cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Majorana Superconducting Qubit.

We propose a platform for universal quantum computation that uses conventional $s$-wave superconducting leads to address a topological qubit stored in spatially separated Majorana bound states in a multiterminal topological superconductor island. Both the manipulation and readout of this ``Majorana superconducting qubit'' are realized by tunnel couplings between Majorana bound states and the superconducting leads. The ability of turning on and off tunnel couplings on demand by local gates enables individual qubit addressability while avoiding cross-talk errors. By combining the scalability of superconducting qubit and the robustness of topological qubits, the Majorana superconducting qubit may provide a promising and realistic route towards quantum computation.
Modelling and observing the role of wind in Anopheles population dynamics around a reservoir

Wind conditions, as well as other environmental conditions, are likely to influence malaria transmission through the behaviours of Anopheles mosquitoes, especially around water-resource reservoirs. Wind-induced waves in a reservoir impose mortality on aquatic-stage mosquitoes. Mosquitoes’ host-seeking activity is also influenced by wind through dispersion of $$CO_2$$ . However, no malaria transmission model exists to date that simulated those impacts of wind mechanistically. A modelling framework for simulating the three important effects of wind on the behaviours of mosquito is developed: attraction of adult mosquitoes through dispersion of $$CO_2$$ ( $$CO_2$$ attraction), advection of adult mosquitoes (advection), and aquatic-stage mortality due to wind-induced surface waves (waves). The framework was incorporated in a mechanistic malaria transmission simulator, HYDREMATS. The performance of the extended simulator was compared with the observed population dynamics of the Anopheles mosquitoes at a village adjacent to the Koka Reservoir in Ethiopia. The observed population dynamics of the Anopheles mosquitoes were reproduced with some reasonable accuracy in HYDREMATS that includes the representation of the wind effects. HYDREMATS without the wind model failed to do so. Offshore wind explained the increase in Anopheles population that cannot be expected from other environmental conditions alone. Around large water bodies such as reservoirs, the role of wind in the dynamics of Anopheles population, hence in malaria transmission, can be significant. Modelling the impacts of wind on the behaviours of Anopheles mosquitoes aids in reproducing the seasonality of malaria transmission and in estimation of the risk of malaria around reservoirs.
Interactive communication with unknown noise rate

Abstract Alice and Bob want to run a protocol over a noisy channel, where some bits are flipped adversarially. Several results show how to make an L-bit noise-free communication protocol robust over such a channel. In a recent breakthrough, Haeupler described an algorithm sending a number of bits that is conjecturally near optimal for this model. However, his algorithm critically requires prior knowledge of the number of bits that will be flipped by the adversary. We describe an algorithm requiring no such knowledge, under the additional assumption that the channel connecting Alice and Bob is private. If an adversary flips T bits, our algorithm sends L + O ( L ( T + 1 ) log ⁡ L + T ) bits in expectation and succeeds with high probability in L. It does so without any a priori knowledge of T. Assuming a lower bound conjectured by Haeupler, our result is optimal up to logarithmic factors.
The Impact of Economic Reform on the Performance of Chinese State Enterprises, 1980–1989

The effectiveness of China's incremental industrial reform between 1980 and 1980 is investigated using a panel data set of 272 state enterprises. This paper applies a method that measures marginal products of factors and changes in total factor productivity (TFP) by comparing actual changes in output to actual changes in inputs and in the institutional environment. This paper finds that there were marked improvements in the marginal productivity of factors and in TFP between 1980 and 1989. More important, the evidence shows that over 87 percent of the TFP growth was attributable to improved incentives, intensified product market competitioni, and improved factor allocation.
‘Hip-hop wasn't something a teacher ever gave me’: exploring hip-hop musical learning*

ABSTRACTWith the aim of diversifying popular music education scholarship, this article explores the phenomenon of hip-hop musical learning as experienced by eight American hip-hop musicians who describe how as well as with whom they learned to create and perform. The study explores issues related to learning processes, social relationships, and the role of individuality in hip-hop culture. Findings explore elements of self-teaching; learning through listening, creating, competing, and collaborating; and relating the individual to the broader hip-hop culture. I discuss the findings in comparison to facets of informal music learning as well as previous hip-hop scholarship and introduce a conceptual model related to the processes and relationships of hip-hop musical learning. Finally, I offer considerations for music teaching and future scholarship.
EMPIRICAL TIDAL DISSIPATION IN EXOPLANET HOSTS FROM TIDAL SPIN-UP.

