Publications by Year: 2010

2010
Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders
Francis X. Clooney. 2010. Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
“Encountering the Divine Mother in Hindu and Christian Hymns."
Francis X. Clooney. 2010. ““Encountering the Divine Mother in Hindu and Christian Hymns." .” Edited by Richard Kearney and Eileen Rizo-Patron. Traversing the Heart: Journeys of the Inter-religious Imagination., Pp. 235–247.
J. Liu, Y. Cai, Y. Deng, Z. Sun, D. Gu, B. Tu, and D. Zhao. 2010. “Magnetic 3-D ordered macroporous silica templated from binary colloidal crystals and its application for effective removal of microcystin.” Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, 130, Pp. 26-31. PDF
The New Comparative Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation
Francis X Clooney. 2010. The New Comparative Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation. London: Continuum Publishing.
NA Bakas and BF Farrell. 2010. “ The Role of Non-normality in Overreflection Theory.” J. Atmos. Sci., 67, Pp. 2547-2558. .pdf
Rema Hanna and Paulina Olivia. 2010. “The Impact of Inspections on Plant-Level Air Emissions.” The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 10, 1, Pp. 1-33. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Each year, the United States conducts approximately 20,000 inspections of manufacturing plants under the Clean Air Act. This paper compiles a panel dataset on plant-level inspections, fines, and emissions to understand whether these inspections actually reduce air emissions. We find plants reduce air emissions by fifteen percent, on average, following an inspection under the Clean Air Act. Plants that belong to industries that typically have low abatement costs respond more strongly to an inspection than those who belong to industries with high abatement costs.

2010. Politics in Dark Times: Encounters with Hannah Arendt. Cambridge UK: Cambridge. Publisher's VersionAbstract

This outstanding collection of essays explores Hannah Arendt’s thought against the background of recent world-political events unfolding since September 11, 2001, and engages in a contentious dialogue with one of the greatest political thinkers of the past century, with the conviction that she remains one of our contemporaries. Themes such as moral and political equality, action and natality, and judgment and freedom are reevaluated with fresh insights by a group of thinkers who are themselves well known for their original contributions to political thought. Other essays focus on novel and little-discussed themes in the literature by highlighting Arendt’s views of sovereignty, international law and genocide, nuclear weapons and revolutions, imperialism and Eurocentrism, and her contrasting images of Europe and America. Each essay displays not only superb Arendt scholarship but also stylistic flair and analytical tenacity.

N Eyal and SA Hurst. 2010. “Coercion in the fight against medical brain drain.” In R Shah, ed., The International Migration of Health Workers: Ethics, Rights and Justice, Pp. 137-158. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Published VersionAbstract

Experts from ethicists and political philosophers to clinicians and trade unionists seek answers to a number of key ethical questions to further a deeper understanding of the ethics of health worker migration.

Tarun Khanna. 2010. “Vale: Global Expansion in the Challenging World of Mining”. Publisher's VersionAbstract

In 2009 the management of Vale, a Brazilian diversified mining company and the largest iron ore producer in the world, was under pressure from at least two fronts. First, the emergence of China as the most important consumer of iron ore in the last few years had changed the pricing system for iron ore from long-term contracts based on negotiated "benchmark prices" to contracts based on spot prices, usually forcing mining companies to pay for shipping. Second, for Brazil's charismatic president, Lula, a former union leader, Vale's layoffs during the global financial crisis and its perceived move away from Brazil (as Vale increased its exports to China and purchased Chinese vessels to ship iron ore to Asia) were reasons to start an open campaign to pressure Vale and Agnelli to invest in integrated steel mills in Brazil. In October of 2009, the CEO of Vale, Roger Agnelli was going to meet with Lula and had to decide what to do to attenuate these political pressures. What could Agnelli do to deal with political pressures at home? Was the purchase of large vessels to ship iron ore to Asia a good decision at a time when the shipping industry had spare capacity?

