cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Ultrahigh energy cosmic ray nuclei from remnants of dead quasars

Abstract We re-examine the possibility of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays being accelerated in nearby dormant quasars. We particularize our study to heavy nuclei to accommodate the spectrum and nuclear composition recently reported by the Pierre Auger Collaboration. Particle acceleration is driven by the Blandford–Znajek mechanism, which wires the dormant spinning black holes as Faraday unipolar dynamos. We demonstrate that energy losses are dominated by photonuclear interactions on the ambient photon fields. We argue that the local dark fossils of the past quasar activity can be classified on the basis of how source parameters (mass of the central engine and photon background surrounding the accelerator) impact the photonuclear interaction. In this classification it is possible to distinguish two unequivocal type of sources: those in which nuclei are completely photodisintegrated before escaping the acceleration region and those in which photopion production is the major energy damping mechanism. We further argue that the secondary nucleons from the photodisintegrated nuclei (which have a steep spectral index at injection) can populate the energy region below “the ankle” feature in the cosmic ray spectrum, whereas heavy and medium mass nuclei (with a harder spectral index) populate the energy region beyond “the ankle”, all the way to the high energy end of the spectrum. In addition, we show that five potential quasar remnants from our cosmic backyard correlate with the hot-spot observed by the Telescope Array.
Determining Probability of Importance of Features in a Sketch

Sketches can be categorized as personal, shared, persuasive, and handover sketches. Depending on each category, their level of ambiguity also varies. The applications of sketches include conceptual...
Algorithmic Decision Making and the Cost of Fairness

Algorithms are now regularly used to decide whether defendants awaiting trial are too dangerous to be released back into the community. In some cases, black defendants are substantially more likely than white defendants to be incorrectly classified as high risk. To mitigate such disparities, several techniques have recently been proposed to achieve algorithmic fairness. Here we reformulate algorithmic fairness as constrained optimization: the objective is to maximize public safety while satisfying formal fairness constraints designed to reduce racial disparities. We show that for several past definitions of fairness, the optimal algorithms that result require detaining defendants above race-specific risk thresholds. We further show that the optimal unconstrained algorithm requires applying a single, uniform threshold to all defendants. The unconstrained algorithm thus maximizes public safety while also satisfying one important understanding of equality: that all individuals are held to the same standard, irrespective of race. Because the optimal constrained and unconstrained algorithms generally differ, there is tension between improving public safety and satisfying prevailing notions of algorithmic fairness. By examining data from Broward County, Florida, we show that this trade-off can be large in practice. We focus on algorithms for pretrial release decisions, but the principles we discuss apply to other domains, and also to human decision makers carrying out structured decision rules.
Ensemble estimation of mutual information

We derive the mean squared error convergence rates of kernel density-based plug-in estimators of mutual information measures between two multidimensional random variables X and Y for two cases: 1) X and Y are both continuous; 2) X is continuous and Y is discrete. Using the derived rates, we propose an ensemble estimator of these information measures for the second case by taking a weighted sum of the plug-in estimators with varied bandwidths. The resulting ensemble estimator achieves the 1 /N parametric convergence rate when the conditional densities of the continuous variables are sufficiently smooth. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first nonparametric mutual information estimator known to achieve the parametric convergence rate for this case, which frequently arises in applications (e.g. variable selection in classification). The estimator is simple to implement as it uses the solution to an offline convex optimization problem and simple plug-in estimators. Ensemble estimators that achieve the parametric rate are also derived for the first case (X and Y are both continuous) and another case: 3) X and Y may have any mixture of discrete and continuous components.
FinTech platforms and strategy

A major consequence of the Internet era is the emergence of complex “platforms” that combine technology and process in new ways that often disrupt existing industry structures and blur industry boundaries. These platforms allow easy participation that often strengthens and extends network effects, while the vast amounts of data captured through such participation can increase the value of the platform to its participants, creating a virtuous cycle. While initially slow to penetrate the financial services sector, such platforms are now beginning to emerge. We provide a taxonomy of platforms in Finance and identify the feasible strategies that are available to incumbents in the industry, innovators, and the major Internet giants.
Cross-Screening in Observational Studies That Test Many Hypotheses

ABSTRACTWe discuss observational studies that test many causal hypotheses, either hypotheses about many outcomes or many treatments. To be credible an observational study that tests many causal hypotheses must demonstrate that its conclusions are neither artifacts of multiple testing nor of small biases from nonrandom treatment assignment. In a sense that needs to be defined carefully, hidden within a sensitivity analysis for nonrandom assignment is an enormous correction for multiple testing: In the absence of bias, it is extremely improbable that multiple testing alone would create an association insensitive to moderate biases. We propose a new strategy called “cross-screening,” different from but motivated by recent work of Bogomolov and Heller on replicability. Cross-screening splits the data in half at random, uses the first half to plan a study carried out on the second half, then uses the second half to plan a study carried out on the first half, and reports the more favorable conclusions of the tw...
Revisions in Utilization-Adjusted TFP and Robust Identification of News Shocks

This paper documents large revisions in a widely-used series of utilization-adjusted total factor productivity (TFP) by Fernald (2014) and shows that these revisions can materially affect empirical...
IFN-1 Bid crosstalk: foe or friend to stem cells.