Stars with hot Jupiters tend to be rotating faster than other stars of the same age and mass. This trend has been attributed to tidal interactions between the star and planet. A constraint on the dissipation parameter Q⋆' follows from the assumption that tides have managed to spin up the star to the observed rate within the age of the system. This technique was applied previously to HATS-18 and WASP-19. Here we analyze the sample of all 188 known hot Jupiters with an orbital period <3.5 days and a "cool" host star (Teff< 6100K). We find evidence that the tidal dissipation parameter (Q⋆') increases sharply with forcing frequency, from 105 at 0.5 day-1 to 107 at 2 day-1. This helps to resolve a number of apparent discrepancies between studies of tidal dissipation in binary stars, hot Jupiters, and warm Jupiters. It may also allow for a hot Jupiter to damp the obliquity of its host star prior to being destroyed by tidal decay.
Alternative Work Arrangements and Job Satisfaction

The pressures of traditional jobs on working families, along with an aging population facing financial need, have contributed to heightened interest in the percentage of workers participating in alternative work arrangements. These include working as an independent contractor or self-employed, and those employed by others on-call, through temp agency, or as contractors. Examining job satisfaction across work arrangements by occupation and gender is one way to investigate a potential increase in the supply of such workers. Higher job satisfaction may indicate that more workers will select into these work arrangements and away from traditional jobs in the future. If this is particularly true for women, it has important implications for firms that would like to retain more women. Moreover, changes in how individuals earn a living may impact the social safety nets of such workers and their families given the nature of how such benefits are provided in the U.S. economy. This study utilizes recent waves of the General Social Survey to explore job satisfaction for workers in disaggregated alternative work arrangements, while controlling for both occupation and gender. The study finds that female workers who are independent contractors and self-employed are more satisfied with their jobs than those in regular salaried jobs, even those in nonprofessional occupations. Job satisfaction for those who work in temp agencies, do on-call work or work for contractors is no different than for those in regular jobs, regardless of occupation and gender.
Producing genome structure populations with the dynamic and automated PGS software

Chromosome conformation capture technologies such as Hi-C are widely used to investigate the spatial organization of genomes. Because genome structures can vary considerably between individual cells of a population, interpreting ensemble-averaged Hi-C data can be challenging, in particular for long-range and interchromosomal interactions. We pioneered a probabilistic approach for the generation of a population of distinct diploid 3D genome structures consistent with all the chromatin-chromatin interaction probabilities from Hi-C experiments. Each structure in the population is a physical model of the genome in 3D. Analysis of these models yields new insights into the causes and the functional properties of the genome's organization in space and time. We provide a user-friendly software package, called PGS, which runs on local machines (for practice runs) and high-performance computing platforms. PGS takes a genome-wide Hi-C contact frequency matrix, along with information about genome segmentation, and produces an ensemble of 3D genome structures entirely consistent with the input. The software automatically generates an analysis report, and provides tools to extract and analyze the 3D coordinates of specific domains. Basic Linux command-line knowledge is sufficient for using this software. A typical running time of the pipeline is ∼3 d with 300 cores on a computer cluster to generate a population of 1,000 diploid genome structures at topological-associated domain (TAD)-level resolution.
RIOT: A Stochastic-Based Method for Workflow Scheduling in the Cloud

Cloud computing provides engineers or scientists a place to run complex computing tasks. Finding a workflows’s deployment configuration in a cloud environment is not easy. Traditional workflow scheduling algorithms were based on some heuristics, e.g. reliability greedy, cost greedy, cost-time balancing, etc., or more recently, the meta-heuristic methods, such as genetic algorithms. These methods are very slow and not suitable for rescheduling in dynamic cloud environment. This paper introduces RIOT (Randomized Instance Order Types), a stochastic based method for workflow scheduling. RIOT groups the tasks in the workflow into virtual machines via a probability model and then uses an effective surrogate based method to assess large amount of potential schedulings. Experiments in dozens of study cases showed that RIOT executes tens of times faster than traditional methods while generating comparable results to other methods.
The histone chaperone FACT modulates nucleosome structure by tethering its components

Human FAcilitates Chromatin Transcription (hFACT) is a conserved histone chaperone that was originally described as a transcription elongation factor with potential nucleosome assembly functions. Here, we show that FACT has moderate tetrasome assembly activity but facilitates H2A–H2B deposition to form hexasomes and nucleosomes. In the process, FACT tethers components of the nucleosome through interactions with H2A–H2B, resulting in a defined intermediate complex comprising FACT, a histone hexamer, and DNA. Free DNA extending from the tetrasome then competes FACT off H2A–H2B, thereby promoting hexasome and nucleosome formation. Our studies provide mechanistic insight into how FACT may stabilize partial nucleosome structures during transcription or nucleosome assembly, seemingly facilitating both nucleosome disassembly and nucleosome assembly.
Learning-dependent and-independent enhancement of mitral/tufted cell glomerular odor responses following olfactory fear conditioning in awake mice

