cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Maximizing Neoadjuvant Treatment Response and Watch and Wait

Neoadjuvant therapy has been a keystone supporting the advances we have made in the treatment of rectal cancer. The reason for maximizing tumor response to neoadjuvant treatment is clear: as response improves, the consideration of less invasive treatment options such as local excision and “watch-and-wait” (nonoperative) strategies can be explored. Tumor response is closely correlated with long-term oncologic outcome, and the optimization of tumor response to neoadjuvant therapy is thought to improve long-term outcomes as well [1–3]. Maximizing neoadjuvant treatment response is therefore expected to have profound effects on both oncologic outcomes and quality of life.
Prostate cancer grading: a decade after the 2005 modified system

This review article will cover the evolution of grading of prostate cancer from the original Gleason system in the 1960-1970s to a more patient-centric grading system proposed in 2013 from a group at Johns Hopkins Hospital, validated in 2014 by a large multi-institutional study, and subsequently accepted by the World Health Organization (WHO), College of American Pathology (CAP), and the AJCC TNM system. Covered topics include: (1) historical background; (2) 2005 and 2014 International Society of Urological Pathology Grading Conferences; (3) Description of Gleason patterns; (4) new approaches to display Gleason grades; (5) grading variants and variations of acinar adenocarcinoma; (6) reporting rules for Gleason grading reporting secondary patterns of higher grade when present to a limited extent; (7) reporting secondary patterns of lower grade when present to a limited extent; (8) reporting percentage pattern 4; (9) general applications of the Gleason grading system; (10) needle biopsy with different cores showing different grades; (11) radical prostatectomy specimens with separate tumor nodules; and (12) a new grading system for prostate cancer.
How do statins work?: changing paradigms with implications for statin allocation.

There is now indisputable evidence that statins reduce atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease events in a wide variety of patient populations. As a result, up to 200 million people take a daily statin worldwide, including over 30 million people in the United States alone. Now that we have become a
Evolution of Money Distribution in a Simple Economic Model

An analytical approach is utilized to study the money evolution in a simple agent-based economic model, where every agent randomly selects someone else and gives the target one dollar unless he runs out of money. (No one is allowed to go into debt.) If originally no agent is in poverty, for most of time the economy is found to be dominated by a Gaussian money distribution, with a fixed mean and an increasing variance proportional to time. This structure begins to be drifted toward the left when the tail of the Gaussian hits the left boundary, and the drift becomes faster and faster, until a steady state is reached. The steady state generally follows the Boltzmann-Gibbs distribution, except for the points around the origin. Our result shows that, the pdf for the utterly destitute is only half of that predicted by the Boltzmann solution. An implication of this is that the economic structure may be improved through manipulating transaction rules.
Mutual beliefs in conversational systems: their role in referring expressions

Shared knowledge and beliefs affect conversational situations in various ways. One aspect in which they play a role is the choice of referring expressions. It is of interest to analyse this role since a natural language system must be able to decide when it can use a particular referring expression; or alternatively what a particular expression refers to. In this paper we attempt to formally characterise conditions for these. Specifically, we differ with the traditional notion of mutual knowledge and belief, state a conversational conjecture that convinces us to do so, express a weakened notion in a formal system for reasoning about knowledge, and show how this might be used to decide on satisfactory referring expressions. It is desirable to express a weakened notion of mutual belief that parallels that for mutual knowledge; this aspect is currently being investigated.
Sciatic Nerve Entrapment

Entrapment of the sciatic nerve may occur at various areas along its course and may be difficult to differentiate from lesions within the spinal canal, such as a herniated disc. Associated with low back pain, it may make the problem even more difficult, although a detailed history and careful examination may give a clue as to the source of the problem. The so-called “piriformis” syndrome is an example of the above.
The Tenacity of Antitrust Mythology: Dissenting from Mueller

This comment registers the author's reservations about Professor D.C. Mueller's proposals for revising federal merger policy and about the arguments that he advances in support of them. The comment especially questions the validity of the practice of using concentration data as the basis for inferring the presence or absence of monopoly power. It is argued that the analytical foundation for this practice is non-existent and that the purely statistical foundation is weak. The author finds persuasive Mueller's argument that, in recent decades, the merger activity of large firms has done little or nothing to increase the efficiency of the American economy. He believes that, right or wrong, what drives antitrust is fear of corporate size and power, not fear of textbook monopoly. Therefore, he believes consideration should be given to Mueller's proposal that the ambitious merger projects of large firms should not be allowed to go forward unless they promise some gain in efficiency.
Core needle biopsy. A useful adjunct to fine-needle aspiration in select patients with palpable breast lesions.