Under steady-state approximately 70% of the hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC) in the bone marrow are quiescent, with low metabolic activity fueled by glycolytic metabolites (1). However, in response to exogenous demands such as cell loss or damage, or infection, they become highly proliferative and can efficiently and quickly expand or reconstitute the blood and immune systems (2,3).
A connection between mixing and Kac's chaos*

The Boltzmann equation is an integro-differential equation which describes the density function of the distribution of the velocities of the molecules of dilute monoatomic gases under the assumptio...
Mortgage Debt, Consumption, and Illiquid Housing Markets in the Great Recession

Using a model with housing search, endogenous credit constraints, and mortgage default, this paper accounts for the housing crash from 2006 to 2011 and its implications for aggregate and cross-sectional consumption during the Great Recession. Left tail shocks to labor market uncertainty and tighter down payment requirements emerge as the key drivers. An endogenous decline in housing liquidity amplifies the recession by increasing foreclosures, contracting credit, and depressing consumption. Balance sheets act as a transmission mechanism from housing to consumption that depends on gross portfolio positions and the leverage distribution. Low interest rate policies accelerate the recovery in housing and consumption.
A Deep Learning Framework Using Passive WiFi Sensing for Respiration Monitoring

This paper presents an end-to-end deep learning framework using passive WiFi sensing to classify and estimate human respiration activity. A passive radar test-bed is used with two channels where the first channel provides the reference WiFi signal, whereas the other channel provides a surveillance signal that contains reflections from the human target. Adaptive filtering is performed to make the surveillance signal source-data invariant by eliminating the echoes of the direct transmitted signal. We propose a novel convolutional neural network to classify the complex time series data and determine if it corresponds to a breathing activity, followed by a random forest estimator to determine breathing rate. We collect an extensive dataset to train the learning models and develop reference benchmarks for the later studies in the field. Based on the results, we conclude that deep learning techniques coupled with passive radars offer great potential for end-to-end human activity recognition.
Latency and avatars in virtual environments and the effects on gait for persons with mobility impairments

Latency and avatars in Virtual Environments have been extensively studied over the years. However, there has been minimal research conducted on the effects of latency and avatars for mobility impaired users. To address this, we have conducted a study involving both healthy and mobility impaired participants with the simple task of walking across a simulated room under various latency and avatar conditions. We investigated the impact of latency and avatars on perceived latency and gait parameters. The results suggest that mobility impaired persons react to latency and the presence of an avatar differently than healthy users.
Experiences with the Alternate Reality Kit: An Example of the Tension between Literalism and Magic

This article presents an overview of the Alternate Reality Kit, an animated environment for creating interactive simulations. ARK is built upon a physical-world metaphor: All objects have an image, a position, a velocity, and the ability to experience forces. Users manipulate objects with a mouse-operated "hand," which enables them to carry and throw objects, press buttons, and operate sliders. The interface features are discussed in light of a general user interface tension between literalism and magic. Literal features?defined as those that are true to the interface's metaphor?enhance an interface's learnability. Magical features are defined as those capabilities that deliberately violate the metaphor in order to provide enhanced functionality. Discussion of each ARK feature includes informal observations of early ARK users, and an assessment of the feature's learnability, its usefulness, and its position on the magical-literal axis. Despite ARK's magical features, applications-level users have been trained in a few minutes. Although this article is about ARK, the tension between literalism and magic raises some interesting questions on its own. Some of these questions are presented briefly in the conclusion.
Simulation test of a head-worn display with ambient vision display for unusual attitude recovery

Head-Worn Displays (HWDs) are envisioned as a possible equivalent to a Head-Up Display (HUD) in commercial and general aviation. A simulation experiment was conducted to evaluate whether the HWD can provide an equivalent or better level of performance to a HUD in terms of unusual attitude recognition and recovery. A prototype HWD was tested with ambient vision capability which were varied (on/off) as an independent variable in the experiment testing for attitude awareness. The simulation experiment was conducted in two parts: 1) short unusual attitude recovery scenarios where the aircraft is placed in an unusual attitude and a single-pilot crew recovered the aircraft; and, 2) a two-pilot crew operating in a realistic flight environment with "off-nominal" events to induce unusual attitudes. The data showed few differences in unusual attitude recognition and recovery performance between the tested head-down, head-up, and head-worn display concepts. The presence and absence of ambient vision stimulation was inconclusive. The ergonomic influences of the head-worn display, necessary to implement the ambient vision experimentation, may have influenced the pilot ratings and acceptance of the concepts.
Beamforming codebook compensation for beam squint with channel capacity constraint

