cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Unilateral ectopic insertion of the pectoralis minor: Clinical and functional significance

During routine dissection of a 70-year-old female, we observed a unilateral ectopic insertion of the left pectoralis minor muscle. The tendon was cord-like and passed through a tendon sheath superior to the coracoid process to insert on the greater tubercle of the humerus. Additionally, an aponeurosis extended from the distal aspect of the muscle's tendon and passed medially to insert near the base of the coracoid process. This is the first report of an additional aponeurosis extending from the tendon of the pectoralis minor and attaching to the coracoid process. We also observed that the pectoralis minor tendon caused an unusually smooth deep indentation on the superior aspect of the coracoid process; considering its insertion on the humerus, we hypothesize that the muscle acted as an abductor of the shoulder along with the supraspinatus. The medial extension of an aponeurotic tendon from the pectoralis minor tendon near its insertion, to the base of the coracoid process further suggests that the muscle provided stability to the glenohumeral joint while acting as an abductor. Pectoralis minor variations have been described since 1897; however, few studies have demonstrated functional or clinical significance. The redundancy of the actions of this muscle along with its long tendon suggests a potential source for autograft.
Far-ultraviolet objective spectra of comet P/Halley from sounding rockets

A sounding rocket payload to obtain far ultraviolet spectral images of comet P/Halley was launched on 1986 February 24 and again on 1986 March 13. The second flight occurred 13 hours prior to the Giotto spacecraft flyby of the comet. The payload included an objective grating spectrograph, consisting of an F/1.5 microchannel plate intensified electrographic Schmidt camera pointed at a plane grating. The instrument field of view was 12° with a spatial resolution of 1´ and a point source wavelength resolution of 0.1 nm. High quality images of the oxygen coma at 130.4 nm, the carbon coma at 156.1 nm and 165.7 nm, and the sulphur coma at 181.4 nm were obtained. The images have been analyzed using a radial outflow model to derive production rates for these species.
EXTERNALITIES AND THE SIX FACETS MODEL OF TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT: GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS IN AGRIBUSINESS

The Six Facets Model of technology management has previously only been applied to process innovation at the firm and the industry level. In this article, the model is applied to product innovation for the first time. In the context of genetically-modified organisms in the agribusiness industry, we examine radical product innovation through the Six Facets Model. We propose, based on the history of genetically-modified organisms in agribusiness, that when applied to product innovation the Six Facets Model will benefit considerably from the inclusion of potential negative externalities and the reactions of external stakeholders.
Relative Importance of Applicant Sex, Attractiveness, and Scholastic Standing in Evaluation of Job Applicant Résumés

College students (« = 30) and professional interviewers (n ~ 30) rated and ranked bogus resumes on suitability for a managerial position. Applicant sex, physical attractiveness, and scholastic standing were systematically varied in the resumes. A 2 X 2 X 2 X 3 repeated measures analysis of variance on the ratings yielded four significant main effects (p < .OS), while the same analysis on the rankings yielded three significant main effects (p<.Q\). Students rated applicants more favorably than professionals. Both groups preferred males to females, attractive applicants to unattractive applicants, and applicants of high scholastic standing. The latter variable accounted for the greatest proportion of variance. However, internal analyses of the rankings revealed sex and physical attractiveness were more important than indicated by the analysis of variance.
Sharp Examples for Planar Quasiconformal Distortion of Hausdorff Measures and Removability

In the celebrated paper [5, Acta Mathematica, 173, 1994], Astala showed optimal area distortion bounds and dimension distortion estimates for planar quasiconformal mappings. He asked (Question 4.4) whether a finer result held, namely absolute continuity of Hausdorff measures under push-forward by quasiconformal mappings. This was proved in one particular case relevant for removability questions, in the joint work of Astala, Clop, Mateu, Orobitg and the author [6, Duke Mathematical Journal, forthcoming] (Theorem 1.1), the other cases remaining open. A related question that we left open in [6] (Question 4.2) (which was asked by Astala to the author before [6] in an equivalent form [4, Personal communication]) is whether BMO removability for K-quasiregular mappings and (L ∞ ) removability for K-quasiregular mappings are indeed different problems. In this paper, we give a series of examples answering the positive Question 4.2 in [6], at the same time proving sharpness in two different senses of Theorem 1.1 in [6], and also giving examples that would yield sharpness in those two different senses as well for the absolute continuity of Hausdorff measures under push-forward by quasiconformal mappings, were it to be proved.
Budget-Optimal Task Allocation for Reliable Crowdsourcing Systems

