cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Brain Uptake of [13C] and [14C]Sucrose Quantified by Microdialysis and Whole Tissue Analysis in Mice.

Among small, hydrophilic drug-like molecules, [14C]sucrose has long been considered the gold standard for determination of blood-brain barrier permeability. However, we have recently shown in rats that, compared with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry analysis of stable isotope (13C) of sucrose, [14C]sucrose significantly overestimates the brain tissue concentration and uptake of sucrose by a factor of 6 to 7. This discrepancy is due to the presence of small quantities of lipophilic impurities in [14C]sucrose tracer solutions. Here, we used intracranial microdialysis to measure concentrations of both sucrose variants in brain extracellular fluid (ECF) after intravenous bolus administration to mice. Both markers displayed similar plasma profiles and ECF dialysate concentrations. However, total brain tissue concentrations and apparent brain uptake clearance of [14C]sucrose were 4.1- and 3.6-fold higher, respectively, than those of [13C]sucrose. Therefore, the contaminants of [14C]sucrose with higher permeability were likely sequestered by brain cells, which renders them nondialyzable. It is concluded that although measurement of radioactivity overestimates the concentrations of intact sucrose in the brain tissue, the ECF radioactivity after microdialysis is a relatively accurate reflection of intact sucrose after the systemic administration of the [14C]sucrose marker.
Targeted ablative therapies for prostate cancer

Men diagnosed with low- to intermediate-risk, clinically localized prostate cancer (PCa) often face a daunting and difficult decision with respect to treatment: active surveillance (AS) or radical therapy. This decision is further confounded by the fact that many of these men diagnosed, by an elevated PSA, will have indolent disease and never require intervention. Radical treatments, including radical prostatectomy and whole-gland radiation, offer greater certainty for cancer control, but at the risk of significant urinary and/or sexual morbidity. Conversely, AS preserves genitourinary function and quality of life in exchange for burdensome surveillance and the psychological impact of living with cancer.
An Empirical Approach to Complete Mental Health Classification in Adolescents

Using latent profile analysis (LPA), this study empirically identified dual-factor mental health subtypes, with a goal of examining structural stability of emerging latent classes over three high school years. Profiles' relations with distal indicators of well-being, psychosocial distress, and self-reported grades were examined to explore the validity of emerging classes. A sample of 332 high school students reported on their social-emotional strengths and psychological distress during the fall term of their ninth-, tenth-, and eleventh-grade years. In Grade 12, students reported on measures assessing their grades and social-emotional experiences. Independent LPAs for each grade year yielded four mental health subtypes - complete mental health, moderately mentally healthy, symptomatic but content, and troubled - and provided evidence for the structural stability of the dual-factor mental health construct. Across high school years, most students were in the complete or moderately mentally healthy classes, with the troubled class consistently representing the smallest proportion of the sample. Students in classes with higher levels of strengths and lower levels of distress reported higher grades, prosocial contribution to community, and higher life satisfaction, and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression. Implications and future directions for research and school-based practice are discussed.
Chapter 1.2 Historical background

X-ray crystallography was initiated in 1912 by Max von Laue and Peter Ewald. The molecular size and complexity of structures solved by X-ray crystallography gradually increased to include penicillin (Crowfoot, 1948) and vitamin B12 (Hodgkin, 1957). Myoglobin and haemoglobin were the first protein structures to be determined in 1957 and 1959 by Kendrew and Perutz, respectively, using the isomorphous replacement method. The 2 A resolution structure of myoglobin (Kendrew, 1959) confirmed the right-handed α-helix predicted by Pauling. Subsequently other techniques were added for the structure determination of proteins, including the use of molecular replacement and anomalous dispersion. The increasing power of computers, computer graphics for automation of the ‘Richards Box’ model building system and X-ray production machines have transformed protein crystallography into a vital area of science and a powerful tool for the pharmaceutical industry. Keywords: early structure determinations
Coordination between Head Start and Elementary Schools to Enhance Children’s Kindergarten Success

ABSTRACTResearch Findings: This study examines efforts by Head Start programs to coordinate with elementary schools and seeks to better understand how coordination practices may support children’s ...
O Priapeum 3 do Apêndice Virgiliano em verso priapeu em português

A translation of the poem Priapeum 3 of the Appendix Vergiliana is given, recreating the rhythm of the priapeum verse through the opposition of stressed and unstressed syllables in Portuguese, in a line of fourteen poetic syllables.
Acute Alcohol Intake Produces Widespread Decreases in Cortical Resting Signal Variability in Healthy Social Drinkers.

