cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Credit Market Consequences of Job Displacement

This paper studies the role of job displacement in the household bankruptcy decision. Using an event-study methodology, I find that NLSY respondents are over three times more likely to file for bankruptcy immediately following a job loss. Using county-level data, I find similar magnitudes in the aggregate, with significant effects lasting two to three years. In addition, the loss of a manufacturing job, a proxy for a more persistent separation, is 40 percent more likely to lead to bankruptcy. The results suggest that unemployment spells can have significant long-term consequences on households' credit market outcomes. JEL Classification: J63, K35, D14, R20
Vertical integration and product market competition: Evidence from the Spanish local TV industry

This paper empirically examines the relation between product market competition and vertical integration in the Spanish local TV industry. For this reason, I use a data set of Spanish local TV stations that provides station level information on vertical integration and product market competition, as well as other station and market characteristics, for the years 1996, 1999 and 2002. During this period, changes in regulation in this industry had a strong impact on the level of market competition faced by local TV stations. I use differences in market structure across markets and years to empirically study the relation between vertical integration and competition. My results show that there exists a negative relation between vertical integration and market competition. I also find that despite the fact that private stations are less likely to integrate content production, they are more likely to do so the higher the number of competing stations in their coverage area. Private stations do so because by increasing the percentage of content produced in-house they differentiate themselves from competition and therefore soften competition and maximize profits.
New insights into the global composition of the lunar surface from high‐energy gamma rays measured by Lunar Prospector

[1] An analysis of the lunar gamma-ray spectrum as measured by the Lunar Prospector Gamma-Ray Spectrometer has revealed that 8–8.9 MeV gamma rays contain information about the elemental composition of near-surface materials. These high-energy gamma rays are found to be primarily sensitive to the total Fe and Mg content of the surface, although other elements also contribute. This information has been used to identify several regions with unique compositions, including the Hertzsprung and Orientale basins. A method for deriving global Mg abundances from high-energy gamma-ray measurements is presented. The physical mechanism for high-energy gamma-ray production is proposed to be radiation produced during the decay of galactic cosmic ray produced pions within the lunar surface. Laboratory measurements of pion production cross sections are found to be consistent with the empirically derived relationship between the lunar Fe, Mg, and Ti abundances and the measured high-energy gamma-ray count rates.
The Insurance Value of Medical Innovation

Abstract Economists think of medical innovation as a valuable but risky good, producing health benefits but increasing financial risk for consumers and healthcare payers. This perspective overlooks how innovation can lower physical risks borne by healthy patients facing the prospect of future disease. We present an alternative framework that accounts for all these sources of value and links them to the value of healthcare insurance. We show that any innovation worth buying reduces overall risk and generates positive insurance value on its own. We conduct a stylized numerical exercise to assess the potential empirical significance of our insights. Our calculations suggest that conventional methods meaningfully understate the value of historical health gains and disproportionately undervalue treatments for the most severe illnesses, where physical risk to consumers is the costliest. These calculations also suggest that the value of physical insurance from new technologies may exceed the financial spending risk that they pose.
The FU orionis outburst as a thermal accretion event: Theoretical and observational implications

Detailed calculations of viscous accretion disks suggest that FU Ori outbursts signify the existence of protostellar disks transporting mass at a time-averaged rate of (1–10)×10−6 M⊙/yr around some fraction (≈10%) of young stellar objects. Accretion through the inner parts of these disks is self regulated by the thermal ionization instability such that long periods (≈1000 yr) of low mass flux: (1–10)×10−8 M⊙/yr, are punctuated by short periods (≈100 yr) of high mass flux: (1–10)×10−5 M⊙/yr. The unstable region of the disk extends only to ≈ 1/4 AU. Beyond this region matter is transported stably through the disk at the infall rate, M in .
Appraisal Using Generalized Additive Models

Many of the results from real estate empirical studies depend upon using a correct functional form for their validity. Unfortunately, common parametric statistical tools cannot easily control for t...
Using Outage History to Exclude High-Risk Satellites from GBAS Corrections

GNSS augmentation systems that provide integrity guarantees to users typically assume that all GNSS satellites have the same failure probability. The assumed failure probability is conservative such that variations among satellites in a given GNSS constellation are not expected to violate this assumption. A study of unscheduled GPS satellite outages from 1999 to 2011 shows that, as expected, older satellites are much more likely to fail than younger ones. In addition, satellites that have recently experienced unscheduled outages are more likely to suffer additional unscheduled outages. Combining these two factors suggests that it is possible for a subset of GPS satellites to violate the overall satellite failure probability assumption, although this has not yet been demonstrated. Potential rules for GPS satellite exclusion based upon satellite age and recent outages are investigated, and suggestions for including satellite geometry are explored. Copyright © 2012 Institute of Navigation.
Thinking about Religion, Law, and Politics in Latin America

Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age is both important and insufficient to the study of religion, law, and politics in Latin America. While aspects of the North Atlantic experience of secularity have become globalized, shaping legal systems and other forms of collective governance around the world, local and regional histories and experiences often depart significantly from Taylor’s account of secularity and conception of religion. Scholars of religion and politics in the region need to consider those aspects of local and regional history, such as indigenous and Afro-descendent histories and experiences, that challenge or may be indifferent to globalized Euro-American experiences of secularity and religion. To do so requires grappling with the global effects of the history charted by Taylor while also moving beyond it to account for practices, histories, and ways of life that work outside or against “secularity 3” and the presumptions about religion that it presupposes and produces.
Design for reliability: NASA reliability preferred practices for design and test

This tutorial summarizes reliability experience from both NASA and industry and reflects engineering practices that support current and future civil space programs. These practices were collected from various NASA field centers and were reviewed by a committee of senior technical representatives from the participating centers (members are listed at the end). The material for this tutorial was taken from the publication issued by the NASA Reliability and Maintainability Steering Committee (NASA Reliability Preferred Practices for Design and Test. NASA TM-4322, 1991). Reliability must be an integral part of the systems engineering process. Although both disciplines must be weighed equally with other technical and programmatic demands, the application of sound reliability principles will be the key to the effectiveness and affordability of America's space program. Our space programs have shown that reliability efforts must focus on the design characteristics that affect the frequency of failure. Herein, we emphasize that these identified design characteristics must be controlled by applying conservative engineering principles.
Generalized Twin Gaussian processes using Sharma---Mittal divergence

There has been a growing interest in mutual information measures due to their wide range of applications in machine learning and computer vision. In this paper, we present a generalized structured regression framework based on Sharma---Mittal (SM) divergence, a relative entropy measure, which is introduced to in the machine learning community in this work. SM divergence is a generalized mutual information measure for the widely used Renyi, Tsallis, Bhattacharyya, and Kullback---Leibler (KL) relative entropies. Specifically, we study SM divergence as a cost function in the context of the Twin Gaussian processes (TGP) (Bo and Sminchisescu 2010), which generalizes over the KL-divergence without computational penalty. We show interesting properties of Sharma---Mittal TGP (SMTGP) through a theoretical analysis, which covers missing insights in the traditional TGP formulation. However, we generalize this theory based on SM-divergence instead of KL-divergence which is a special case. Experimentally, we evaluated the proposed SMTGP framework on several datasets. The results show that SMTGP reaches better predictions than KL-based TGP, since it offers a bigger class of models through its parameters that we learn from the data.
Profile of Hired Farmworkers, A 2008 Update

Hired farmworkers make up a third of the total agricultural labor force and are critical to U.S. agricultural production, particularly in labor-intensive sectors such as fruits and vegetables. The hired farmworker labor market is unique because it includes a large population of relatively disadvantaged and often unauthorized workers, a portion of whom migrate to, and within, the United States. Recent economic and demographic trends, such as changing agricultural production methods that permit year-round employment, expanding immigrant populations in nonmetropolitan counties, and growing concerns over U.S. immigration policies, have elicited increased interest in hired farmworkers. This 2008 profile serves as an update to the 2000 Economic Research Service analysis of the 1998 Current Population Survey using current data with expanded sections on legal status, poverty, housing, and use of social services.
Understanding the IMF

It is suggested that the thermal physics of star-forming clouds may play a more important role than has usually been recognized in the origin of the stellar IMF and in determining a characteristic mass scale. The importance of the thermal physics has been clearly demonstrated for the formation of the first stars in the universe, where it is well understood and results in cooling to a characteristic minimum temperature at a preferred density, and hence in a characteristic scale for fragmentation. In present-day star-forming clouds, an analogous situation may exist in that at low densities the temperature is expected to decrease with increasing density, reaching a minimum when the gas becomes thermally coupled to the dust and then rising slowly at higher densities. A minimum temperature of about 5 K is predicted to occur at a density of the order of 10−18 g cm−3, and at this point the Jeans mass is about 0.3 solar masses, similar to the mass at which the IMF peaks. If most of the fragmentation in star-forming clouds occurs in filaments, as is suggested by many simulations as well as by observations, fragmentation seems likely to occur preferentially at the density where the temperature reaches a minimum, and the Jeans mass at this point may then determine a characteristic scale for fragmentation and hence a preferred stellar
Transient potentials transmitted by an artificial electrochemical synapse

Experiments have been made with a simple device consisting of two asymmetrically insulated electrodes separated by a thin electrolytic layer. This device has been found to exhibit a wide variety of transient potentials similar to those transmitted by biological synapses, thus suggesting the possibility of constructing a network of similar devices which simulates the behaviour of a biological neural network. >
Planning with external events

