cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Robustness of Incentive Policies in Team Problems with Discrepancies in Goal Perceptions

Abstract In this paper we analyze a class of two-agent team decision problems with a hierarchical decision structure, wherein one of the decision makers may have a slightly different perception of the overall team goal, with this slight variation not known by the other agent who is assumed to occupy the hierarchically dominant position. The leading agent has access to dynamic information and his role is to announce such a policy (incentive scheme) which would lead to achievement of the overall team goal, in spite of the slight variations in the other agent’s perception of that goal, which are not known or predictable by him. We may call a policy with such an additional feature a robust incentive policy. We obtain, in the paper, robust policies for the leading agent, for a general cost functional with convex structure, which are least sensitive to variations in the following agent’s perception of the team goal. In some special cases, we show that the robust feature of the incentive scheme is maintained regardless of the magnitude and nature of the variations, and illustrate the theory with two applications examples arising in microeconomics and armament limitation and control.
An Introduction to Singular Perturbations in Nonlinear Optimal Control

Before turning to the general n-dimensional nonlinear optimal control problem, which is of primary interest in this paper, we will first consider a much simpler problem, namely the singularly perturbed, uncontrolled, autonomous, initial-value problem (1.1) where x(e,t) and y(e,t) are scalars, e < 0, and xo and yo are constants.
School-Based Mental Health Programs in the United States: Present Status and a Blueprint for the Future

This article provides a brief overview of the sociocultural and political factors in the U.S. that have influenced recent interest in school-based health and mental health programs. Four well-known...
Fully Dynamic Matching in Bipartite Graphs

We present two fully dynamic algorithms for maximum cardinality matching in bipartite graphs. Our main result is a deterministic algorithm that maintains a \((3/2 + \epsilon )\) approximation in worst-case update time \(O(m^{1/4}\epsilon ^{-2.5})\). This algorithm is polynomially faster than all previous deterministic algorithms for any constant approximation, and faster than all previous algorithms (randomized included) that achieve a better-than-2 approximation. We also give stronger results for bipartite graphs whose arboricity is at most \(\alpha \), achieving a \((1+ \epsilon )\) approximation in worst-case update time \(O(\alpha (\alpha + \log (n)) + \epsilon ^{-4}(\alpha + \log (n)) + \epsilon ^{-6})\), which is \(O(\alpha (\alpha + \log n))\) for constant \(\epsilon \). Previous results for small arboricity graphs had similar update times but could only maintain a maximal matching (2-approximation). All these previous algorithms, however, were not limited to bipartite graphs.
Improving reactivity and selectivity of aqueous-based Heck reactions by the local hydrophobicity of phosphine ligands

Modification of a triarylphosphine with a cholate moiety affords a new ligand, 1, which is effective in palladium-catalyzed Heck cross-couplings between acrylates and aryl iodides under mild, aqueous reaction conditions. High yields, up to 99%, were achieved in water at 40 °C. In competition studies, a more hydrophobic substrate (n-Bu acrylate) was preferred over the least hydrophobic substrate (methyl acrylate), supportive of a localized hydrophobic microenvironment near the catalytic center. The enhanced reactivity and selectivity for hydrophobic substrates disappeared when the local hydrophobicity was eliminated using a standard water-soluble phosphine or in organic solvents.
Mechanisms of glucocorticoid induced osteoporosis

Glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis is the most common cause of secondary osteoporosis, and the degree of bone loss is related to the dose of glucocorticoids and the duration of the exposure. However, prolonged exposure to modest doses of glucocorticoids increases the risk of fractures and there is differential individual sensitivity to these steroids. Following treatment with glucocorticoids, there is an initial rapid loss of bone probably due to increased bone resorption and then a slower progressive loss probably secondary to decreased bone remodeling. Glucocorticoids decrease gastrointestinal calcium absorption and enhance bone resorption by increasing osteoclastogenesis since they stimulate the expression of receptor activator of NF-κB ligand and colony stimulating factor-1, and decrease the levels of osteoprotegerin, a soluble decoy receptor for receptor activator of NF-κB ligand. Glucocorticoids may prolong the life of mature osteoclasts under selected conditions. Eventually, glucocorticoids decrease bone remodeling by depleting the population of osteoblasts. This occurs by a decrease in osteoblastogenesis, and an increase in the apoptosis of mature osteoblasts and osteocytes. Glucocorticoids delay the maturation of immature stromal cells toward osteoblasts and inhibit the function of mature osteoblasts. Instead, glucocorticoids enhance adipogenesis, and this probably occurs at the expense of osteoblastic differentiation. The effect is secondary to the induction of CAAT enhancer binding protein beta and CAAT enhancer binding protein delta, and of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma, which inhibits osteoblastic differentiation. These effects suggest that glucocorticoids play a role in the trade of osteoblasts and adipocytes. This is confirmed further by the fact that Notch is induced by glucocorticoids and Notch inhibits osteoblastogenesis and enhances adipogenesis. Clinically, the early effects of glucocorticoids on bone resorption can be reversed by the administration of bisphosphonates, whereas the inhibitory effects on bone formation might be reversed by parathyroid hormone. In conclusion, glucocorticoids have profound effects on skeletal cells that lead to the development of osteoporosis.
Investing across Borders with Heterogeneous Firms : Do FDI-Specific Regulations Matter?