BACKGROUND Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy is an established, highly accurate method for diagnosing palpable breast lesions. However, in some cases a definitive diagnosis cannot be made by FNA alone, either due to the inherent limitations of cytology itself or the ability to obtain adequate material for diagnosis. This study evaluated the usefulness of a supplemental core needle biopsy performed by a cytopathologist in conjunction with an FNA biopsy in select patients. METHODS Twelve patients with palpable breast lesions underwent the combined FNA/core needle biopsy procedure during the study period from March 1995 through March 1996. All 12 patients first had an FNA aspiration that was preliminarily evaluated by the FNA cytopathologist while the patient was at the clinic. If the cytopathologist was unable to render a definitive diagnosis of the lesion type or if a repeat FNA was requested by the clinician because of a previous non-definitive FNA result, a core needle biopsy was then performed. RESULTS When the FNA and the core needle biopsies were reviewed together, a correct definitive diagnosis was made in 10 of the 12 cases. In contrast, review of the FNA material alone yielded a correct definitive diagnosis in only five cases. CONCLUSIONS The supplemental core needle biopsy was found to be especially useful in: 1) providing a definitive diagnosis of infiltrating carcinoma in those cases in which the FNA diagnosis was reported as “suspicious;” 2) providing ample tissue for ancillary studies; and 3) differentiating a phyllodes tumor from a fibroadenoma. It is the authors' opinion that the FNA cytopathologist is the physician best qualified to perform the combined FNA/core needle biopsy procedure should he/she deem it necessary. Cancer (Cancer Cytopathol) 1997; 81:33-9. © 1997 American Cancer Society
Incorporating Potential Contingency Tasks in Multi-Robot Mission Planning

In most complex missions, unexpected situations arise that may interfere with the planned execution of mission tasks. These situations result in the generation of contingency tasks that need to be executed before the originally planned tasks are completed. Potential contingency tasks may not always affect mission tasks due to the inherent uncertainty in the environment. Deferring action on a potential contingency task may incur a penalty in terms of wasted time due to idle robots if the contingency task becomes a bottleneck in the future. On the other hand, immediate action on a potential contingency task may incur a penalty in terms of wasted time if the contingency task did not actually impact the mission. When a contingency task is reported, the planner generates an updated plan that minimizes expected mission completion time by taking into account the probability of the contingency task impacting mission tasks, its effect on the mission, and its spatial location. We have characterized the performance of the algorithm through simulation experiments. We show that the proactive approach to contingency task management outperforms a conservative approach.
Intervention on default contagion under partial information in a financial network

We study the optimal interventions of a regulator (a central bank or government) on the illiquidity default contagion process in a large, heterogeneous, unsecured interbank lending market. The regulator has only partial information on the interbank connections and aims to minimize the fraction of final defaults with minimal interventions. We derive the analytical results of the asymptotic optimal intervention policy and the asymptotic magnitude of default contagion in terms of the network characteristics. We extend the results of Amini, Cont and Minca's work to incorporate interventions and adopt the dynamics of Amini, Minca and Sulem's model to build heterogeneous networks with degree sequences and initial equity levels drawn from arbitrary distributions. Our results generate insights that the optimal intervention policy is "monotonic" in terms of the intervention cost, the closeness to invulnerability and connectivity. The regulator should prioritize interventions on banks that are systematically important or close to invulnerability. Moreover, the regulator should keep intervening on a bank once having intervened on it. Our simulation results show a good agreement with the theoretical results.
Newborn Antibiotic Exposures and Association With Proven Bloodstream Infection.

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the percentage of hospital births receiving antibiotics before being discharged from the hospital and efficiency diagnosing proven bloodstream infection. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 326 845 live births in 2017, with a 69% sample of all California births involving 121 California hospitals with a NICU, of which 116 routinely served inborn neonates. Exposure included intravenous or intramuscular antibiotic administered anywhere in the hospital during inpatient stay associated with maternal delivery. The main outcomes were the percent of newborns with antibiotic exposure and counts of exposed newborns per proven bloodstream infection. Units of observation and analysis were the individual hospitals. Correlation analyses included infection rates, surgical case volume, NICU inborn admission rates, and mortality rates. RESULTS: The percent of newborns with antibiotic exposure varied from 1.6% to 42.5% (mean 8.5%; SD 6.3%; median 7.3%). Across hospitals, 11.4 to 335.7 infants received antibiotics per proven early-onset sepsis case (mean 95.1; SD 71.1; median 69.5), and 2 to 164 infants received antibiotics per proven late-onset sepsis case (mean 19.6; SD 24.0; median 12.2). The percent of newborns with antibiotic exposure correlated neither with proven bloodstream infection nor with the percent of patient-days entailing antibiotic exposure. CONCLUSIONS: The percent of newborns with antibiotic exposure varies widely and is unexplained by proven bloodstream infection. Identification of sepsis, particularly early onset, often is extremely inefficient. Knowledge of the numbers of newborns receiving antibiotics complements evaluations anchored in days of exposure because these are uncorrelated measures.
A pilot clinical trial of p53/p16-independent epigenetic therapy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA).