The Contents of Visual Experience
Susanna Siegel. 2010. The Contents of Visual Experience, Pp. x, 222 p. Oxford: Oxford University Press. HOLLIS
Neema Sofaer and Nir Eyal. 2010. “The diverse ethics of translational research.” Am J Bioeth, 10, 8, Pp. 19-30. Published VersionAbstract

Commentators on the ethics of translational research find it morally problematic. Types of translational research are said to involve questionable benefits, special risks, additional barriers to informed consent, and severe conflicts of interest. Translational research conducted on the global poor is thought to exploit them and increase international disparities. Some commentators support especially stringent ethical review. However, such concerns are grounded only in pre-approval translational research (now called T1). Whether or not T1 has these features, translational research beyond approval (T2: phase IV, health services, and implementation research) is unlikely to and, when conducted on the global poor, may support development. Therefore, insofar as T1 is morally problematic, and no independent objections to T2 exist, the ethics of translational research is diverse: while some translational research is problematic, some is not. Funding and oversight should reflect this diversity, and T2 should be encouraged, particularly when conducted among the global poor.

Zhigang Suo. 2010. “Theory of dielectric elastomers.” Acta Mechanica Solida Sinica, 23, 6, Pp. 549–578. Publisher's VersionAbstract

In response to a stimulus, a soft material deforms, and the deformation provides a function. We call such a material a soft active material (SAM). This review focuses on one class of soft active materials: dielectric elastomers. When a membrane of a dielectric elastomer is subject to a voltage through its thickness, the membrane reduces thickness and expands area, possibly straining over 100%. The dielectric elastomers are being developed as transducers for broad applications, including soft robots, adaptive optics, Braille displays, and electric generators. This paper reviews the theory of dielectric elastomers, developed within continuum mechanics and thermodynamics, and motivated by molecular pictures and empirical observations. The theory couples large deformation and electric potential, and describes nonlinear and nonequilibrium behavior, such as electromechanical instability and viscoelasticity. The theory enables the finite element method to simulate transducers of realistic configurations, predicts the efficiency of electromechanical energy conversion, and suggests alternative routes to achieve giant voltage-induced deformation. It is hoped that the theory will aid in the creation of materials and devices.

JA Hubbard, JH Shaw, and Y Klinger. 2010. “Structural Setting of the 2008 Mw 7.9 Wenchuan, China, Earthquake.” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 100, 5B, Pp. 2713-2735.
N Eyal. 2010. “Near-universal basic income.” Basic Income Studies, 5, 1, Pp. 1-26. Published VersionAbstract

Under what I call ”Near-Universal Basic Income,” or NUBI, everyone receives a high level of basic income, except for the rich. NUBI is therefore only near-universal and it requires means-testing. It is an economic hybrid: a cross between Universal Basic Income (UBI) and conservative social relief. My thesis is that if standard considerations that are often advanced to support UBI against social relief are successful, then these combined considerations probably lend NUBI even greater support. Thus, UBI supporters should consider becoming NUBI supporters. The considerations I examine focus on (1) sufficiency; (2) cost cuts; (3) equality; (4) freedom; (5) the social bases of self-respect; and (6) political resilience.

Amitabh Chandra, Jonathan Gruber, and Robin McKnight. 2010. “Patient Cost Sharing in Low Income Populations.” American Economic Review, 100, 2, Pp. 303-308. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Economic theory suggests that a natural tool to control medical costs is increased consumer cost sharing for medical care. While such cost sharing reduces “full insurance” (wherein patients are indifferent between falling sick or remaining healthy), a greater reliance on coinsurance and copayments can, in theory, stem patient and provider incentives to engage in moral hazard. These issues are particularly salient for low income populations who are at the center of current efforts to expand coverage (among the uninsured in 2008, 38 percent had incomes below the federal poverty line (FPL), and 52 percent had incomes between 100 and 299 percent of the FPL (Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured 2009)). As insurance is expanded to these groups, it is important to understand how they respond to greater levels of patient cost sharing. On the one hand, smarter plan design could help reduce the fiscal pressures associated with insurance expansion. But on the other, it is also possible that low income recipients are unable to cut back on utilization wisely and, consequently, experience hospitalization “offsets” as a result of greater levels of patient cost sharing. In particular, there remains a concern among many that higher cost sharing on primary care will lead to less effective use of primary care, worse health, and, consequently, higher downstream costs at hospitals (the so-called “offset effects”).