Crowdsourcing systems, in which numerous tasks are electronically distributed to numerous “information pieceworkers,” have emerged as an effective paradigm for human-powered solving of large-scale problems in domains such as image classification, data entry, optical character recognition, recommendation, and proofreading. Because these low-paid workers can be unreliable, nearly all such systems must devise schemes to increase confidence in their answers, typically by assigning each task multiple times and combining the answers in an appropriate manner, e.g., majority voting. In this paper, we consider a general model of such crowdsourcing tasks and pose the problem of minimizing the total price i.e., number of task assignments that must be paid to achieve a target overall reliability. We give a new algorithm for deciding which tasks to assign to which workers and for inferring correct answers from the workers' answers. We show that our algorithm, inspired by belief propagation and low-rank matrix approximation, significantly outperforms majority voting and, in fact, is optimal through comparison to an oracle that knows the reliability of every worker. Further, we compare our approach with a more general class of algorithms that can dynamically assign tasks. By adaptively deciding which questions to ask to the next set of arriving workers, one might hope to reduce uncertainty more efficiently. We show that, perhaps surprisingly, the minimum price necessary to achieve a target reliability scales in the same manner under both adaptive and nonadaptive scenarios. Hence, our nonadaptive approach is order optimal under both scenarios. This strongly relies on the fact that workers are fleeting and cannot be exploited. Therefore, architecturally, our results suggest that building a reliable worker-reputation system is essential to fully harnessing the potential of adaptive designs.
Radio Galaxy Redshift-Angular Size Data Constraints on Dark Energy

We use FRIIb radio galaxy redshift-angular size data to constrain cosmological parameters in a dark energy scalar field model. The derived constraints are consistent with, but weaker than, those determined using Type Ia supernova redshift-magnitude data.
Ethnic and gender differences in psychological reactance: the importance of reactance in multicultural counselling

Psychological reactance is the tendency of a person to act in a way to protect personal freedoms from actual or perceived threats. Psychological reactance has been shown to be a factor in the process and outcome of therapy and may be an important variable in multicultural counselling. It has been noted that multicultural counselling competencies are critical to the process of therapy when members of the counselling dyad are racially dissimilar. In the current study undergraduates completed the Therapeutic Reactance Scale and a demographic questionnaire. Results found significant effects for ethnicity and gender. Specifically, African Americans were likely to produce higher reactance scores than Caucasians and males produced higher reactance scores than females. There was not a significant interaction between ethnicity and gender. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of multicultural counselling and the process of therapy.
The homology of real subspace arrangements

Associated to any subspace arrangement is a ‘De Concini–Procesi model’, a certain smooth compactification of its complement, which in the case of the braid arrangement produces the Deligne–Mumford compactification of the moduli space of genus 0 curves with marked points. In the present work, we calculate the integral homology of real De Concini–Procesi models, extending earlier work of Etingof, Henriques, Kamnitzer and the author on the (2-adic) integral cohomology of the real locus of the moduli space. To be precise, we show that the integral homology of a real De Concini–Procesi model is isomorphic modulo its 2-torsion to a sum of cohomology groups of subposets of the intersection lattice of the arrangement. As part of the proof, we construct a large family of natural maps between De Concini–Procesi models (generalizing the operad structure of moduli space), and determine the induced action on poset cohomology. In particular, this determines the ring structure of the cohomology of De Concini–Procesi models (modulo 2-torsion).
Human Rights and Development: a Comment on Challenges and Opportunities from a Legal Perspective

Human rights and development continue to reflect a separate evolution. This article explores challenges which characterize the relationship between human rights and development from a legal perspective suggesting reasons why the tensions and disconnects endure. It makes an obvious, but nevertheless underappreciated point: human rights are the subject of binding international legal obligations and their relevance to development can be understood in light of this. The first part of this article addresses the challenges of integrating human rights in development and the divergences of discourse and policy frameworks. The consequences of these divergences are examined, including a lack of prominence for legal duties for human rights in development, the absence of a normative baseline against which to check development processes and outcomes, an overall lack of policy coherence and a potential undermining of human rights accountability. The article concludes by highlighting opportunities extant in the international human rights law framework. The legal challenges and opportunities are viewed as interconnected: obstacles confronted in integrating human rights in development may be to be rooted in a neglect of the normative and legal dimensions of human rights, which in turn point to opportunities for greater convergence and coherence around international legal frameworks.
IDENTIFYING IONIZED REGIONS IN NOISY REDSHIFTED 21 cm DATA SETS