I describe a planning methodology for domains with uncertainty in the form of external events that are not completely predictable. The events are represented by enabling conditions and probabilities of occurrence. The planner is goal-directed and backward chaining, but the subgoals are suggested by analysing the probability of success of the partial plan rather than being simply the open conditions of the operators in the plan. The partial plan is represented as a Bayesian belief net to compute its probability of success. Since calculating the probability of success of a plan can be very expensive I introduce two other techniques for computing it, one that uses Monte Carlo simulation to estimate it and one based on a Markov chain representation that uses knowledge about the dependencies between the predicates describing the domain.
Dynamic programming for structured continuous Markov decision problems

We describe an approach for exploiting structure in Markov Decision Processes with continuous state variables. At each step of the dynamic programming, the state space is dynamically partitioned into regions where the value function is the same throughout the region. We first describe the algorithm for piecewise constant representations. We then extend it to piecewise linear representations, using techniques from POMDPs to represent and reason about linear surfaces efficiently. We show that for complex, structured problems, our approach exploits the natural structure so that optimal solutions can be computed efficiently.
Food Safety as a Global Public Good: Is There Underinvestment?

Globalization of the food system is shaped by demand trends that bring about deep integration of agricultural production and marketing. As diets and food quality become more similar around the world, risks are shared across borders, creating global public "goods" and "bads." Examples of globally shared food safety risks include acute risks such as microbial pathogens, as well as chronic risks, such as those arising from pesticide residues or mycotoxins. Food safety is addressed as a global public good through private sector efforts, institutional innovations such as the SPS agreement under the WTO, and trade capacity building efforts to improve food safety management for developing country exports. Data on food safety import violations from the U.S. and the EU show where the global food system is experiencing failures in delivering safe food. Microbial pathogens in seafood are an area of common concern; other problems reflect differences in standards between these two major high income markets. WTO's database on trade facilitation shows that most efforts focus on general capacity building and only a few address specific risks or commodities. Although meeting standards for high income consumers motivates trade facilitation, the spillovers for developing country consumers from such investments could be large.
Design of an Electrochemical Cell Making Syngas ( CO + H2 ) from CO2 and H2O Reduction at Room Temperature

An electrolysis-cell design for simultaneous electrochemical reduction of CO 2 and H 2 O to make syngas (CO + H 2 ) at room temperature (25°C) was developed, based on a technology very close to that of proton-exchange-membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), i.e., based on the use of gas-diffusion electrodes so as to achieve high current densities. While a configuration involving a proton-exchange membrane (Nafion) as electrolyte was shown to be unfavorable for CO 2 reduction, a modified configuration based on the insertion of a pH-buffer layer (aqueous KHCO 3 ) between the silver-based cathode catalyst layer and the Nafion membrane allows for a great enhancement of the cathode selectivity for CO 2 reduction to CO [ca. 30 mA/cm 2 at a potential of -1.7 to -1.75 V vs SCE (saturated-calomel reference electrode)]. A CO/H 2 ratio of 1/2, suitable for methanol synthesis, is obtained at a potential of ca. -2 V vs SCE and a total current density of ca. 80 mA/cm 2 . An issue that has been identified is the change in product selectivity upon long-term electrolysis. Results obtained with two other cell designs are also presented and compared.
Fiscal stabilization and exchange rate instability

The aim of this paper is to examine the implications for certain key macroeconomic variables in relation to reductions in public spending. In particular, the paper looks at; the rate of inflation, the interest rate, and the rate of growth of real GNP. The paper develops an intertemporal general equilibrium model that is used to analyze reductions in government spending and the implications for the exchange rate and the balance of payments of these reductions. Section II gives a brief review of background literature and provides an intuitive explanation of our model. Section III formally derives the analytics of the model, while Section IV sketches a proof of the existence of an intertemporal equilibrium. Section V gives some policy simulations using Mexican data, and finally, Section VI concludes the paper.
Re-Imagining Russian Nuclear Weapons Scientists

Three factors shaped global society in the period after 1945 -capitalism, colonialism, and cold war. Of these three, anthropologists have almost entirely ignored the cold war in the recent wave of theorizing about global processes. And now we are in the process of ignoring the reformulation of the international security order in the decade after the end of the cold war. If I can be permitted to play with Arjun Appadurai's language about global flows and structures, I would like to suggest that, in addition to "ethnoscapes," "mediascapes," and "financescapes," global society is patterned by "securityscapes." Far from producing deterritorialization in the new global order, these "securityscapes" regulate the flow of people and resources between countries, distribute nation-states into hierarchies and alliances, and produce complex discourses of identity and enmity. Especially for those working in the security apparatuses of the superpowers, the cold war provided lived realities, structures of feeling, and cultural imaginaries articulating the innermost recesses of the self to the nation-state. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the cold war "securityscape" has buckled and twisted into a strange new shape. In the new world order that is now congealing, Russia is no longer an enemy but is not quite a friend, is no longer communist hut not exactly capitalist, and is no longer a superpower but, with its 12,000 nuclear weapons ready to destroy us (Norris and Arkin 1997), is hardly a country like any other. It is the rapid dislocation and ambiguity of Russia's position in this "securityscape", and the ambivalence Russian and American security personnel feel towards one another as new discourses are superimposed across old ones, that I want to explore in this paper. The paper is based on fieldwork conducted at both of America's nuclear weapons laboratories -Los Alamos and Livermore -and among Russian nuclear weapons scientists at a variety of sites. Let's begin with a little Orientalist sensationalism. In their best-selling book, One-Point Safe, the journalists Andrew and Leslie Cockburn describe the New Russia thus:
Ramsey goodness and beyond