Analog beamforming with phased arrays is a promising technique for 5G wireless communication in millimeter wave bands. A beam focuses on a small range of angles of arrival or departure and corresponds to a set of fixed phase shifts across frequency due to practical hardware constraints. In switched beamforming, a discrete codebook consisting of multiple beams is used to cover a larger angle range. However, for sufficiently large bandwidth, the gain provided by the phased array is frequency dependent even if the radiation pattern of the antenna elements is frequency independent, an effect called beam squint. This paper shows that the beam squint reduces channel capacity of a uniform linear array (ULA). The beamforming codebook is designed to compensate for the beam squint by imposing a channel capacity constraint. For example, our codebook design algorithm can improve the channel capacity by 17.8% for a ULA with 64 antennas operating at bandwidth of 2.5 GHz and carrier frequency of 73 GHz. Analysis and numerical examples suggest that a denser codebook is required to compensate for the beam squint compared to the case without beam squint. Furthermore, the effect of beam squint is shown to increase as bandwidth increases, and the beam squint limits the bandwidth given the number of antennas in the array.
The Toll-like receptor 9 signalling pathway regulates MR1-mediated bacterial antigen presentation in B cells.

Summary Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells are conserved T cells that express a semi-invariant TCR (Vα7.2 in humans and Vα19 in mice). The development of MAIT cells requires the antigen (Ag) presenting MHC-related protein 1 (MR1), as well as commensal bacteria. The mechanisms that regulate the functional expression of MR1 molecules and their loading with bacterial Ag in APCs are largely unknown. We have found that treating B cells with the TLR9 agonist CpG increases MR1 surface expression. Interestingly, activation of TLR9 by CpG-A (but not CpG-B) enhances MR1 surface expression. This is only limited to B cells and not other types of cells such as monocytes, T or NK cells. Knocking-down TLR9 expression by shRNA reduces MR1 surface expression and MR1-mediated bacterial Ag presentation. CpG-A triggers early endosomal TLR9 activation, whereas CpG-B is responsible for late endosomal/lysosomal activation of TLR9. Consistently, blocking ER to Golgi protein transport, rather than lysosomal acidification, suppressed MR1 Ag presentation. Overall, our results indicate that early endosomal TLR9 activation is important for MR1-mediated bacterial Ag presentation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Deep Uncertainty Surrounding Coastal Flood Risk Projections: A Case Study for New Orleans

Future sea-level rise drives severe risks for many coastal communities. Strategies to manage these risks hinge on a sound characterization of the uncertainties. For example, recent studies suggest that large fractions of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) may rapidly disintegrate in response to rising global temperatures, leading to potentially several meters of sea-level rise during the next few centuries. It is deeply uncertain, for example, whether such an AIS disintegration will be triggered, how much this would increase sea-level rise, whether extreme storm surges intensify in a warming climate, or which emissions pathway future societies will choose. Here, we assess the impacts of these deep uncertainties on projected flooding probabilities for a levee ring in New Orleans, Louisiana. We use 18 scenarios, presenting probabilistic projections within each one, to sample key deeply uncertain future projections of sea-level rise, radiative forcing pathways, storm surge characterization, and contributions from rapid AIS mass loss. The implications of these deep uncertainties for projected flood risk are thus characterized by a set of 18 probability distribution functions. We use a global sensitivity analysis to assess which mechanisms contribute to uncertainty in projected flood risk over the course of a 50-year design life. In line with previous work, we find that the uncertain storm surge drives the most substantial risk, followed by general AIS dynamics, in our simple model for future flood risk for New Orleans.
Emergency Communication System for Road Users

Abstract Emergency Communication Systems for Road Users were introduced in South Africa in 1984 on the Nl and N2 National Roads. Subsequently various additional systems have been installed primarily on Toll Roads. New technology has been introduced as new systems were installed and existing systems been replaced. A data capture suite of programs for monitoring of the calls was introduced in 1989. In the past years, GSM cellular networks were installed which negatively influenced the number of calls. External factors, such as theft and vandalism, had a major influce on the viability of different modes of communication mediums used for the systems
The Effect of Textiles on Perceived Physiological Comfort While Backpacking in the Cold

Clothing is the primary means that wilderness backpackers have to protect themselves from illnesses and injuries that can occur while hiking in the cold. Currently, backpackers are recommended to dress in clothing layers; however, when hiking in the cold, this system may not meet backpackers’ simultaneous, yet conflicting needs for thermal insulation and heat dissipation.
Organized Labor and Audit Fees