699Background: PDA treatment is limited to cytotoxic drugs. A key factor limiting their efficacy is TP53 mutations, omnipresent in PDA, which counter apoptosis-mediated cell kill. We evaluated a no...
In Reply: DXA after menopause.

Thank you for your commentary on “off-label” use of FRAX to better predict fracture risk for patients (such as those with diabetes or on high-risk medications) who don’t fit neatly into the FRAX algorithm. FRAX does allow for individualized calculation of relative risk of fracture across age
Characterization of a Rhodobacter sphaeroides primary fatty acid kinase

Widely distributed among prokaryotes, short chain fatty acid kinases provide a path for fatty acid entry into central metabolic pathways. These enzymes catalyze the reversible, ATP-dependent synthesis of acyl-phosphates, which leads to the production of acyl-CoA derivatives by a coordinate acyltransferase. To date, characterized representatives of short chain fatty acid kinases exhibit relatively narrow substrate specificity. In this work, biochemical characterization of a predicted acetate kinase from Rhodobacter sphaeroides reveals a novel enzyme with broad substrate specificity for primary fatty acids of varying lengths (C2-–C8).
The Classical Bargaining Model for Organized Labor

Classical economists believed that economic value, which is the basis for all discussions pertaining to markets and prices, was determined by the costs of the factors needed to produce the good in question. Economic expansion would require capitalists to pay higher wages to workers because of diminishing productivity in agricultural production, and, as wages rose, capitalist profits would necessarily fall. According to Ricardo, over time this process would lead society to an undesirable stationary state. John Stuart Mill’s extension of the classical labor theory of value provides for a theory of distribution that is separate from the fixed laws of production. Once the theories of production and distribution became disentangled, economists were able to envision ways to influence distributional outcomes that could alleviate the suffering of the majority of the population. We explore the classical labor theory of value and the implications it produces for a theory of distribution. In particular, we discuss Mill’s unique contribution to classical value theory and argue that Mill, through his economic argument in favor of organized labor, actually foresaw the modern literature on uncertainty and information. We illustrate this contribution by way of an example that captures the distributional gains that workers enjoy from repeated negotiations between unions and employers.
Search for ‘Context’: Commodities, Consumption and Abul Hasanat’s Material Sexscape

Abul Hasanat (1905–?) was one of the most widely read Bengali sexologists. Having started researching in British India, he subsequently became a citizen of Pakistan and later of Bangladesh. He cont...
“after Mr. Robinson's pattern”: Plymouth and the shaping of the New England Way

When Boston entered its pandemic lockdown in early March, it forced the cancellation of the Congregational Library's symposium “1620: New Perspectives on the Pilgrim Legacy.” With the cooperation o...
The Influence of Consumer–Brand Relationship on the Personalized Advertising Privacy Calculus in Social Media

Abstract Advertisers increasingly use personalized advertising that is tailored to consumers based on data concerning their preferences and behaviors, which is gained by collecting their personal information. The present study examines the role of consumer–brand relationships and social media platform contexts in effective personalized advertising. Consumers weigh the benefits of personalized brand information against forfeiting privacy by disclosing personal information. For the first time, a 2 (consumer–brand relationship: weaker/stronger) X 2 (data collection method: overt/covert) X 2 (platform: Facebook/Twitter) national online experiment was conducted to examine the personalization–privacy paradox in a social media context. The findings suggested that strong consumer–brand relationships affect the perceived value of information disclosure by bolstering the perceived benefits and mitigating perceived risks of disclosure whereas perceived risks dominated privacy calculus decisions when weak consumer–brand relationships were present. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Social Bonds and Latino/A Victimization: An Examination of Mediating and Moderating Effects

Studies of Latino/a/x crime and victimization have proliferated in recent years confirming three main empirical realities: race and ethnicity remain consistently linked to criminological outcomes, ...
Estimating the tactical impact of robot swarms using a semi-automated forces system and design of experiments methods:

Militaries are developing autonomous robots to conduct missions such as reconnaissance and surveillance. Some of those robots are intended to operate in swarms. Because operational robot swarms are...
Steroid-Induced Sinus Bradycardia