One of the most promising approaches for studying reionization is to use the redshifted 21 cm line. Early generations of redshifted 21 cm surveys will not, however, have the sensitivity to make detailed maps of the reionization process, and will instead focus on statistical measurements. Here, we show that it may nonetheless be possible to directly identify ionized regions in upcoming data sets by applying suitable filters to the noisy data. The locations of prominent minima in the filtered data correspond well with the positions of ionized regions. In particular, we corrupt semi-numeric simulations of the redshifted 21 cm signal during reionization with thermal noise at the level expected for a 500 antenna tile version of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), and mimic the degrading effects of foreground cleaning. Using a matched filter technique, we find that the MWA should be able to directly identify ionized regions despite the large thermal noise. In a plausible fiducial model in which {approx}20% of the volume of the universe is neutral at z {approx} 7, we find that a 500-tile MWA may directly identify as many as {approx}150 ionized regions in a 6 MHz portion of its survey volume and roughly determine themore » size of each of these regions. This may, in turn, allow interesting multi-wavelength follow-up observations, comparing galaxy properties inside and outside of ionized regions. We discuss how the optimal configuration of radio antenna tiles for detecting ionized regions with a matched filter technique differs from the optimal design for measuring power spectra. These considerations have potentially important implications for the design of future redshifted 21 cm surveys.« less
Garbage collection for multicore NUMA machines

Modern high-end machines feature multiple processor packages, each of which contains multiple independent cores and integrated memory controllers connected directly to dedicated physical RAM. These packages are connected via a shared bus, creating a system with a heterogeneous memory hierarchy. Since this shared bus has less bandwidth than the sum of the links to memory, aggregate memory bandwidth is higher when parallel threads all access memory local to their processor package than when they access memory attached to a remote package. This bandwidth limitation has traditionally limited the scalability of modern functional language implementations, which seldom scale well past 8 cores, even on small benchmarks.This work presents a garbage collector integrated with our strict, parallel functional language implementation, Manticore, and shows that it scales effectively on both a 48-core AMD Opteron machine and a 32-core Intel Xeon machine.
A nonlinear equation for ionic diffusion in a strong binary electrolyte

The problem of the one-dimensional electro-diffusion of ions in a strong binary electrolyte is considered. The mathematical description, known as the Poisson–Nernst–Planck (PNP) system, consists of a diffusion equation for each species augmented by transport owing to a self-consistent electrostatic field determined by the Poisson equation. This description is also relevant to other important problems in physics, such as electron and hole diffusion across semiconductor junctions and the diffusion of ions in plasmas. If concentrations do not vary appreciably over distances of the order of the Debye length, the Poisson equation can be replaced by the condition of local charge neutrality first introduced by Planck. It can then be shown that both species diffuse at the same rate with a common diffusivity that is intermediate between that of the slow and fast species (ambipolar diffusion). Here, we derive a more general theory by exploiting the ratio of the Debye length to a characteristic length scale as a small asymptotic parameter. It is shown that the concentration of either species may be described by a nonlinear partial differential equation that provides a better approximation than the classical linear equation for ambipolar diffusion, but reduces to it in the appropriate limit.
Query expansion based on clustered results

Query expansion is a functionality of search engines that suggests a set of related queries for a user-issued keyword query. Typical corpus-driven keyword query expansion approaches return popular words in the results as expanded queries. Using these approaches, the expanded queries may correspond to a subset of possible query semantics, and thus miss relevant results. To handle ambiguous queries and exploratory queries, whose result relevance is difficult to judge, we propose a new framework for keyword query expansion: we start with clustering the results according to user specified granularity, and then generate expanded queries, such that one expanded query is generated for each cluster whose result set should ideally be the corresponding cluster. We formalize this problem and show its APX-hardness. Then we propose two efficient algorithms named iterative single-keyword refinement and partial elimination based convergence, respectively, which effectively generate a set of expanded queries from clustered results that provides a classification of the original query results. We believe our study of generating an optimal query based on the ground truth of the query results not only has applications in query expansion, but has significance for studying keyword search quality in general.
The distribution of the domination number of class cover catch digraphs for non-uniform one-dimensional data

For two or more classes of points in R^d with d>=1, the class cover catch digraphs (CCCDs) can be constructed using the relative positions of the points from one class with respect to the points from one or all of the other classes. The CCCDs were introduced by Priebe et al. [C.E. Priebe, J.G. DeVinney, D.J. Marchette, On the distribution of the domination number of random class catch cover digraphs. Statistics and Probability Letters 55 (2001) 239-246] who investigated the case of two classes, X and Y. They calculated the exact (i.e., finite sample) distribution of the domination number of the CCCDs based on X points relative to Y points both of which were uniformly distributed on a bounded interval. We investigate the distribution of the domination number of the CCCDs based on data from non-uniform X points on an interval with end points from Y. Then we extend these calculations for multiple Y points on bounded intervals.
A history of CLU