SYNOPSIS: This study investigates the empirical relationship between organized labor and audit fees. We find that audit fees are negatively related to the firm-level unionization rate—the higher the unionization rate, the lower the audit fees. We further observe that the unionized firms are less likely to hire Big 4 or industry-specialist auditors. Additional analyses show that the negative relationship between the firm-level unionization rate and audit fees is significantly attenuated for unionized firms with poor financial performance. Our results are consistent with unionized firms preferring less audit scrutiny, which helps them maintain information asymmetry with the labor unions. The study facilitates our understanding of firms' demand for audit services and the consequential effect on audit fees when faced with strong organized labor, and adds to the extant literature investigating the impact of organized labor on various aspects of firms' financial reporting decisions. JEL Classifications: M41; M4...
Possible Causes and Consequences of Hypertension in Stable Renal Transplant Patients

Previous epidemiologic studies of hypertension in renal transplant patients have produced contradictory results. Therefore, the incidence and clinical setting of chronic hypertension were examined in 201 stable renal transplant patients using a multivariate approach. Hypertension was present in 52.7
Development of Home Management System Using Arduino and AppInventor.

A prototype of home management system (HMS) controlled by mobile device was developed by project teams at Computing Education Academy (CEA) at Fairfield University by integrating Arduino with AppInventor. CEA was established at Fairfield University in 2013 to expose high school students to key computing concepts and basic computer programming through hands-on activities and to motivate students to enter post-secondary education and career opportunities in computing. CEA class modules include Scratch, AppInventor, Circuit Design, Arduino, and final team project of developing home management system under the guidance of graduate assistants and faculty of Fairfield University. Home management system consists of several modules to remotely control the lamp, central light, air conditioner, door lock, and other electronic devices in the room using mobile app. Each team created one module which controls and displays the current status of each component through user interface from home screen of the system on mobile device. Various sensors, receivers, motors, relays are used and integrated with the Arduino GSM Shield. Details of implementation and future direction are discussed.
International effects of national regulations: External reference pricing and price controls

Under external reference pricing (ERP) the price that a government permits a firm to charge in its market depends upon the firm's prices in other countries. In a two-country (home and foreign) model where demand is asymmetric across countries, we show that home's unilaterally optimal ERP policy permits the home firm to engage in a threshold level of international price discrimination above which it is (just) willing to export. If the firm faces a price control abroad or bargains over price with the foreign government, an ERP policy can even yield higher home welfare than a direct price control.
Quantification of Renal Stone Contrast with Ultrasound in Human Subjects.

Abstract Purpose: Greater visual contrast between calculi and tissue would improve ultrasound (US) imaging of urolithiasis and potentially expand clinical use. The color Doppler twinkling artifact has been suggested to provide enhanced contrast of stones compared with brightness mode (B-mode) imaging, but results are variable. This work provides the first quantitative measure of stone contrast in humans for B-mode and color Doppler mode, forming the basis to improve US for the detection of stones. Materials and Methods: Using a research ultrasound system, B-mode imaging was tuned for detecting stones by applying a single transmit angle and reduced signal compression. Stone twinkling with color Doppler was tuned by using low-frequency transmit pulses, longer pulse durations, and a high-pulse repetition frequency. Data were captured from 32 subjects, with 297 B-mode and Doppler images analyzed from 21 subjects exhibiting twinkling signals. The signal to clutter ratio (i.e., stone to background tissue) (SCR)...
Multidirectional-vector-based elastic reverse time migration and angle-domain common-image gathers with approximate wavefield decomposition of P- and S-waves

ABSTRACTElastic reverse time migration (E-RTM) has limitations when the migration velocities contain strong contrasts. First, the traditional scheme of P/S-wave mode separation is based on Helmholt...
Level one representations of $U_q(G_2^{(1)}$

We construct level one representations of the quantum affine algebra $U_q(G_2^{(1)})$ by vertex operators from bosonic fields.
Genotype Fingerprints Enable Fast and Private Comparison of Genetic Testing Results for Research and Direct-to-Consumer Applications

Genetic testing has expanded out of the research laboratory into medical practice and the direct-to-consumer market. Rapid analysis of the resulting genotype data now has a significant impact. We present a method for summarizing personal genotypes as ‘genotype fingerprints’ that meets these needs. Genotype fingerprints can be derived from any single nucleotide polymorphism-based assay, and remain comparable as chip designs evolve to higher marker densities. We demonstrate that these fingerprints support distinguishing types of relationships among closely related individuals and closely related individuals from individuals from the same background population, as well as high-throughput identification of identical genotypes, individuals in known background populations, and de novo separation of subpopulations within a large cohort through extremely rapid comparisons. Although fingerprints do not preserve anonymity, they provide a useful degree of privacy by summarizing a genotype while preventing reconstruction of individual marker states. Genotype fingerprints are therefore well-suited as a format for public aggregation of genetic information to support ancestry and relatedness determination without revealing personal health risk status.
Nutrient sensor O -GlcNAc transferase controls cancer lipid metabolism via SREBP-1 regulation