In a seminal paper from 1983, Burr and Erdős started the systematic study of Ramsey numbers of cliques vs. large sparse graphs, raising a number of problems. In this paper we develop a new approach to such Ramsey problems using a mix of the Szemeredi regularity lemma, embedding of sparse graphs, Turan type stability, and other structural results. We give exact Ramsey numbers for various classes of graphs, solving five — all but one — of the Burr-Erdős problems.
A differential method for computing local shape-from-texture for planar and curved surfaces

Shape from texture is best analyzed in a two-stage framework: computing the texture gradient from the image, and interpreting the texture gradient to infer the distance and shape of the scene surface in 3-D. The texture distortion is modeled at a point in any particular direction on the image plane as an affine transformation. The parameters of the affine transform are related to the viewer. A technique is developed for estimating affine transforms between nearby image patches. It is based on solving a system of linear constraints derived from a differential analysis. Given the estimated affine transforms in a number of directions, it is possible to recover local shape and orientation of the surface. It is not necessary to explicitly identify texels or make restrictive assumptions about the nature of the image texture. Experimental results are presented on images of planar and curved surfaces under perspective projection. >
Radio-selected Galaxies in Very Rich Clusters at z ≤ 0.25. II. Radio Properties and Analysis

We report on the properties of radio-selected galaxies within 30 very-rich Abell clusters with z . 0.25. The radio, optical, and x-ray data for these clusters were presented in Paper I (Morrison et al. 2002). These radio data sample the ultra-faint (L1.4 ≥ 2 × 10 22 W Hz −1 ) radio galaxy population with MR ≤ −21 using the well-known FIR/radio correlation to link the radio with ongoing star formation within individual cluster galaxies. Spectroscopic redshifts exist for ∼ 96% of the optical identifications. These radio-selected galaxies reveal the ‘active’ galaxy population (starburst and active galactic nuclei) within these rich cluster environments that can be identified regardless of their level of dust obscuration. These new radio data provide the largest sample to date of low-luminosity radio galaxies within rich cluster environments allowing an unbiased search for dusty starbursting galaxies. For all clusters in our sample, we are sensitive to star formation rates (M ≥ 5M⊙) & 5 M⊙yr −1 . We have found that the excess number of low-luminosity ‘starburst’ radio-selected galaxies (SBRG) found by Owen et al. (1999) in Abell 2125 is not indicative of other rich clusters in our sample. The average fraction of SBRG is h fSBRG i = 0.022 ± 0.003. The A2125 fraction is fSBRG = 0.09 ± 0.03 which is significantly different from the sample average at a > 99.99% confidence level. Both A1278 and A1689 are slightly different from the rest of the sample at ∼ 90% confidence level. The bimodal structure of both the x-ray brightness distribution and optical adaptively smoothed images of A1278 and A2125 suggests that ongoing cluster-cluster mergers may be enhancing this SBRG population. The A1689 excess low-luminosity (and high-luminosity) radio galaxy population may be due to interaction with the ICM. The mid-infrared ISOCAM results for A1689’s radio galaxy population suggests that the radio emission for both low- and high-luminosity radio galaxies is AGN in origin except for one radio galaxy. There is a significant spatial distribution difference between the low and high-luminosity (HLRG) radio-selected populations. The SBRG have a core radius of 0.40 ± 0.08 Mpc which is > 3× larger than the HLRG core radius. In addition, 48% of the SBRGs have colors that are bluer than a typical Sab galaxy compared to 4% for the HLRGs. The average absolute magnitude for the SBRG’s is h MR i = −21.93 ± 0.05, while for the HLRG’s it is h MR i = −22.33 ± 0.07, indicating that the SBRG are less optically luminous than their HLRG counterparts. The HLRGs seem to be a subclass of the cluster’s massive red elliptical population, while the SBRGs have a projected radial distribution more like the blue spiral population. Our results indicate that most of the SBRGs are probably gas-rich disk galaxies undergoing & 5 M⊙ yr −1 of star-formation. Subject headings: galaxies: evolution — galaxies: clusters: Abell — galaxies: starburst — radio continuum: galaxies
QSOs and Absorption-Line Systems surrounding the Hubble Deep Field