This paper revisits the institutional determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) using a comprehensive new data set on the regulations that govern FDI in more than 80 countries. It exploits the presence of confirmed zero investment flows between countries to estimate productivity cut-offs of firms that invest abroad profitably. This approach corrects likely biases arising from firm heterogeneity and country selection in a theoretically derived gravity-type model. The analysis finds inward FDI to be highly responsive to cross-country variation in specific institutional provisions, such as arbitration of disputes and legal procedures to establish foreign subsidiaries. The importance of FDI-specific provisions stands out even after controlling for the general quality of institutions. Statutory openness to FDI, however, has no association with actual inflow of investment. These results are found to be robust to different specifications.
Primordial bispectrum from multifield inflation with nonminimal couplings

Realistic models of high-energy physics include multiple scalar fields. Renormalization requires that the fields have nonminimal couplings to the spacetime Ricci curvature scalar, and the couplings can be large at the energy scales of early-universe inflation. The nonminimal couplings induce a nontrivial field-space manifold in the Einstein frame, and they also yield an effective potential in the Einstein frame with nontrivial curvature. The ridges or bumps in the Einstein-frame potential can lead to primordial non-Gaussianities of observable magnitude. We develop a covariant formalism to study perturbations in such models and calculate the primordial bispectrum. As in previous studies of non-Gaussianities in multifield models, our results for the bispectrum depend sensitively on the fields' initial conditions.
Preliminary Assessment of the Drought’s Impacts on Crop Prices and Biofuel Production

Drought has sharply decreased the size of the US corn and soybean crops this year. While there is no way of knowing for sure how low yields will go, the continuation of hot and dry weather in the major corn and soybean producing areas indicates that yield losses could be of historic proportions. The potential economic impact of low yields-particularly corn yields-is heightened this year because of a low buffer stock of corn, and because 10 percent of our motor fuel supply comes from corn. This briefing paper presents preliminary estimates of the economic impacts of low US corn and soybeans yields. The impacts are estimated for the 2012â€“13 crop year that begins on September 1st. Because we do not know what future yields will be or what future gasoline prices will be, we make the preliminary estimates using a stochastic partial equilibrium model. This type of model solves for market-clearing prices for a large number of random "draws" of yields and gasoline prices. The model is calibrated to information that is available to us at the current time, including the USDA's supply and demand projections and the level of futures prices for gasoline, corn, and ethanol.
Generalized Cartan Calculus in general dimension

We develop the generalized Cartan Calculus for the groups $$ G=\mathrm{S}\mathrm{L}\left(2,\mathrm{\mathbb{R}}\right)\times {\mathrm{\mathbb{R}}}^{+},\mathrm{S}\mathrm{L}\left(5,\mathrm{\mathbb{R}}\right) $$ and SO(5, 5). They are the underlying algebraic structures of d = 9, 7, 6 exceptional field theory, respectively. These algebraic identities are needed for the “tensor hierarchy” structure in exceptional field theory. The validity of Poincare lemmas in this new differential geometry is also discussed. Finally we explore some possible extension of the generalized Cartan calculus beyond the exceptional series.
Spillover Effects of TV Advertising: The Case of Carbonated Soft Drinks

This paper examines the spillover effects of television brand advertising on consumer demand for carbonated soft drinks using a nested logit model and household purchase and advertising data from nine U.S. cities over a three year period. Spillover effects are modeled using the conventional linear advertising production function with brand and company advertising, which assumes perfect substitution and constant returns to scale, and the results are compared to those attained via a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) model. Empirical results indicate that brand advertising spillover effects have a positive and significant impact on the demand for all brands belonging to the same company, highlighting the importance of accounting for spillover effects in demand models. The CES advertising production function outperforms the linear form, indicating decreasing returns to advertising goodwill and imperfect substitutes between brand advertising and company advertising.
Human ear recognition from face profile images