The idea of a data abstraction has had a significant impact on the development of programming languages and on programming methodology. CLU was the first implemented programming language to provide direct linguistic support for data abstraction. This paper provides a history of data abstraction and CLU. CLU contains a number of other interesting and influential features, including its exception handling mechanism, its iterators, and its parameterized types.
Solution-Phase Parallel Synthesis of a Library of Δ2-Pyrazolines

A parallel synthesis of a library (80 members) of 2-pyrazolines in solution phase is described. The 2-pyrazoline core was accessed through the [3 + 2] cycloaddition of nitrilimines with enoyl oxazolidinones. The cycloaddition provided two regioisomers, the major product being the C regioisomer. The oxazolidinone moiety was further reduced to the primary alcohol, producing another library of 5-hydroxymethyl-2-pyrazolines. The Lipinski profiles and calculated ADME properties of the compounds are also reported.
Who Receives Speech/Language Services by 5 Years of Age in the United States?

Purpose We sought to identify factors predictive of or associated with receipt of speech/language services during early childhood. We did so by analyzing data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort (ECLS-B; Andreassen & Fletcher, 2005), a nationally representative data set maintained by the U.S. Department of Education. We addressed two research questions of particular importance to speech-language pathology practice and policy. First, do early vocabulary delays increase children's likelihood of receiving speech/language services? Second, are minority children systematically less likely to receive these services than otherwise similar White children? Method Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed for a population-based sample of 9,600 children and families participating in the ECLS-B. Results Expressive vocabulary delays by 24 months of age were strongly associated with and predictive of children's receipt of speech/language services at 24, 48, and 60 months of age (adju...
Kava: a Java dialect with a uniform object model for lightweight classes

Object-oriented programming languages have always distinguished between ‘primitive’ and ‘user-defined’ data types, and in the case of languages like C++ and Java the primitives are not even treated as objects, further fragmenting the programming model. The distinction is especially problematic when a particular programming community requires primitive-level support for a new data type, as for complex, intervals, fixed-point numbers, and so on. We present Kava, a design for a backward-compatible version of Java that solves the problem of programmable lightweight objects in a much more aggressive and uniform manner than previous proposals. In Kava, there are no primitive types; instead, object-oriented programming is provided down to the level of single bits, and types such as int can be explicitly programmed within the language. While the language maintains a uniform object reference semantics, efficiency is obtained by making heavy use of unboxing and semantic expansion. We describe Kava as a dialect of the Java language, show how it can be used to define various primitive types, describe how it can be translated into Java, and compare it to other approaches to lightweight objects. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The expectant management of placenta previa

Abstract One hundred five cases of placenta previa with one maternal death (0.95 per cent) and twenty-nine fetal deaths (28 per cent) are reviewed. The adequate replacement of blood loss, and caution in the use of vaginal manipulations, with delivery either by cesarean section, or induction of labor by rupture of the membranes, dependent upon the station of the presenting part, the degree of previa, and the condition of the cervix, have improved the maternal results in placenta previa. An improvement in the fetal results is dependent upon an attempt to carry these patients closer to term. Of seventy-four babies weighing 2,500 Gm. or more, eight (10 per cent) were lost, while on the other hand, of thirty-one babies weighing less than 2,500 Gm., twenty-one (68 per cent) were lost. An attempt to carry patients with placenta previa to term seems to be reasonably safe and is worthy of trial, although some of them will go into spontaneous labor prematurely, while others will have such persistent or profuse bleeding that one is reluctant to continue an expectant attitude. In forty-one patients so managed, there were five fetal deaths (12 per cent), four prematures, and one term baby which died of congenital defects.
Holographic black hole chemistry

Thermodynamic quantities associated with black holes in Anti-de Sitter space obey an interesting identity when the cosmological constant is included as one of the dynamical variables, the generalized Smarr relation. We show that this relation can easily be understood from the point of view of the dual holographic field theory. It amounts to the simple statement that the extensive thermodynamic quantities of a large N gauge theory only depend on the number of colors, N , via an overall factor of N 2.
The Diphoton Anomaly as Nonlinear Optics Effect

We speculate on the idea that the root cause of the recently reported diphoton excess at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a nonlinear quantum optics effect . The effect is likely to arise from the strong coupling of photons to the sea of relativistic Coulomb charges carried by light quarks.
Computer Analysis of Slope Stability

Computer program presented can solve great variety of slope stability problems; it is possible to analyze slope with any surface configuration, with one or two soil strata in any pattern, and with or without water table, pore pressures, increasing cohesion with depth, tension cracks, rigid base or loads anywhere on surface; computer will automatically search out minimum factor of safety, solving entire problem in few minutes.
Relationships between Lead Halide Perovskite Thin-Film Fabrication, Morphology, and Performance in Solar Cells.