We have imaged a 45' × 45' area centered on the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) in UBVRI passbands, down to the limiting magnitudes of approximately 21.5, 22.5, 22.2, 22.2, and 21.2, respectively. The principal goals of the survey are to identify quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) and to map structure traced by luminous galaxies and QSO absorption line systems in a wide volume containing the HDF. The area surveyed is 400 times as large as that of the HDF, and 40 times as large as that of the HDF Flanking Fields. We have selected QSO candidates from color space and identified four QSOs and two narrow emission line galaxies not yet discovered, bringing the total number of known QSOs in the area to 19. The bright z = 1.305 QSO only 12' away from the HDF raises the northern HDF to nearly the same status as the southern Hubble Deep Field, which was selected to be proximate to a bright QSO. About half of the QSO candidates remain for spectroscopic verification. Absorption-line spectroscopy has been obtained for three bright QSOs in the field, using the 10 m Keck, 3.5 m ARC, and 2.4 m MDM telescopes. Five heavy-element absorption line systems have been identified, four of which overlap the well-explored redshift range covered by deep galaxy redshift surveys toward the HDF. The two absorbers at z = 0.5565 and z = 0.5621 occur at the same redshift as the secondmost populated redshift peak in the galaxy distribution, but each is more than 7 h-1 Mpc (comoving, Ωm = 1, ΩΛ = 0) away from the HDF line of sight in the transverse dimension. This supports more indirect evidence that the galaxy redshift peaks are contained within large sheetlike structures that traverse the HDF and may be precursors to large-scale "pancake" structures seen in the present-day galaxy distribution.
The welfare effects of a large depreciation : the case of Egypt, 2000-05

The Egyptian pound depreciated sharply between 2000 and 2005, declining by 26 percent in nominal trade-weighted terms. The author investigates the effect of the large depreciation on household welfare operating through exchange rate-induced changes in consumer prices. He estimates exchange rate pass-through regressions using disaggregated monthly consumer price indices to isolate the impact of the exchange rate changes on consumer prices. Then he uses household-level data from the 2000 and 2005 Egyptian household surveys to quantify the welfare effects of these consumer price changes at the household level. The average welfare loss due to exchange rate-induced price increases was equivalent to 7.4 percent of initial expenditure. Stronger estimated exchange rate pass-through for food items imply that this effect disproportionately affected poorer households.
The Nature and Evolution of Absorption—Selected Galaxies

We present results of surveys for high redshift galaxies selected by their having produced detectable Mg II and Lyman limit absorption in the spectra of background QSOs. We discuss the properties of the absorbing galaxies, the connection between galaxy properties and absorption line signatures, and how a combination of QSO absorption line and conventional faint galaxy techniques can be used to study field galaxy evolution to very large redshifts.
Two Tales on the Returns to Education: The Impact of Trade on Wages

This paper uses microdata from the Current Population Survey combined with data from the U.S. International Trade Commission and Bureau of Economic Analysis to evaluate the impacts of international trade (imports penetration and exports intensiveness) on wages with a special focus on the returns to education. Consistent with the literature, our empirical analysis provides evidence that the wage rates of similarly skilled workers differ across net-exporting, net-importing and nontradable industries. Our results add to the literature by showing that the wage gap usually found across importing and exporting industries vanishes for highly-skilled workers (workers with college degree and beyond) when we control for the cross-effect between international trade and education, but the wage gap due to international trade still persists for low-skilled workers. This finding supports the view that education serves as an equalizer and counterbalances the adverse impact from imports-penetration on wages of highly-skilled workers
Iris Stiffening Following Drug Stimulation

Glaucoma is a general term for the deterioration of the optic nerve head usually associated with an increase of intraocular pressure (IOP). Certain types of glaucoma are associated directly with the displacement of the iris from its normal morphology [1]. For example, angle closure glaucoma and pigment dispersion syndrome involve abnormal anterior or posterior displacement of the iris, respectively [2]. In angle closure, the abnormal position of the peripheral iris blocks aqueous humor access to the outflow pathway (trabecular meshwork), increasing the IOP. Although there has been a considerable amount of ultrastructural characterization of the iris [3], to our knowledge, there as been little done on the mechanical characterization of the iris other than a previous study by Heys and Barocas on passive bovine irides [4]. To have a complete understanding of these it requires that we understand the mechanical properties of the iris in both its passive and stimulated states. Mechanical analysis of the iris requires the consideration of its two constituent muscles, the inner sphincter iridis and the outer dilator pupillae, see Fig. 1. The sphincter iridis is innervated parasympathetically whereas the dilator is innervated sympathetically.Copyright © 2007 by ASME
Orbital Elements of MACHO Project Eclipsing Binary Stars