In this paper, we present a novel system for ear identification from profile images of the face. The system has two steps. In the first step, the ear is automatically detected from the profile image of the face. In the second step, the ear image is transformed to a force field, then feature points are extracted and the best match is found from a database. We propose a method based on differential geometry to extract ear feature points. We use a transformation of the ear image to make it suitable for extracting the feature points using differential geometry. During recognition, the feature points obtained from a query image are aligned and compared with those in the database using Hausdorff distance. The experimental results show that our method is effective.
State and parameter estimation of hydrologic models using the constrained ensemble Kalman filter

[1] Data assimilation techniques, such as the Kalman filter (KF) and its extensions, update state variables based on the KF type of algorithms, but state-space models usually have relevant physical laws or settings. The updated states by the KF may violate some physical constraints, which can be equality or inequality, and linear or nonlinear constraints. This paper presents three methods, the naive method, the projection method and the accept/reject method, to incorporate constraints into the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF). Essentially, the projection method projects the updated ensemble members from the unconstrained EnKF to the feasible space characterized by the constraints. The accept/reject method tries to enforce the updated states to obey the constraints by resampling the observation error and model error. The three methods are applied to a conceptual hydrologic model for state estimation and sequential parameter learning, with specific treatment of inequality constraints. Both the reject/accept and projection methods perform better than the naive method which treats the hard constraint in a simple way and ignores other constraints. It is easy to implement the accept/reject method, the performance of which is comparable to the projection method regarding both the estimation quality and the computational time with the case study.
Translating Software Designs for Model Checking

This paper presents a systematic consideration of the major issues involved in translation of executable design level software specification languages to directly model-checkable formal languages. These issues are considered under the framework of integrated model/property translation and include: (1) translator architecture; (2) semantics translation from a software language to a formal language; (3) property specification and translation; (4) transformations for state space reduction; (5) translator validation and evolution. Solutions to these issues are defined, described, and illustrated in the context of translating xUML, an executable design level software specification language, to S/R, the input formal language of the COSPAN model checker.
Linear contour learning: a method for supervised dimension reduction

We propose a novel approach to sufficient dimension reduction in regression, based on estimating contour directions of negligible variation for the response surface. These directions span the orthogonal complement of the minimal space relevant for the regression, and can be extracted according to a measure of the variation in the response, leading to General Contour Regression (GCR). In comparison to existing sufficient dimension reduction techniques, this contour-based methodology guarantees exhaustive estimation of the central space under ellipticity of the predictor distribution and very mild additional assumptions, while maintaining √n-consistency and computational ease. Moreover, it proves to be robust to departures from ellipticity. We also establish some useful population properties for GCR. Simulations to compare performance with that of standard techniques such as ordinary least squares, sliced inverse regression, principal hessian directions, and sliced average variance estimation confirm the advantages anticipated by theoretical analyses. We also demonstrate the use of contour-based methods on a data set concerning grades of students from Massachusetts colleges.
Algebraic Goodwillie calculus and a cotriple model for the remainder

Goodwillie has defined a tower of approximations for a functor from spaces to spaces that is analogous to the Taylor series of a function. His n th order approximation P n F at a space X depends on the values of F on coproducts of large suspensions of the space: F(Σ M X). We define an "algebraic" version of the Goodwillie tower, P alg n F(X) that depends only on the behavior of F on coproducts of X. When F is a functor to connected spaces or grouplike H-spaces, the functor P alg n F is the base of a fibration |⊥* +1 F| → F → P alg n F, whose fiber is the simplicial space associated to a cotriple ⊥ built from the (n + 1) st cross effect of the functor F. In a range in which F commutes with realizations (for instance, when F is the identity functor of spaces), the algebraic Goodwillie tower agrees with the ordinary (topological) Goodwillie tower, so this theory gives a way of studying the Goodwillie approximation to a functor F in many interesting cases.
Downlink Interference Alignment

We develop an interference alignment (IA) technique for a downlink cellular system. In the uplink, IA schemes need channel-state-information exchange across base-stations of different cells, but our downlink IA technique requires feedback only within a cell. As a result, the proposed scheme can be implemented with a few changes to an existing cellular system where the feedback mechanism (within a cell) is already being considered for supporting multi-user MIMO. Not only is our proposed scheme implementable with little effort, it can in fact provide substantial gain especially when interference from a dominant interferer is significantly stronger than the remaining interference: it is shown that in the two-isolated cell layout, our scheme provides four-fold gain in throughput performance over a standard multi-user MIMO technique. We also show through simulations that our technique provides respectable gain under a more realistic scenario: it gives approximately 28% gain for a 19 hexagonal wrap-around-cell layout. Furthermore, we show that our scheme has the potential to provide substantial gain for macro-pico cellular networks where pico-users can be significantly interfered with by the nearby macro-BS.
Multinationals and the Creation of Chinese Trade Linkages