Steroids are one of the most commonly used drugs and known to be associated with several side effects. There have been case reports about the associated sinus bradycardia with pulse dose corticosteroids administration both IV and oral. We present a case of asymptomatic sinus bradycardia associated with oral prednisone 40 mg. A 69-year-old male was admitted to the ICU for sepsis and subsequently was found to have gastrointestinal (GI) bleed. He developed an acute gout attack during hospitalization and was treated with prednisone 40 mg. Over the next 24 hours, the patient's heart rate dropped to 30s to 40s beats/minute while other vitals have remained stable. He was monitored on telemetry and review of the rhythm strips, as well as a 12-lead electrocardiogram (EKG), that showed sinus bradycardia; no pauses or atrio-ventricular (AV) nodal blocks were identified. The patient was not on any beta blocker or other therapies commonly associated with sinus bradycardia. His steroids were stopped while all other medications were continued. His heart rate slowly started to improve over the next 24 hours. He was not found to have any further episodes of bradycardia. Our case is unusual as we noted transient asymptomatic bradycardia with oral prednisone 40 mg dose. While bradycardia is reversible and may go unnoticed, it is important for the clinician to be aware of this adverse effect and include it in the list of potential differentials for bradycardia.
NCI Awardee Skills Development Consortium (NASDC): Applicant profiles

Background: In 2020, the NCI funded a new educational consortium, NASDC (NCI Awardee Skills Development Consortium, RFA-CA-19-010 and -011), through four institutionally granted UE5 awards to deliver a specific course each and a U24 award as a Coordinating Center. The goal is to teach current early-career faculty NCI grantees skills in areas critical for successful independent academic cancer research careers. Courses focus on leadership and socioemotional skills, health disparities, immuno-oncology, and cell and gene therapy. Teaching will initially be virtual, given the COVID pandemic. Methods: A steering committee and four working groups were established to build the consortium infrastructure, including the NASDC (osu.edu) website. Clientele are early-career faculty PD/PI of a current NCI-funded grant (K01, K07, K08, K22, K23, K25, R00, R21, DP1, DP2, DP5, R01, R23, R29, R37, R56, RF1, RL1, U01), of whom 454 were directly contacted. Blast emails and social media were also used. We are reporting the characteristics of 154 applicants, who completed the RedCap application online. Results: 85% of the applicants are within the first 5 years of a faculty appointment, 87% at the assistant professor rank, and 65% on tenure track. 40% hold an M.D. degree and 72% a Ph.D. 81% are US citizens, 52% females, and 45/33/16/2/4%-11% are White/Asian/Black/Native Americans/Other-Hispanics/Latino. 76% work at NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers. Mean protected research time is 80%. Nonmutually exclusive fields of research interest are therapeutics (46%), basic science (37%), disparities (34%) prevention (32%), public health (28%), and pediatrics (10%). 66% have received a K-award grant, 13% each an R21 or R00, and 3% an R01. Additionally, 35% had a second NCI grant as PI, 10% a third grant, and 60% had non-NCI grants. Reasons for applying included (1) not quite ready to lead a research team (42%), (2) need for stronger career mentoring (37%), and (3) not being fully confident in research skills (21%). Conclusions: Applicants to the new NCI educational consortium (NASDC) have a successful start to their academic career with a third having obtained more than one NCI award. Most applicants work at NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers. As cancer research continues to evolve and has the potential to address critical health care needs of the nation, NASDC will strive to equip scientists to be leaders, teach advances in technology, and impart confidence in research skills.
Fibers Generated by Plasma Des-AA Fibrin Monomers and Protofibril/Fibrinogen Clusters Bind Platelets: Clinical and Nonclinical Implications

Objective Soluble fibrin (SF) is a substantial component of plasma fibrinogen (fg), but its composition, functions, and clinical relevance remain unclear. The study aimed to evaluate the molecular composition and procoagulant function(s) of SF. Materials and Methods Cryoprecipitable, SF-rich (FR) and cryosoluble, SF-depleted (FD) fg isolates were prepared and adsorbed on one hydrophilic and two hydrophobic surfaces and scanned by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Standard procedures were used for fibrin polymerization, crosslinking by factor XIII, electrophoresis, and platelet adhesion. Results Relative to FD fg, thrombin-induced polymerization of FR fg was accelerated and that induced by reptilase was markedly delayed, attributable to its decreased (fibrinopeptide A) FpA. FR fg adsorption to each surface yielded polymeric clusters and co-cryoprecipitable solitary monomers. Cluster components were crosslinked by factor XIII and comprised ≤21% of FR fg. In contrast to FD fg, FR fg adsorption on hydrophobic surfaces resulted in fiber generation enabled by both clusters and solitary monomers. This began with numerous short protofibrils, which following prolonged adsorption increased in number and length and culminated in surface-linked three-dimensional fiber networks that bound platelets. Conclusion The abundance of adsorbed protofibrils resulted from (1) protofibril/fg clusters whose fg was dissociated during adsorption, and (2) adsorbed des-AA monomers that attracted solution counterparts initiating protofibril assembly and elongation by their continued incorporation. The substantial presence of both components in transfused plasma and cryoprecipitate augments hemostasis by accelerating thrombin-induced fibrin polymerization and by tightly anchoring the resulting clot to the underlying wound or to other abnormal vascular surfaces.
Endovascular Thrombectomy Treatment: Beyond Early Time Windows and Small Core.