Associative fear learning produces fear toward the conditioned stimulus (CS) and often generalization, the expansion of fear from the CS to similar, unlearned stimuli. However, how fear learning affects early sensory processing of learned and unlearned stimuli in relation to behavioral fear responses to these stimuli remains unclear. We subjected male and female mice expressing the fluorescent calcium indicator GCaMP3 in olfactory bulb mitral and tufted cells to a classical olfactory fear conditioning paradigm. We then used awake, in vivo calcium imaging to quantify learning-induced changes in glomerular odor responses, which constitute the first site of olfactory processing in the brain. The results demonstrate that odor-shock pairing nonspecifically enhances glomerular odor representations in a learning-dependent manner and increases representational similarity between the CS and nonconditioned odors, potentially priming the system toward generalization of learned fear. Additionally, CS-specific glomerular enhancements remain even when associative learning is blocked, suggesting two separate mechanisms lead to enhanced glomerular responses following odor-shock pairings.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT In the olfactory bulb (OB), odors are uniquely coded in a spatial map that represents odor identity, making the OB a unique model system for investigating how learned fear alters sensory processing. Classical fear conditioning causes fear of the conditioned stimulus (CS) and of neutral stimuli, known as generalization. Combining fear conditioning with fluorescent calcium imaging of OB glomeruli, we found enhanced glomerular responses of the CS as well as neutral stimuli in awake mice, which mirrors fear generalization. We report that CS and neutral stimuli enhancements are, respectively, learning-independent and learning-dependent. Together, these results reveal distinct mechanisms leading to enhanced OB processing of fear-inducing stimuli and provide important implications for altered sensory processing in fear generalization.
Optimal and Myopic Information Acquisition

We consider the problem of optimal dynamic information acquisition from many correlated information sources. Each period, the decision-maker jointly takes an action and allocates a fixed number of observations across the available sources. His payoff depends on the actions taken and on an unknown state. In the canonical setting of jointly normal information sources, we show that the optimal dynamic information acquisition rule proceeds myopically after finitely many periods. If signals are acquired in large blocks each period, then the optimal rule turns out to be myopic from period 1. These results demonstrate the possibility of robust and "simple" optimal information acquisition, and simplify the analysis of dynamic information acquisition in a widely used informational environment.
Nuclear factor-kappa B: Glucocorticoid-induced leucine zipper interface analogs suppress pathology in an Alzheimer's disease model

Abstract Introduction Glucocorticoid-induced leucine zipper is a regulatory protein that sequesters activated nuclear factor-kappa B p65. Previously, we showed that rationally designed analogs of the p65-binding domain of glucocorticoid-induced leucine zipper, referred to as glucocorticoid-induced leucine zipper analogs (GAs), inhibited amyloid β–induced metabolic activity and inflammatory cytokines in mixed brain cell cultures. Here, we investigate the therapeutic efficacy of GA in an Alzheimer's disease model. Methods GA and control peptides were synthesized covalently as peptide amides with the cell-penetrating agent. C57Bl/6J mice induced with lipopolysaccharide-mediated neuroinflammation (250 mg/kg i.p/day for six days) were treated on alternate days with GA-1, GA-2, or control peptides (25 mg/kg i.v). Brain tissues were assessed for gliosis, cytokines, and antiapoptotic factors. Results The brain tissues of GA-1– and GA-2–treated mice exhibited significantly reduced gliosis, suppressed inflammatory cytokines, and elevated antiapoptotic factors. Discussion The antineuroinflammatory effects of GA suggest potential therapeutic application for Alzheimer's disease.
Quantitative Assessment of Retina Explant Viability in a Porcine Ex Vivo Neuroretina Model.

Abstract Purpose: Given that porcine and human retinas have similar structures and characteristics, ex vivo culture of porcine neuroretina provides an attractive model for studying mechanisms of hu...
Space-efficient and fault-tolerant message routing in outerplanar networks

The problem of designing space- and communication-efficient routing schemes for networks that experience faults is addressed. For any outerplanar network containing t faults, a succinct routing scheme is presented that uses O( alpha tn) space and communication to generate routings that are less than (( alpha +1)/( alpha -1))/sup t/ times longer than optimal, where alpha >1 is an odd-valued integer parameter. Thus, the routings can be tuned as desired, using a suitable amount of information. Efficient sequential and distributed algorithms are presented for setting up the routing schemes. >
The Intersection Between Women’s Reproductive Desires and HIV Care Providers’ Reproductive Health Practices: A Mixed Methods Analysis