Beth A Simmons and Alison Danner. 2010. “Credible Commitments and the International Criminal Court.” International Organization, 64, 2, Pp. 225-256.Abstract
The creation of an International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute war crimes poses a real puzzle. Why was it created, and more importantly, why do states agree to join this institution? The ICC represents a serious intrusion into a traditional arena of state sovereignty: the right to administer justice to one’s one nationals. Yet more than one hundred states have joined. Social scientists are hardly of one mind about this institution, arguing that it is (alternately) dangerous or irrelevant to achieving its main purposes: justice, peace, and stability. By contrast, we theorize the ICC as a mechanism to assist states in self-binding, and draw on credible commitments theory to understand who commits to the ICC, and the early consequences of such commitments. This approach explains a counterintuitive finding: the states that are both the least and the most vulnerable to the possibility of an ICC case affecting their citizens have committed most readily to the ICC, while potentially vulnerable states with credible alternative means to hold leaders accountable do not. Similarly, ratification of the ICC is associated with tentative steps toward violence reduction and peace in those countries precisely least likely to be able to commit credibly to forswear atrocities. These findings support the potential usefulness of the ICC as a mechanism for some governments to commit to ratchet down violence and get on the road to peaceful negotiations.
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Winning in Emerging Markets
Tarun Khanna and Krishna Palepu. 2010. Winning in Emerging Markets. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Already cited by the Financial Times, Forbes.com, The Economic Times, WSJ/Mint and several other prominent global business publications, Winning in Emerging Markets is quickly becoming the go-to book for mapping a strategy for entering new markets—and then quickly gaining a competitive edge in those high growth regions.

Advancing the discussion about emerging markets themselves and how organizations can best leverage the potential of these regions, Tarun Khanna and Krishna Palepu – both well respected thinkers on the subject – argue there is more to sizing up these markets than just evaluating data points related to size, population, and growth potential. In fact, they say the possibility to expand a company’s progress in developing economies is to first asses the area’s lack of institutional infrastructure—and then to formulate strategies around what the authors call “institutional voids” to the firm’s advantage. Khanna and Palepu say the primary exploitable characteristic of an emerging market are such voids, and though they create challenges, they also provide major opportunity both for multinationals and local contenders.

Winning in Emerging Markets serves as a playbook for measuring a market’s potential and for crafting a strategy to succeed there.

Y Feliks, E Tziperman, and B Farrell. 2010. “Non normal Frontal Dynamics .” J. Atmos. Sci., 66, Pp. 1218-1231. .pdf
Xiaoqian Jiang, Bing Dong, Le Xie, and Latanya Sweeney. 2010. “Adaptive Gaussian Process for Short-Term Wind Speed Forecasting.” In ECAI, edited by Helder Coelho, Rudi Studer, and Michael Wooldridge, 215: Pp. 661-666. IOS Press. Publisher's VersionAbstract

We study the problem of short term wind speed prediction, which is a critical factor for effective wind power generation. This is a challenging task due to the complex and stochastic behavior of the wind environment. Observing various periods in the wind speed time series present different patterns, we suggest a nonlinear adaptive framework to model various hidden dynamic processes. The model is essentially data driven, which leverages non-parametric Heteroscdastic Gaussian Process to model relevant patterns for short term prediction. We evaluate our model on two different real world wind speed datasets from National Data Buoy Center. We compare our results to state-of-arts algorithms to show improvement in terms of both Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE).

Beth A Simmons. 2010. “Treaty Compliance and Violation.” Annual Review of Political Science, 13, Pp. 273-296. Publisher's VersionAbstract
International law has enjoyed a recent renaissance as an important subfield of study within international relations. Two trends are evident in the recent literature. First, the obsession with theoretical labels is on the decline. Second, empirical, especially quantitative, work is burgeoning. This article reviews the literature in four issues areas—security, war, and peace; international trade; protection of the environment; and human rights—and concludes we have a much stronger basis for assessing claims about compliance and violation now than was the case only a few years ago. Still, the literature suffers from a few weaknesses, including problems of selection and endogeneity of treaties themselves and an enduring state-centric focus, despite the fact that researchers recognize that nonstate and substate actors influence treaty behavior. Nonetheless, the quality and quantity of new work demonstrates that international law has regained an important place in the study of international politics.
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