Solution-processed lead halide perovskite thin-film solar cells have achieved power conversion efficiencies comparable to those obtained with several commercial photovoltaic technologies in a remarkably short period of time. This rapid rise in device efficiency is largely the result of the development of fabrication protocols capable of producing continuous, smooth perovskite films with micrometer-sized grains. Further developments in film fabrication and morphological control are necessary, however, in order for perovskite solar cells to reliably and reproducibly approach their thermodynamic efficiency limit. This Perspective discusses the fabrication of lead halide perovskite thin films, while highlighting the processing–property–performance relationships that have emerged from the literature, and from this knowledge, suggests future research directions.
Soybean: Grading and Marketing

Soybeans contain 30-45% protein and 15-24% oil, and are vitally important as an animal feed source and for vegetable oil. Soy isoflavones contribute to the healthful and functional food potential of soybeans. Standard methods have been developed for proximate analysis of soybean, e.g. for moisture, protein, crude free fat, crude fiber, ash and total carbohydrates. Isoflavones can be assayed by HPLC. Grading standards, which facilitate marketing and trade of soybeans, are based on test weight, damaged kernels, and limits of certain impurities.
Three-component reductive alkylation of 2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinones with lactols

Abstract Lactols II , obtained by DIBAL reduction of their corresponding lactones I , in equilibrium with their hydroxyaldehyde tautomers III were used in a three-component reductive alkylation with 2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone to give a series of 3-alkylated 2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone derivatives IV .
Efficiency, Equity, and Timing of Voting Mechanisms

We compare the behavior of voters under simultaneous and sequential voting rules when voting is costly and information is incomplete. In many political institutions, ranging from small committees to mass elections, voting is sequential, which allows some voters to know the choices of earlier voters. For a stylized model, we generate a variety of predictions about the relative efficiency and participation equity of these two systems, which we test using controlled laboratory experiments. Most of the qualitative predictions are supported by the data, but there are significant departures from the predicted equilibrium strategies, in both the sequential and the simultaneous voting games. We find a tradeoff between information aggregation, efficiency, and equity in sequential voting: a sequential voting rule aggregates information better than simultaneous voting and is more efficient in some information environments, but sequential voting is inequitable because early voters bear more participation costs.
Going beyond LATE: Bounding Average Treatment Effects of Job Corps Training

We derive bounds on the population average treatment effect (ATE) and the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) with an instrumental variable and employ them to evaluate the effectiveness of the Job Corps (JC) training program using data from a randomized evaluation with noncompliance. We find positive effects of JC on earnings and employment, and negative effects on public benefits dependence for eligible applicants (ATE) and participants (ATT). Some of our results also point to positive average effects on the labor market outcomes of "never-takers" (individuals who never enroll in JC regardless of their treatment assignment). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Peroxisomes move by hitchhiking on early endosomes using the novel linker protein PxdA

Eukaryotic cells use microtubule-based intracellular transport for the delivery of many subcellular cargos, including organelles. The canonical view of organelle transport is that organelles directly recruit molecular motors via cargo-specific adaptors. In contrast with this view, we show here that peroxisomes move by hitchhiking on early endosomes, an organelle that directly recruits the transport machinery. Using the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans we found that hitchhiking is mediated by a novel endosome-associated linker protein, PxdA. PxdA is required for normal distribution and long-range movement of peroxisomes, but not early endosomes or nuclei. Using simultaneous time-lapse imaging, we find that early endosome-associated PxdA localizes to the leading edge of moving peroxisomes. We identify a coiled-coil region within PxdA that is necessary and sufficient for early endosome localization and peroxisome distribution and motility. These results present a new mechanism of microtubule-based organelle transport in which peroxisomes hitchhike on early endosomes and identify PxdA as the novel linker protein required for this coupling.
Mechanical Bypassing of Littoral Drift at Inlets

A brief examination of the general processes of littoral drift movement at uncontrolled and controlled coastal inlets is presented. The principal factors are noted that should be evaluated when mec...
Phosphotyrosine Profiling of NSCLC Cells in Response to EGF and HGF Reveals Network Specific Mediators of Invasion