ABSTRACT Tremendous advancements in the treatment of acute ischemic stroke in the last 25 years have been based on the principle of reperfusion in early time windows and identification of small core infarct for intravenous thrombolysis and mechanical thrombectomy. Advances in neuroimaging have made possible the safe treatment of patients with acute ischemic stroke in longer time windows and with more specific selection of patients with salvageable brain tissue. In this review, we discuss the history of endovascular stroke thrombectomy trials and highlight the neuroimaging-based trials that validated mechanical thrombectomy techniques in the extended time window with assessment of penumbral tissue. We conclude with a survey of currently open trials that seek to safely expand eligibility for this highly efficacious treatment.
The effect of early versus late cord clamping on signs of respiratory distress.

Abstract Of the 424 vaginally delivered infants in our study, 222 were in the early clamp group and 202 in the late clamp group. Thirty infants in the early group and 15 in the late group were low birth weight infants. There was no significant difference in the frequency or severity of respiratory distress between the two groups, in either the term or premature infants. We were unable to demonstrate that the time of the first breath in relation to cord clamping was related to the frequency or severity of respiratory distress.
Stability of Periodic Linear Systems and the Geometry of Lie Groups

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the stability of periodic linear systems and the geometry of lie groups. In a study on the stability of linear periodic canonical systems, Gel’fand and Lidskii investigate certain aspects of the geometry of the group of symplectic matrices. They show that the interior of the subset of the 2 n x 2 n symplectic matrices ( Sp ( n )), which consists of those matrices similar to orthogonal ones, has 2 n connected components—a particular component being characterized by the distribution of Floquet multipliers of first and second type in the sense of Krein. Krein's work establishes that for Hill's equation, one of these connected components plays a particularly important role. The chapter describes the geometric content of the Liapunov–Krein theorems in the context of the theory of Lie groups. Many results on the stability of Hill's equation have an interpretation in terms of a variational problem of the above type on the symplectic group. The boundedness, asymptotic stability is properties of linear systems of differential equations that are preserved under tensoring and reduction.
Efficient parallel recursion

A simple mechanism is proposed for dynamic memory allocation of a parallel recursive program with Algol-like scope rules. The method is about as fast as the traditional stack discipline for sequential languages. It has been used to implement the parallel programming language SuperPascal.
Analysis of Random Noise and Random Walk Algorithms for Satisfiability Testing

Random Noise and Random Walk algorithms are local search strategies that have been used for the problem of satisfiability testing (SAT). We present a Markov-chain based analysis of the performance of these algorithms. The performance measures we consider are the probability of finding a satisfying assignment and the distribution of the best solution observed on a given SAT instance. The analysis provides exact statistics, but is restricted to small problems as it requires the storage and use of knowledge about the entire search space. We examine the effect of p, the probability of making non-greedy moves, on these algorithms and provide a justification for the practice of choosing this value empirically.
An Organocatalysis Based Carbocyclic Spiroindoline Synthesis Enables Facile Structure–Activity Relationship (SAR) Study at C2 Position

An asymmetric synthesis of carbocyclic spiroindoline by sequential Michael reaction and [3 + 2]-cycloaddition is described. This protocol demonstrates excellent enantio- and diastereoselectivity with broad functional group tolerance. A diverse range of spiroindolines were prepared by this approach, and the products served as ideal substrates for C2 derivatization.
Do Firm Boundaries Matter

In his famous article, “The Nature of the Firm,” Ronald Coase (1937) raised two fundamental questions that have spawned a large body of research: Do firm boundaries affect the allocation of resources? And, what determines where firm boundaries are drawn? While the first of these questions has received some theoretical attention (notably, Oliver Williamson [1975, 1985], Benjamin Klein et al. [1978], and Sanford Grossman and Oliver Hart [1986]), it has largely been ignored empirically. Instead, the empirical work in this area, discussed in the other articles in this session, has addressed the second question by analyzing the determinants of vertical integration. Thus, while we know something about the forces that determine firm boundaries, we know relatively little about how these boundaries affect actual firm behavior. This is a major limitation in our understanding of the nature of the firm. To begin to assess how firm boundaries affect behavior, we analyze whether there are differences between integrated and nonintegrated chemical manufacturers in their investments in production capacity. We focus on producers of vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), the sole use of which is in the production of the widely used waterproof plastic, polyvinyl chloride (PVC). VCM is a homogenous commodity and is traded in relatively liquid markets. Moreover, there is no obvious production link between VCM and PVC other than that one is an input into the other. For example, PVC is not a byproduct of VCM production. Nevertheless, twothirds of VCM producers in our sample are integrated downstream into PVC. The existing literature would ask why we observe this degree of integration. We ask instead whether integrated and nonintegrated VCM producers invest differently in production capacity.
Long-term financial incentives and investment in daughters : evidence from conditional cash transfers in north India