Background Acute alcohol intoxication has wide-ranging neurobehavioral effects on psychomotor, attentional, inhibitory, and memory-related cognitive processes. These effects are mirrored in disruption of neural metabolism, functional activation, and functional network coherence. Metrics of intraregional neural dynamics such as regional signal variability (RSV) and brain entropy (BEN) may capture unique aspects of neural functional capacity in healthy and clinical populations; however, alcohol's influence on these metrics is unclear. The present study aimed to elucidate the influence of acute alcohol intoxication on RSV and to clarify these effects with subsequent BEN analyses. Methods 26 healthy adults between 25 and 45 years of age (65.4% women) participated in 2 counterbalanced sessions. In one, participants consumed a beverage containing alcohol sufficient to produce a breath alcohol concentration of 0.08 g/dl. In the other, they consumed a placebo beverage. Approximately 35 minutes after beverage consumption, participants completed a 9-minute resting-state fMRI scan. Whole-brain, voxel-wise standard deviation was used to assess RSV, which was compared between sessions. Within clusters displaying alterations in RSV, sample entropy was calculated to assess BEN. Results Compared to the placebo, alcohol intake resulted in widespread reductions in RSV in the bilateral middle frontal, right inferior frontal, right superior frontal, bilateral posterior cingulate, bilateral middle temporal, right supramarginal gyri, and bilateral inferior parietal lobule. Within these clusters, significant reductions in BEN were found in the bilateral middle frontal and right superior frontal gyri. No effects were noted in subcortical or cerebellar areas. Conclusions Findings indicate that alcohol intake produces diffuse reductions in RSV among structures associated with attentional processes. Within these structures, signal complexity was also reduced in a subset of frontal regions. Neurobehavioral effects of acute alcohol consumption may be partially driven by disruption of intraregional neural dynamics among regions involved in higher-order cognitive and attentional processes.
Normalization Studies on the 2016-2018 Data for the KOTO Experiment

The KOTO experiment is searching for the rare decay of the neutral kaon, . KOTO collected data from 2016 to 2018 and accumulated 3.1 × 1019 Protons on Target (POT). Results on the normalization analysis of this dataset are described. Three normalization modes, , , and , are used to calculate the flux and the number of kaons at the beam exit. The data is well reproduced by the Monte Carlo and the total number of kaons is (7.14 ± 0.05) × 1012. This gives a Single Event Sensitivity (SES) of 6.9 × 10−10.
Blooming flowers from drying drops

This paper is associated with a video winner of a 2019 American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) Milton van Dyke Award for work presented at the DFD Gallery of Fluid Motion. The original video is available online at the Gallery of Fluid Motion, https://doi.org/10.1103/APS.DFD.2019.GFM.V0082.
Regularity of weak solutions of a complex Monge-Ampère equation

We prove the smoothness of weak solutions to an elliptic complex Monge–Ampere equation, using the smoothing property of the corresponding parabolic flow.
Reevaluating the Role of Polarizability in Ion Mobility Spectrometry

With the expanding commercial availability of gas-phase separation systems that incorporate gas-phase mobility, there is a concurrent rise in efforts to cast the gas-phase mobility coefficient in terms of an ion-neutral collision cross-section (CCS). The motivating factors for this trend are varied, but many aim to complement experimental results with computationally generated CCS values from in silico structural approximations. Unfortunately, the current paradigm for relating experimental mobility results to computationally derived structures relies upon empirical approaches, including a myriad of variables that do not realistically bound the comparison. In this Critical Insight, we advocate for the development of a self-consistent experimental and computational framework that uses laboratory results to constrain the scope of the modeling effort. This paper aims to prompt discussion, challenge assumptions, and promote the development of more efficient, accurate computational techniques within the gas-phase ion measurement community. Specifically, we postulate whether experimental deviations from Langevin's polarization limit (Kpol) are suitable to estimate the relative contributions of hard-sphere collisions and long-range interactions within CCS values. Not surprisingly, different molecule classes exhibit different trends in the K/Kpol ratio when normalized for reduced mass, and the most common IMS calibrants (e.g., tune mix, polyalanine, tetraalkylammonium salts) follow different polarizability trends than many of the analytes probed in the literature. Succinctly, if gas-phase ion structure is largely invariant based upon the colliding neutral and newly developed experimental efforts can quantitatively capture ion polarizability, then modeling efforts describing a target analyte must be self-consistent as the collision neutral is changed in silico.
The political economy of central bank effectiveness: the case of national bank of Rwanda

