cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Amyloid Typing by Mass Spectrometry in Clinical Practice: a Comprehensive Review of 16,175 Samples.

OBJECTIVE To map the occurrence of amyloid types in a large clinical cohort using mass spectrometry-based shotgun proteomics, an unbiased method that unambiguously identifies all amyloid types in a single assay. METHODS A mass spectrometry-based shotgun proteomics assay was implemented in a central reference laboratory. We documented our experience of typing 16,175 amyloidosis specimens over an 11-year period from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2018. RESULTS We identified 21 established amyloid types, including AL (n=9542; 59.0%), ATTR (n=4600; 28.4%), ALECT2 (n=511; 3.2%), AA (n=463; 2.9%), AH (n=367; 2.3%), AIns (n=182; 1.2%), KRT5-14 (n=94; <1%), AFib (n=71; <1%), AApoAIV (n=57; <1%), AApoA1 (n=56; <1%), AANF (n=47; <1%), Aβ2M (n=38; <1%), ASem1 (n=34; <1%), AGel (n=29; <1%), TGFB1 (n=29; <1%), ALys (n=15; <1%), AIAPP (n=13; <1%), AApoCII (n=11; <1%), APro (n=8; <1%), AEnf (n=6; <1%), and ACal (n=2; <1%). We developed the first comprehensive organ-by-type map showing the relative frequency of 21 amyloid types in 31 different organs, and the first type-by-organ map showing organ tropism of 18 rare types. Using a modified bioinformatics pipeline, we detected amino acid substitutions in cases of hereditary amyloidosis with 100% specificity. CONCLUSION Amyloid typing by proteomics, which effectively recognizes all amyloid types in a single assay, optimally supports the diagnosis and treatment of amyloidosis patients in routine clinical practice.
Towards Self-Aware Systems-on-Chip Through Intelligent Cross-Layer Coordination

Although there is a rich history of cross-layer design for embedded computing systems to achieve desired QoS, we are facing ever more challenges from the intertwined goals of energy- efficiency, thermal design constraints, as well as resilience to errors emanating from the application, environment and hardware platforms. We posit that next-generation computing platforms must necessarily deploy intelligent cross-layer design achieved through self-awareness principles inspired by biology and nature. Such an approach will move us from current strategies (using limited cross-layer coordination) to a holistic cross-layer strategy that enables intelligent cross-layer management policies which can adaptively tune itself based on the current state of the system. The talk will present design exemplars that embrace this intelligent cross-layer approach, and highlight the role of self-awareness in achieving dynamic adaptivity.
Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome

Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome is a relevant and increasingly common complication of modern IVF therapy. The complications associated with ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome are serious and potentially life threatening. This chapter highlights the risk factors and appropriate methods to eliminate risk, along with current strategies of treating ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.
Teaching and the Experience of Disability: The Pedagogy of Ed Roberts

Ed Roberts was a renowned activist considered to be one of the founding leaders of the American disability rights movement. Although he engaged in numerous political strategies, his main form of activism was teaching in his prolific public speaking career across the United States and around the world. The content and methods of his pedagogy were crafted from his own personal experiences as a disabled man. His teaching featured autobiographic selections from his own life in which he fought and defeated forces of oppression and discrimination. This article examines Roberts’ disability rights teaching in relation to the experiential sources, political content, and teaching techniques.
Comparing unamended and Fe-coated biochar on removal efficiency of bacteria, microspheres, and dissolved phosphorus in sand filters

The effects of uncoated and Fe-coated biochars (BC) on the removal of bacteria, microspheres, and dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) in sand filters were compared. Filters were packed with 1.2 or 2.0-mm sand mixed with 30% (vol/vol) uncoated BC, Fe-coated BC, or a control without BC. Removal of E. coli, Salmonella, and Enterococci increased from 23, 42, and 25% in the unamended 1.2-mm sand to 48, 80, and 75% in the uncoated BC treatment, though only the increase for Enterococci was significant (p 0.05), respectively, whereas removal in the Fe-coated BC filters was 98% (p 0.05) with DRP sorption to the Fe-coated BC-amended sand being significantly greater (p < 0.05). Results indicate that Fe-coated BC is more effective at retaining DRP than bacteria and microspheres in sand filters.
Charged current universality in the minimal supersymmetric standard model

We compute the complete one-loop contributions to low-energy charged current weak interaction observables in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). We obtain the constraints on the MSSM parameter space which arise when precision low-energy charged current data are analyzed in tandem with measurements of the muon anomaly. While the data allow the presence of at least one light neutralino, they also imply a pattern of mass splittings among first and second generation sleptons and squarks which contradicts predictions of widely used models for supersymmetry-breaking mediation.
Bidirectional reflectance distribution function of rough silicon wafers

