cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Secretary problems with convex costs

We consider online resource allocation problems where given a set of requests our goal is to select a subset that maximizes a value minus cost type of objective. Requests are presented online in random order, and each request possesses an adversarial value and an adversarial size. The online algorithm must make an irrevocable accept/reject decision as soon as it sees each request. The "profit" of a set of accepted requests is its total value minus a convex cost function of its total size. This problem falls within the framework of secretary problems. Unlike previous work in that area, one of the main challenges we face is that the objective function can be positive or negative, and we must guard against accepting requests that look good early on but cause the solution to have an arbitrarily large cost as more requests are accepted. This necessitates new techniques. We study this problem under various feasibility constraints and present online algorithms with competitive ratios only a constant factor worse than those known in the absence of costs for the same feasibility constraints. We also consider a multi-dimensional version of the problem that generalizes multi-dimensional knapsack within a secretary framework. In the absence of feasibility constraints, we present an O(l) competitive algorithm where l is the number of dimensions; this matches within constant factors the best known ratio for multi-dimensional knapsack secretary.
Grounding the lexical semantics of verbs in visual perception using force dynamics and event logic

This paper presents an implemented system for recognizing the occurrence of events described by simple spatial-motion verbs in short image sequences. The semantics of these verbs is specified with event-logic expressions that describe changes in the state of force-dynamic relations between the participants of the event. An efficient finite representation is introduced for the infinite sets of intervals that occur when describing liquid and semi-liquid events. Additionally, an efficient procedure using this representation is presented for inferring occurrences of compound events, described with event-logic expressions, from occurrences of primitive events. Using force dynamics and event logic to specify the lexical semantics of events allows the system to be more robust than prior systems based on motion profile.
A Gaussian Process Based Online Change Detection Algorithm for Monitoring Periodic Time Series

Online time series change detection is a critical component of many monitoring systems, such as space and air-borne remote sensing instruments, cardiac monitors, and network traffic profilers, which continuously analyze observations recorded by sensors. Data collected by such sensors typically has a periodic (seasonal) component. Most existing time series change detection methods are not directly applicable to handle such data, either because they are not designed to handle periodic time series or because they cannot operate in an online mode. We propose an online change detection algorithm which can handle periodic time series. The algorithm uses a Gaussian process based non-parametric time series prediction model and monitors the difference between the predictions and actual observations within a statistically principled control chart framework to identify changes. A key challenge in using Gaussian process in an online mode is the need to solve a large system of equations involving the associated covariance matrix which grows with every time step. The proposed algorithm exploits the special structure of the covariance matrix and can analyze a time series of length T in O(T^2) time while maintaining a O(T) memory footprint, compared to O(T^4) time and O(T^2) memory requirement of standard matrix manipulation methods. Wemore » experimentally demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm over several existing time series change detection algorithms on a set of synthetic and real time series. Finally, we illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for identifying land use land cover changes using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data collected for an agricultural region in Iowa state, USA. Our algorithm is able to detect different types of changes in a NDVI validation data set (with ~80% accuracy) which occur due to crop type changes as well as disruptive changes (e.g., natural disasters).« less
Profitable chemical-free cowpea storage technology for smallholder farmers in Africa: opportunities and challenges

Cowpea is the most economically and nutritionally important indigenous African grain legume, grown by millions of resource-poor farmers. It is a key cash crop in areas too dry to grow cotton or other export crops. Most of the over 3 million t of cowpea grain produced annually in West and Central Africa is grown on small farms. Storage is often identified as the key challenge for small scale cowpea growers. Many farmers sell cowpea grain at low harvest time prices rather than risk losses by bruchids during storage. Some traditional methods are effective for small quantities (e.g., 10 kg), but are difficult to scale up. Some effective storage chemicals are available, but they are regularly misused by farmers and merchants. The Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage (PICS) Project is addressing these problems through promotion of hermetic storage in triple layer sacks which have an outer layer of woven polypropylene and two liners of 80 μ high-density polyethylene. Village demonstrations with more than 45, 000 PICS sacks have shown the technology to be effective. Good quality affordable sacks have been produced by manufacturers in Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Mali. Over the past three years more than one million sacks have been produced and sold. Despite the success with the outreach activities and the farmer adoption, the challenge remains to develop sustainable sack distribution networks. Issues identified include reluctance of wholesalers to order sacks due to risk associated with a new product, inability of wholesalers to develop effective distribution networks due to difficulties with enforcing contracts, and limited access to capital. The PICS project is exploring new ways to address some of these issues, including using non-traditional distribution systems for PICS sacks such as agro-dealers networks, and adapting distribution systems that have worked for cell phones and other products. Keywords : Cowpea, Bruchids, Hermetic storage, Supply chain, West and Central Africa
A normal relationship ? Poverty, growth, and inequality