Background HIV-positive women in the United States can have healthy pregnancies and avoid transmitting HIV to their children. Yet, little is known about the extent to which HIV care providers’ reproductive health practices match women’s pregnancy desires. Accordingly, we explored young HIV-positive women’s pregnancy desires and reproductive health behaviors and examined reproductive health information offered by HIV care clinics. Methods A mixed-method analysis was conducted using data from a 14-site Adolescent Medicine Trials Network (ATN) study. We conducted descriptive statistics on data from 25 HIV-positive women (e.g., demographics, pregnancy desires, and sexual- and health-related behaviors). Qualitative interviews with 58 adolescent and adult clinic providers were analyzed using the constant comparative method. Results About half of the women reported using reproductive health care services (i.e., contraception and pregnancy tests) (n = 12) and wanted a future pregnancy (n = 13). Among women who did not desire a future pregnancy (n = 5), three used dual methods and two used condoms at last sexual encounter. Qualitative themes related to clinics’ approaches to reproductive health (e.g., “the emphasis…is to encourage use of contraceptives”) and the complexity of merging HIV and reproductive care (e.g., “We [adolescent clinic] transition pregnant moms from our care back and forth to adult care”). Discussion Despite regular HIV-related medical appointments, HIV-positive women may have unaddressed reproductive health needs (e.g., pregnancy desire with providers focused on contraceptive use). Findings from this study suggest that increased support for young HIV-positive women’s reproductive health is needed, including supporting pregnancy desires (to choose when, how, and if, to have children).
Independent investigator incubator (I3): A comprehensive mentorship program to jumpstart productive research careers for junior faculty

In the highly competitive environment of academic medicine, junior faculty investigators face high attrition rates due to challenges in finding effective mentorship, securing grant funding, and obtaining resources to support their career development and research productivity. The purpose of this study was to describe the centralized, cost-sharing design of the Independent Investigator Incubator (I3) program as a novel approach to junior faculty mentoring and to evaluate quantitative outcomes for program improvement. In September 2014, the I3 pilot program, a comprehensive mentorship program targeting junior faculty pursuing research careers, was launched. Participants included junior faculty during the crucial first three years of their research careers or during their transition from career development awards to more independent research. Following initial screening, the I3 mentees were paired with a senior faculty “super-mentor” with expertise in either basic science or clinical research. Mentees were provided with robust traditional one-on-one mentoring, targeted feedback from a super-mentor review committee, as well as biostatistician and grant writing support. To assess the effectiveness of the I3 program, we tracked outcome measures via baseline and 12-month mentee surveys. Data collected assessed program diversity, mentee self-assessments, evaluation of the mentoring relationship, scholarship and productivity metrics. Raw data were analyzed using a paired t-test in Excel (P < 0.05). Results of the baseline mentee self-assessment survey found that the I3 mentees indicated common “perceive deficits” including navigating the organizational and institutional culture, clear direction in achieving promotion and tenure, among others. When baseline mentee survey responses were compared to 12-month responses, we identified strong “perceived growth” in categories, such as Research and Interpersonal Skills and Career Development Skills. Further, productivity metrics at 12-months revealed that roughly 80% of I3 mentees successfully published a manuscript(s). The I3 program has helped generate roughly $12.1 million dollars in investigator-initiated funding after two years in the program. The I3 program allows for shared costs between institutions and increased availability of successful subject matter experts. Study results imply that the I3 mentoring program provides transformative mentorship for junior faculty. Using our findings, we developed courses and an annual “snapshot” of mentee performance for mentors.
Energy efficient distributed analytics at the edge of the network for IoT environments

Abstract Due to the pervasive diffusion of personal mobile and IoT devices, many “smart environments” (e.g., smart cities and smart factories) will be, generators of huge amounts of data. Currently, analysis of this data is typically achieved through centralised cloud-based services. However, according to many studies, this approach may present significant issues from the standpoint of data ownership, as well as wireless network capacity. In this paper, we exploit the fog computing paradigm to move computation close to where data is produced. We exploit a well-known distributed machine learning framework (Hypothesis Transfer Learning), and perform data analytics on mobile nodes passing by IoT devices, in addition to fog gateways at the edge of the network infrastructure. We analyse the performance of different configurations of the distributed learning framework, in terms of (i) accuracy obtained in the learning task and (ii) energy spent to send data between the involved nodes. Specifically, we consider reference wireless technologies for communication between the different types of nodes we consider, e.g. LTE, Nb-IoT, 802.15.4, 802.11, etc. Our results show that collecting data through the mobile nodes and executing the distributed analytics using short-range communication technologies, such as 802.15.4 and 802.11, allows to strongly reduce the energy consumption of the system up to 94% with a loss in accuracy w.r.t. a centralised cloud solution up to 2%.
If Eyes are the Window to Our Soul, What Role does Eye-Tracking Play in Accounting Research?