The trend towards miniaturization of patterning features in integrated circuits (IC) has made traditional batch furnaces inadequate for many processes. Rapid thermal processing (RTP) of silicon wafers has become more popular in recent years for IC manufacturing. Light-pipe radiation thermometry is the method of choice for real-time temperature monitoring in RTP. However, the radiation environment can greatly affect the signal reaching the radiometer. The bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) of rough silicon wafers is needed for the prediction of the reflected radiation that reaches the radiometer and for reflective RTP furnace design. This paper presents the BRDF measurement results for several processing wafers in the wavelength range from 400 to 1100 nm with the spectral tri-function automated reference reflectometer (STARR) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The rms roughness of these samples ranges from 1 nm to 1 μm, as measured with an optical interferometric microscope. Correlations between the BRDF and surface parameters are obtained using different models by comparing theoretical predictions with experiments.
Sufficient Statistics for Measuring the Value of Changes in Local Public Goods: Does Chetty’s Framework Inform Lind?

The performance of quasi-experimental methods applied to changes in non-market goods depends on the ability of reduced form models to accurately measure willingness to pay. When exogenous changes are non-marginal, the accuracy of the reduced form approximations is not well understood. Further complicating the performance of reduced form models is that the true representation of the non-market good in household utility functions may differ from the perceptions of that good as captured in the reduced form model. This paper evaluates a series of before/after quasi-experiments where the true model is known and examines the performance of these methods under a variety of conditions. We find that performance is impacted by the scale of the change and that differences in perceptions of the amenity between the reduced form model and the underlying utility function play an important role in determining the performance of quasi-experimental applications. For researchers interested in non-market goods where the true representations of changes in relation to the underlying utility function are unknown, the notion of perceived measures of the non-market good in reduced form models should receive considerable attention.
Aqueduct of Sylvius

The aqueduct of Sylvius is the narrowest portion of the cerebral ventricular system. It connects the third and fourth ventricles, and is located in the midbrain. The configuration of the aqueduct is determined by the intraventricular pressure and surrounding neural structures. The major clinical problem associated with the aqueduct is obstructive hydrocephalus.
The Guardians Guarding Themselves: A Comparative Perspective on Nonprofit Self-Regulation

We are witnessing a new wave of nonprofit self-regulation in Asia and the United States that results from government moves to strengthen regulation of nonprofits and charities, and the perceived “failure” of earlier forms of weaker, often code- or “best practice”-based self-regulation. In both Asia and the United States, the new nonprofit self-regulation features multiple models and initiatives, including aggressive associational entrepreneurs who view nonprofit accountability as a type of market and effective self-regulation as a means to prosper in that market. In that new self- regulatory environment, alliance with government to engage in and strengthen self-regulation is increasingly important for multiple reasons: to forestall unilateral regulatory action, to emphasize the role and importance of self-regulation, to provide resources and incentives for stricter self regulation to take hold and succeed, and to provide resources for initially weak and undercapitalized associational entrepreneurs.
The development and utility of a leisure behavior index.

Abstract This paper develops a leisure behavior index for ranking respondents according to the degree of their participation in a given set of leisure activities. It then investigates relationships between the leisure behavior index and each of six socioeconomic variables: age, sex, present residence, size of household, income, and education. An individual's leisure behavior index consisted of the total number of different leisure dimensions or factors participated in by each respondent. Each leisure dimension contained one or more highly and positively correlated leisure activities. The data used in this study were provided by the Continuous National Survey, undertaken by the National Opinion Research Center, at the University of Chicago in 1973. Principal Component Analysis was used to determine the underlying factors of the given set of reported leisure activities. Six factors of leisure activity were extracted from the data in this study. Therefore, the range of the leisure behavior index numbers was ...
Carotenoids of the chicken retina.

THE cones of many bird and reptile retinas contain brilliantly coloured oil globules. In the chicken they are red, golden and yellow-green1,2. They possess considerable interest, for light must filter through them to enter the sensitive cone outer limbs, and they may serve, therefore, as a mechanism for colour vision3.
MODEL OF AIRCRAFT PASSENGER ACCEPTANCE

A technique for evaluating passenger acceptance of a transportation system's environment has been developed. This includes a model of passenger reaction to the vehicle, as well as the relative satisfaction compared to other system attributes. The technique is applied to two commercial airline operations -- a United States commuter and the Canadian Airtransit STOL system. It is demonstrated that system convenience and aircraft interior seating can play a large role in satisfying the passenger.
Exploring Agricultural Production Systems: Interactions between the Crop and Livestock Sectors