. This paper studies the relationship between multinational firm proximity and the formation of new export connections by private Chinese exporters between 1997 and 2003. The results indicate that growth in the presence of multinational firms is positively associated with the formation of new trade by local Chinese firms. Further exploration suggests that information spillovers may drive this result, as the positive association due to own-industry multinational presence is particularly strong in contexts where information improvements may be the most helpful. Thus, it appears that a growing presence of multinational firms may enhance the export capabilities of local domestic firms. Ce memoire etudie la relation entre la proximite d'une firme plurinationale et la formation de nouveaux liens a l'exportation par des exportateurs chinois entre 1997 et 2003. Les resultats montrent que la croissance de la presence de firmes plurinationales est reliee de facon positive avec la formation de nouveaux liens commerciaux avec les firmes chinoises locales. Ces travaux suggerent que les debordements d'information peuvent etre a la source de ces resultats, car la relation positive attribuable a la presence de plurinationales dans la meme industrie s'avere particulierement forte dans des contextes ou l'amelioration de l'information peut etre la plus utile. Ainsi, il semble qu'une presence accrue de firmes plurinationales peut accroitre les capacites d'exportation des firmes locales.
The Internet Edge: Social, Technical, and Legal Challenges for a Networked World

From the Publisher: Sometimes when we face change, we feel conflicting forces driving us forward and pulling us back. This place of tension and confusion can be called an "edge." The "Internet edge" is our collective struggle to change as the world becomes more connected. Turmoil at the Internet edge occurs around interacting social, legal, and technological realms. Examples include issues of on-line privacy, censorship, digital copyright, and untaxed business competition over the Net. Such issues reflect conflicts between values--local and global, individual and corporate, democratic and nondemocratic. This book is an eagle's eye view of the Internet edge. It is about the experiences of those who encountered similar issues as they built precursors to the Net such as videotex, teletext, and the Source. It is about the trends in technology that will make the Net of the next few years a very different experience from the desktop surfing of today. Finally, it is about how old myths of magic, power, and control can help us to understand our fascination and fear of new technologies.
A Simple Preparation of 1-Substituted Uracils

Abstract Reaction of isocyanates with 3,3-diethoxypropionamide gives diethoxy acyl ureas which may be conveniently cyclized to 1-substituted uracils.
School competition and teacher labor markets: Evidence from charter school entry in North Carolina

Abstract I analyze changes in teacher turnover, hiring, effectiveness, and salaries at traditional public schools after the opening of a nearby charter school. While I find small effects on turnover overall, difficult to staff schools (low-income, high-minority share) hired fewer new teachers and experienced small declines in teacher quality. I also find evidence of a demand side response where schools increased teacher compensation to better retain quality teachers. The results are robust across a variety of alternate specifications to account for non-random charter entry.
Impacts of the U.S.-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) on U.S. Fruit Exports - the Apple Case

The U.S.-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) levels the playing field of trade between the United States and the six CAFTA-DR partner countries. Half of U.S. farm products gain immediate tariff-free access to the markets of the CAFTA-DR region. All Tariffs will be eliminated in 20 years. Under CAFTA-DR, tariffs on an important U.S. fresh fruit export to the region, fresh apples, declined from an initial base of 15%-25% in CAFTA-DR countries to zero immediately upon enforcement. The specific objective of this research is to analyze the impact of tariff elimination under CAFTA-DR on the trade of U.S. fresh apples. Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) is used for the analysis involving an excess-supply-excess-demand model with monthly trade data from January 2000 to December 2010. The more telling empirical results indicate that for each of the six CAFTA-DR countries, tariff elimination positively promotes U.S. apple exports to this region.
Hierarchical composition of memristive networks for real-time computing

Advances in materials science have led to physical instantiations of self-assembled networks of memristive devices and demonstrations of their computational capability through reservoir computing. Reservoir computing is an approach that takes advantage of collective system dynamics for real-time computing. A dynamical system, called a reservoir, is excited with a time-varying signal and observations of its states are used to reconstruct a desired output signal. However, such a monolithic assembly limits the computational power due to signal interdependency and the resulting correlated readouts. Here, we introduce an approach that hierarchically composes a set of interconnected memristive networks into a larger reservoir. We use signal amplification and restoration to reduce reservoir state correlation, which improves the feature extraction from the input signals. Using the same number of output signals, such a hierarchical composition of heterogeneous small networks outperforms monolithic memristive networks by at least 20% on waveform generation tasks. On the NARMA-10 task, we reduce the error by up to a factor of 2 compared to homogeneous reservoirs with sigmoidal neurons, whereas single memristive networks are unable to produce the correct result. Hierarchical composition is key for solving more complex tasks with such novel nano-scale hardware.
Flight demonstration of integrated airport surface automation concepts

