivates energy standards, that energy costs are systematically undervalued due to various behavioral phenomena. They imply that electricity pricing that deviates from social marginal costs, due to failure to incorporate pollution externalities or due to other features in rate design, can have substantial distortionary effects on demand.

Consumer Myopia in Vehicle Purchases: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

A central question in the analysis of fuel economy policy is whether consumers are myopic with regards to future fuel costs. We provide the first evidence on the consumer valuation of fuel economy from a natural experiment that provides exogenous variation in fuel economy ratings. We examine the short-run equilibrium effects of a restatement of fuel economy ratings that affected 1.6 million vehicles. Using the implied changes in willingness to pay, we find that consumers act myopically: consumers are indifferent between $1.00 in discounted fuel costs and $0. 16–0.39 in the purchase price when discounting at 4 percent. This undervaluation persists under a wide range of assumptions. (JEL D12, L62, L71, L11)

A cost-effectiveness analysis of universal hepatitis C screening in all United States pregnancies

Objective To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of universal screening for HCV among all pregnant women in the United States. Methods We designed a decision-analytic model to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and outcomes associated with universal HCV screening in pregnancy compared to no screening. A theoretical cohort of 3.9 million women, the approximate number of annual live births in the United States was used. Outcomes included hepatocellular carcinoma, decompensated cirrhosis, liver transplant and death, in addition to cost and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Model inputs were derived from the literature and the willingness-to-pay threshold was $100,000 per QALY. Sensitivity analysis were conducted to evaluate the robustness of the results. Results In a theoretical cohort of 3.9 million women, universal HCV screening resulted in 3003 fewer cases of hepatocellular carcinoma, 1484 fewer decompensated cirrhosis, 46 fewer liver transplants and 2665 fewer deaths from HCV when compared to no screening. Universal HCV screening was found to be the dominant strategy, meaning it resulted in lower costs and higher QALYs. Sensitivity analyses showed our model was robust over a wide range of assumptions. Conclusion Among pregnant women in the United States, universal HCV screening is cost effective compared with no screening.

Costs of avoiding net negative emissions under a carbon budget

The 2 °C and 1.5 °C temperature targets of the Paris Agreement can be interpreted as targets never to be exceeded, or as end-of-century targets. Recent literature proposes to move away from the latter, in favour of avoiding a temperature overshoot and the associated net negative emissions. To inform this discussion, we investigate under which conditions avoiding an overshoot is economically attractive. We show that some form of overshoot is attractive under a wide range of assumptions, even when considering the extra damages due to additional climate change in the optimisation process. For medium assumptions regarding mitigation costs and climate damages, avoiding net negative emissions leads to an increase in total costs until 2100 of 5% to 14%. However, avoiding overshoot only leads to some additional costs when mitigation costs are low, damages are high and when using a low discount rate. Finally, if damages are not fully reversible, avoiding net negative emissions can even become attractive. Under these conditions, avoiding overshoot may be justified, especially when non-monetary risks are considered.