Using a large cross-country income distribution dataset spanning close to 800 country-year observations from industrial and developing countries, the authors show that the size distribution of per capita income is well approximated empirically by a lognormal density. The null hypothesis that per capita income follows a lognormal distribution cannot be rejected-although the same hypothesis is unambiguously rejected when applied to per capita consumption. The authors show that lognormality of per capita income has important implications for the relative roles of income growth and inequality changes in poverty reduction. When poverty reduction is the overriding policy objective, poorer and relatively equal countries may be willing to tolerate modest increases in income inequality in exchange for faster growth-more so than richer and highly unequal countries.
Media Violence Effects on Brain Development What Neuroimaging Has Revealed and What Lies Ahead

Substantial research has indicated that media violence induces both short- and long-term increases in aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Recently, neuroimaging techniques have begun to i...
Will My Risk Parity Strategy Outperform

The authors gauged the return-generating potential of four investment strategies: value weighted, 60/40 fixed mix, and unlevered and levered risk parity. They report three main findings: (1) Even over periods lasting decades, the start and end dates of a backtest can have a material effect on results; (2) transaction costs can reverse ranking, especially if leverage is used; and (3) a statistically significant return premium does not guarantee outperformance over reasonable investment horizons. See comments and response on this article.
Severance pay compliance in Indonesia

This paper contributes new evidence from two large household surveys on the compliance of firms with severance pay regulations in Indonesia, and the extent to which changes in severance pay regulations could affect employment rigidity. Compliance appears to be low, as only one-third of workers entitled to severance pay report receiving it, and on average workers only collect 40 percent of the payment due to them. Eligible female and low-wage workers are least likely to report receiving payments. Widespread non-compliance is consistent with trends in employment rigidity, which remained essentially unchanged following the large increases in severance mandated by the 2003 law. These results suggest that workers may benefit from a compromise that relaxes severance pay regulations while improving enforcement of severance pay statutes, and possibly establishing a system of unemployment benefits.
On the Need for Time Series Data Mining Benchmarks: A Survey and Empirical Demonstration

In the last decade there has been an explosion of interest in mining time series data. Literally hundreds of papers have introduced new algorithms to index, classify, cluster and segment time series. In this work we make the following claim. Much of this work has very little utility because the contribution made (speed in the case of indexing, accuracy in the case of classification and clustering, model accuracy in the case of segmentation) offer an amount of “improvement” that would have been completely dwarfed by the variance that would have been observed by testing on many real world datasets, or the variance that would have been observed by changing minor (unstated) implementation details. To illustrate our point, we have undertaken the most exhaustive set of time series experiments ever attempted, re-implementing the contribution of more than two dozen papers, and testing them on 50 real world, highly diverse datasets. Our empirical results strongly support our assertion, and suggest the need for a set of time series benchmarks and more careful empirical evaluation in the data mining community.
Conical emission properties associated with atmospheric self-focussing femtosecond pulse propagation

Summary form only given. Numerous groups have demonstrated that tabletop high peak power femtosecond lasers are capable of inducing nonlinear self-focused propagation in atmosphere at 800 nm. The phenomenon unfailingly exhibits (1) light concentration in long single or multiple filaments of the order of 150 /spl mu/m diameter and tens of meters in length; (2) conical emission associated with these filaments has a considerably wider spectral content than the original laser pulse. Conical emission became apparent after the filaments were formed. While the divergence angle of these conical emissions has been studied, unfortunately there is no reasonable model proposed that can qualitatively describe (Brodeur et al, 1996; Nibbering et al, 1996) even the most basic features such as divergence angles of the different colors. Furthermore, the color ordering of these conical emissions can be changed upon changing the chirp of the launched pulse. In this paper, we present conical emission data to show its behavior as the pulse is chirped. In addition, we also present the spectral distribution of the conical emissions and how it depends on chirp. Finally, we compare our result with numerical result of Gaeta (Phys. Rev. Lett. vol. 84, pp. 3582-3585, 2000).
Adaptive traffic signal control using fuzzy logic

The authors present a distributed approach to traffic signal control, where the signal timing parameters at a given intersection are adjusted as functions of the local traffic condition and of the signal timing parameters at adjacent intersections. Thus, the signal timing parameters evolve dynamically using only local information to improve traffic flow. This distributed approach provides for a fault-tolerant, highly responsive traffic management system. The signal timing at an intersection is defined by three parameters: cycle time, phase split, and offset. Fuzzy decision rules are used to adjust these three parameters based only on local information. The amount of change in the timing parameters during each cycle is limited to a small fraction of the current parameters to ensure smooth transition. The effectiveness of this method is shown through simulation of the traffic flow in a network of controlled intersections. >
Impact of Macroeconomic Announcements on ETF Trading Volumes

The authors examine the impact of major macroeconomic announcements on the daily trading volumes of several U.S. exchange-traded funds for the period of January 2004–April 2014. An ARIMA model with external factors that describe the announcement events is used. They find that several macroeconomic announcements, particularly the ISM Manufacturing Reports, Non-Farm Payrolls, Housing Starts, and to a lesser extent, Jobless Claims, Leading Indicators, and CPI significantly increase daily trading volumes.
QRS Duration Changes in Patients with Single Ventricle Physiology: Birth to 10 Years.