Recent advances in technology have increased the accessibility and ease in using eye tracking as a research tool in both laboratory and field settings. These advances have the potential to benefit behavioral accounting researchers' understanding of the cognitive processes underlying individuals' judgments, decisions and behaviors. However, despite its potential and wide use in other disciplines, few behavioral accounting studies use eye tracking. The purpose of this paper is to familiarize accounting researchers with eye tracking including its advantages and limitations as a research tool. We start by providing an overview of eye tracking and discussing essential terms and useful metrics, as well as the psychological constructs they proxy. We then summarize eye-tracking research across research domains, review accounting studies that use eye tracking, and identify future research directions across accounting topics. Finally, we provide an instructional resource to guide those researchers interested in usi...
Relationships Between Behavioral And Single-Trial Target Detection Performance With Magnetoencephalography

Target detection during serial visual presentation tasks is an active research topic in the brain-computer interface (BCI) community as this type of paradigm allows to take advantage of event-related potentials (ERPs) through electroencephalography (EEG) recordings to enhance the accuracy of target detection. The detection of brain evoked responses at the single-trial level remains a challenging task and can be exploited in various applications. Typical non-invasive BCIs based on event-related brain responses use EEG. In clinical settings, brain signals recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG) can be advantageously used thanks to their high spatial and temporal resolution. In this study, we address the problem of the relationships between behavioral performance and single-trial detection by considering a task with different levels of difficulty. We consider images of faces with six different facial expressions (anger, disgust, fear, neutrality, sadness, and happiness). We consider MEG signals recorded on ten healthy participants in six sessions where targets were one of the six types of facial expressions in each session. The results support the conclusion that a high performance can be obtained at the single-trial level $( {AUC }= 0 . 903 \pm 0 .045)$, and that the performance is correlated with the behavioral performance (reaction time and hit rate).
A Multimodal Approach to Mapping Soundscapes

We explore the problem of mapping soundscapes, that is, predicting the types of sounds that are likely to be heard at a given geographic location. Using a novel dataset, which includes geo-tagged audio and overhead imagery, we develop an approach for constructing an aural atlas, which captures the geospatial distribution of soundscapes. We build on previous work relating sound to ground-level imagery but incorporate overhead imagery to overcome the limitations of sparsely distributed geo-tagged audio. In the end, all that we require to construct an aural atlas is overhead imagery of the region of interest. We show examples of aural atlases at multiple spatial scales, from block-level to country.
How much data do you need? An operational, pre-asymptotic metric for fat-tailedness

Abstract This paper presents an operational metric for univariate unimodal probability distributions with finite first moments in [ 0 , 1 ] , where 0 is maximally thin-tailed (Gaussian) and 1 is maximally fat-tailed. It is based on the question, “how much data does one need to make meaningful statements about a given dataset?” Applications: Among others, it • helps to determine the sample size n needed for statistical significance outside the Gaussian distribution, • helps to measure the speed of convergence to the Gaussian (or stable basin), • allows practical comparisons across classes of fat-tailed distributions, • allows the number of securities needed in portfolio construction to achieve a certain level of risk-reduction from diversification to be assessed, • helps in assessing risks under various settings, and • helps to explain some inconsistent attributes of the lognormal, depending on the parametrization of its variance. The literature in regard to asymptotic behavior is rich, but there is a large void regarding finite values of n , which are those that are needed for operational purposes. Background: Conventional measures of fat-tailedness, namely (1) the tail index for the power law class, and (2) the kurtosis for finite moment distributions, fail to apply to some distributions, and do not allow comparisons across classes and parametrization; that is, between power laws outside the Levy-stable basin, or power laws and distributions in other classes, or power laws for different numbers of summands. How can one compare a sum of 100 Student t distributed random variables with three degrees of freedom to one in a Levy-stable or a Lognormal class? How can one compare a sum of 100 Student t with three degrees of freedom to a single Student t with two degrees of freedom? We propose an operational and heuristic metric that allows us to compare n -summed independent variables under all distributions with finite first moments. The method is based on the rate of convergence of the law of large numbers for finite sums, specifically n -summands. We get either explicit expressions or simulation results and bounds for the lognormal, exponential, Pareto, and Student t distributions in their various calibrations, in addition to the general Pearson classes.
Object-based image analysis: a review of developments and future directions of automated feature detection in landscape archaeology

Object based image analysis (OBIA) is a method of assessing remote sensing data that uses morphometric and spectral parameters simultaneously to identify features in remote sensing imagery. Over the past 15-20 years, OBIA methods have been introduced to detect archaeological features. Improvements in accuracy have been attained by using a greater number of morphometric variables and multiple scales of analysis. This article highlights the developments that have occurred in the application of OBIA within archaeology and traces some possible paths for the future uses of these methods. I argue that OBIA is both a useful and necessary tool for archaeology, and discuss future research paths using this method. Some of the suggestions put forth here include: pushing for multifaceted research designs utilizing OBIA and manual interpretation, using OBIA methods for directly studying landscape settlement patterns, and increasing data sharing of methods between researchers.
Emerging Insights into the Function of Kinesin-8 Proteins in Microtubule Length Regulation