Elevated O-GlcNAcylation is associated with disease states such as diabetes and cancer. O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) is elevated in multiple cancers and inhibition of this enzyme genetically or pharmacologically inhibits oncogenesis. Here we show that O-GlcNAcylation modulates lipid metabolism in cancer cells. OGT regulates expression of the master lipid regulator the transcription factor sterol regulatory element binding protein 1 (SREBP-1) and its transcriptional targets both in cancer and lipogenic tissue. OGT regulates SREBP-1 protein expression via AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). SREBP-1 is critical for OGT-mediated regulation of cell survival and of lipid synthesis, as overexpression of SREBP-1 rescues lipogenic defects associated with OGT suppression, and tumor growth in vitro and in vivo. These results unravel a previously unidentified link between O-GlcNAcylation, lipid metabolism and the regulation of SREBP-1 in cancer and suggests a crucial role for O-GlcNAc signaling in transducing nutritional state to regulate lipid metabolism.
Implications for Training on Smartphone Medication Reminder App Use by Adults With Chronic Conditions: Pilot Study Applying the Technology Acceptance Model

Background: The majority of middle-aged to older patients with chronic conditions report forgetting to take medications as prescribed. The promotion of patients’ smartphone medication reminder app (SMRA) use shows promise as a feasible and cost-effective way to support their medication adherence. Providing training on SMRA use, guided by the technology acceptance model (TAM), could be a promising intervention to promote patients’ app use. Objective: The aim of this pilot study was to (1) assess the feasibility of an SMRA training session designed to increase patients’ intention to use the app through targeting perceived usefulness of app, perceived ease of app use, and positive subjective norm regarding app use and (2) understand the ways to improve the design and implementation of the training session in a hospital setting. Methods: A two-group design was employed. A total of 11 patients older than 40 years (median=58, SD=9.55) and taking 3 or more prescribed medications took part in the study on one of two different dates as participants in either the training group (n=5) or nontraining group (n=6). The training group received an approximately 2-hour intervention training session designed to target TAM variables regarding one popular SMRA, the Medisafe app. The nontraining group received an approximately 2-hour control training session where the participants individually explored Medisafe app features. Each training session was concluded with a one-time survey and a one-time focus group. Results: Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that the level of perceived ease of use (P=.13) and the level of intention to use an SMRA (P=.33) were higher in the training group (median=7.00, median=6.67, respectively) than in the nontraining group (median=6.25, median=5.83). However, the level of perceived usefulness (U=4.50, Z=−1.99, P=.05) and the level of positive subjective norm (P=.25) were lower in the training group (median=6.50, median=4.29) than in the nontraining group (median=6.92, median=4.50). Focus groups revealed the following participants’ perceptions of SMRA use in the real-world setting that the intervention training session would need to emphasize in targeting perceived usefulness and positive subjective norm: (1) the participants would find an SMRA to be useful if they thought the app could help address specific struggles in medication adherence in their lives and (2) the participants think that their family members (or health care providers) might view positively the participants’ SMRA use in primary care settings (or during routine medical checkups). Conclusions: Intervention training session, guided by TAM, appeared feasible in targeting patients’ perceived ease of use and, thereby, increasing intention to use an SMRA. Emphasizing the real-world utility of SMRA, the training session could better target patients’ perceived usefulness and positive subjective norm that are also important in increasing their intention to use the app.
Winding numbers of nodal points in Fe-based superconductors

We analyze the nodal points in multiorbital Fe-based superconductors from a topological perspective. We consider the ${s}^{+\ensuremath{-}}$ gap structure with accidental nodes, and the $d$-wave gap with nodes along the symmetry directions. In both cases, the nodal points can be moved by varying an external parameter, e.g., a degree of interpocket pairing. Eventually, the nodes merge and annihilate via a Lifshitz-type transition. We discuss the Lifshitz transition in Fe-based superconductors from a topological point of view. We show, both analytically and numerically, that the merging nodal points have winding numbers of opposite sign. This is consistent with the general reasoning that the total winding number is a conserved quantity in the Lifshitz transition.
A Solid-State Thin-Film Incandescent Light-Emitting Device

A new type of solid-state thin-film white light-emitting device has been reviewed and discussed. Light is emitted due to thermal excitation of the nano-sized conductive paths formed after the dielectric breakdown of the amorphous metal oxide thin film deposited on a silicon wafer. The mechanism of light emission, optical characteristics, reliability, driving methods, and efficiency are discussed. The complete device is made of the IC-compatible materials and process.
Information theory and behavior