This paper explores the U.S. agricultural production systems, focusing on the interactions between the crop and livestock sectors. The estimation results of the differential input demand system suggest that the demand for hired labor, self-employed labor, intermediate goods, capital, and land significantly increases as crop outputs increase. In addition, the results show that the demand for inputs (except for hired labor) is very inelastic, suggesting that agricultural producers may have little flexibility in adjusting the demand for inputs in response to rapid changes in the prices of inputs. The substitutable relationships among hired labor, self-employed labor, intermediate goods, and capital contribute to alleviating the pressure on production cost in response to a surge in input prices. Statistical evidence also reveals the complementary relationship between capital and land, suggesting that an investment in durable equipment increases proportionally to the expansion of agricultural areas. Furthermore, the estimation results of the differential output supply system suggest that agricultural supply is not very responsive to the respective price changes. There also exists statistical evidence that relative changes in the prices of crop and livestock products alter the composition of crop and livestock supply due to the substitutable relationship.
Non-malleable extractors and codes, with their many tampered extensions

Randomness extractors and error correcting codes are fundamental objects in computer science. Recently, there have been several natural generalizations of these objects, in the context and study of tamper resilient cryptography. These are seeded non-malleable extractors, introduced by Dodis and Wichs; seedless non-malleable extractors, introduced by Cheraghchi and Guruswami; and non-malleable codes, introduced by Dziembowski, Pietrzak and Wichs. Besides being interesting on their own, they also have important applications in cryptography, e.g, privacy amplification with an active adversary, explicit non-malleable codes etc, and often have unexpected connections to their non-tampered analogues. However, the known constructions are far behind their non-tampered counterparts. Indeed, the best known seeded non-malleable extractor requires min-entropy rate at least 0.49; while explicit constructions of non-malleable two-source extractors were not known even if both sources have full min-entropy, and was left as an open problem by Cheraghchi and Guruswami. In this paper we make progress towards solving the above problems and other related generalizations. Our contributions are as follows. (1) We construct an explicit seeded non-malleable extractor for polylogarithmic min-entropy. This dramatically improves all previous results and gives a simpler 2-round privacy amplification protocol with optimal entropy loss, matching the best known result. In fact, we construct more general seeded non-malleable extractors (that can handle multiple adversaries) which were used in the recent construction of explicit two-source extractors for polylogarithmic min-entropy. (2) We construct the first explicit non-malleable two-source extractor for almost full min-entropy thus resolving the open question posed by Cheraghchi and Guruswami. (3) We motivate and initiate the study of two natural generalizations of seedless non-malleable extractors and non-malleable codes, where the sources or the codeword may be tampered many times. By using the connection found by Cheraghchi and Guruswami and providing efficient sampling algorithms, we obtain the first explicit non-malleable codes with tampering degree t, with near optimal rate and error. We call these stronger notions one-many and many-manynon-malleable codes. This provides a stronger information theoretic analogue of a primitive known as continuous non-malleable codes. Our basic technique used in all of our constructions can be seen as inspired, in part, by the techniques previously used to construct cryptographic non-malleable commitments.
To What Extent Does DNA Methylation Affect Phenotypic Variation in Cattle

DNA methylation is an environmentally influenced epigenetic modification that regulates gene transcription and has the potential to influence variation in economically important phenotypes in agricultural species. We have utilized a novel approach to evaluate the relationship between genetic and epigenetic variation and downstream phenotypes. To begin with, we have integrated RNA-Seq and methyl binding domain sequencing (MBD-Seq) data in order to determine the extent to which DNA methylation affects phenotypic variation in economically important traits of cattle. MBD-Seq is a technique that involves the sample enrichment of methylated genomic regions followed by their next-generation sequencing. This study utilized Illumina next generation sequencing technology to perform both RNA-Seq and MBD-Seq. NextGENe software (SoftGenetics, State College, PA) was employed for quality trimming and aligning the sequence reads to the UMD3.1 bovine reference genome, generating counts of matched reads and methylated peak identification. Subsequently, we identified and quantified genome-wide methylated regions and characterized the extent of differential methylation and differential expression between two groups of animals with extreme phenotypes. The program edgeR from the R software package (version 3.0.1) was employed for identifying differentially methylated regions and regions of differential expression. Finally, Partial Correlation with Information Theory (PCIT) was performed to identify transcripts and methylation events that exhibit differential hubbing. A differential hub is defined as a gene network hub that is more highly connected in one treatment group than the other. This analysis produced every possible pair-wise interaction that subsequently enabled us to look at network interactions of how methylation affects expression. (co-expression, co-methylation, methylation x expression). Genomic regions of interest derived from this analysis were then aligned to previously identified QTL and GWAS regions using Animal QTL database. The approach described here has provided us with evidence that QTL and GWAS regions overlay genomic regions where methylation may regulate transcription.
Learning (predictive) risk scores in the presence of censoring due to interventions