Proper regulation of microtubules (MTs) is critical for the execution of diverse cellular processes, including mitotic spindle assembly and chromosome segregation. There are a multitude of cellular factors that regulate the dynamicity of MTs and play critical roles in mitosis. Members of the Kinesin-8 family of motor proteins act as MT-destabilizing factors to control MT length in a spatially and temporally regulated manner. In this review, we focus on recent advances in our understanding of the structure and function of the Kinesin-8 motor domain, and the emerging contributions of the C-terminal tail of Kinesin-8 proteins to regulate motor activity and localization.
The race between demand and supply: Tinbergen's pioneering studies of earnings inequality

Understanding inequality and devising policies to alleviate it was a central focus of Jan Tinbergen’s lifetime research. He was far ahead of his time in many aspects of his work. This essay places his work in the perspective of research on inequality in his time and now, focusing on his studies on the pricing of skills and the evolution of skill prices. In his most fundamental contribution, Tinbergen developed the modern framework for hedonic models as part of his agenda for integrating demand and supply for skills to study determination of earnings and its distribution and the design of effective policy. His lifetime emphasis on social planning caused some economists to ignore his fundamental work.
Verification of Calculation Procedure for Unsteady Aerodynamic Forces on a Launch Vehicle

Unsteady aerodynamic forces on large, slender aerospace structures are established in wind-tunnel tests that employ a limited number of dynamic pressure sensors and use a correlation-based approach...
Modeling magnetic fields with helical solutions to Laplace's equation

Abstract The series solution to Laplace’s equation in a helical coordinate system is derived and refined using symmetry and chirality arguments. These functions and their more commonplace counterparts are used to model solenoidal magnetic fields via linear, multidimensional curve-fitting. A judicious choice of functional forms motivated by geometry, a small number of free parameters, and sparse input data can lead to highly accurate, fine-grained modeling of solenoidal magnetic fields. These models capture the helical features arising from the winding of the solenoid, with overall field accuracy at better than one part per million.
Public Health Informatics in Local and State Health Agencies: An Update From the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey.

Objective To characterize public health informatics (PHI) specialists and identify the informatics needs of the public health workforce. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting US local and state health agencies. Participants Employees from state health agencies central office (SHA-COs) and local health departments (LHDs) participating in the 2017 Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS). We characterized and compared the job roles for self-reported PHI, "information technology specialist or information system manager" (IT/IS), "public health science" (PHS), and "clinical and laboratory" workers. Main outcome measure Descriptive statistics for demographics, income, education, public health experience, program area, job satisfaction, and workplace environment, as well as data and informatics skills and needs. Results A total of 17 136 SHA-CO and 26 533 LHD employees participated in the survey. PHI specialist was self-reported as a job role among 1.1% and 0.3% of SHA-CO and LHD employees. The PHI segment most closely resembled PHS employees but had less public health experience and had lower salaries. Overall, fewer than one-third of PHI specialists reported working in an informatics program area, often supporting epidemiology and surveillance, vital records, and communicable disease. Compared with PH WINS 2014, current PHI respondents' satisfaction with their job and workplace environment moved toward more neutral and negative responses, while the IT/IS, PHS, and clinical and laboratory subgroups shifted toward more positive responses. The PHI specialists were less likely than those in IT/IS, PHS, or clinical and laboratory roles to report gaps in needed data and informatics skills. Conclusions The informatics specialists' role continues to be rare in public health agencies, and those filling that role tend to have less public health experience and be less well compensated than staff in other technically focused positions. Significant data and informatics skills gaps persist among the broader public health workforce.
The market for (ir)reproducible econometrics

(1993). The market for (ir)reproducible econometrics. Social Epistemology: Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 215-232.
Milk Cost of Production Estimates for October, November, and December 2011

In July 2009, Connecticut Public Act 09-229 established an agricultural sustainability account to provide financial assistance to Connecticut milk producers during times when the federal milk pay price falls below a minimum sustainable monthly cost of production (COP). This legislation mandates that the Commissioner of Agriculture make payments to Connecticut dairy farmers on a quarterly basis. To determine whether payments are necessary to comply with the legislation, Public Act 09-229 defines the minimum sustainable monthly COP as eighty-two percent of the monthly average COP for a New England state, as calculated by the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the United States Department of Agriculture. To comply with state legislation, the Commissioner of Agriculture has requested that The Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Connecticut provide estimates of the monthly COP for a New England State based on data and variables published by the USDA. Since the PA 09-229, Vermont’s milk COP has served as the benchmark for Connecticut’s milk COP. This report is a follow up on previous reports for 2011 quarters two and three that use the current USDA methodology and continues the Vermont and Maine milk COP estimates previously calculated by the USDA’s ERS.1 This report presents milk COP estimates and prices for quarter four of 2011.
Is Transparency the Best Disinfectant