In a survey conducted in Rwanda by the Pockets of Effectiveness project, the Central Bank was listed as among the top-performing government organisations in the country. This paper examines the political determinants of the portrayal of the National Bank of Rwanda’s (BNR) achievement of its mandate: promoting price and financial stability. The paper uses the political settlements framework to highlight the political determinants of financial sector reforms in the country. Rwanda’s underlying political economy – and particularly the government’s evolving relationships with domestic capital vis-a-vis foreign capital – has contributing to shaping the Rwandan financial sector’s trajectory. In particular, the Rwandan government has prioritised a strategy of being a financial sector hub, which is based on increased global financial integration and portraying the achievement of ‘best practice’ reforms. These goals have come at the cost of traditional developmentalists goals for central banks, including direct lending for structural transformation. BNR has achieved success in its mandate. However, achieving success in its market-led mandate reduces the policy tools at its disposal to promote structural transformation. The paper argues that reforming BNR along neoliberal lines has mirrored the broader macro-strategy of the country, with the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) choosing to rely increasingly on legitimacy with external actors, rather than supporting the growth of strengthening domestic state– business relationships to support economic transformation.
Impacts of fine-resolution land use information of Beijing on a summer severe rainfall simulation

Using the land use data around Beijing in 2000 with the resolution of 500 m,we updated the U.S.Geological Survey global land use classification data for numerical weather model,in which there are 25 types with 30 s lat-lon equidistant grids(≈1 km resolution).And then by 24-hour numerical experiments with the MM5V3.6 coupled with Noah LSM system,two domain two-way nested with the resolution of 10∶3.3 km,we investigated the impact of fine-resolution land use information incorporation on a summer severe rainfall in Beijing.Analyses show that,the new land use data can not only represent better the real characteristic of underlying surface around Beijing area,especially the rapid expanding of urban/built-up areas since 1990s',but also help to correct the unreasonable classification Savanna in the original USGS data for the middle-latitudes of Asia data as the deciduous broadleaf.Furthermore,numerical experiments prove that incorporation of the fine-resolution land use information has a significant impact on the short-range severe rainfall weather event.For the intensity and location of major rainfall centers,their difference ranges of 12 h rainfall amount are beyond 30 km,and the relative difference of the maximum rainfall amount reaches up to 30%.One important interaction mechanism between urban underlying surface and atmosphere is also revealed,that is,the urban expansion reduces natural vegetation cover,and then it can help to decrease ground evaporation and local water vapor supply,enlarge surface sensible heat flux,deepen PBL height and enhance the mixing of water vapor.Hence it is not conducive to the occurrence of the rainfall.
A rapid degradation of calponin 2 is required for cytokinesis

Calponin 2 is an actin cytoskeleton-associated protein and plays a role in regulating cell motility-related functions such as phagocytosis, migration, and division. We previously reported that over...
Intermittent Bolus Compared With Continuous Feeding Enhances Insulin and Amino Acid Signaling to Translation Initiation in Skeletal Muscle of Neonatal Pigs

BACKGROUND Nutrition administered as intermittent bolus feeds rather than continuously promotes greater protein synthesis rates in skeletal muscle and enhances lean growth in a neonatal piglet model. The molecular mechanisms responsible remain unclear. OBJECTIVES We aimed to identify the insulin- and/or amino acid-signaling components involved in the enhanced stimulation of skeletal muscle by intermittent bolus compared to continuous feeding in neonatal pigs born at term. METHODS Term piglets (2-3 days old) were fed equal amounts of sow milk replacer [12.8 g protein and 155 kcal/(kg body weight · d)] by orogastric tube as intermittent bolus meals every 4 hours (INT) or by continuous infusion (CTS). After 21 days, gastrocnemius muscle samples were collected from CTS, INT-0 (before a meal), and INT-60 (60 minutes after a meal) groups (n = 6/group). Insulin- and amino acid-signaling components relevant to mechanistic target of rapamycin complex (mTORC) 1 activation and protein translation were measured. RESULTS Phosphorylation of the insulin receptor, IRS-1, PDK1, mTORC2, pan-Akt, Akt1, Akt2, and TSC2 was 106% to 273% higher in the skeletal muscle of INT-60 piglets than in INT-0 and CTS piglets (P < 0.05), but phosphorylation of PTEN, PP2A, Akt3, ERK1/2, and AMPK did not differ among groups, nor did abundances of PHLPP, SHIP2, and Ubl4A. The association of GATOR2 with Sestrin1/2, but not CASTOR1, was 51% to 52% lower in INT-60 piglets than in INT-0 and CTS piglets (P < 0.05), but the abundances of SLC7A5/LAT1, SLC38A2/SNAT2, SLC38A9, Lamtor1/2, and V-ATPase did not differ. Associations of mTOR with RagA, RagC, and Rheb and phosphorylation of S6K1 and 4EBP1, but not eIF2α and eEF2, were 101% to 176% higher in INT-60 piglets than in INT-0 and CTS piglets (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS The enhanced rates of muscle protein synthesis and growth with intermittent bolus compared to continuous feeding in a neonatal piglet model can be explained by enhanced activation of both the insulin- and amino acid-signaling pathways that regulate translation initiation.
Hospitalizations among World Trade Center Health Registry Enrollees Who Were under 18 Years of Age on 9/11, 2001–2016