A large and diverse set of measurements are regularly collected during a patient's hospital stay to monitor their health status. Tools for integrating these measurements into severity scores, that accurately track changes in illness severity, can improve clinicians' ability to provide timely interventions. Existing approaches for creating such scores either (1) rely on experts to fully specify the severity score, (2) infer a score using detailed models of disease progression, or (3) train a predictive score, using supervised learning, by regressing against a surrogate marker of severity such as the presence of downstream adverse events. The first approach does not extend to diseases where an accurate score cannot be elicited from experts. The second assumes that the progression of disease can be accurately modeled, limiting its application to populations with simple, well-understood disease dynamics. The third approach, also most commonly used, often produces scores that suffer from bias due to treatment-related censoring (Paxton et al. in AMIA annual symposium proceedings, American Medical Informatics Association, p 1109, 2013). Specifically, since the downstream outcomes used for their training are observed only noisily and are influenced by treatment administration patterns, these scores do not generalize well when treatment administration patterns change. We propose a novel ranking based framework for disease severity score learning (DSSL). DSSL exploits the following key observation: while it is challenging for experts to quantify the disease severity at any given time, it is often easy to compare the disease severity at two different times. Extending existing ranking algorithms, DSSL learns a function that maps a vector of patient's measurements to a scalar severity score subject to two constraints. First, the resulting score should be consistent with the expert's ranking of the disease severity state. Second, changes in score between consecutive periods should be smooth. We apply DSSL to the problem of learning a sepsis severity score using a large, real-world electronic health record dataset. The learned scores significantly outperform state-of-the-art clinical scores in ranking patient states by severity and in early detection of downstream adverse events. We also show that the learned disease severity trajectories are consistent with clinical expectations of disease evolution. Further, we simulate datasets containing different treatment administration patterns and show that DSSL shows better generalization performance to changes in treatment patterns compared to the above approaches.
A Methodology for Order-Sensitive Execution of Non-deterministic Languages on Beowulf Platforms

We propose a novel methodology, based on stack splitting, to efficiently support order-sensitive computations (e.g., I/O, side-effects) during search-parallel execution of non-deterministic languages on Beowulf platforms. The methodology has been validated in the context of the PALS Prolog system and results on a Pentium Beowulf are discussed.
Polydimensional Relativity, a Classical Generalization of the Automorphism Invariance Principle

The automorphism invariant theory of Crawford[8] has shown great promise, however its application is limited by the paradigm to the domain of spin space. Our conjecture is that there is a broader principle at work which applies even to classical physics. Specifically, the laws of physics should be invariant under polydimensional transformations which reshuffle the geometry (e.g. exchanges vectors for trivectors) but preserves the algebra. To complete the symmetry, it follows that the laws of physics must be themselves polydimensional, having scalar, vector, bivector etc. parts in one multivector equation. Clifford algebra is the natural language in which to formulate this principle, as vectors/tensors were for relativity. This allows for a new treatment of the relativistic spinning particle (the Papapetrou equations) which is problematic in standard theory. In curved space the rank of the geometry will change under parallel transport, yielding a new basis for Weyl’s connection and a natural coupling between linear and spinning motion.
Perceptions Among Social Work and Non-Social Work Students Concerning Causes of Poverty

Feagin’s Poverty Scale was used to measure social work students’ and non-social work students’ perceptions of the causes of poverty. Present social work students, like previous ones, attribute poverty more to structural factors than individual factors. Further analysis, however, suggests that this may only be true for female and white social work students. Male and nonwhite social work students appear to attribute poverty to both structural and individual factors. White social work students perceive structural factors as more important in causing poverty than white non-social work students. Non-social work students did not overwhelmingly attribute poverty to individualistic factors as expected.
The 1994 currency crisis in Turkey

As a result of Turkey's currency crisis in 1994, output fell 6 percent, inflation rose to three-digit levels, the Central Bank lost half of its reserves, and the exchange rate (against the US dollar) depreciated by more than half in the first three months of the year. The author presents stylized facts associated with the government's debt-financing mechanisms and other relevant macroeconomic variables to show the system's inherent fragility at the time of the crisis and to clarify the extent to which different factors contributed to the crisis. The author argues that huge requirements for public sector borrowing in 1993 and early 1994, combined with major policy errors in financing the deficit, led to the currency crash. As a result of interventions to control interest rates and treasury borrowing at the same time, the market for domestic borrowing almost disappeared, the government turned to monetization for financing, and the value of the overappreciated Turkish lira plummeted.
A Quantitative Appraisal of Adjustment Lending