Since the early 1990s, several states in India have introduced financial incentive programs to discourage son preference among parents and encourage investment in daughters' education and health. This study evaluates one such program in the state of Haryana, Apni Beti Apna Dhan (Our Daughter, Our Wealth). Since 1994, eligible parents in Haryana have been offered a financial incentive if they give birth to a daughter. The incentive consists of an immediate cash grant and a long-term savings bond redeemable on the daughter's 18th birthday provided she is unmarried, with additional bonuses for education. Although no specific program participation data are available, we estimate early intent-to-treat program effects on mothers (sex ratio among live children, fertility preferences) and children (mother's use of antenatal care, survival, nutritional status, immunization, schooling) using statewide household survey data on fertility and child health, and constructing proxies for household and individual program eligibility. The results based on this limited data imply that Apni Beti Apna Dhan had a positive effect on the sex ratio of living children, but inconclusive effects on mothers' preferences for having female children as well as total desired fertility. The findings also show that parents increased their investment in daughters' human capital as a result of the program. Families made greater post-natal health investments in eligible girls, with some mixed evidence of improving health status in the short and medium term. Further evidence also suggests that the early cohort of eligible school-age girls was not significantly more likely to attend school; however, conditional on first attending any school, they may be more likely to continue their education.
On a logical foundation for explicit substitutions

Traditionally, calculi of explicit substitution [1] have been conceived as an implementation technique for β-reduction and studied with the tools of rewriting theory. This computational view has been extremely fruitful (see [2] for a recent survey) and raises the question if there may also be a more abstract underlying logical foundation.
Estimating the world at work

What is the work status of the world's working-age population? This paper presents estimates of a breakdown on employment in services, industry, and agriculture - and unemployment - in the world and subgroups there of. Addressing the question, What is the work status of the world's working-age population and subgroups thereof? Filmer gathers data for many countries and infers data where it is missing (which requires making heroic assumptions). The results are of course only as good as the data are representative and accurate. Data are least reliable for Sub-Saharan Africa. The high-income group is dominated (in population) by the United States, Germany, and Japan, which account for 58 percent of that group's working-age population. The middle-income group is dominated by Indonesia, the Russian Federation, and Brazil, which account for 40 percent of that group's working-age population. The low-income group is dominated by China and India, which account for 70 percent of that group's working-page population. Among other things, Filmer's charts and tables show the breakdown on working-age employment - in services, industry, agriculture - and unemployment in various parts of the world. This paper - a product of the Office of the Vice President, Development Economics - was prepared as a background paper for World Development Report 1995 on labor.
An entropy sumset inequality and polynomially fast convergence to shannon capacity over all alphabets

We prove a lower estimate on the increase in entropy when two copies of a conditional random variable X|Y, with X supported on Zq = {0,1,..., q − 1} for prime q, are summed modulo q. Specifically, given two i.i.d. copies (X1, Y1) and (X2, Y2) of a pair of random variables (X, Y), with X taking values in Zq, we showH(X1 + X2 | Y1, Y2) - H(X|Y ) ≥ α(q) · H(X|Y)(1 - H(X|Y))for some α(q) > 0, where H (·) is the normalized (by factor log2q) entropy. In particular, if X|Y is not close to being fully random or fully deterministic and H(X|Y) ∈ (γ, 1-γ), then the entropy of the sum increases by Ωq (γ). Our motivation is an effective analysis of the finite-length behavior of polar codes, for which the linear dependence on γ is quantitatively important. The assumption of q being prime is necessary: for X supported uniformly on a proper subgroup of Zq we have H(X + X) = H(X). For X supported on infinite groups without a finite subgroup (the torsion-free case) and no conditioning, a sumset inequality for the absolute increase in (unnormalized) entropy was shown by Tao in [20].We use our sumset inequality to analyze Arikan's construction of polar codes and prove that for any q-ary source X, where q is any fixed prime, and any e > 0, polar codes allow efficient data compression of N i.i.d. copies of X into (H(X) + e)N q-ary symbols, as soon as N is polynomially large in 1/e. We can get capacity-achieving source codes with similar guarantees for composite alphabets, by factoring q into primes and combining different polar codes for each prime in factorization.A consequence of our result for noisy channel coding is that for all discrete memoryless channels, there are explicit codes enabling reliable communication within e > 0 of the symmetric Shannon capacity for a block length and decoding complexity bounded by a polynomial in 1/e. The result was previously shown for the special case of binary-input channels [7, 9], and this work extends the result to channels over any alphabet.
Extending higher-order unification to support proof irrelevance

As theories and proofs in logical frameworks become larger, careful control over what information within them can safely be omitted or erased becomes useful for efficient implementation. The notion of proof irrelevance provides exactly this control, but requires existing algorithms used in logical frameworks, in particular higher-order pattern unification, to be extended to accommodate the richer type theory. We describe this extended algorithm, whose presentation is simplified by making use of recent developments in explaining unification metavariables as modal variables, which obviates the need for full explicit substitutions.
Accelerated Depreciation and the Efficacy of Temporary Fiscal Policy: Implications for an Inflationary Economy