The quantal response behavior widely observed in experiments and observations of human and animal behavior can be derived as expected payoff maximization subject to a constraint on the entropy of the subject’s behavior mixed strategy. The Lagrange multiplier corresponding to the entropy constraint is an agent’s “behavior temperatureˮ. Entropy-constrained behavior approximates payoff-maximizing behavior, but in many contexts exhibits qualitatively different outcomes. The “endowment effectˮ and other instances of “loss-aversionˮ, for example, can be seen as a consequence of entropy-constrained behavior. Identical entropy-constrained agents with the same value for a good or asset will exhibit spontaneous “noise tradingˮ. An entropy-constrained agent with a lower behavior temperature will systematically take economic surplus away from an agent with the same valuation of a good but a higher behavior temperature in bilateral transactions. The equilibrium of a standard supply-demand models with entropy-constrained agents is a non-degenerate frequency distribution of transaction prices rather than a single equilibrium price. Changes in behavior temperature can transform social interaction games from prisoners’ dilemmas to assurance games. Entropy-constrained quantal responses allow quantitative inferences about payoff changes and distribution stronger than qualitative Pareto comparisons.
Crystal Structure and Defects in Nitrogen-Deficient GaN

We have studied crystal structure and associated defects in GaN films grown on sapphire under nitrogen-deficient conditions by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The structural quality of the PLD films grown at 750 °C was comparable with those grown by MOCVD at 1050 °C having threading dislocations density of about 1010 cm−2 at a film thickness 150-200 nm. Microstructure of the PLD films grown at temperatures above 780°C was found to be similar to that of nitrogen-deficient MOCVD films indicating the loss of nitrogen due to thermal decomposition of the nitride layers. Nitrogen-deficient MOCVD and PLD films exhibit polycrystalline structure with a mixture of cubic zinc-blende and wurtzite hexagonal GaN grains retaining tetragonal bonding across the boundaries and hence the epitaxial orientations and polarity. Renucleation of the wurtzite phase at different {111} planes of cubic GaN results in a rough and faceted surface of the film. Most of the stoichiometric films displayed (0001) Ga-face polarity, but the renucleated inclined wurtzite grains grew in the opposite N-face polarity. The major defects related to the cubic structural metastability are stacking faults and microtwins which being nuclei of the metastable cubic phase have an extremely low energy. We elucidate that the cubic phase is more stable under the nitrogen deficiency and, therefore, can exist without decomposition at higher nitrogen vacancy concentrations in the material.
Colonoscopy and Colorectal Cancer Mortality in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System: A Case-Control Study.

Background Colonoscopy is widely used in the Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system for colorectal cancer (CRC) prevention, but its effect on CRC mortality is unknown. Objective To determine whether colonoscopy is associated with decreased CRC mortality in veterans and whether its effect differs by anatomical location of CRC. Design Case-control study. Setting VA-Medicare administrative data. Participants Case patients were veterans aged 52 years or older who were diagnosed with CRC between 2002 and 2008 and died of the disease by the end of 2010. Case patients were matched to 4 control patients without prior CRC on the basis of age, sex, and facility. Conditional logistic regression was performed to calculate odds ratios (ORs) for exposure to colonoscopy, with adjustment for race, Charlson Comorbidity Index score, selected chronic conditions, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use, and family history of CRC. Measurements Exposure to colonoscopy was determined from 1997 to 6 months before CRC diagnosis in case patients and to a corresponding date in control patients. Subgroup analysis was performed for patients who had undergone screening colonoscopy. Results A total of 4964 case patients and 19 856 control patients were identified. Case patients were significantly less likely to have undergone any colonoscopy (OR, 0.39 [95% CI, 0.35 to 0.43]). Colonoscopy was associated with reduced mortality for left-sided cancer (OR, 0.28 [CI, 0.24 to 0.32]) and right-sided cancer (OR, 0.54 [CI, 0.47 to 0.63]). The results were similar for patients who had undergone screening colonoscopy (overall OR, 0.30 [CI, 0.24 to 0.38]). Sensitivity analyses that varied the interval between CRC diagnosis and colonoscopy exposure did not affect the primary findings. Limitation Unmeasured confounding. Conclusion In this study using national VA-Medicare data, colonoscopy was associated with significant reductions in CRC mortality among veterans and was associated with greater benefit for left-sided cancer than right-sided cancer. Primary Funding Source U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Religious shoppers spend less money

Abstract Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects people's non-religious routines. In the present research, we identify a frequent consumption activity that is influenced by religiosity: grocery shopping. Using both field and laboratory data, we find that grocery spending decreases with religiosity. Specifically, we document that people who live in more religious U.S. counties spend less money on groceries and make fewer unplanned purchases. We also demonstrate this negative relationship by measuring religiosity at the individual level and employing a religious prime. That is, the more religious people are, the less willing they are to follow through on novel purchase opportunities that arise during their grocery shopping trips. This effect is consistent with the account that many religions emphasize the value of being prudent with money. Additional analysis supports our predicted indirect effect of religiosity on spending through frugality.
Local gradient optimization of modular entangling sequences