Large scale photometric surveys can deliver very large numbers of eclipsing binary stars. It is not presently possible to obtain radial velocity information for more than a small fraction of these. We have made some progress in the estimation of the statistical distributions of orbital elements (including semi-major axis and eccentricity) in the MACHO Project catalog of eclipsing binary stars. We see the well-known tendency to circularization in short period orbits and also detect late tidal circularization during the giant phase. The extension of these techniques to newer surveys will also be discussed.
Enabling safe dynamic component-based software adaptation

Recomposable software enables a system to change its structure and behavior during execution, in response to a dynamic execution environment. This paper proposes an approach to ensure that such adaptations are safe with respect to system consistency. The proposed method takes into consideration dependency analysis for target components, specifically determining viable sequences of adaptive actions and those states in which an adaptive action may be applied safely. We demonstrate that the technique ensures safe adaptation (insertion, removal, and replacement of components) in response to changing external conditions in a wireless multicast video application.
The Galactic Theory of Mass Extinctions: an Update

Astronomical and geological evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that mass extinctions of life on Earth are related to impacts of comets whose flux is partly modulated by the dynamics of the Milky Way Galaxy. Geologic evidence for impact (ejects and large impact craters) has been found at times of mass extinction events, and the record of large dated craters shows a significant correlation with extinctions. Statistical analyses suggest that mass extinction events exhibit a periodic component of about 30 Myr, and periodicities of 30 ± 0.5 Myr and 35 ± 2 Myr have been extracted from sets of well-dated large impact craters. These results suggest periodic or quasi-periodic showers of impactors, probably Oort Cloud comets, with an approximately 30 or 36 Myr cycle. The best explanation for these proposed quasi-periodic comet showers involves the Sun’s vertical oscillation through the galactic disk, which may have a similar cycle time between crossings of the galactic plane. Further refinement of the model will depend on the identification and quantification of the dark matter component in the galactic disk, and discovery and accurate dating of additional impact craters.
Modality in the MGLAIR architecture

The MGLAIR cognitive agent architecture includes a general model of modality and support for concurrent multimodal perception and action. It provides afferent and efferent modalities as instantiable objects used in agent implementations. Each modality is defined by a set of properties that govern its use and its integration with reasoning and acting. This paper presents the MGLAIR model of modalities and mechanisms for their use in computational cognitive agents.
Survey of design points for low wire count PRS loads

Summary form only given. Plasma radiation source (PRS) loads of a few larger diameter wires offer a relatively unexplored path to energetic implosions. Such loads with larger initial wire diameters and load radii will provide lower inductance at the expense of more precursor plasma involvement. In contrast to closed arrays with hundreds of fine wires, this relatively unexplored path to energetic implosions would use two or three load wires of appropriately heavier mass and aims to create a focused axial stagnation of dense wire cores amidst the assembled precursor plasma. Initial studies of low wire count loads show promising results with respect to initial inductance and available stagnation energy. Here we examine the trade space of stagnation energy, machine current, implosion time, and delivered mass for several drivers in common use. In contrast to earlier WDM formulations with inductance matrix elements good only in the thin wire limit, the present work makes full use of a new analytic result that accounts for proximity effects among the wire cores and a direct Lorentz gauge field solver to treat the TM mode set at the midplane in the pinch region. The current elements associated with the coronal plasma are then axial filaments constrained by the local conductivity, thermal gradients, and fluid velocity. A fluid particle representation enables the resolution of precursor plasma flows and wire core stagnation. Radiation yields are estimated with tabular CRE methods.
The Role of International Reserves in Sovereign Debt Restructuring under Fiscal Adjustment

Highly indebted developing economies commonly also hold large external reserves. This behavior seems puzzling given that governments in these countries borrow with an interest rate penalty to compensate lenders for default risk. Reducing debt to the same extent as reserves would maintain net liabilities constant while decreasing interest payments. However, holding reserves can have insurance benefits in a financial crisis. To rationalize the levels of international reserves and external debt observed in the data, a standard dynamic model of equilibrium default is extended to include distortionary taxation and debt restructuring. This paper shows that fiscal adjustments induced by sovereign default can generate large demand for reserves if taxation is distortionary. At the same time, a non-negligible position in reserves modifies the debt restructuring negotiations upon default. A calibrated version of the model produces recovery rate schedules that are increasing with reserves, as seen in the data, being also able to replicate large positions of reserves and debt to GDP. Finally, I study how both mechanisms play a key quantitative role to generate such result, in fact, not including them, produces a counterfactual demand for reserves that is close to zero.
The Evolution of Cluster Substructure