A flight demonstration was conducted to address airport surface movement area capacity issues by providing pilots with enhanced situational awareness information. The demonstration showed an integration of several technologies to government and industry representatives. These technologies consisted of an electronic moving map display in the cockpit, a Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) receiver, a high speed VHF data link, an ASDE-3 radar, and the Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS). Aircraft identification was presented to an air traffic controller on AMASS. The onboard electronic map included the display of taxi routes, hold instructions, and clearances, which were sent to the aircraft via data link by the controller. The map also displayed the positions of other traffic and warning information, which were sent to the aircraft automatically from the ASDE-3/AMASS system. This paper describes the flight demonstration in detail, along with preliminary results.
Intra-Household Allocation and Consumption of WIC-Approved Foods: A Bayesian Approach

WIC, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, is a widely studied public food assistance program that aims to provide foods, nutrition education, and other services to at-risk, low-income children and pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women. From a policy perspective, it is of interest to assess the efficacy of the WIC program – how much, if at all, does the program improve the nutritional outcomes of WIC families? In this paper, we address two important issues related to the WIC program that have not been extensively addressed in the past. First, although the WIC program is primarily devised with the intent of improving the nutrition of “targeted” children and mothers, it is possible that WIC may also change the consumption of foods by nontargeted individuals within the household. Second, although WIC eligibility status is predetermined, participation in the program is voluntary and therefore potentially endogenous. We make use of a treatment–response model in which the dependent variable is the requirement-adjusted calcium intake from milk consumption and the endogenous variable is WIC participation, and estimate it using Bayesian methods. Using data from the CSFII 1994–1996, we find that the correlation between the errors of our two equations is strong and positive, suggesting that families participating in WIC have an unobserved propensity for high calcium intake. The direct “structural” WIC parameters, however, do not support the idea that WIC participation leads to increased levels of calcium intake from milk.
Anatomy of an ARM: The Interest-Rate Risk of Adjustable-Rate Mortgages

This article analyzes the dynamics of the commonly used indices for adjustable rate mortgages and systematically compares the effects of their time-series properties on the interest-rate sensitivity of adjustable-rate mortgages. Our ARM valuation methodology allows us simultaneously to capture the effects of index dynamics, discrete coupon adjustment, mortgage prepayment, and both lifetime and periodic caps and floors. We can, moreover, either calculate an optimal prepayment strategy for mortgage holders or use an empirical prepayment function. We find that the different dynamics of the major ARM indices lead to significant variation in the interest-rate sensitivities of loans based on different indices. We also find that changing assumptions about contract features, such as loan caps and coupon reset frequency, has a significant, and in some cases unexpected, impact on our results.
Estimated Costs for Production, Storage, and Transportation of Switchgrass

Costs of production for switchgrass vary depending upon yields. For 4 ton yield estimated production costs are $82.23 per ton. Storage and transportation add another $31.42 per ton.
Employment Generation Strategies for Small Towns: An Overview of Alternatives

Employment growth is a primary economic development goal of most small communities. More jobs generally mean more residents, more spending at local businesses, and more tax revenues for local governments. Thus job growth permits the expansion and improvement of public goods and services, leading to an improved local quality of life and enhanced prospects for future employment growth. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the principal advantages and disadvantages associated with alternative employment generation strategies. The discussion of community approaches to more and better jobs is organized as follows. First, two theories of community economic growth are presented as background to the causes and effects of local employment change. Second, six employment generation strategies are introduced along with suggested plans of action for communities interested in implementing a specific strategy. Finally, a procedure is provided for incorporating an employment generation program in the community economic development strategic plan.
Valuing Pilot Project Investments in Incomplete Markets: A Compound Option Approach

We introduce a general framework to value pilot project investments under the presence of both, market and technical uncertainty. The model generalizes different settings introduced previously in the literature. By distinguishing between the pilot and the commercial stages of the project we are able to frame the problem as a compound perpetual Bermudan option. We work on an incomplete market setting where market uncertainty is spanned by tradable assets and technical uncertainty is private to the firm. The value of these investment opportunities as well as the optimal exercise problem are solved by approximate dynamic programming techniques. We prove the convergence of our algorithm and derive a theoretical bound on how the errors compound as the number of stages of the compound option is increased. Furthermore, we show some numerical results and provide an economic interpretation of the model dynamics
Alchian and Menger on Money