This paper presents a quantitative analysis of adjustment programs in developing countries that received adjustment loans from the World Bank. Data have been provided for loan recipients and non-recipients in Sub-Saharan African, low-income, low-middle income, and upper-middle income countries. The results show that the relative position of loan recipients improved in three out of four country groupings in regard to per capita incomes, the exception being Sub-Saharan Africa. The quantitative appraisal thus points to the overall success of these programs. This conclusion is strengthened if use is made of weighted performance indicators. Weighting improves the relative performance of loan recipients in regard to practically all economic growth indicators.
DOES DISTANCE MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS? THE ROLE OF SPATIAL EXTERNALITIES AND INCOME IN RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT PATTERNS

Scattered residential development is explained using a theoretical model of residential location in which household interactions generate externalities that determine location choices. Results demonstrate the role of income and heterogeneous preferences in generating this form of sprawl. Among our findings is that rising income generates only temporary increases in sprawl.
Mechanism of Radical Production from the Reaction of Cytochrome c with Organic Hydroperoxides.: AN ESR SPIN TRAPPING INVESTIGATION *

The mechanism for the reaction of cytochrome c with t-butyl hydroperoxide and cumene hydroperoxide was investigated. ESR spin trapping studies using 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline N-oxide were performed to demonstrate the presence of hydroperoxide-derived peroxyl, alkoxyl, and methyl radicals. Computer simulation of the experimental data obtained at various 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline N-oxide concentrations was used to determine the relative contributions of each radical adduct to each composite ESR spectrum. From these analyses, it was concluded that the alkoxyl radical of the hydroperoxide was the initial radical produced, presumably by homolytic scission of the O-O bond by ferric cytochrome c. This was in contrast to a previous ESR study that proposed a heterolytic peroxidase-type mechanism for the reaction of cytochrome c with organic hydroperoxides. Methyl radicals were produced from the β-scission of the alkoxyl radical. The peroxyl radicals are shown to be secondary products formed from the reaction of oxygen with the methyl radical to produce the methyl peroxyl radical. In separate experiments, visible absorption spectroscopy revealed that the heme center was destroyed during the reaction. Both the heme destruction and production of radical adducts were inhibited by cyanide, presumably due to the formation of a cyanoheme complex.
Two distinct populations of Kuiper-belt objects

The discovery of the first member of the Kuiper belt1—a formerly hypothetical ancient reservoir of objects located beyond Neptune's orbit—started a revolution in our understanding of the outer Solar System: there is no longer a sharp edge at Pluto's orbit. About 60 Kuiper-belt objects, intermediate in size between comets and planets, are now known2 to exist on stable circular orbits around the Sun, and no doubt many more objects await discovery. But owing to the recent discovery and intrinsic faintness of these objects, little has been done to explore their physical and chemical properties3,4,5,6,7,8. Here we report the results of a two-year survey of the broad-band optical colours of about one-quarter of the known Kuiper-belt objects. We find that their colours indicate the presence of two distinct populations: one consists of objects whose surface colours are only slightly redder than the colour of the Sun, while the other consists of the reddest objects known in the Solar System.
Moral Hazard and GATT Article XVIII(B)

Article XVIII(B) of the GATT code allows developing countries to use tariffs to reduce imports when their balance-of-payments problems result in a low foreign currency reserve. While the intent of this GATT provision is sound, it has led to moral hazard problems. This chapter reviews the history and safeguards of Article XVIII(B0 and identifies some of its specific moral hazard problems. A model addressing these problems is then presented, and alternative policies are suggested to reform the Article.
Modulation schemes for frequency coded quantum key distribution

Frequency coding has been presented as a new alternative for qubits transmission on QKD systems. In this work we present an analysis of the different possibilities for modulation (amplitude or phase) in face of the BB84 and B92 protocols within systems employing frequency coding. It will be shown that schemes employing phase modulation both at Alice and Bob (PM-PM) are equivalent, in the sense that the classical BB84 protocol cannot be applied, to schemes using solely amplitude modulation (AM-AM). We present a new modulation scheme employing a combination of phase and amplitude modulation (AM-PM) which can accommodate classical BB84.
Minimization, learning, and conformance testing of boolean programs