Using Chandra archival data, we quantify the evolution of cluster morphology with redshift. To quantify cluster morphology, we use the power ratio method developed by Buote and Tsai (1995). Power ratios are constructed from moments of the two-dimensional gravitational potential and are, therefore, related to a cluster’s dynamical state. Our sample will include 40 clusters from the Chandra archive with redshifts between 0.11 and 0.89. These clusters were selected from two fairly complete flux-limited X-ray surveys (the ROSAT Bright Cluster Sample and the Einstein Medium Sensitivity Survey), and additional high-redshift clusters were selected from recent ROSAT flux-limited surveys. Here we present preliminary results from the first 28 clusters in this sample. Of these, 16 have redshifts below 0.5, and 12 have redshifts above 0.5.
what is missing between agricultural growth and infrastructure development ? cases of coffee and dairy in Africa

Although it is commonly believed that aggregate economic growth must be associated with public infrastructure stocks, the possible infrastructure needs and effects are different from industry to industry. The agriculture sector is typical. Various infrastructures would affect agriculture growth differently depending on the type of commodity. This paper finds that a general transport network is essential to promote coffee and cocoa production, perhaps along with irrigation facilities, depending on local rainfall. Conversely, along with the transport network, the dairy industry necessitates rural water supply services as well. In some African countries, a 1 percent improvement in these key aspects of infrastructure could raise GDP by about 0.1-0.4 percent, and by possibly by several percent in some cases.
Olfactory signal processing

Olfaction, the sense of smell, has received scant attention from a signal processing perspective in comparison to audition and vision. In this paper, we develop a signal processing paradigm for olfactory signals based on new scientific discoveries including the psychophysics concept of olfactory white. We describe a framework for predicting the perception of odorant compounds from their physicochemical features and use the prediction as a foundation for several downstream processing tasks. We detail formulations for odor cancellation and food steganography, and provide real-world empirical examples for the two tasks. We also discuss adaptive filtering and other olfactory signal processing tasks at a high level.
Vassily Nalimov — Modern Russian High Priest

It was through Gene Garfield of the ISI Press, Vassily’s publisher in the United States, that I first heard of a set of extraordinary books by this very distinguished Russian mathematician. Gene and I have long shared an “evaluative” and slightly philosophical attitude toward the American science community in which we “live, move, and have our being.” So when he told me of this remarkable Russian who shared some of the same weltanschauung, I dived eagerly into Nalimov’s Faces of Science (1981) and found there the work of a kindred spirit. The line drawings by Zlatkovsky which were used to illustrate the book picked up, visually, so many of the very same themes that I had championed in U.S. science policy circles for years that I actually obtained Nalimov’s permission to use them in my major science policy book, Lost at the Frontier (1985), written with Deborah Shapley. This introduction to his thought proved to me that Nalimov had clearly put “science in its (proper) place” in the context of human affairs. Here was a scientist who had transcended science into citizenship – citizenship of a new world community. As I learned more of his life and back ground and work, what staggered me was the position he held in the Mathematical Institute of one of the greatest mathematical centers of the world, in the Intrafaculty Laboratory of Statistical Methods at Moscow State University led by Kolmogorov. I was very familiar with Soviet science, since I had been chairman for some years of the U.S. National Academy’s Committee on the U.S. – USSR InterNational Academies Exchange Program. I was frequently in Moscow and knew the Soviet bureaucracy anomaly. It boggled my mind that any Soviet scientist would be allowed to conduct sensory-deprivation experiments on artists and to analyze the images they created in terms of Nalimov's Realms of the Unconscious (1982). Certainly no department of mathematics in the West would have tolerated such deviant behavior! I also felt a rather special bond with Vassily because he was the only other “highpowered” scientist I knew who was intimately knowledgeable about the Bible and Western theology – and who was willing and able to write openly about theology.
Are megaquakes clustered

[1] We study statistical properties of the number of large earthquakes over the past century. We analyze the cumulative distribution of the number of earthquakes with magnitude larger than threshold M in time interval T, and quantify the statistical significance of these results by simulating a large number of synthetic random catalogs. We find that in general, the earthquake record cannot be distinguished from a process that is random in time. This conclusion holds whether aftershocks are removed or not, except at magnitudes below M = 7.3. At long time intervals (T = 2–5 years), we find that statistically significant clustering is present in the catalog for lower magnitude thresholds (M = 7–7.2). However, this clustering is due to a large number of earthquakes on record in the early part of the 20th century, when magnitudes are less certain.
Comparison of integrated clustering methods for accurate and stable prediction of building energy consumption data