TRANSPARENCY is a highly regarded value, a precept used for ideological purposes, and a subject of academic study. The following critical analysis attempts to show that transparency is overvalued. Moreover, its ideological usages cannot be justified, because a social science analysis shows that transparency cannot fulfill the functions its advocates assign to it, although it can play a limited role in their service. We shall see that in assessing transparency, one must take into account a continuum composed of the order of disutility and the level of information costs. The higher the score on both variables, the less useful transparency is. Moreover, these scores need not be particularly high to greatly limit the extent to which the public can rely on transparency for most purposes.
Can planets exist in the habitable zone of 55 Cancri

The aim of our study is to explore the possible existence of Earth-mass planets in the habitable zone of 55~Cancri, an effort pursued based on detailed orbital stability simulations. This star is known to possess (at least) five planets with masses ranging between super-Earth and Jupiter-type. Additionally, according to observational constraints, there is a space without planets between $\sim$0.8~au and $\sim$5.7~au, noting that the inner part of this gap largely coincides with 55~Cnc's habitable zone --- a sincere motivation for the search of potentially habitable planets. It has previously been argued that terrestrial habitable planets are able to exist in the 55~Cnc system, including a planet at $\sim$1.5~au. We explore this possibility through employing sets of orbital integrations and assuming an integration time of 50~Myr. We found that the possibility of Earth-mass planets in the system's habitable zone strongly depends on the adopted system parameters, notably the eccentricity of 55~Cnc-f, which is controversial as both a high value ($e \sim 0.32$) and a low value ($e \sim 0.08$) have previously been deduced. In case that the low value is adopted (together with other updates for the system parameters), the more plausible and most recent value, Earth-mass planets would be able to exist in the gap between 1.0~au and 2.0~au, thus implying the possibility of habitable system planets. Thus, 55~Cnc should be considered a favorable target for future habitable planet search missions.
Mass repression and political loyalty: Evidence from Stalin's 'terror by hunger'

States use repression to enforce obedience, but repression—especially if it is violent, massive, and indiscriminate—often incites opposition. Why does repression have such disparate effects? We address this question by studying the political legacy of Stalin’s coercive agricultural policy and collective punishment campaign in Ukraine, which led to the death by starvation of over three million people in 1932–34. Using rich micro-level data on eight decades of local political behavior, we find that communities exposed to Stalin’s “terror by hunger” behaved more loyally toward Moscow when the regime could credibly threaten retribution in response to opposition. In times when this threat of retribution abated, the famine-ridden communities showed more opposition to Moscow, both short- and long-term. Thus, repression can both deter and inflame opposition, depending on the political opportunity structure in which post-repression behavior unfolds.
Bell's inequalities: I: An explanation for their experimental violation

Derivations of two Bell's inequalities are given in a form appropriate to the interpretation of experimental data for explicit determination of all the correlations. They are arithmetic identities independent of statistical reasoning and thus cannot be violated by data that meets the conditions for their validity. Two experimentally performable procedures are described to meet these conditions. Once such data are acquired, it follows that the measured correlations cannot all equal a negative cosine of angular differences. The relation between this finding and the predictions of quantum mechanics is discussed in a companion paper.
Formation of BN and AlBN During Nitridation of Sapphire Using RF Plasma Sources

Evidence is presented that nitrogen plasma sources utilizing a pyrolytic boron nitride liner may be a significant source of B contamination during growth and processing. Auger electron spectroscopy analysis performed during nitridation of sapphire indicate the resulting layers contain a significant amount of BN. The formation of Al1-xBxN would explain the observation of a lattice constant several percent smaller than AlN as measured by reflection high-energy electron diffraction. The presence of cubic inclusions in layers grown on such a surface may be related to the segregation of BN during the nitridation into its cubic phase.
Modular Stitching to Image Single-Molecule DNA Transport

For study of time-dependent conformation, all previous single-molecule imaging studies of biopolymer transport involve fluorescence labeling uniformly along the chain, which suffers from limited resolution due to the diffraction limit. Here we demonstrate the concept of submolecular single-molecule imaging with DNA chains assembled from DNA fragments such that a chain is labeled at designated spots with covalently-attached fluorescent dyes and the chain backbone with dyes of different color. High density of dyes ensures good signal-to-noise ratio to localize the designated spots in real time with nanometer precision and prevents significant photobleaching for long-time tracking purposes. To demonstrate usefulness of this approach, we image electrophoretic transport of λ-DNA through agarose gels. The unexpected pattern is observed that one end of each molecule tends to stretch out in the electric field while the other end remains quiescent for some time before it snaps forward and the stretch-recoil cycle repeats. These features are neither predicted by prevailing theories of electrophoresis mechanism nor detectable by conventional whole-chain labeling methods, which demonstrate pragmatically the usefulness of modular stitching to reveal internal chain dynamics of single molecules.
Multifaceted Integration: Memory for Faces Is Subserved by Widespread Connections between Visual, Memory, Auditory, and Social Networks.