Background QRS prolongation may be a predictor of mortality in certain forms of congenital heart disease. Minimal data exist describing changes in QRS duration in patients with single ventricles (SVs). The goal was to describe changes in QRS duration in patients with SV and to determine if differences existed between single right ventricle (sRV) versus single left ventricle (sLV) patients. Methods Chart review was performed on patients with SV physiology. Patients were divided into sRV and sLV groups. QRS durations were measured monthly for the first 6 months, at 1 year, and then yearly until 10 years. t-tests were used for analysis. Results One hundred sixty patients were evaluated (95 sRV, 65 sLV). The greatest change in QRS duration for the entire cohort occurred in the first 6 months of life versus 6 months to 10 years of age (1.81 ms/month vs 0.20 ms/month). sRV QRS durations were significantly longer than sLV QRS durations at 1 year (78.9 ± 12.6 ms vs 73.2 ± 11.9 ms), 2 year (81.7 ± 14.7 ms vs 73.4 ± 12.5 ms), 4 year (84.2 ± 12.1 ms vs 77.9 ± 16.4 ms), 6 year (90.8 ± 12.7 ms vs 83.4 ± 13.4 ms), 7 year (90.8 ± 16.5 ms vs 81.2 ± 16.6 ms), and 8 year (96.7 ± 13.6 ms vs 84.8 ± 13.9 ms) time points. Conclusion The greatest change in QRS duration in SV patients occurred in the first 6 months of life when these patients’ ventricles were volume loaded. Differences in QRS duration between sRV and sLV patients occurred early in life. Further studies are needed to determine if minimizing volume load early in life decreases the rate of change in QRS duration.
Tau Leptons and Top Quarks in A ‘Non-Local’ Baryogenesis At the Electroweak Phase Transition

Baryon asymmetry can be generated at the first order electroweak phase transition, provided there is a CP violation on the bubble wall. In this report we discuss the role of leptons and quarks in the ‘non-local’ baryogenesis mechanism.
Investigating the gender gap in agricultural productivity: evidence from Uganda.

Women comprise 50 percent of the agricultural labor force in Sub-Saharan Africa, but manage plots that are reportedly on average 20 to 30 percent less productive. As a source of income inequality and aggregate productivity loss, the country-specific magnitude and drivers of this gender gap are of great interest. Using national data from the Uganda National Panel Survey for 2009/10 and 2010/11, the gap before controlling for endowments was estimated to be 17.5 percent. Panel data methods were combined with an Oaxaca decomposition to investigate the gender differences in resource endowment and return to endowment driving this gap. Although men have greater access to inputs, input use is so low and inverse returns to plot size so strong in Uganda that smaller female-managed plots have a net endowment advantage of 12 percent, revealing a larger unexplained gap of 29.5 percent. Two-fifths of this unexplained gap is attributed to differential returns to the child dependency ratio and one-fifth to differential returns to transport access, implying that greater child care responsibilities and difficulty accessing input and output markets from areas without transport are the largest drivers of the gap. Smaller and less robust drivers include differential uptake of cash crops, and differential uptake and return to improved seeds and pesticides.
Unified Crowd Segmentation

This paper presents a unified approach to crowd segmentation. A global solution is generated using an Expectation Maximization framework. Initially, a head and shoulder detector is used to nominate an exhaustive set of person locations and these form the person hypotheses. The image is then partitioned into a grid of small patches which are each assigned to one of the person hypotheses. A key idea of this paper is that while whole body monolithic person detectors can fail due to occlusion, a partial response to such a detector can be used to evaluate the likelihood of a single patch being assigned to a hypothesis. This captures local appearance information without having to learn specific appearance models. The likelihood of a pair of patches being assigned to a person hypothesis is evaluated based on low level image features such as uniform motion fields and color constancy. During the E-step, the single and pairwise likelihoods are used to compute a globally optimal set of assignments of patches to hypotheses. In the M-step, parameters which enforce global consistency of assignments are estimated. This can be viewed as a form of occlusion reasoning. The final assignment of patches to hypotheses constitutes a segmentation of the crowd. The resulting system provides a global solution that does not require background modeling and is robust with respect to clutter and partial occlusion.
A Historical Review and Prospective Modern-Day Assessment of the Non-Itemizer Charitable Contribution Deduction

ABSTRACT: The direct charitable contribution deduction was an experimental deduction for the 1982–1986 tax years. It represents the only example in the tax laws in which non-itemizers were allowed a charitable contribution deduction in tandem with the standard deduction. This article offers a review of three distinct eras in tax history: the advent of the standard deduction, the enactment of the direct charitable contribution deduction, and its subsequent abandonment. This article clarifies the literature to demonstrate that the direct charitable contribution's demise was not a matter of course. The deduction was made permanent by the House of Representatives. Its extension was the subject of rigorous debate in the Senate and was tabled by only a few votes. This article also considers the prospect of a modern-day direct charitable contribution. Taken on balance, concerns of economic necessity, fiscal viability, and measurable impact on the charitable sector suggest that reinstatement is neither necessary ...
Strained mercy : The quality of medical care in Delhi