Abstract The effect on investment of temporary tax rate changes depends on the age profile of depreciation deductions. If the depreciation allowance schedule is accelerated, then temporary cuts in the corporate tax rate could reduce investment. Inflation causes the age profile of real depreciation deductions to become accelerated and thus could make temporary tax cuts have a contractionary effect on investment. Two currently proposed reforms are shown to exacerbate this effect. Under each of these proposals, temporary tax cuts are likely to have opposite effects on investment in short-lived and long-lived capital, thereby complicating the conduct of countercyclical fiscal policy.
LDPC codes which can correct three errors under iterative decoding

In this paper, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for a column-weight-three LDPC code to correct all patterns up to three errors when decoded using Gallager A algorithm. We then provide a construction technique which results in a code satisfying the above conditions. We also provide numerical assessment of code performance via simulation results.
Multi-stream join answering for mining significant cross-stream correlations

Sliding-window multi-stream join (SWMJ) is a fundamental operation for correlating information from different streams. We provide a solution to the problem of assessing significance of the SWMJ result by focusing on the relative frequency of windows satisfying a given equijoin predicate as the most important parameter of the SWMJ result. In particular, we derive a formula for computing the expected relative frequency of windows satisfying a given equijoin predicate that can be evaluated in quadratic time in the window size given a proposed probabilistic model of the multi-stream. In experiments conducted on a daily rainfall data set we demonstrate the remarkable accuracy of our method, which confirms our theoretical analysis.
Short bowel syndrome

This article discusses the management of short bowel syndrome during the neonatal period. It includes information regarding etiology and pathophysiology and parenteral and enteral nutrition therapy. Finally, a discussion of the role of intestinal transplantation in the treatment of short bowel syndrome is included.
Evolution from entanglement to decoherence of bipartite mixed X states

We examine a class of bipartite mixed states which we call X states and report several analytic results related to the occurrence of early-stage decoherence or so-called entanglement sudden death (ESD) under time evolution in the presence of common types of environmental noise. Avoidance of sudden death by application of purely local operations is shown to be feasible in some cases.
Experimental Approaches in Migration Studies

The decision of whether or not to migrate has far-reaching consequences for the lives of individuals and their families. But the very nature of this choice makes identifying the impacts of migration difficult, since it is hard to measure a credible counterfactual of what the person and their household would have been doing had migration not occurred. Migration experiments provide a clear and credible way for identifying this counterfactual, and thereby allowing causal estimation of the impacts of migration. The authors provide an overview and critical review of the three strands of this approach: policy experiments, natural experiments, and researcher-led field experiments. The purpose is to introduce readers to the need for this approach, give examples of where it has been applied in practice, and draw out lessons for future work in this area.
Automatic paraphrase acquisition from news articles

Paraphrases play an important role in the variety and complexity of natural language documents. However, they add to the difficulty of natural language processing. Here we describe a procedure for obtaining paraphrases from news articles. Articles derived from different newspapers can contain paraphrases if they report the same event on the same day. We exploit this feature by using Named Entity recognition. Our approach is based on the assumption that Named Entities are preserved across paraphrases. We applied our method to articles of two domains and obtained notable examples. Although this is our initial attempt at automatically extracting paraphrases from a corpus, the results are promising.
Path tracking of highly dynamic autonomous vehicle trajectories via iterative learning control

Autonomous vehicles will benefit from the ability to perform aggressive driving maneuvers in safety-critical situations where the full use of available tire-road friction is required. Unfortunately, vehicle steering dynamics become highly nonlinear and difficult to model near the limits of tire adhesion, making accurate control of these maneuvers difficult. One promising approach is to use iterative learning control (ILC) as a method of gradually determining the proper steering input for a transient driving maneuver by repeating the maneuver several times and using information from previous iterations to improve the reference tracking performance. This paper explores the viability of this concept by applying learning algorithms for multiple-lap path tracking of an autonomous race vehicle. Racing is an ideal scenario for iterative learning control because race cars drive the same sequence of turns while operating near the physical limits of tire-road friction. This creates a repeatable set of nonlinear vehicle dynamics and road conditions from lap to lap. Simulation results are used to design and test convergence of both a proportional-derivative (PD) and quadratically optimal (Q-ILC) iterative learning controller, and experimental results are presented on an Audi TTS race vehicle driving several laps around Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA at combined vehicle accelerations of up to 8 m/s2. Both control algorithms are able to correct transient path tracking errors and significantly improve the performance provided by a reference feedforward controller.
The expected extremes in a Delaunay triangulation