Much of the literature on hospitalizations post-September 11, 2001 (9/11) focuses on adults but little is known about post-9/11 hospitalizations among children. Data for World Trade Center Health Registry enrollees who were under 18-years old on 9/11 were linked to New York State hospitalization data to identify hospitalizations from enrollment (2003-2004) to December 31, 2016. Logistic regression was used to analyze factors associated with hospitalization. Of the 3151 enrollees under age 18 on 9/11, 243 (7.7%) had at least one 9/11-related physical health hospitalization and 279 (8.9%) had at least one 9/11-related mental health hospitalization. Individuals of non-White race, those living in New York City Housing Authority housing, those exposed to the dust cloud on 9/11, and those with probable 9/11-related PTSD symptoms were more likely to be hospitalized for a 9/11-related physical health condition. Older age and having probable 9/11-related PTSD symptoms at baseline were associated with being hospitalized for a 9/11-related mental health condition. Dust cloud exposure on 9/11 and PTSD symptoms were associated with hospitalizations among those exposed to 9/11 as children. Racial minorities and children living in public housing were at greater risk of hospitalization. Continued monitoring of this population and understanding the interplay of socioeconomic factors and disaster exposure will be important to understanding the long-term effects of 9/11.
Getting “Primaried” in the Senate: Primary Challengers and the Roll-Call Voting Behavior of Sitting senators

Primary challenges are semi-regular occurrences for incumbent members of Congress, and while many of these primary challengers never pose a serious threat to the incumbent, there are occasions when...
Probing T Cell 3D Mechanosensing With Magnetically-Actuated Structures.

The ability of cells to recognize and respond to the mechanical properties of their environment is of increasing importance in T cell physiology. However, initial studies in this direction focused on planar hydrogel and elastomer surfaces, presenting several challenges in interpretation including difficulties in separating mechanical stiffness from changes in chemistry needed to modulate this property. We introduce here the use of magnetic fields to change the structural rigidity of microscale elastomer pillars loaded with superparamagnetic nanoparticles, independent of substrate chemistry. This magnetic modulation of rigidity, embodied as the pillar spring constant, changed the interaction of mouse naive CD4+ T cells from a contractile morphology to one involving deep embedding of cells into the array. Furthermore, increasing spring constant was associated with higher IL-2 secretion, showing a functional impact of this mechano sensing. The system introduced here thus separates local substrate stiffness and long-range structural rigidity, revealing new facets of T cell interaction with their environment.
Losing Weight by Gaining Edges

We present a new way to encode weighted sums into unweighted pairwise constraints, obtaining the following results.
Mode Localization by State Feedback Control Quasi-Perturbation of a Multi-Degree-Of-Freedom System

Abstract This paper describes the research done at Texas A&M University into the application of mode localization as a means of vibration control. The paper begins with a discussion of past research efforts, including the design and constniction of a periodic system test rig. Next is a discussion of current efforts to produce mode localization through fictitious perturbations, where active feedback torque control mimics real, mode-localizing perturbations in the system. Finally, the paper explains how this research has proven beneficial to undergraduate mechanical systems and controls coursework at Texas A&M.
The Absence of the Corporation in Islamic Law: Origins and Persistence

Classical Islamic law recognizes only natural persons; it does not grant standing to corporations. This article explores why Islamic law did not develop a concept akin to the corporation, or borrow one from another legal system. It also identifies processes that delayed the diffusion of the corporation to the Middle East even as its role in the global economy expanded. Community building was central to Islam's mission, so early Muslim jurists had no use for a concept liable to facilitate factionalism. Services with large setup costs and expected to last indefinitely were supplied through the waqf, an unincorporated trust. The waqf thus absorbed resources that might otherwise have stimulated an incorporation movement. Partly because the waqf spawned constituencies committed to preserving its key features, until modern times private merchants and producers who stood to profit from corporate powers were unable to muster the collective action necessary to reform the legal system. For their part, Muslim rulers took no initiatives of their own to supply the corporate form of organization, because they saw no commercial or financial organizations worth developing for the sake of boosting tax revenue.
Collaborative Multi-Sensor Classification Via Sparsity-Based Representation

In this paper, we propose a general collaborative sparse representation framework for multi-sensor classification, which takes into account the correlations as well as complementary information between heterogeneous sensors simultaneously while considering joint sparsity within each sensor’s observations. We also robustify our models to deal with the presence of sparse noise and low-rank interference signals. Specifically, we demonstrate that incorporating the noise or interference signal as a low-rank component in our models is essential in a multi-sensor classification problem when multiple co-located sources/sensors simultaneously record the same physical event. We further extend our frameworks to kernelized models which rely on sparsely representing a test sample in terms of all the training samples in a feature space induced by a kernel function. A fast and efficient algorithm based on alternative direction method is proposed where its convergence to an optimal solution is guaranteed. Extensive experiments are conducted on several real multi-sensor data sets and results are compared with the conventional classifiers to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
Synthesis of oligosaccharides related to bacterial O-antigens