Growth factor signaling is deregulated in cancer and often leads to invasion, yet receptor tyrosine kinase signaling pathways driving invasion under different growth factor conditions are not well understood. To identify specific signaling molecules regulating invasion of A549 non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) cells downstream of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and Met, quantitative site specific mass spectrometric analysis of tyrosine phosphorylation was performed following epidermal growth factor (EGF) or hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) stimulation, at three different growth factor concentrations and at two time points. Through this analysis the temporal and concentration dependent phosphorylation profiles were obtained for 131 sites and 139 sites downstream of EGF and HGF stimulation, respectively. To characterize the effect of these signaling network alterations, we quantified 3D cell migration/invasion through Matrigel. Partial least squares regression (PLSR) analysis was performed to identify the tyrosine phosphorylation sites most strongly correlated with EGF and/or HGF mediated invasion. Potential common and specific signaling events required for driving invasion downstream of EGFR and Met were identified using either a combined or two independent PLSR models, based on the quantitative EGF or HGF data. Our data highlight the integration and compartmentalization of signaling required for invasion in cancer.
Personalized Payments for Storage-as-a-Service

Current storage offerings provide a small number of options in the form of fixed prices with volume discounting. This leaves storage operators to guess how much data customers will add over time. Instead, we propose that the operator elicits basic information about future usage. Such information can be used to operate the system more efficiently. In particular, we show how prices can be calculated that encourage customers to accurately report the range of their future usage while ensuring that the operator covers his costs.
Effect of interfaces on the nearby Brownian motion

Near-boundary Brownian motion is a classic hydrodynamic problem of great importance in a variety of fields, from biophysics to micro-/nanofluidics. However, owing to challenges in experimental measurements of near-boundary dynamics, the effect of interfaces on Brownian motion has remained elusive. Here we report a computational study of this effect using μs-long large-scale molecular dynamics simulations and our newly developed Green-Kubo relation for friction at the liquid-solid interface. Our computer experiment unambiguously reveals that the t(-3/2) long-time decay of the velocity autocorrelation function of a Brownian particle in bulk liquid is replaced by a t(-5/2) decay near a boundary. We discover a general breakdown of traditional no-slip boundary condition at short time scales and we show that this breakdown has a profound impact on the near-boundary Brownian motion. Our results demonstrate the potential of Brownian-particle-based micro-/nanosonar to probe the local wettability of liquid-solid interfaces.
The Incidence of Soda Taxes with Imperfect Information and Strategic Firm Behavior

Using a random coefficient discrete choice model, this paper distinguishes between sales and excise taxes and compares their effectiveness on reducing carbonated soft drink (CSD) consumption. Estimation results show that the magnitude of tax elasticity of demand is much smaller than own price elasticity. Therefore by generalizing the tax nature of sales and excise tax policies and employing price elasticity of demand to assess tax effects, previous studies overestimate the ability of such policies to reduce CSD consumption. Moreover, sales taxes are less effective than excise taxes for controlling soft drink consumption because they are not salient to consumers. Implications of this paper help policy makers focus their efforts to adopt the most appropriate policy instrument and to address obesity issues.
NOVA: a log-structured file system for hybrid volatile/non-volatile main memories

Fast non-volatile memories (NVMs) will soon appear on the processor memory bus alongside DRAM. The resulting hybrid memory systems will provide software with sub-microsecond, high-bandwidth access to persistent data, but managing, accessing, and maintaining consistency for data stored in NVM raises a host of challenges. Existing file systems built for spinning or solid-state disks introduce software overheads that would obscure the performance that NVMs should provide, but proposed file systems for NVMs either incur similar overheads or fail to provide the strong consistency guarantees that applications require. We present NOVA, a file system designed to maximize performance on hybrid memory systems while providing strong consistency guarantees. NOVA adapts conventional log-structured file system techniques to exploit the fast random access that NVMs provide. In particular, it maintains separate logs for each inode to improve concurrency, and stores file data outside the log to minimize log size and reduce garbage collection costs. NOVA's logs provide metadata, data, and mmap atomicity and focus on simplicity and reliability, keeping complex metadata structures in DRAM to accelerate lookup operations. Experimental results show that in write-intensive workloads, NOVA provides 22% to 216× throughput improvement compared to state-of-the-art file systems, and 3.1× to 13.5× improvement compared to file systems that provide equally strong data consistency guarantees.
NG-PON2 Transmission Convergence Layer: A Tutorial

The first family of multi-wavelength PON systems, 40-gigabit-capable capable passive optical networks (NG-PON2), has been specified by the Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T). This tutorial, which is based on the author's ECOC'2015 presentation on the topic, offers a comprehensive review of the NG-PON2 transmission convergence layer specification, and is addressed to a wide range of readers who are active in the field of optical communications.
Nanomechanical Evaluation of Vapor-Conditioned and Unconditioned Asphalt