Boolean programs with recursion are convenient abstractions of sequential imperative programs, and can be represented as recursive state machines (RSMs) or pushdown automata. Motivated by the special structure of RSMs, we define a notion of modular visibly pushdown automata (modular VPA) and show that for the class of languages accepted by such automata, unique minimal modular VPA exist. This yields an efficient approximate minimization theorem that minimizes RSMs to within a factor of k of the minimal RSM, where k is the maximum number of parameters in any module. Using the congruence defined for minimization, we show an active learning algorithm (with a minimally adequate teacher) for context free languages in terms of modular VPAs. We also present an algorithm that constructs complete test suites for Boolean program specifications. Finally, we apply our results on learning and test generation to perform model checking of black-box Boolean programs.
Beyond the Cool Core: The Formation of Cool Core Galaxy Clusters

Why do some clusters have cool cores while others do not? In this paper, cosmological simulations, including radiative cooling and heating, are used to examine the formation and evolution of cool core (CC) and non-cool core (NCC) clusters. Numerical CC clusters at z=0 accreted mass more slowly over time and grew enhanced cool cores via hierarchical mergers; when late major mergers occurred, the CCs survived the collisions. By contrast, NCC clusters of similar mass experienced major mergers early in their evolution that destroyed embryonic cool cores and produced conditions that prevent CC re-formation. We discuss observational consequences.
Indices of power in optimal IDS default configuration: theory and examples

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) are becoming essential to protecting modern information infrastructures. The effectiveness of an IDS is directly related to the computational resources at its disposal. However, it is difficult to guarantee especially with an increasing demand of network capacity and rapid proliferation of attacks. On the other hand, modern intrusions often come as sequences of attacks to reach some predefined goals. It is therefore critical to identify the best default IDS configuration to attain the highest possible overall protection within a given resource budget. This paper proposes a game theory based solution to the problem of optimal signature-based IDS configuration under resource constraints. We apply the concepts of indices of power, namely, Shapley value and Banzhaf-Coleman index, from cooperative game theory to quantify the influence or contribution of libraries in an IDS with respect to given attack graphs. Such valuations take into consideration the knowledge on common attack graphs and experienced system attacks and are used to configure an IDS optimally at its default state by solving a knapsack optimization problem.
Do stationary risk premia explain it all?: Evidence from the term structure

Abstract Predictable variations in excess returns have often been attributed to the presence of time-varying risk premia. In this paper, we use an insight based upon new techniques from time series analysis to test whether stationary risk premia can alone explain the behavior of excess returns to long bonds relative to rolling over short rates. Surprisingly, we reject this hypothesis using U.S. T-bill returns. We then show that either permanent shocks to the risk premia and/or rationally anticipated shifts in the interest rate process could produce anomalous results.
Three Tests for Measuring Unjustified Disparate Impacts in Organ Transplantation: The Problem of "Included Variable" Bias

Civil rights statutes often prohibit two distinct types of discrimination, referred to as "disparate treatment" and "disparate impact." Disparate treatment is race-contingent decision making. But even decision making that is not affected by people's race may still produce an unjustified disparate impact. For example, a race-neutral transplantation preference for allografts with partial antigen matches might produce an unjustified disparate impact on African Americans with end-stage renal disease. The transplantation preference might make it harder for African Americans to receive a transplant without significantly increasing the chance of transplant survival. Because disparate impact and disparate treatment claims have distinct elements, they require distinct methods of statistical testing. This article analyzes three different ways of testing unjustified disparate impacts in organ transplantation, which I will call the traditional test, the omitted variable test, and the outcome test. Each of these methods of testing for disparate impact are attuned to the problem of "included variable" bias. Controlling statistically for nonracial variables may actually bias the analysis and mask the existence of unjustified disparate impacts.
School Enrollment, Selection and Test Scores

There is a strong association between schooling attained and test scores in many settings. If this association is causal, one might expect that programs that increase school enrollment and attainment would also improve test scores. However, if there is self-selection into school based on expected gains, marginal children brought into school by such programs may be drawn disproportionately from the left-hand side of the ability distribution, which could limit the extent to which additional schooling translates into more learning. To test this proposition, this paper uses data from Cambodia. The results show that a program that provides scholarships to poor students had a large effect on school enrollment and attendance, which increased by approximately 25 percentage points. However, there is no evidence that, 18 months after the scholarships were awarded, recipient children did any better on mathematics and vocabulary tests than they would have in the absence of the program. The paper discusses results that suggest that the self-selection of lower-ability students into school in response to the program is an important part of the explanation. The analysis also shows minimal program effects on other outcomes, including knowledge of health practices, expectations about the future, and adolescent mental health.
Recognizing Schubert Cells

We address the problem of distinguishing between different Schubert cells using vanishing patterns of generalized Plucker coordinates.
Adaptation of mammalian protein metabolism to amino acid supply.