The quality of medical care is a potentially important determinant of health outcomes. Nevertheless, it remains an understudied area. The limited research that exists defines quality either on the basis of drug availability or facility characteristics, but little is known about how provider quality affects the provision of health care. Das and Hammer address this gap through a survey in Delhi with two related components. They evaluate "competence" (what providers know) through vignettes and practice (what providers do) through direct clinical observation. Overall quality as measured by the competence necessary to recognize and handle common and dangerous conditions is quite low, albeit with tremendous variation. While there is some correlation with simple observed characteristics, there is still an enormous amount of variation within such categories. Further, even when providers know what to do they often do not do it in practice. This appears to be true in both the public and private sectors though for very different, and systematic, reasons. In the public sector providers are more likely to commit errors of omission - they are less likely to exert effort compared with their private counterparts. In the private sector, providers are prone to errors of commission - they are more likely to behave according to the patient's expectations, resulting in the inappropriate use of medications, the overuse of antibiotics, and increased expenditures. This has important policy implications for our understanding of how market failures and failures of regulation in the health sector affect the poor. This paper - a product of Public Services, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the delivery of basic services by the government and private sector in low-income countries. The study was funded by the Research Support Budget under the research project "Health Care Providers and Markets in Delhi."
The Individual Mandate: Implications for Public Health Law:

No provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has been more contentious than the so-called "individual mandate," the constitutionality of which is now before several appellate courts. Critics claim that the mandate represents an unprecedented attempt by the federal government to compel individual action. Yet, states frequently employ similar mandates to protect the public's health. These public health mandates have also often aroused deep opposition. This essay situates PPACA's mandate, and the opposition to it, in that broader context. The article reviews the arguments that public health's population perspective provides in support of mandates, as well as the reasons why mandates often ignite intense legal and political opposition. Most importantly, by holding individuals accountable for population-based problems, mandates may undercut the public health arguments that justify them. The article concludes by arguing that public health policymakers need to know more about the unintended political and legal costs of mandates.
Brane couplings from bulk loops

Abstract We compute loop corrections to the effective action of a field theory on a five-dimensional S 1 / Z 2 orbifold. We find that the quantum loop effects of interactions in the bulk produce infinite contributions that require renormalization by four-dimensional couplings on the orbifold fixed planes. Thus bulk couplings give rise to renormalization group running of brane couplings.
Exploring transfer function nonlinearity in echo state networks

Supralinear and sublinear pre-synaptic and dendritic integration is considered to be responsible for nonlinear computation power of biological neurons, emphasizing the role of nonlinear integration as opposed to nonlinear output thresholding. How, why, and to what degree the transfer function nonlinearity helps biologically inspired neural network models is not fully understood. Here, we study these questions in the context of echo state networks (ESN). ESN is a simple neural network architecture in which a fixed recurrent network is driven with an input signal, and the output is generated by a readout layer from the measurements of the network states. ESN architecture enjoys efficient training and good performance on certain signal-processing tasks, such as system identification and time series prediction. ESN performance has been analyzed with respect to the connectivity pattern in the network structure and the input bias. However, the effects of the transfer function in the network have not been studied systematically. Here, we use an approach tanh on the Taylor expansion of a frequently used transfer function, the hyperbolic tangent function, to systematically study the effect of increasing nonlinearity of the transfer function on the memory, nonlinear capacity, and signal processing performance of ESN. Interestingly, we find that a quadratic approximation is enough to capture the computational power of ESN with tanh function. The results of this study apply to both software and hardware implementation of ESN.
Gene Expression Signature in Adipose Tissue of Acromegaly Patients

To study the effect of chronic excess growth hormone on adipose tissue, we performed RNA sequencing in adipose tissue biopsies from patients with acromegaly (n = 7) or non-functioning pituitary adenomas (n = 11). The patients underwent clinical and metabolic profiling including assessment of HOMA-IR. Explants of adipose tissue were assayed ex vivo for lipolysis and ceramide levels. Patients with acromegaly had higher glucose, higher insulin levels and higher HOMA-IR score. We observed several previously reported transcriptional changes (IGF1, IGFBP3, CISH, SOCS2) that are known to be induced by GH/IGF-1 in liver but are also induced in adipose tissue. We also identified several novel transcriptional changes, some of which may be important for GH/IGF responses (PTPN3 and PTPN4) and the effects of acromegaly on growth and proliferation. Several differentially expressed transcripts may be important in GH/IGF-1-induced metabolic changes. Specifically, induction of LPL, ABHD5, and NRIP1 can contribute to enhanced lipolysis and may explain the elevated adipose tissue lipolysis in acromegalic patients. Higher expression of TCF7L2 and the fatty acid desaturases FADS1, FADS2 and SCD could contribute to insulin resistance. Ceramides were not different between the two groups. In summary, we have identified the acromegaly gene expression signature in human adipose tissue. The significance of altered expression of specific transcripts will enhance our understanding of the metabolic and proliferative changes associated with acromegaly.
Approaches to Natural-Product Synthesis with Organometallic Systems Based on Iron, Molybdenum and Manganese