Implementation of logical entangling gates is an important step towards realizing a quantum computer. We use a gradient-based optimization approach to find single-qubit rotations which can be interleaved between applications of a noisy nonlocal gate to dramatically suppress arbitrary logical errors, while steering the evolution operator towards the perfectly entangling subset of $\text{SU}(4)$ gates. The modularity of the approach allows for application to any two-qubit system, regardless of the Hamiltonian or details of the experimental implementation. This approach is effective for both quasistatic and time-dependent $1/{f}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$ noise. We also show how the fidelity of the final operation depends on both the fidelity of the local rotations and the noise strength.
Computed tomography informed composite damage state model generation

X-ray computed tomography has recently become an increasingly popular non-destructive imaging method in composites research. However, due to the complexity of 3D computed tomography data sets, it can be difficult to accurately and quantitatively assess the damage state of a composite structure without additional post-processing. A new segmentation procedure has been developed that takes a 3D computed tomography data set of an impacted composite laminate and separates internal damage into information about intraply and interlaminar damage within each ply and at each interface. Impacted flat T800/3900-2 unidirectional carbon/epoxy composite panels were scanned and then segmented to create comprehensible maps of internal damage states. Based on the types of data extracted by the developed computed tomography segmentation, techniques to input these datasets into numerical modeling have been developed. Additionally, various damage visualization and interpretation techniques made possible by the computed tomogr...
Potential Sources of Value from Mergers and Their Indicators

Firms engage in mergers for many reasons, some of which create value for both the firm’s shareholders and society, some that create value only for the firm’s shareholders, and some that fail even t...
Efficacy of Different Leuprolide Administration Schedules in Premenopausal Breast Cancer: A Retrospective Review

Abstract Background Leuprolide is a safe and effective treatment of estrogen receptor–positive premenopausal breast cancer. Data from the SOFT/TEXT trials solidified leuprolide in combination with an aromatase inhibitor as an effective hormonal treatment for premenopausal breast cancer. However, the efficacy of monthly leuprolide depot compared to leuprolide depot every 3 months in combination with an aromatase inhibitor in this patient population is unclear. Patients and Methods In this single center retrospective study, 201 patients were enrolled between January 1, 2015, and October 1, 2016; 100 were included in the 7.5 mg leuprolide monthly injection plus aromatase inhibitor group and 101 in the 22.5 mg leuprolide injection every 3 months plus aromatase inhibitor group. The primary end point was the proportion of patients who experienced ovarian ablation, defined as an estradiol concentration less than 40 pg/mL and a follicle-stimulating hormone concentration of 23 to 116 mU/mL after 3 months of treatment. Significance threshold was P Results All patients in the monthly leuprolide arm experienced ovarian ablation compared to 100 (99%) of 101 patients in the arm treated every 3 months (P = 1). The disease-free survival rate at 1 year was 95% in the monthly leuprolide arm and 97% in the arm treated every 3 months (P = .75). The overall survival rate at 1 year was 100% in the monthly leuprolide arm and 99% in the arm treated every 3 months (P = 1). The most common treatment-related adverse events between the 2 groups were musculoskeletal pain, hot flashes, fatigue, and insomnia. Conclusion Leuprolide acetate depot administered every 3 months is as efficacious and tolerable as a monthly injection in combination with an aromatase inhibitor for premenopausal patients with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer.
Comparative conductimetric studies of salicylic acid in methanol–water mixtures at 25 °C

Abstract Conductivity data of salicylic acid in methanol–water mixtures were measured at 25 °C. The data were analyzed in two methods, the Hsia–Fuoss’s and Fuoss 78’s conductance equations and a comparison was made. The two methods concern the derivation of thermodynamic association constants and limiting molar conductivities for all solvent compositions. The limiting equivalent conductance decreases with the increase of methanol content in the binary mixtures over the whole range of the solvent composition, but the variation does not give a constant value of Walden product. The electrolytes were found to be practically completely associated in all studied solvent mixtures. The association constant of acid decreases with the increase in relative permittivity of the mixtures. The values of ionic coefficients of self diffusion and the ionic conductance at infinite solutions were estimated.
LQ-Nets: Learned Quantization for Highly Accurate and Compact Deep Neural Networks

Although weight and activation quantization is an effective approach for Deep Neural Network (DNN) compression and has a lot of potentials to increase inference speed leveraging bit-operations, there is still a noticeable gap in terms of prediction accuracy between the quantized model and the full-precision model. To address this gap, we propose to jointly train a quantized, bit-operation-compatible DNN and its associated quantizers, as opposed to using fixed, handcrafted quantization schemes such as uniform or logarithmic quantization. Our method for learning the quantizers applies to both network weights and activations with arbitrary-bit precision, and our quantizers are easy to train. The comprehensive experiments on CIFAR-10 and ImageNet datasets show that our method works consistently well for various network structures such as AlexNet, VGG-Net, GoogLeNet, ResNet, and DenseNet, surpassing previous quantization methods in terms of accuracy by an appreciable margin. Code available at https://github.com/Microsoft/LQ-Nets.
Hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis in archaeal phylum Verstraetearchaeota reveals the shared ancestry of all methanogens