We give an expected-case analysis of Delaunay triangulations. To avoid edge effects we consider a unit-intensity Poisson process in Euclidean d-space, and then limit attention to the portion of the triangulation within a cube of side n1/d. For d equal to two, we calculate the expected maximum edge length, the expected minimum and maximum angles, and the average aspect ratio of a triangle. We also show that in any fixed dimension the expected maximum vertex degree is Θ(log n/log log n). Altogether our results provide some measure of the suitability of the Delaunay triangulation for certain applications, such as interpolation and mesh generation.
Roles of gut hormones in negative-feedback regulation of pancreatic exocrine secretion in humans

Abstract Background/Aims: Secretin has been shown to mediate feedback control of pancreatic secretion of fluid and bicarbonate in rats, guinea pigs, and dogs. However, little is known about secretin in the feedback regulation in humans. We investigated the roles of secretin, cholecystokinin, neurotensin, and pancreatic polypeptide on feedback regulation of pancreatic secretion in 10 human volunteers. Methods: A 5-lumen tube was positioned in the proximal jejunum of fasting subjects under fluoroscopy so that gastric juice via lumen 1 and duodenal contents via lumen 3 were collected separately in 15-minute samples while polyethylene glycol solution was infused into duodenum via lumen 2. An acidified (pH 2.0) 4.25% amino acid mixed with phenol red was infused into proximal jejunum via lumen 4, which was alternated with NaHC0 3 (control solution) or trypsin (test solution) via lumen 5 intermittently every 15 minutes during separate test periods. Results: Infusion of control solution significantly increased both bicarbonate (total change [Δ], 7799 ± 1400 μmol/h) and chymotrypsin (Δ 5500 ± 762 μmol/h) outputs and levels of all four plasma hormones. The test solution significantly inhibited both bicarbonate (Δ 2999 ± 700 gmmol/h; P P Conclusions: A negative-feedback regulation of pancreatic secretion of bicarbonate and enzyme occurs in humans and is mediated via both secretin and cholecystokinin.
Credit Constraints and Investment Behavior in Mexico’s Rural Economy

This paper uses two recently completed surveys of individual entrepreneurs (farmers and microentrepreneurs) and registered enterprises (agricultural and nonagricultural) operating in Mexicos rural sector to provide new evidence about the factors influencing the incidence of credit constraints and investment behavior. To measure the incidence of credit constraints, the authors use self-reported information on whether economic agents have a demand for loans, separating formal and informal markets. They define credit constraints as a situation where rural agents report an unsatisfied demand for loans (formal or informal), which originates from rural agents having projects that are too risky or from impediments hindering the ability of rural agents and lenders to reduce information asymmetries. The authors find that the self-reported demand for loans is low. Nevertheless, the incidence of credit constraints is pervasive, especially among individual entrepreneurs. The low use of loans has consequences for the amount of investments that occur in the rural economy, posing a major obstacle to Mexicos convergence towards its NAFTA partners. The empirical analysis, which includes proxies of business prospects and creditworthiness, shows that improving the availability of loans to credit constrained agents would increase the number of agents making investments and their investment to capital ratios.
Computation techniques and computer programs to analyze Stirling cycle engines using characteristic dynamic energy equations

The basic equations that are used to describe the physical phenomena in a Stirling cycle engine are the general energy equations and equations for the conservation of mass and conversion of momentum. These equations, together with the equation of state, an analytical expression for the gas velocity, and an equation for mesh temperature are used in this computer study of Stirling cycle characteristics. The partial differential equations describing the physical phenomena that occurs in a Stirling cycle engine are of the hyperbolic type. The hyperbolic equations have real characteristic lines. By utilizing appropriate points along these curved lines the partial differential equations can be reduced to ordinary differential equations. These equations are solved numerically using a fourth-fifth order Runge-Kutta integration technique.
Syntax-Driven private evaluation of quantified membership queries

Membership queries are basic predicate operations that apply to datasets. Quantifications of such queries express global properties between datasets, including subset inclusion and disjointness. These operations are basic tools in set-theoretic data-mining procedures such as frequent-itemset-mining. In this work we formalize a family of such queries syntactically and we consider how they can be evaluated in a privacy-preserving fashion. We present a syntax-driven compiler that produces a protocol for each query and we show that semantically such queries correspond to basic set operation predicates between datasets. Using our compiler and based on the fact that it is syntax-driven, two parties can generate various privacy-preserving protocols with different complexity behavior that allow them to efficiently and securely evaluate the predicate of interest without sharing information about the datasets they possess. Our compiler sheds new light on the complexity of privacy-preserving evaluation of predicates such as disjointness and subset-inclusion and achieves substantial complexity improvements compared to previous works in terms of round as well as communication complexity. In particular, among others, we present protocols for both predicates that require one-round of interaction and have communication less than the size of the universe, while previously the only one round protocols known had communication proportional to the size of the universe.