New methods for the construction of quaternary carbon centres, with organoiron and organomolybdenum chemistry, are presented. Regiocontrolled addition of tin enolates to substituted cyclohexadienyliron tricarbonyl complexes leads to a new approach to trichothecene synthesis, illustrated by a short total synthesis of ( + )- trichodiene. A new coupling reaction of alkenes and diene-Fe(CO) 3 units is described, the outcome of which is equivalent to a [6 + 2] ene reaction. Some applications of arene-manganese tricarbonyl complexes to the preparation of substituted diaryl ethers are discussed, in the context of synthetic approaches to the glycopeptide antibiotics ristocetin A and vancomycin. Finally, stereocontrolled nucleophilic addition to cycloheptadienyliron complexes is illustrated and applied to a synthesis of the Prelog-Djerassi lactone.
Bielliptic curves of genus 3 in the hyperelliptic moduli

In this paper we study bielliptic curves of genus 3 defined over an algebraically closed field \(k\) and the intersection of the moduli space \(\fancyscript{M}_3^b\) of such curves with the hyperelliptic moduli \(\fancyscript{H}_3\). Such intersection \(\fancyscript{S}\) is an irreducible, 3-dimensional, rational algebraic variety. We determine the equation of this space in terms of the \(Gl(2, k)\)-invariants of binary octavics as defined in Shaska (Commun Algebra, to appear) and find a birational parametrization of \(\fancyscript{S}\). We also compute all possible subloci of curves for all possible automorphism group \(G\). Moreover, for every rational moduli point \(\mathfrak p \in \fancyscript{S}\), such that \(| \text{ Aut } (\mathfrak p ) | > 4\), we give explicitly a rational model of the corresponding curve over its field of moduli in terms of the \(Gl(2, k)\)-invariants.
Immune Responses to Final Exams in Healthy and Asthmatic Adolescents

Immune responses to an academic stressor were examined in healthy and asthmatic adolescents with regard to their illness symptom reports. Eighty-seven high school students completed a health diary for 2 weeks and provided three blood samples during midsemester, final-exam, and postexam periods. During exam week, all students showed significant immunological alterations from baseline. Natural killer cell activity was significantly lower, whereas lymphocyte proliferation and neutrophil superoxide release were significantly higher. These immune changes tended to return toward baseline during the postexam period, but the enhanced neutrophil reactivity continued to rise. Overall, immunological responses were similar between asthmatic subjects and controls. Appropriate medical management may have accounted for this similarity. However, subtle group differences in the postexam recovery pattern and a continuous activation of inflammatory cell function following a stressor may warrant further investigation.
Head impact accelerations for brain strain-related responses in contact sports: a model-based investigation

Both linear $$(\mathbf{a}_{\mathrm{lin}})$$ and rotational $$(\mathbf{a}_{\mathrm{rot}} )$$ accelerations contribute to head impacts on the field in contact sports; however, they are often isolated in injury studies. It is critical to evaluate the feasibility of estimating brain responses using isolated instead of full degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) accelerations. In this study, we investigated the sensitivities of regional brain strain-related responses to resultant $$\mathbf{a}_{\mathrm{lin}}$$ and $$\mathbf{a}_{\mathrm{rot}}$$ as well as the relative contributions of these acceleration components to the responses via random sampling and linear regression using parameterized, triangulated head impacts with kinematic variable values based on on-field measurements. Two independently established and validated finite element models of the human head were employed to evaluate model-consistency and dependency in results: the Dartmouth Head Injury Model and Simulated Injury Monitor. For the majority of the brain, volume-weighted regional peak strain, strain rate, and von Mises stress accumulated from the simulation significantly correlated with the product of the magnitude and duration of $$\mathbf{a}_{\mathrm{rot}}$$ , or effectively, the rotational velocity, but not to $$\mathbf{a}_{\mathrm{lin}}$$ . Responses from $$\mathbf{a}_{\mathrm{rot}}$$ -only were comparable to the full-DOF counterparts especially when normalized by injury-causing thresholds (e.g., volume fractions of large differences virtually diminished (i.e., $$<$$ 1 %) at typical difference percentage levels of 1–4 % on average). These model-consistent results support the inclusion of both rotational acceleration magnitude and duration into kinematics-based injury metrics and demonstrate the feasibility of estimating strain-related responses from isolated $$\mathbf{a}_{\mathrm{rot}}$$ for analyses of strain-induced injury relevant to contact sports without significant loss of accuracy, especially for the cerebrum.
Pricing Interest Rate Derivatives: A General Approach