The metabolism of the animal is equipped to adapt to changes in both the internal and the external environment. Among internal factors are activity versus rest and sleep, and the menstrual cycle in the case of the female. Metabolism must also respond to variations in the external environment, such as heat and cold, and notably the availability of food. Metabolic adaptation to nutrient supply is of two kinds. First, there are transient physiological adaptations to the intermittent intake of nutritionally adequate meals. These short-lived adaptations account for a large part of the diurnal variations that have been observed in the protein metabolism of mammals (Wurtman, 1969). Secondly, long-term adaptive reactions occur when there is a decrease in availability of an essential nutrient in the diet. Under such circumstances, tissue constituents are lost to varying degrees from different parts of the body. It is proposed to discuss here mainly short-term physiological adaptations to variations in amino acid supply and their relevance to the needs of the body for dietary protein. Adaptive changes resulting from long-term protein deficiency are considered in the paper by Waterlow & Stephen (1969).
HAS GLOBALIZATION TRANSFORMED U.S. MACROECONOMIC DYNAMICS

This paper estimates a structural New Keynesian model to test whether globalization has changed the behavior of U.S. macroeconomic variables. Several key coefficients in the model–such as the slopes of the Phillips and IS curves, the sensitivities of domestic inflation and output to “global” output, and so forth–are allowed in the estimation to depend on the extent of globalization (modeled as the changing degree of openness to trade of the economy), and, therefore, they become time-varying. The empirical results indicate that globalization can explain only a small part of the reduction in the slope of the Phillips curve. The sensitivity of U.S. inflation to global measures of output may have increased over the sample, but it remains very small. The changes in the IS curve caused by globalization are similarly modest. Globalization does not seem to have led to an attenuation in the effects of monetary policy shocks. The nested closed-economy specification still appears to provide a substantially better fit of U.S. data than various open-economy specifications with time-varying degrees of openness. Some time variation in the model coefficients over the postwar sample exists, particularly in the volatilities of the shocks, but it is unlikely to be related to globalization.
Replacing a Random Oracle: Full Domain Hash from Indistinguishability Obfuscation

Our main result gives a way to instantiate the random oracle with a concrete hash function in “full domain hash” applications. The term full domain hash was first proposed by Bellare and Rogaway [BR93, BR96] and referred to a signature scheme from any trapdoor permutation that was part of their seminal work introducing the random oracle heuristic. Over time the term full domain hash has (informally) encompassed a broader range of notable cryptographic schemes including the Boneh-Franklin [BF01] IBE scheme and Boneh-Lynn-Shacham (BLS) [BLS01] signatures. All of the above described schemes required a hash function that had to be modeled as a random oracle to prove security. Our work utilizes recent advances in indistinguishability obfuscation to construct specific hash functions for use in these schemes. We then prove security of the original cryptosystems when instantiated with our specific hash function.
The formation of expectations: Some evidence from weekly money supply forecasts

Abstract This paper investigates the expectations formation process of weekly money supply forecasts derived from survey data. The evidence indicates that forecaster's expectations are modelled best as regressive. Moreover, the results are unaffected by the October 1979 change in monetary operating procedures.
Historic Iowa Farm Custom Rate Survey

Averages 2013 2012 2009 2005 1999 1993 1974 Tillage Chopping cornstalks, per acre $11.40 $11.05 $9.80 $7.45 $6.35 $5.90 $2.10 Plowing moldboard plow, per acre 16.15 16.10 14.10 12.15 10.95 10.60 5.19 chisel, per acre 15.20 14.90 13.70 11.05 9.95 9.50 4.11 Disk/chiseling, per acre 16.05 15.65 14.30 12.20 10.80 10.30 -Subsoiling (8 to 15 in. deep), per acre 18.80 18.45 16.50 13.45 12.05 12.00 -V-ripper (over 15 in. deep), per acre 19.60 18.55 16.70 14.30 12.25 --V-ripper with tandem disk, per acre 22.45 20.75 17.50 13.85 12.85 --Disking tandem, per acre 13.60 12.55 11.40 8.45 7.35 6.80 2.22 offset, per acre 17.00 15.95 13.30 9.60 8.65 8.60 3.46 Harrowing, per acre 9.65 8.90 7.60 5.20 3.75 3.90 1.18 Soil fi nishing, per acre 13.85 13.10 11.20 8.60 8.10 7.90 -Field cultivating, per acre 13.35 12.30 10.70 8.00 7.15 6.40 2.18 Cultivating, conventional, per acre 12.50 12.15 9.30 7.15 6.35 5.40 1.88 Cultivating, ridge-till, per acre 15.20 14.35 11.50 10.00 7.60 7.80 -Rock picking, per acre 13.45 12.90 11.70 10.75 ---Rotary hoeing, per acre 9.15 8.75 7.20 5.15 4.50 4.25 1.34
Handwashing behavior change at scale : evidence from a randomized evaluation in Vietnam