The O-polysaccharides of bacterial lipopolysaccharides are in general regular, periodic polymers with diverse structures that contain, in many instances, comparatively rare monosaccharides. The oligosaccharides that constitute the repeating units of these polysaccharide antigens provide a demanding challenge in terms of glycoside synthesis, an objective which is particularly important since these structures act as antigenic determinants which are valuable markers of bacterial infection. Advances in glycoside synthesis together with the ancillary techniques of chromatographic separation and high resolution NMR spectroscopy have permitted rational synthesis of such oligosaccharides to be planned, successfully completed and have in a limited number of instances, even allowed small polysaccharides, representative of the O-polysaccharide, to be synthesized via polymerization of synthetic repeating units. The most intensive synthetic efforts have focused on the O-antigens of Salmonella, Shigella, and E. coli, although increasing attention is being given to the synthesis of antigenic determinants of other Gram-negative pathogens, including those of Brucella.
Active network analysis

Active Network Analysis gives a comprehensive treatment of the fundamentals of the theory of active networks and its applications to feedback amplifiers. The guiding light throughout has been to extract the essence of the theory and to discuss those topics that are of fundamental importance and that will transcend the advent of new devices and design tools. The book provides under one cover a unified, comprehensive, and up-to-date coverage of these recent developments and their practical engineering applications. In selecting the level of presentation, considerable attention has been given to the fact that many readers may be encountering some of these topics for the first time. Thus basic introductory material has been included. The work is illustrated by a large number of carefully chosen and well-prepared examples.
Further musings on the psychophysics of presence

This is an extension of an earlier paper Sheridan, 1992 that considered alternative meanings and significance of “presence,” the experience of “being there,” commonly called “telepresence” in the case of remote control or teleoperation, and called “virtual presence” in the case of computer-generated simulation. In both cases presence can include feedback to the human senses of vision, hearing, and haptics, both kinesthetic and cutaneous. Presence is discussed here in terms of alternative subjective meanings, operational measurements, and meaningful experimental comparisons. Three practical approaches to measurement of presence are compared, including elicitation of “natural” neuromuscular or vocal responses, single or multidimensional subjective scaling, and ability to discriminate the real and immediate environment from that which is recorded/transmitted or synthesized. A new proposal, fitting into the third category, is to measure presence according to the amount of noise required to degrade the real and virtual stimulation until the perceived environments are indiscriminable. The author also opines on the stimulus magnitude, space, and time attributes of human interactions with a tele-or virtual environment.
Integrating power in institutional analysis: A micro-foundation perspective:

Studies of social dilemmas consistently report higher than expected levels of cooperation, especially in the presence of appropriate institutions. At the same time, scholars have argued that institutions are manifestations of power relations. The higher than expected levels of cooperation amidst widespread power asymmetries constitute an important puzzle about the linkages between power asymmetries and the outcomes of local institutional deliberation. In this paper, I develop a microfoundation-based approach that examines incentives and imperatives to explain how power asymmetries shape individuals’ responses to institutional development and institutional change. I argue that local power asymmetries work across multiple interlinked institutional arenas. A fuller examination of the effects of power asymmetries, therefore, requires that scholars account for how interlinked institutional arenas shape strategic actions of the members and leaders within local communities.
Short-Term Forecasting Analysis for Municipal Water Demand

Short-term water demand forecasts inform decisions regarding budgeting, rate design, water supply system operations, and effective implementation of conservation policies. This study develops a Linear Transfer Function (LTF) forecasting model for El Paso, Texas, a growing city located in the desert Southwest region of the United States. The model is used to generate monthly-frequency out-of-sample simulations of water demand for periods when actual demand is known. To measure the accuracy of the LTF projections against viable alternatives, a set of benchmark forecasts is also developed. Both descriptive accuracy metrics and formal statistical tests are used to analyze predictive performance. The LTF model outperforms the alternatives in predicting demand per customer but falls a little short in projecting growth in the customer base. Changes in climatic and economic conditions are found to impact consumption per customer more rapidly than changes in water rates.
A Note on the Equilibrium Properties of Locational Sorting Models