The relationship between affine stochastic processes and bond pricing equations in exponential term structure models has been well established. We connect this result to the pricing of interest rate derivatives. If the term structure model is exponential affine, then there is a linkage between the bond pricing solution and the prices of many widely traded interest rate derivative securities. Our results apply to m-factor processes with n diffusions and l jump processes. The pricing solutions require at most a single numerical integral, making the model easy to implement. We discuss many options that yield solutions using the methods of the article.
Victims as Cost Bearers

In a series of essays published some twenty years ago, I developed a qualitative model of the Anglo-American criminal process as an evolving but still highly imperfect system of “price exaction,” in which the attempt was made to confront every convicted offender with a punishment price that fully reflected the social cost, both material and “moral,” imposed by his offense. Earlier scholarship dealing with the economics of criminal justice had largely been normative in character, contending that whatever public policy toward crime and punishment might once have been, it should henceforth be purposefully made, as the economist Gary Becker put it, on the basis of “a criterion that goes beyond catchy phrases and gives due weight to the damages from offenses, the costs of apprehending and convicting offenders, and the social cost of punishment. The social-welfare function of modern welfare economics is such a criterion.” Accordingly, Becker argued that the punishments associated with specific offenses and the likelihood that those punishments will in
Reduction/oxidation of a high loading iron oxide catalyst

The reduction/oxidation of a high loading iron catalyst supported on γ-Al203 has been studied using dynamic X-ray diffraction (DXRD). In situ determination of changes in the lattice parameters as magnetite was reduced to iron indicated that aluminum was unevenly incorporated into the matrix of the supported iron oxide particles, leading to a form of metal-support interaction and manifested by reduction rates which are much slower than for unsupported magnetite. These results are corroborated in subsequent oxidation experiments by the fact that CO, oxidation rates of supported iron are much higher than for unsupported iron and the Fe203 phase formed in the former at 673 K is γ-Fe203 as opposed to α-Fe203 in the latter. The rate data are modeled and the results are shown to be consistent with the conclusion of nonuniform Al incorporation as well as with previous work on the oxidation of unsupported iron. The incorporation of AI in this Fe/Al203 catalyst is consistent with previous observations related to the form of metal-support interactions in Ni/Al2O3 and in Fe/SiO2.
CPT violation and the nature of neutrinos

In order to accommodate the neutrino oscillation signals from the solar, atmospheric, and LSND data, a sterile fourth neutrino is generally invoked, though the fits to the data are becoming more and more constrained. However, it has recently been shown that the data can be explained with only three neutrinos, if one invokes CPT violation to allow different masses and mixing angles for neutrinos and antineutrinos. We explore the nature of neutrinos in such CPT-violating scenarios. Majorana neutrino masses are allowed, but in general, there are no longer Majorana neutrinos in the conventional sense. However, CPT-violating models still have interesting consequences for neutrinoless double beta decay. Compared to the usual case, while the larger mass scale (from LSND) may appear, a greater degree of suppression can also occur.
The effect of phase separation on crystal nucleation density and lamella growth in near-critical polyolefin blends

Abstract We have studied the effect of liquid–liquid phase separation on crystallization in near-critical blends of poly(ethylene-co-hexene)/poly(ethylene-co-octene) and poly(ethylene-co-hexene)/poly(ethylene-co-butene) using optical microscopy and simultaneous small and wide angle X-ray scattering. Two quenching schemes were used in this study: (1) single-quench, a homogeneous melt quickly cooled to the crystallization temperature, and (2) double-quench, a homogeneous melt quickly cooled to an intermediate temperature, which allows for occurring phase separation but not crystallization, then to the crystallization temperature. We could found more crystalline nuclei in case of single-quench than of double-quench. The long spacing of lamellar crystals is approximately 20 A larger in single-quench than in double-quench, due primarily to the inclusion of more non-crystallizable components in the amorphous layers of lamellar stacks in the former. The degree of crystallinity is about three times higher in single-quench.
High Resolution Liquid Argon Total-Absorption Detectors: Electronic Noise and Electrode Configuration

Ionization chambers in which almost all of the energy released in electromagnetic showers is absorbed in liquid argon are considered. Electronic noise is determined as a function of the electrode configuration. It is shown that in a multiple-plate ionization chamber the optimum interelectrode gap is determined as one third of the product of the electron drift velocity and the event resolving time. The lower limit for electronic noise is determined only by the chamber volume, electron drift velocity, event resolving time and the unity-gain frequency of the field-effect transistor. This limit is approximately the same for ionization chambers with one or more large gaps where the electron drift time is much longer than the event resolving time.
A kinetic study of the air oxidation of pyrogallol and purpurogallin