Our ability to recognize others by their facial features is at the core of human social interaction, yet this ability varies widely within the general population, ranging from developmental prosopagnosia to “super-recognizers”. Previous work has focused mainly on the contribution of neural activity within the well described face network to this variance. However, given the nature of face memory in everyday life, and the social context in which it takes place, we were interested in exploring how the collaboration between different networks outside the face network in humans (measured through resting state connectivity) affects face memory performance. 50 participants (men and women) were scanned with fMRI. Our data revealed that although the nodes of the face processing network were tightly coupled at rest, the strength of these connections did not predict face memory performance. Instead, face recognition memory was dependent on multiple connections between these face patches and regions of the medial temporal lobe memory system (including the hippocampus), and the social processing system. Moreover, this network was selective for memory for faces, and did not predict memory for other visual objects (cars). These findings suggest that in the general population, variability in face memory is dependent on how well the face processing system interacts with other processing networks, with interaction among the face patches themselves accounting for little of the variance in memory ability. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Our ability to recognize and remember faces is one of the pillars of human social interaction. Face recognition however is a very complex skill, requiring specialized neural resources in visual cortex, as well as memory, identity and social processing, all of which are inherent in our real-world experience of faces. Yet in the general population, people vary greatly in their face memory abilities. Here we show that in the neural domain this variability is underpinned by the integration of visual, memory and social circuits, with the strength of the connections between these circuits directly linked to face recognition ability.
Replicability of time-varying connectivity patterns in large resting state fMRI samples.

The past few years have seen an emergence of approaches that leverage temporal changes in whole-brain patterns of functional connectivity (the chronnectome). In this chronnectome study, we investigate the replicability of the human brain's inter-regional coupling dynamics during rest by evaluating two different dynamic functional network connectivity (dFNC) analysis frameworks using 7 500 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) datasets. To quantify the extent to which the emergent functional connectivity (FC) patterns are reproducible, we characterize the temporal dynamics by deriving several summary measures across multiple large, independent age-matched samples. Reproducibility was demonstrated through the existence of basic connectivity patterns (FC states) amidst an ensemble of inter-regional connections. Furthermore, application of the methods to conservatively configured (statistically stationary, linear and Gaussian) surrogate datasets revealed that some of the studied state summary measures were indeed statistically significant and also suggested that this class of null model did not explain the fMRI data fully. This extensive testing of reproducibility of similarity statistics also suggests that the estimated FC states are robust against variation in data quality, analysis, grouping, and decomposition methods. We conclude that future investigations probing the functional and neurophysiological relevance of time-varying connectivity assume critical importance.
Genome-wide chromatin accessibility and transcriptome profiling show minimal epigenome changes and coordinated transcriptional dysregulation of hedgehog signaling in Danforth's short tail mice.

Danforth’s short tail (Sd) mice provide an excellent model for investigating the underlying etiology of human caudal birth defects, which affect 1 in 10 000 live births. Sd animals exhibit aberrant axial skeleton, urogenital and gastrointestinal development similar to human caudal malformation syndromes including urorectal septum malformation, caudal regression, vertebral-anal-cardiac-tracheo-esophageal fistula-renal-limb (VACTERL) association and persistent cloaca. Previous studies have shown that the Sd mutation results from an endogenous retroviral (ERV) insertion upstream of the Ptf1a gene resulting in its ectopic expression at E9.5. Though the genetic lesion has been determined, the resulting epigenomic and transcriptomic changes driving the phenotype have not been investigated. Here, we performed ATAC-seq experiments on isolated E9.5 tailbud tissue, which revealed minimal changes in chromatin accessibility in Sd/Sd mutant embryos. Interestingly, chromatin changes were localized to a small interval adjacent to the Sd ERV insertion overlapping a known Ptf1a enhancer region, which is conserved in mice and humans. Furthermore, mRNA-seq experiments revealed increased transcription of Ptf1a target genes and, importantly, downregulation of hedgehog pathway genes. Reduced sonic hedgehog (SHH) signaling was confirmed by in situ hybridization and immunofluorescence suggesting that the Sd phenotype results, in part, from downregulated SHH signaling. Taken together, these data demonstrate substantial transcriptome changes in the Sd mouse, and indicate that the effect of the ERV insertion on Ptf1a expression may be mediated by increased chromatin accessibility at a conserved Ptf1a enhancer. We propose that human caudal dysgenesis disorders may result from dysregulation of hedgehog signaling pathways.