A central feature of many models of location choice – whether of firms or households, within or across cities – is the role of local interactions or spillovers, whereby the payoffs from choosing a location depend in part on the number or attributes of other individuals or firms that choose the same or nearby locations in equilibrium. The main goal of this paper is to develop the equilibrium properties of a broadly applicable and readily estimable class of sorting models that allow the location decision to depend on both fixed local attributes (including unobserved attributes) and such local interactions. In particular, we prove uniqueness in the case of congestion effects and use a series of simulations to demonstrate that a unique equilibrium is more likely to obtain (i) the smaller are any agglomeration effects, (ii) the larger are the set of choices available to the agents, (iii) the more "meaningful variation" there is in those choices, and (iv) the more heterogeneous are the agents themselves. This is encouraging for the use of our model to describe the sorting of individuals and firms over geographic space, where the number of choices is usually large and variation in exogenous fixed attributes can be important. Moreover, these results conveniently coincide with the conditions required for conometric identification of our model.
Predicting Mg Strength from First-Principles: Solid-Solution Strengthening, Softening, and Cross-Slip

Predictive modeling of strength from first-principles electronic structure methods offers great promise to inform Mg alloy design. Simulating the mechanical behavior for new alloys requires an understanding of mechanisms for deformation at atomic-length scales, with accurate chemistry, extended to larger length- and time-scales. To design ductile Mg alloys, we identify solutes that strengthen basal slip and increase cross-slip. First-principles modeling of dislocations predict dislocation motion under stress through a field of solutes at a finite temperature. First-principles flexible boundary conditions compute accurate core structures of basal and prismatic dislocations, and dislocation/solute interactions. We develop new models to predict the solute-strengthening for basal dislocations; cross-slip from basal- to prismatic-slip for α-type screw dislocations; and cross-slip stress with solutes. First-principles data provides insight into the response of dislocations to solutes and quantitative data to build new predictive models.
Environmental determinants of child mortality in rural china: A competing risks approach

We use a competing risk model to analyze environmental determinants of child mortality using the 1992 China National Health Survey, which collects information on cause of death. Our primary question is whether taking into account of cause of death using a competing risk model, compared with a simple model of all-cause mortality, affects conclusions about the effectiveness of policy interventions. There are two potential analytical advantages in using cause of death information: (1) obtaining more accurate estimates and (2) validating causal relationships. Although, we do not find significant differences between estimates obtained from the competing risk model and those from simpler hazard models, we do find evidence supporting the causal interpretations of the effect of access to safe water on child mortality. Our analysis also suggests that a respondent-based health survey can be used to collect relatively reliable information on cause of death. Modifying future demographic and health survey (DHS) instruments to collect cause of death information inexpensively may be worthwhile for enhancing the analytical strength of the DHS.
Electromagnetic propulsion and separation by chirality of nanoparticles in liquids.

We introduce a new mechanism for the propulsion and separation by chirality of small ferromagnetic particles suspended in a liquid. Under the action of a uniform dc magnetic field $\mathbf{H}$ and an ac electric field $\mathbf{E}$ isomers with opposite chirality move in opposite directions. Such a mechanism could have a significant impact on a wide range of emerging technologies. The component of the chiral velocity that is odd in $\mathbf{H}$ is found to be proportional to the intrinsic orbital and spin angular momentum of the magnetized electrons. This effect arises because a ferromagnetic particle responds to the applied torque as a small gyroscope.
Choosing Among Signalling Equilibria in Lobbying Games

Randolph Sloof has written a comment on the lobbying-as-signalling model in Rasmusen (1993) in which he points out an equilibrium I missed and criticizes my emphasis on a particular separating equilibrium. In this response, I discuss how to interpret multiple equilibria in games and how to interpret mixed strategy equilibria in which two types of player with identical incentives must pick different mixing probabilities.
REIT Characteristics and the Sensitivity of REIT Returns

Previous research on the returns to real estate investment trusts (REITs) has considered whether REITs are systematically exposed to general stock-market risk and interest-rate risk. This study examines how the sensitivity of REIT returns to these factors may be influenced by various REIT characteristics. Using a sample of publicly traded REITs, we estimate the sensitivity of REIT returns to stock market and interest-rate changes. We then propose and implement a model for testing whether differences in asset structure, financial leverage, management strategy, and degree of specialization in the REIT portfolios are related to their sensitivity to interest rate and market risk. Our results permit us to offer some inferences about how REITs can alter their risk exposure by managing these characteristics.
An example of an automatic graph of intermediate growth

Abstract We give an example of a 4-regular infinite automatic graph of intermediate growth. It is constructed as a Schreier graph of a certain group generated by 3-state automaton. The question was motivated by an open problem on the existence of Cayley automatic groups of intermediate growth.
Structural Drift: The Population Dynamics of Sequential Learning

We introduce a theory of sequential causal inference in which learners in a chain estimate a structural model from their upstream “teacher” and then pass samples from the model to their downstream “student”. It extends the population dynamics of genetic drift, recasting Kimura's selectively neutral theory as a special case of a generalized drift process using structured populations with memory. We examine the diffusion and fixation properties of several drift processes and propose applications to learning, inference, and evolution. We also demonstrate how the organization of drift process space controls fidelity, facilitates innovations, and leads to information loss in sequential learning with and without memory.
Using Machine Learning to Estimate Global PM2.5 for Environmental Health Studies