Carl Menger and Armen Alchian told stories of the emergence of money as a spontaneous order involving two types of costs—costs of recognizing attributes of goods and costs of finding willing exchange partners. Menger assumed that the first are zero and the second are positive. Alchian assumed the opposite. In the real world both types of costs are positive, so a truly satisfactory story of the emergence of money as a spontaneous order has yet to be written. This is another example of the complementarity of work done by some Austrian and some neoclassical economists.
Hospitals as Insurers of Last Resort

American hospitals are required to provide emergency medical care to the uninsured. We use previously confidential hospital financial data to study the resulting uncompensated care, medical care for which no payment is received. Using both panel-data methods and case studies, we find that each additional uninsured person costs hospitals approximately $800 each year. Increases in the uninsured population also lower hospital profit margins, suggesting that hospitals do not pass along all uncompensated-care costs to other parties such as hospital employees or privately insured patients. A hospital's uncompensated-care costs also increase when a neighboring hospital closes.
Trends and Scale-Up for Data Administration

The application development lifecycle is undergoing several grand unifications that, together, will rescue conceptual modeling from the wilderness. At the same time, advances in data warehouses and middleware are removing some of the software barriers to large, multi-organizational databases, creating new data administration challenges. The increasing scale and complexity of our systems identify new "grand challenges" to data administration research; we discuss two of these, in some detail: the administration of multi-tier schema, and exploiting legacy or "foreign" data during the development of new application schemas. We illustrate these issues with examples taken from the United States Department of Defense (DOD).
Conjunctive, subset, and range queries on encrypted data

We construct public-key systems that support comparison queries (x ≥ a) on encrypted data as well as more general queries such as subset queries (x∈ S). Furthermore, these systems support arbitrary conjunctive queries (P1 ∧ ... ∧ Pl) without leaking information on individual conjuncts. We present a general framework for constructing and analyzing public-key systems supporting queries on encrypted data.
Genetic health and eugenics precedents: a voice of caution.

The growing tendency to provide genetic explanations for disease means our contemporary concept of biological health includes not only the concept of absence of disease processes, but also the idea of an individual's risk of disease or death. A genetic definition of health incorporates the concept of the absence of the risk of illness processes in those to whom we are genetically related. The concept of genetic disease thus always involves a social unit: the family, a couple contemplating having children, or an ethnic or geographically defined group. The ethical and legal risks inherent when using concepts of genetic disease or genetic health in social decision making are captured by the term "eugenics," the idea that certain individuals are genetically too risky for society to tolerate. Our culture has a long history of eugenic practices and genocides, unrecognized by cultural, social, and legal institutions as such until long after the practices had taken place. The Nazi experiments on concentration camp inmates and the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male have been cited in the bioethics literature as eugenic precedents modern legal institutions should avoid. In a recent public health research case involving lead abatement in a poor and mostly minority neighborhoods, Grimes v. Kennedy Krieger Institute, the court made reference to both the Nazi experiments and Tuskegee in holding that a biomedical research institution could potentially be liable for a flawed consent process. While agreeing with the court's result, this article proposes that neither Tuskegee nor the Nazi cases provide a theory of liability when socially defined groups are questioning either disease management or research. Courts must deal with the reality of genetic health being defined in social terms such as "race," despite current disclaimers from scientists that race has no genetic significance. Courts should use liability doctrines to optimize the risks and benefits of growth in genetic knowledge from the perspective of public health rather than the individualized perspectives of medicine.
An Algorithm for Creating Models for Imputation Using the MICE Approach: An Application in Stata

It is generally advised that imputation models contain as many “predictor” variables as possible, since the greater the number of variables the greater the amount of information from which to make estimations (van Buuren, Boshuizen & Knook 1999). Ideally, an imputation model might contain all variables in the dataset. Hence, the default in software packages that perform multivariate imputation by chained equations (e.g. ice in Stata) is often to use all other variables in the imputation model to predict missing values. However, in datasets with moderate to large numbers of variables, attempting to use all other variables in the dataset results in imputation models that are too large to actually run. One solution to this problem is to select a relatively large, but reasonable, number of predictors based on bivariate correlations and then drop predictors as necessary to create a regression model that is tractable using the complete data. This set of regression models form the imputation model for the entire dataset. This presentation outlines this approach in more detail and presents an overview of the Stata package that implements it.
DIGITALLY CONTROLLED SERVO-HYDRAULIC CRASH SIMULATOR.