Methanogenic archaea are major contributors to the global carbon cycle and were long thought to belong exclusively to the euryarchaeal phylum. Discovery of the methanogenesis gene cluster methyl-coenzyme M reductase (Mcr) in the Bathyarchaeota, and thereafter the Verstraetearchaeota, led to a paradigm shift, pushing back the evolutionary origin of methanogenesis to predate that of the Euryarchaeota. The methylotrophic methanogenesis found in the non-Euryarchaota distinguished itself from the predominantly hydrogenotrophic methanogens found in euryarchaeal orders as the former do not couple methanogenesis to carbon fixation through the reductive acetyl-CoA [Wood-Ljungdahl pathway (WLP)], which was interpreted as evidence for independent evolution of the two methanogenesis pathways. Here, we report the discovery of a complete and divergent hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis pathway in a thermophilic order of the Verstraetearchaeota, which we have named Candidatus Methanohydrogenales, as well as the presence of the WLP in the crenarchaeal order Desulfurococcales. Our findings support the ancient origin of hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis, suggest that methylotrophic methanogenesis might be a later adaptation of specific orders, and provide insight into how the transition from hydrogenotrophic to methylotrophic methanogenesis might have occurred.
The Power and Limitations of Uniform Samples in Testing Properties of Figures

We investigate testing of properties of 2-dimensional figures that consist of a black object on a white background. Given a parameter $${\epsilon }\in (0,1/2)$$ , a tester for a specified property has to accept with probability at least 2/3 if the input figure satisfies the property and reject with probability at least 2/3 if it is $${\epsilon }$$ -far from satisfying the property. In general, property testers can query the color of any point in the input figure. We study the power of testers that get access only to uniform samples from the input figure. We show that for the property of being a half-plane, the uniform testers are as powerful as general testers: they require only $$O({\epsilon }^{-1})$$ samples. In contrast, we prove that convexity can be tested with $$O({\epsilon }^{-1})$$ queries by testers that can make queries of their choice while uniform testers for this property require $$\varOmega ({\epsilon }^{-5/4})$$ samples. Previously, the fastest known tester for convexity needed $$\varTheta ({\epsilon }^{-4/3})$$ queries.
High speed flux sampling for tunable superconducting qubits with an embedded cryogenic transducer

We develop a high speed on-chip flux measurement using a capacitively shunted SQUID as an embedded cryogenic transducer and apply this technique to the qualification of a near-term scalable printed circuit board (PCB) package for frequency tunable superconducting qubits. The transducer is a flux tunable LC resonator where applied flux changes the resonant frequency. We apply a microwave tone to probe this frequency and use a time-domain homodyne measurement to extract the reflected phase as a function of flux applied to the SQUID. The transducer response bandwidth is 2.6 GHz with a maximum gain of $\rm 1200^\circ/\Phi_0$ allowing us to study the settling amplitude to better than 0.1%. We use this technique to characterize on-chip bias line routing and a variety of PCB based packages and demonstrate that step response settling can vary by orders of magnitude in both settling time and amplitude depending on if normal or superconducting materials are used. By plating copper PCBs in aluminum we measure a step response consistent with the packaging used for existing high-fidelity qubits.
Cloud Index Tracking: Enabling Predictable Costs in Cloud Spot Markets

Cloud spot markets rent VMs for a variable price that is typically much lower than the price of on-demand VMs, which makes them attractive for a wide range of large-scale applications. However, applications that run on spot VMs suffer from cost uncertainty, since spot prices fluctuate, in part, based on supply, demand, or both. The difficulty in predicting spot prices affects users and applications: the former cannot effectively plan their IT expenditures, while the latter cannot infer the availability and performance of spot VMs, which are a function of their variable price. Prior work attempts to address this uncertainty by modeling and predicting individual spot prices based on historical data. However, a single model likely does not apply to different spot VMs, since they may have different levels of supply and demand. In addition, cloud providers may unilaterally change spot pricing algorithms, as EC2 has done multiple times, which can invalidate existing price models and prediction methods. To address the problem, we use properties of cloud infrastructure and workloads to show that prices become more stable and predictable as they are aggregated together. We leverage this observation to define an aggregate index price for spot VMs that serves as a reference for what users should expect to pay. We show that, even when the spot prices for individual VMs are volatile, the index price remains stable and predictable. We then introduce cloud index tracking: a migration policy that tracks the index price to ensure applications running on spot VMs incur a predictable cost by migrating to a new spot VM if the current VM's price significantly deviates from the index price. We implement cloud index tracking on EC2, and show that it yields a predictable cost near that of the index price, but with much higher availability compared to prior work, which aggressively migrates to the lowest cost VM.