With the increasing awareness of health impacts of particulate matter, there is a growing need to comprehend the spatial and temporal variations of the global abundance of ground-level airborne particulate matter (PM2.5). Here we use a suite of remote sensing and meteorological data products together with ground based observations of PM2.5 from 8,329 measurement sites in 55 countries taken between 1997 and 2014 to train a machine learning algorithm to estimate the daily distributions of PM2.5 from 1997 to the present. We demonstrate that the new PM2.5 data product can reliably represent global observations of PM2.5 for epidemiological studies. An analysis of Baltimore schizophrenia emergency room admissions is presented in terms of the levels of ambient pollution. PM2.5 appears to have an impact on some aspects of mental health.
Fertility, Money Holdings, and Economic Growth: Evidence from Ukraine

This paper investigates declining fertility in Eastern Europe. By synthesising recent theoretical findings, this paper identifies the channels through which the economy and fertility interact. The study uses a multi-variable vector autoregression model to determine the short- and the long-run responses of fertility to unemployment, money holdings, and output growth disturbances in the Ukrainian economy. We find that labour market conditions and households’ money holdings are indeed important determinants of family decisions to bear and rear children. Unemployment disturbances and monetary incentives explain more than a third of fertility variations. The impulse response, variance decomposition, and sensitivity analyses suggest a wide range of policy options to address the issue of declining fertility in transition countries.
Radio Network Lower Bounds Made Easy

Theoreticians have studied distributed algorithms in the synchronous radio network model for close to three decades. A significant fraction of this work focuses on lower bounds for basic communication problems such as wake-up (symmetry breaking among an unknown set of nodes) and broadcast (message dissemination through an unknown network topology). In this paper, we introduce a new technique for proving this type of bound, based on reduction from a probabilistic hitting game, that simplifies and strengthens much of this existing work. In more detail, in this single paper we prove new expected time and high probability lower bounds for wake-up and global broadcast in single and multi-channel versions of the radio network model both with and without collision detection. In doing so, we are able to reproduce results that previously spanned a half-dozen papers published over a period of twenty-five years. In addition to simplifying these existing results, our technique, in many places, also improves the state of the art: of the eight bounds we prove, four strictly strengthen the best known previous result (in terms of time complexity and/or generality of the algorithm class for which it holds), and three provide the first known non-trivial bound for the case in question. The fact that the same technique can easily generate this diverse collection of lower bounds indicates a surprising unity underlying communication tasks in the radio network model—revealing that deep down, below the specifics of the problem definition and model assumptions, communication in this setting reduces to finding efficient strategies for a simple game.
Cooperativity and the Chelate, Macrocyclic and Cryptate Effects

The interrelationships between cooperativity and the chelate, macrocyclic, and cryptate effects are described in this chapter. The chapter begins by defining and providing a brief historical background of these four closely related effects as they pertain to both transition metal coordination chemistry and supramolecular chemistry. The second section provides an overview of bonding for supramolecular chemistry with a comparison illustrating similarities with and differences from transition metal coordination. Sections 3 and 4 describe the chemistry of the chelate, macrocyclic, and cryptate effects and the important role that cooperativity plays in each for transition metals coordination and supramolecular chemistry, respectively. Thermodynamic aspects and structural foundations for the increasing stability of complexes as they evolve from chelates through cryptates are also described. Section 4 on supramolecular chemistry is further divided into sections on the chemistry of cations, followed by anions. A short conclusion is provided at the end of the chapter. Throughout the chapter, examples are provided that illustrate the manner in which these important chemical effects are manifested. Keywords: cooperativity; chelate effect; macrocyclic effect; cryptate effect; supramolecular; thermodynamics; anion coordination; crown ethers
Middleware Support for Resource-Constrained Software Deployment

The Jamus platform is dedicated to providing a safe runtime environment for untrusted Java application programs, while offering each of these programs access to the resources it needs to use at runtime. To achieve this goal, Jamus implements a contractual approach of resource utilisation and control, together with a reservation-based resource management scheme, and a monitoring model. When getting deployed on the platform, a candidate program must first subscribe a contract with the resource manager of the platform. This contract describes the resources the program requires to be able to access at runtime, and how it plans to behave when accessing these resources. Based on this information, the platform can monitor programs at runtime, so that any violation of the contracts they subscribed can be detected and sanctioned. Moreover, since the specific needs of a program are liable to change (or to be refined) dynamically while this program is running, any program hosted by the platform can ask that its contract be re-negotiated at any time.
Biomonitoring, phylogenetics and anomaly aggregation systems