SUBTITLE: THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY IS MOVING TO NEWER TECHNOLOGIES FOR CRASH SIMULATION TO MINIMIZE TIME-TO-MARKET FOR NEW MODELS, REDUCE COSTS, AND MEET CONSUMER DEMAND FOR SAFER CARS AND TRUCKS.
Probing X-ray Emitting Plasma with High Resolution Chandra and XMM-Newton Spectra

Highlights of interesting astrophysical discoveries are reviewed in the context of high resolution X-ray spectroscopy made possible with Chandra and XMM-Newton, and its relevance to atomic physics calculations and measurements is discussed. These spectra have shown that the overlap between astrophysics and atomic physics is stronger than ever, as discoveries of new X-ray lines and edge structure is matching the need for increasingly detailed theoretical calculations and experimental measurements of atomic data.
Discovery of Two Spectroscopically Peculiar, Low-Luminosity Quasars at z ~ 4*

We report the discovery of two low-luminosity quasars at z ~ 4, both of which show prominent N iv] λ1486 emission. This line is extremely rare in quasar spectra at any redshift; detecting it in two of a sample of 23 objects (i.e., ~9% of the sample) is intriguing and is likely due to the low-luminosity, high-redshift quasar sample we are studying. This is still a poorly explored regime, where contributions from associated, early starbursts may be significant. One interpretation of this line posits photoionization by very massive young stars. Seeing N iv] λ1486 emission in a high-redshift quasar may thus be understood in the context of coformation and early coevolution of galaxies and their supermassive black holes. Alternatively, we may be seeing a phenomenon related to the early evolution of quasar broad emission line regions. The nondetection (and possibly even broad absorption) of N v λ1240 line in the spectrum of one of these quasars may support that interpretation. These two objects may signal a new faint quasar population or an early AGN evolutionary stage at high redshifts.
A Resource Allocation Model for Tiger Habitat Protection

Habitat conservation is critical to the survival of endangered tigers. This paper develops a resource-allocation model for the protection of tiger habitats, using information on threats to particular tiger subspecies, the quality of remaining habitat areas, the observed effectiveness of habitat protection by country, and the potential costs of protection projects in74 habitats in Asia. This model will be implemented in two stages. The first stage involves using user-specified weights to combine numerous sub-indices into composite indices, covering threats to species, habitat quality, potential project costs and the effectiveness of protections. At the second stage, additional user-specified weights are used to combine the composite indices into priority scores and potential project budget shares for all 74 habitat areas. Results suggest that changes in user-specified weights can have very a significant impact on habitat priority scores. Illustrative scenarios indicate that the model can make a useful contribution by identifying priority orderings that are consistent with different sets of preferences. It will also provide feedback to decision makers regarding the implicit preferences associated with their resource allocation decisions.
AXISYMMETRIC VISCID-INVISCID INTERACTION BY A FROZEN VORTICITY APPROXIMATION

A numerical solution procedure capable of a high degree of automation is presented for calculating the flow field associated with viscid-inviscid interaction on a body of revolution. The method makes use of ideas from asymptotic triple deck analysis of the trailing-edge problem. A simpler problem is solved in which two layers are postulated, an outer inviscid, rotational layer ("frozen vorticity") that largely governs the pressure in the trailing-edge region, and an inner turbulent layer that is modeled in a simple manner. These two layers are patched at a fixed distance from the wall and wake centerline rather than asymptotically matched. The method allows the viscid-inviscid interaction solution to be obtained by computer in four iterations, none of which require any user intervention.
Separating Hierarchical and General Hub Labelings

In the context of distance oracles, a labeling algorithm computes vertex labels during preprocessing. An s,t query computes the corresponding distance using the labels of s and t only, without looking at the input graph. Hub labels is a class of labels that has been extensively studied. Performance of the hub label query depends on the label size. Hierarchical labels are a natural special kind of hub labels. These labels are related to other problems and can be computed more efficiently. This brings up a natural question of the quality of hierarchical labels. We show that there is a gap: optimal hierarchical labels can be polynomially bigger than the general hub labels. To prove this result, we give tight upper and lower bounds on the size of hierarchical and general labels for hypercubes.
Property Testing via Set-Theoretic Operations

Given two testable properties P1 and P2, under what conditions are the union, intersection or set-difierence of these two properties also testable? We initiate a systematic study of these basic set-theoretic operations in the context of property testing. As an application, we give a conceptually difierent proof that linearity is testable, albeit with much worse query complexity. Furthermore, for the problem of testing disjunc- tion of linear functions, which was previously known to be one-sided testable with a super-polynomial query complexity, we give an improved analysis and show it has query complexity O(1=† 2 ), where † is the distance parameter.
Bacterial Interference IV. Epidemiological Determinants of the Antagonistic Activity of the Normal Throat Flora Against Group A Streptococci