Pyrogallol (1,2.3-benzentriol, 1) reacts with dioxygen in weakly alkaline solutions to form purpurogallin (2,3,4,6-tetrahydroxy-5H-benzocycloheptene-5-one, 2) which then reacts to form purpurogalloquinone (3) which then decays to a product absorbing at 440 nm. The formation of 3 requires 1.5 mol O2 per mol 1, and 1.0 mol per mol 2. No O2 is consumed during the decay of 3, and this reaction, being insensitive to O2 concentrations and the presence of both superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase, does not appear to be an oxidation. The first-order rate of decay of 3 decreases with increasing pH. 1 and 3 react at pH 9.0 with a second-order rate constant of ca. 100 M−1 s−1. SOD inhibits the oxidation of 1 and 2. Slight and variable apparent inhibition of the oxidation of 2 and 3 by SOD may be due to trace impurities in 2, but not contamination by 1. The peak concentration of 3 is attained more rapidly during the oxidation of 1 than during the oxidation of 2. A kinetic scheme based on parallel oxidation of 1 by dioxygen and superoxide, and it which the semiquinone of 1 oxidizes 2, is partially successful in simulating the observed kinetic behavior.
Planetary isophotes as a clue to aerosol characteristics

A study was conducted to see how much information could be extracted from the Mariner 9 Mars isophotes taken at a phase angle of approximately 60 deg. It was found that the Minnaert functions and both isotropic and Rayleigh scattering could easily be ruled out, and that it was essential to use forward-peaked phase functions, which were computed from Mie theory. Isophotes similar to those observed assuming a semi-infinite dust cloud with a considerable variation in particle properties and size distribution could be obtained, so long as the ratio of the multiply- to singly-scattered light was held within certain limits. These conditions are met by micron-sized, moderatly absorbing mineral grains whose mean size should not be much larger than a micron. It was also found that a dust cloud of finite optical thickness bounded from below by a Lambert ground would fit the isophote data.
Production of CP odd Higgs bosons with large transverse momentum at Hadron supercolliders

Abstract A two Higgs doublet model is employed to study the production of a CP-odd Higgs boson ( A ) associated with a large transverse momentum jet ( j ) at hadron supercolliders. The cross section of pp → jA + X is evaluated with four subprocesses: gg → gA, gq → qA, g q → q A and q q → gA . We find that pp → jA + A is a significant source of CP-odd Higgs bosons at future hadron supercolliders.
Dissipation, geometry, and the stability of the dense radial morphology.

The dense radial morphology appears in a number of systems undergoing branched growth. Neither ordered nor fractal, this pattern is characterized by a large number of branches radiating from a central seed and advancing behind a circular envelope. We propose a model for dense radial growth which self-consistently incorporates dissipation in the growth channels. A linear stability analysis of this model delimits conditions under which the dense radial morphology can develop. Predictions of this model are borne out by numerical simlations of evolving resistor bond networks.
Strong Gravitational Lens Candidates in the GOODS ACS Fields

We present results from a systematic search for strong gravitational lenses in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) data. The search technique involves creating a sample of likely lensing galaxies, which we define as massive early-type galaxies in a redshift range 0.3 < z < 1.3. The target galaxies are selected by color and magnitude, giving a sample of 1092 galaxies. For each galaxy in the sample, we subtract a smooth description of the galaxy light from the z850-band data. The residuals are examined, along with true-color images created from the B435V606i775 data, for morphologies indicative of strong lensing. We present our six most promising lens candidates as well as our full list of candidates.
Binocular integration of partially occluded surfaces

Normal binocular vision can provide a view of an object partially occluded so that no part of it is seen by both eyes but all of it is seen by one or other eye. We used two-dimensional filtered noise textures to explore the conditions under which the visual system can piece together the monocular fragments of such occluded surfaces. When the fragments seen by left and right eyes are drawn from a continuous texture with strong horizontal correlation, observers see coherent surfaces reliably located in depth. When textures are discontinuous or have weaker horizontal correlation, or the left and right eyes' views represent unnatural depth relationships, no coherent surface is perceived, and binocular rivalry ensues. The discovery of coherent surfaces under our conditions seems to reflect the operation of a high-level integration process, failures of which drive rivalry.
The diversity of naturally produced organohalogens

More than 3800 organohalogen compounds, mainly containing chlorine or bromine but a few with iodine and fluorine, are produced by living organisms or are formed during natural abiogenic processes, such as volcanoes, forest fires, and other geothermal processes. The oceans are the single largest source of biogenic organohalogens, which are biosynthesized by myriad seaweeds, sponges, corals, tunicates, bacteria, and other marine life. Terrestrial plants, fungi, lichen, bacteria, insects, some higher animals, and even humans also account for a diverse collection of organohalogens.
Studying Springs in Series Using a Single Spring.