Traditionally, moisture damage of asphalt concrete (AC) is evaluated by comparing the macroscale strength and stiffness values of a set of moisture- or vapor-conditioned samples with those of a set of unconditioned AC samples. The moisture damage of a bulk (liquid) asphalt binder is determined by the surface energy components of the binder with a Wilhelmy plate device: the most recent and advanced way to evaluate moisture damage in liquid asphalt. Despite these advancements, moisture damage in AC or asphalt binder is an unsolved issue. Different from previous approaches, this study evaluated the moisture damage of thin films of asphalt deposited on glass substrates, conditioned at 25%, 49%, and 71% vapors, and used a nanoindentation technique for testing. In nanoindentation, a point load indents the asphalt film surface and load–displacement data are recorded. The study analyzed nanoindentation data with the traditional Oliver–Pharr method and a nontraditional mechanical model that captures the viscoelast...
Nonlinear Diamond Photonics

Owing to its wide bandgap, large linear and nonlinear refractive index, diamond is well suited for applications in nonlinear and high-power photonics. I will present our work on on-chip diamond frequency combs and Raman lasers. Article not available.
Formation Of Stable Point Defects in Ion-Implanted Si

Double doping of Si by ion implantation of both group V and group III dopants was studied. For the case of Sb as the group V dopant, both Sb and B could be maintained in solution after high temperature heat treatment at concentrations greatly exceeding their solubility limits. With Sb implantation alone, Sb diffusion takes place with a highly enhanced transient diffusion, followed by nucleation of self interstitials into loops at the projected range. In certain double-doped samples this projected range damage was eliminated. In the under-compensated B-Sb case, evidence of stable Sb-B pairs was obtained.
Sorry to (Not) Burst Your Bubble: The Influence of Reputation Rankings on Perceptions of Firms:

We measure the influence of reputation rankings on individuals’ perceptions of firms. Through experimental design, we vary whether and how participants are exposed to a reputation ranking alongside other information about a firm. We find that rankings influence perceptions when they are negative and congruent with other information about the firm. These findings help explain how a firm’s reputation can change even if its characteristics remain constant and why change in a firm’s characteristics can be slow to produce change in its reputation.
Authentication of Smartphone Users Using Behavioral Biometrics

Smartphones and tablets have become ubiquitous in our daily lives. Smartphones, in particular, have become more than personal assistants. These devices have provided new avenues for consumers to play, work, and socialize whenever and wherever they want. Smartphones are small in size, so they are easy to handle and to stow and carry in users’ pockets or purses. However, mobile devices are also susceptible to various problems. One of the greatest concerns is the possibility of breach in security and privacy if the device is seized by an outside party. It is possible that threats can come from friends as well as strangers. Due to the size of smart devices, they can be easily lost and may expose details of users’ private lives. In addition, this might enable pervasive observation or imitation of one’s movements and activities, such as sending messages to contacts, accessing private communication, shopping with a credit card, and relaying information about where one has been. This paper highlights the potential risks that occur when smartphones are stolen or seized, discusses the concept of continuous authentication, and analyzes current approaches and mechanisms of behavioral biometrics with respect to methodology, associated datasets and evaluation approaches.
A Deconvolutional Strategy for Implementing Large Patch Sizes Supports Improved Image Classification

Sparse coding is a widely-used technique for learning an overcomplete basis set from unlabeled image data. We hypothesize that as the size of the image patch spanned by each basis vector increases, the resulting dictionary should encompass a broader range of spatial scales, including more features that better discriminate between object classes. Previous efforts to measure the effects of patch size on image classification performance were confounded by the difficulty of maintaining a given level of overcompleteness as the patch size is increased. Here, we employ a type of deconvolutional network in which overcompleteness is independent of patch size. Based on image classification results on the CIFAR10 database, we find that optimizing our deconvolutional network for sparse reconstruction leads to improved classification performance as a function of the number of training epochs. Different from previous reports, we find that enforcing a certain degree of sparsity improves classification performance. We also find that classification performance improves as both the number of learned features (dictionary size) and the size of the image patch spanned by each feature (patch size) are increased, ultimately the best published results for sparse autoencoders
Approaches to the asymmetric synthesis of unusual amino acids

This chapter will focus on critically evaluating some selected new methods to achieve the asymmetric synthesis of a-amino acids. It is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather to reflect some of the possibilities opening up in this area. The study of a-amino acids is one of fundamental importance to many areas of chemistry and its relation to molecular biology. Nature only utilizes 20 amino acids in the production of polypeptides on genes, yet the combinations of these amino acids have provided a wonderful diversity of chemical structures and functions, The number of naturally occurring or synthetically derived nonproteogenic a-amino acids is rapidly increasing and, depending on definitions, might already have exceeded 1000. In addition, because of the significant advances in the technology of synthesizing polypeptides (e.g., the solid-phase Merrifield method), the possibilities in the design and synthesis of new enzymes, hormones, synthetic immunostimulants, drugs, and countless other important biopolymers have been dramatically increased. Certain nonproteogenic amino acids have already proven of considerable experimental value in probing amino acid chemistry and function, as a tool for enhanced understanding of the roles and functions of proteins, in understanding the chemistry and biochemistry of interactions in living systems, and as analogs of naturally occurring hormones, neurotransmitters, growth factors, enzyme inhibitors, neuromodulation, immunomodulators, and many other biologically significant compounds.
When welfare reforms promote abortion: "personal responsibility," "family values," and the right to choose.