Clustering methods are often used to model energy consumption for two reasons. First, clustering is often used to process data and to improve the predictive accuracy of subsequent energy models. Second, stable clusters that are reproducible with respect to non-essential changes can be used to group, target, and interpret observed subjects. However, it is well known that clustering methods are highly sensitive to the choice of algorithms and variables. This can lead to misleading assessments of predictive accuracy and mis-interpretation of clusters in policymaking. This paper therefore introduces two methods to the modeling of energy consumption in buildings: clusterwise regression, also known as latent class regression, which integrates clustering and regression simultaneously; and cluster validation methods to measure stability. Using a large dataset of multifamily buildings in New York City, clusterwise regression is compared to common two-stage algorithms that use K-means and model-based clustering with linear regression. Predictive accuracy is evaluated using 20-fold cross validation, and the stability of the perturbed clusters is measured using the Jaccard coefficient. These results show that there seems to be an inherent tradeoff between prediction accuracy and cluster stability. This paper concludes by discussing which clustering methods may be appropriate for different analytical purposes.
How Midazolam Can Help Us Understand Human Memory: 3 Illustrations and a Proposal for a New Methodology

Midazolam is a benzodiazepine commonly used as an anxiolytic in surgery. A useful attribute of this drug is that it creates temporary, reversible, anterograde amnesia. Studies involving healthy subjects given midazolam in one session and saline in another, in a double-blind, cross-over design, provide insights into memory function. Several experiments will be described to illustrate the potential of studying subjects with transient anterograde amnesia. This talk will also outline how this drug can be used in combination with fMRI to provide more insights about brain functioning than either method in isolation.
Reconstruction-Free Action Inference from Compressive Imagers

Persistent surveillance from camera networks, such as at parking lots, UAVs, etc., often results in large amounts of video data, resulting in significant challenges for inference in terms of storage, communication and computation. Compressive cameras have emerged as a potential solution to deal with the data deluge issues in such applications. However, inference tasks such as action recognition require high quality features which implies reconstructing the original video data. Much work in compressive sensing (CS) theory is geared towards solving the reconstruction problem, where state-of-the-art methods are computationally intensive and provide low-quality results at high compression rates. Thus, reconstruction-free methods for inference are much desired. In this paper, we propose reconstruction-free methods for action recognition from compressive cameras at high compression ratios of 100 and above. Recognizing actions directly from CS measurements requires features which are mostly nonlinear and thus not easily applicable. This leads us to search for such properties that are preserved in compressive measurements. To this end, we propose the use of spatio-temporal smashed filters, which are compressive domain versions of pixel-domain matched filters. We conduct experiments on publicly available databases and show that one can obtain recognition rates that are comparable to the oracle method in uncompressed setup, even for high compression ratios.
Remarkably consistent thermal state of the south central Chile subduction zone from 36°S to 45°S

Delineating rupture areas of subduction zone earthquakes is necessary for understanding the controls on seismic and aseismic slip. For the largest recorded earthquake, the 1960 Chile event with moment magnitude 9.5, the rupture area is only loosely defined due to limitations in the global seismic network at the time. The rupture extends ~900 km along strike. Coastal deformation is consistent with either a constant rupture width of ~180–200 km along the entire length or a narrower (~115 km) rupture in the southern half. A southward narrowing of the seismogenic zone has been hypothesized to result from warming of the subduction zone to the south, where the subducting plate is younger. We present results of thermal models at 36°S, 38°S, 43°S, and 45°S to examine potential along-strike changes in thermal state. Models most consistent with observed surface heat flux include fluid circulation in the oceanic crust that advects heat to the ocean. This ventilated hydrothermal circulation preferentially cools transects with young subducting lithosphere; frictional heating preferentially warms transects with older subducting lithosphere. The combined effects of frictional heating and hydrothermal circulation increase decollement temperatures in the 36°S and 38°S transects by up to ~155°C and decrease temperatures in the 45°S transect by up to ~150°C. In our preferred models, decollement temperatures 200 km landward of the trench in all four transects are ~350–400°C. This is consistent with a constant ~200 km wide seismogenic zone for the 1960 Mw 9.5 rupture, with decreasing slip magnitude in the southern half of the rupture.
Weyl-Titchmarsh M-function asymptotics, local uniqueness results, trace formulas, and Borg-type theorems for Dirac operators

We explicitly determine the high-energy asymptotics for Weyl-Titchmarsh matrices associated with general Dirac-type operators on half-lines and on R. We also prove new local uniqueness results for Dirac-type operators in terms of exponentially small differences of Weyl-Titchmarsh matrices. As concrete applications of the asymptotic high-energy expansion we derive a trace formula for Dirac operators and use it to prove a Borg-type theorem.
Sequential selection procedures and false discovery rate control

Summary We consider a multiple-hypothesis testing setting where the hypotheses are ordered and one is only permitted to reject an initial contiguous block of hypotheses. A rejection rule in this setting amounts to a procedure for choosing the stopping point k. This setting is inspired by the sequential nature of many model selection problems, where choosing a stopping point or a model is equivalent to rejecting all hypotheses up to that point and none thereafter. We propose two new testing procedures and prove that they control the false discovery rate in the ordered testing setting. We also show how the methods can be applied to model selection by using recent results on p-values in sequential model selection settings.