Springs are used for a wide range of applications in physics and engineering. Possibly, one of their most common uses is to study the nature of restoring forces in oscillatory systems. While experiments that verify Hooke's law using springs are abundant in the physics literature, those that explore the combination of several springs together are very rare. In this paper, an experiment designed to study the static properties of a combination of springs in series using only one single spring is presented. Paint marks placed on the coils of the spring allowed us to divide it into segments, and consider it as a collection of springs connected in series. The validity of Hooke's law for the system and the relationship between the spring constants of the segments and the spring constant of the entire spring are verified experimentally. The easy setup, accurate results, and educational benefits make this experiment attractive and useful for high school and first-year college students.
Mass reach scaling for future hadron colliders

The primary goal of any future hadron collider is to discover new physics (NP) associated with a high mass scale, $$M$$ , beyond the range of the LHC. In order to maintain the same relative mass reach for rate-limited NP, $$M/{\sqrt{s}}$$ , as $$\sqrt{s}$$ increases, Richter recently reminded us that the required integrated luminosity obtainable at future hadron colliders (FHC) must grow rapidly, $$\sim \! s$$ , in the limit of naive scaling. This would imply, e.g., a $$\sim $$ 50-fold increase in the required integrated luminosity when going from the 14 TeV LHC to a FHC with $$\sqrt{s}=100$$ TeV, an increase that would prove quite challenging on many different fronts. In this paper we point out, due to the scaling violations associated with the evolution of the parton density functions (PDFs) and the running of the strong coupling, $$\alpha _s$$ , that the actual luminosity necessary in order to maintain any fixed value of the relative mass reach is somewhat greater than this scaling result indicates. However, the actual values of the required luminosity scaling are found to be dependent upon the detailed nature of the NP being considered. Here we elucidate this point explicitly by employing several specific benchmark examples of possible NP scenarios and briefly discuss the (relatively weak) search impact in each case if these luminosity goals are not met.
Mechanism Of Increased Bk Channel Activation From A Channel Mutation That Causes Epilepsy

Concerted depolarization and calcium rise during action potentials activate large-conductance calcium- and voltage- activated (BK) potassium channels, whose robust potassium currents increase the rate of action potential repolarization. Gain-of-function BK channels, both in mouse knockout of the inhibitory β4 subunit, and in humans with (αD434G) mutation have been linked to epilepsy. Here, we investigate mechanisms underlying the gain of function effects of the equivalent mouse mutation (αD370G), its modulation by the β4 subunit and potential consequences of the mutation on BK currents during action potentials. Kinetic analysis in the context of the Horrigan-Aldrich allosteric gating model revealed that changes in intrinsic and calcium-dependent gating largely account for the gain-of-function effects. D370G causes a greater than 2-fold increase in intrinsic gating equilibrium constant (1.65e-6 versus 6.6e-7) and an approximately 2-fold decrease in calcium dissociation constants (closed channel: 5.2 versus 11.3 μM, open channel: 0.54 versus 0.92 μM). Contrary to a previous report, co-expression of β4 produced similar changes in G-V relationships and gating kinetics for wildtype and mutant channels, suggesting that αD370G channels can be inhibited by β4. In physiological recording solutions, we established calcium dependence of BK current recruitment during action potential-shaped stimuli. D370G reduces K1/2 for both α (6.3 versus 13.7 μM) and α/β4 (15.0 versus 24.8 μM) channels. Although increased recruitment of BK currents by the mutation for both channel types are highly calcium dependent, greater effects were observed for the α/β4 BK channels. These results suggest that the D370G enhancement of intrinsic gating and apparent calcium affinity allow a greater contribution of BK current in sharpening of action potentials both in the presence and absence of the inhibitory β4 subunit.
Dark Energy Constraints from Baryon Acoustic Oscillations

Baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) in the galaxy power spectrum allow us to extract the scale of the comoving sound horizon at recombination, a cosmological standard ruler accurately determined by the cosmic microwave background anisotropy data. We examine various issues important in the use of BAOs to probe dark energy. We find that if we assume a flat universe and priors on ?m, ?mh2, and ?bh2 as expected from the Planck mission, the constraints on dark energy parameters (w0, w') scale much less steeply with survey area than (area)-1/2 for a given redshift range. The constraints on the dark energy density ?X(z), however, do scale roughly with (area)-1/2 due to the strong correlation between H(z) and ?m (which reduces the effect of priors on ?m). Dark energy constraints from BAOs are very sensitive to the assumed linear scale of matter clustering and the redshift accuracy of the survey. For a BAO survey with 0.5 ? z ? 2, ? (R) = 0.4 [corresponding to kmax (z = 0) = 0.086 h Mpc-1], and ?z/ (1 + z) = 0.001, we find = (0.115,0.183) and (0.069, 0.104) for survey areas of 1000 and 10,000 deg2, respectively. We find that it is critical to minimize the bias in the scale estimates in order to derive reliable dark energy constraints. For a 1000 (10,000) deg2 BAO survey, a 1 ? bias in ln H (z) leads to a 2 ? (3 ?) bias in w'. The bias in w' due to the same scale bias from ln DA (z) is slightly smaller and opposite in sign. The results from this paper will be useful in assessing different proposed BAO surveys and guiding the design of optimal dark energy detection strategies.