While some researchers have exploited the similarity between cyber attacks and epidemics we believe there is also potential to leverage considerable experience gained in other biological domains: phylogenetics, ecological niche modeling, and biomonitoring. Here we describe some new ideas for threat detection from biomonitoring, and approximate graph searching and matching for cross network aggregation. Generic anomaly aggregation systems using these methods could detect and model the inheritance and evolution of vulnerability and threats across multiple domains and time scales.
On the Topology of Vacuum Spacetimes

We prove that there are no restrictions on the spatial topology of asymptotically flat solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations in (n + 1)-dimensions. We do this by gluing a solution of the vacuum constraint equations on an arbitrary compact manifold \( \Sigma^n \) to an asymptotically Euclidean solution of the constraints on \( \mathbb{R}^n \). For any \( \Sigma^n \) which does not admit a metric of positive scalar curvature, this provides for the existence of asymptotically flat vacuum spacetimes with no maximal slices. Our main theorem is a special case of a more general gluing construction for nondegenerate solutions of the vacuum constraint equations which have some restrictions on the mean curvature, but for which the mean curvature is not necessarily constant. This generalizes the construction [16], which is restricted to constant mean curvature data.
Time Consistency in Dynamic Bargaining: The Role of Committees as Substitutes for Commitment

\QTR{it}{The standard framework to study time consistency assumes that economic decisions are made by one legislator. In this paper policies are negotiated in a committee by playing a dynamic voting game. The implications of this change are remarkable: the social optimum becomes time consistent. While concentration of powers in a single legislator creates credibility problems, we show that separation of powers yields commitment. The main focus of the paper is on the time consistency of monetary policy when decisions are made in a monetary committee, such as the F.O.M.C. or the European Central Bank. We prove that making decisions inside a committee works as a substitute for a commitment technology. Notice that this result may hold even when }$all$\QTR{it}{\ legislators in the committee have a one-shot incentive to deviate from the ex-ante optimal plan. Last, we provide normative prescriptions regarding the identity of the agenda setter and the location of the initial status quo necessary to implement the utilitarian optimum
A hybrid symbolic-numerical simulation method for some typical boundary control problems

A new simulation method for some typical boundary control problems, combining symbolic algebra and numerical method, is presented with typical examples. The transfer function is obtained in the intermediate steps of the simulation, which makes it possible and easier to apply more advanced boundary controllers in the future.
How Effective are Cash Transfer Programs at Improving Nutritional Status

Cash transfer programs have not always affected childreni?½s nutritional status. We reviewed 30,000 articles relating cash transfer programs and height for age, finding 21 papers on 17 programs. Applying meta-analysis we examine the overarching relationship, finding that the programsi?½ average impact on height-for-age is positive, but small and not statistically significant. We evaluate many program, child and local characteristicsi?½ correlation with estimated outcome. Conditional programs statistically accomplish the same as unconditional. However, conditionalities not related to health or education strongly inhibit child growth. We see girls benefiting more than boys and more disadvantaged areas benefiting more.
Leverage and the foreclosure crisis

How much of the foreclosure crisis can be explained by the large number of high-leverage mortgages originated during the housing boom? In our model, heterogeneous households select from mortgages with different down payments and choose whether to default given income and housing shocks. The use of low–down payment loans is initially limited by payment-to-income requirements but becomes unrestricted during the boom. The model approximates key housing and mortgage market facts before and after the crisis. A counterfactual experiment suggests that the increased number of high-leverage loans originated prior to the crisis can explain over 60 percent of the rise in foreclosure rates.
Charge trapping in high k gate dielectric stacks

Charge trapping in Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ and HfO/sub 2/ nFETs is studied. The dependence of threshold voltage, subthreshold slope and gate leakage currents are investigated as a function of stressing time, voltage and temperature. Based on the experimental data, a model is developed for predicting threshold voltage shifts as a function stressing time. The model is compatible with both Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ and HfO/sub 2/ data. Using the model, threshold voltage shifts after 10 years of stressing is predicted and trapping capture cross sections are estimated. A comparison between Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ and HfO/sub 2/ is also made.
Using rapid prototypes for early requirements validation

Using rapid prototypes for early validation can accelerate product development in all phases of the development life cycle. The most obvious benefit is the ability to evaluate requirements for applicability and unanticipated errors early in the development life cycle. However, additional benefits can also be realized during the follow-on phases of the development life cycle. These benefits are often not considered as a part of the planning and decision making process regarding systems modeling tools. During the development of the 777 Autopilot Flight Director System (AFDS), system engineers at Collins Air Transport Division (CATD) evaluated both a conventional approach and a rapid prototyping approach in the development of two complex system functions. The lessons learned from this exercise could significantly change the way CATD system engineering teams approach system development in future projects. >