This essay, written in the wake of the 1996 federal welfare reforms, juxtaposes the traditional “family values” that proponents claimed to advance with the economic incentives for abortion created by provisions on “family caps” and “child exclusions.” The contradiction raises questions not only about the new legislation but also about Supreme Court precedents, namely the abortion-funding cases, which apply only rational-basis review to state action designed to interfere with reproductive and family decisions by those in need of public assistance.
A comment on "assimilation of achromatic color cannot explain the brightness effects in the achromatic neon effect" by Marc K Albert.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0409); Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0657)
Epidermal differentiation and keratin gene expression

Epidermal keratinocytes are ideal as a model system for the study of mammalian differentiation because primary cells have a high proliferative capacity and can be cultured under conditions enabling a balance of growth and differentiation. In addition, epidermal keratin genes have been cloned and characterized, and their strong promoters provide a means of high-level expression of transgenes in the epidermis of mice. For these reasons, considerable headway has been made in recent years in the quest to elucidate the biological pathways involved in the control of epidermal growth and differentiation. An understanding of these mechanisms is essential to realizing the potential of epidermal keratinocytes for drug delivery and gene therapy. This paper reviews what is presently known about epidermal growth and differentiation, with emphasis on the expression of epidermal-specific genes.
A novel approach of Cap-sharing to reduce the big loop filter capacitance in semi-digital PLL

With an ever increasing demand of low cost IC's, there is a serious requirement of chips with smaller area and lower power consumption. A new semi-digital PLL architecture was proposed earlier [1], which not only completely removes the off-chip capacitance, but also reduces the required on-chip capacitor value. This paper focuses on modifying this PLL [2, 3] architecture, to reduce the overall on-chip capacitance further by discussing a novel technique of capacitance sharing among the N-semi digital storage cells. PLL using the proposed technique consumes less power and has a smaller chip area.
Bayesian prospective detection of small area health anomalies using Kullback–Leibler divergence:

Early detection of unusual health events depends on the ability to rapidly detect any substantial changes in disease, thus facilitating timely public health interventions. To assist public health practitioners to make decisions, statistical methods are adopted to assess unusual events in real time. We introduce a surveillance Kullback-Leibler measure for timely detection of disease outbreaks for small area health data. The detection methods are compared with the surveillance conditional predictive ordinate within the framework of Bayesian hierarchical Poisson modeling and applied to a case study of a group of respiratory system diseases observed weekly in South Carolina counties. Properties of the proposed surveillance techniques including timeliness and detection precision are investigated using a simulation study.
Adaptive local learning in sampling based motion planning for protein folding.

Simulating protein folding motions is an important problem in computational biology. Motion planning algorithms, such as Probabilistic Roadmap Methods, have been successful in modeling the folding landscape. Probabilistic Roadmap Methods and variants contain several phases (i.e., sampling, connection, and path extraction). Most of the time is spent in the connection phase and selecting which variant to employ is a difficult task. Global machine learning has been applied to the connection phase but is inefficient in situations with varying topology, such as those typical of folding landscapes. We develop a local learning algorithm that exploits the past performance of methods within the neighborhood of the current connection attempts as a basis for learning. It is sensitive not only to different types of landscapes but also to differing regions in the landscape itself, removing the need to explicitly partition the landscape. We perform experiments on 23 proteins of varying secondary structure makeup with 52–114 residues. We compare the success rate when using our methods and other methods. We demonstrate a clear need for learning (i.e., only learning methods were able to validate against all available experimental data) and show that local learning is superior to global learning producing, in many cases, significantly higher quality results than the other methods. We present an algorithm that uses local learning to select appropriate connection methods in the context of roadmap construction for protein folding. Our method removes the burden of deciding which method to use, leverages the strengths of the individual input methods, and it is extendable to include other future connection methods.
Polarization decorrelation in optical fibers with randomly varying birefringence

Even the best communication fibers are bi- refringent. The orientation and the strength of the birefringence shifts randomly, scattering light from one state of polarization to another in the process. The polarization dispersion which results will limit the transmission rate in both linear and soliton systems.