A study was performed to identify epidemiological factors such as age, race, sex, and time of culture that might influence the ability of the normal pharyngeal flora to interfere with growth of group A streptococci. From March 1974 through February 1975, throat swabs were obtained from 952 individuals. Cultures were assayed by an agar overlay procedure for the presence of bacteria capable of inhibiting growth of group A streptococci. The observed inhibition was then determined to be bacteriostatic or bactericidal by use of a broth filtrate technique. Regardless of age, race, or sex, subjects were more likely to harbor interfering flora if cultured during the months of March and April, which coincided with the highest prevalence of group A streptococci in the community. Race and sex of subjects appeared not to influence the inhibitory activity of throat flora either quantitatively or qualitatively. However, among individuals with interfering flora, the prevalence of bactericidal organisms increased and bacteriostatic organisms decreased with advancing age. Since the presence of bactericidal, and not bacteriostatic, organisms has been associated with resistance to colonization of the throat by group A streptococci, this higher prevalence of bactericidal organisms in older individuals suggests that bacterial interference may be one of the mechanisms that account for the greater resistance of adults than children to streptococcal throat infection.
Hedge Detection as a Lens on Framing in the GMO Debates: A Position Paper

Understanding the ways in which participants in public discussions frame their arguments is important in understanding how public opinion is formed. In this paper, we adopt the position that it is time for more computationally-oriented research on problems involving framing. In the interests of furthering that goal, we propose the following specific, interesting and, we believe, relatively accessible question: In the controversy regarding the use of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture, do pro- and anti-GMO articles differ in whether they choose to adopt a more "scientific" tone? Prior work on the rhetoric and sociology of science suggests that hedging may distinguish popular-science text from text written by professional scientists for their colleagues. We propose a detailed approach to studying whether hedge detection can be used to understanding scientific framing in the GMO debates, and provide corpora to facilitate this study. Some of our preliminary analyses suggest that hedges occur less frequently in scientific discourse than in popular text, a finding that contradicts prior assertions in the literature. We hope that our initial work and data will encourage others to pursue this promising line of inquiry.
Synthesis of bent [4]phenylene (cyclobuta[1,2-a:3,4-b′]bisbiphenylene) and structure of a bis(trimethylsilyl) derivative: the last [4]phenylene isomer

The syntheses of the title compounds were accomplished by cobalt-catalyzed alkyne cyclotrimerizations using two strategies; the properties of the bent phenylene frame reflect the combined effects of benzocyclobutadienofusion of the component [3]phenylene substructures.
D Production in p-p and d-Au Collisions

This is an extension of our previous work on J/Ψ, Ψ′(2S), Υ(n S) production in p-p and A-A collisions to the production of $D^{+}(c\bar {d}),D^{o}(c\bar {u})$ , with the main new aspect being the fragmentation probability, $D_{c \rightarrow c\bar {q}}$ , which has been calculated almost two decades ago. The rapidity cross sections for $D^{+}(c\bar {d}),D^{o}(c\bar {u})$ production from both p-p and d-AU collisions is estimated.
Inference for Extremal Conditional Quantile Models, with an Application to Market and Birthweight Risks

Quantile regression (QR) is an increasingly important empirical tool in economics and other sciences for analysing the impact a set of regressors has on the conditional distribution of an outcome. Extremal QR, or QR applied to the tails, is of interest in many economic and financial applications, such as conditional value at risk, production efficiency, and adjustment bands in (S,s) models. This paper provides feasible inference tools for extremal conditional quantile models that rely on extreme value approximations to the distribution of self-normalized QR statistics. The methods are simple to implement and can be of independent interest even in the univariate (non-regression) case. We illustrate the results with two empirical examples analysing extreme fluctuations of a stock return and extremely low percentiles of live infant birthweight in the range between 250 and 1500 g.
Adaptive Bayesian Procedures Using Random Series Priors

We consider a general class of prior distributions for nonparametric Bayesian estimation which uses finite random series with a random number of terms. A prior is constructed through distributions on the number of basis functions and the associated coefficients. We derive a general result on adaptive posterior contraction rates for all smoothness levels of the target function in the true model by constructing an appropriate ‘sieve’ and applying the general theory of posterior contraction rates. We apply this general result on several statistical problems such as density estimation, various nonparametric regressions, classification, spectral density estimation and functional regression. The prior can be viewed as an alternative to the commonly used Gaussian process prior, but properties of the posterior distribution can be analysed by relatively simpler techniques. An interesting approximation property of B-spline basis expansion established in this paper allows a canonical choice of prior on coefficients in a random series and allows a simple computational approach without using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. A simulation study is conducted to show that the accuracy of the Bayesian estimators based on the random series prior and the Gaussian process prior are comparable. We apply the method on Tecator data using functional regression models.