This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study, entitled Hand washing behavior change at scale : evidence from a randomized evaluation in Vietnam, conducted in 2010 in Vietnam. The study evaluates a large-scale hand washing campaign in three provinces of Vietnam on the household level. The program did not have an impact on hand washing with soap behavior. Knowledge about the correct way to wash was high at baseline, and some areas of knowledge improved, but it did not have an impact on the already high access to soap within households and modest effects on the self-reported hand washing behavior of mothers. Observed hand washing behaviors remained very low; mostly caregivers wash their hands with water only. Funding for the study derived from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
/spl Hscr//sub /spl infin// control of nonlinear systems: a convex characterization

The nonlinear /spl Hscr//sub /spl infin//-control problem is considered with an emphasis on developing machinery with promising computational properties. The solutions to /spl Hscr//sub /spl infin//-control problems for a class of nonlinear systems are characterized in terms of nonlinear matrix inequalities which result in convex problems. The computational implications for the characterization are discussed. >
The ER(n)-cohomology of BO(q) and real Johnson–Wilson orientations for vector bundles

Using the Bockstein spectral sequence developed previously by the authors, we compute the ring ER(n) ∗ (BO(q)) explicitly. We then use this calculation to show that the ring spectrum MO[2 n+1 ]i sER(n)-orientable (but not ER(n +1 )-orientable), whereMO[2 n+1 ]i s def ined as the Thom spectrum for the self-map of BO given by multiplication by 2 n+1 .
Dispersion Measurements in Highly Heterogeneous Laboratory Scale Porous Media

Laboratory experiments and numerical simulations investigate conservative contaminant transport in a heterogeneous porous medium. The laboratory experiments were performed in cylindrical columns 1m long and 3.5cm inside diameter filled with spherical glass beads. Concentration breakthrough curves are measured at a scale much finer than the size of the heterogeneity. Numerical simulations are based on a random walk in a known constant velocity field. The heterogeneity is a distinct, discontinuous change in the local permeability field. Fluid flow is miscible, flowing in a saturated porous medium. Previous work has shown this to be a very poorly understood phenomenon. The measurements reported here help to better understand how dispersion evolves through and past a heterogeneity.
2D non-LTE modeling for axi-symmetric winds. II. A short characteristic solution for radiative transfer in rotating winds

We present a new radiative transfer code for axi-symmetric stellar atmospheres and compare test results against 1D and 2D models with and without velocity fields. The code uses the short characteristic method with modifications to handle axi-symmetric and non-monotonic 3D wind velocities, and allows for distributed calculations. The formal solution along a characteristic is evaluated with a resolution that is proportional to the velocity gradient along the characteristic. This allows us to accurately map the variation of the opacities and emissivities as a function of frequency and spatial coordinates, but avoids unnecessary work in low velocity regions. We represent a characteristic with an impact-parameter vector $\vec{p}$ (a vector that is normal to the plane containing the characteristic and the origin) rather than the traditional unit vector in the direction of the ray. The code calculates the incoming intensities for the characteristics by a single latitudinal interpolation without any further interpolation in the radiation angles. Using this representation also provides a venue for distributed calculations since the radiative transfer can be done independently for each $\vec{p}$.
Cinema and the urban poor in south India

List of illustrations Acknowledgements Note on transliteration Part I: 1. Introduction 2. Lives in Madurai 3. Activities and attitudes Part II: 4. History of Tamil cinema 5. Films 6. Film themes Part III: 7. Filmmakers 8. Audiences 9. Fan clubs and politics 10. Conclusions Appendix Notes List of references Index.
Adaptive mesh generation for viscous flows using delaunay triangulation

A method for generating an unstructured triangular mesh in two dimensions, suitable for computing high Reynolds number flows over arbitrary configurations is presented. The method is based on a Delaunay triangulation, which is performed in a locally stretched space, in order to obtain very high aspect ratio triangles in the boundary layer and the wake regions. It is shown how the method can be coupled with an unstructured Navier-Stokes solver to produce a solution adaptive mesh generation procedure for viscous flows.
Cosmological and Astrophysical Implications of Magnetic Monopoles

Among Dirac’s many contributions to modern physics is the idea that charge quantization is natural in a theory with magnetic monopoles. The existence of magnetic monopoles would have drastic effects on the evolution of the universe, on galactic magnetic fields, and perhaps on the x-ray luminosity of neutron stars. In this talk I will review some astrophysical implications of massive monopoles.
Light front QCD: A Constituent picture of hadrons

Light-front coordinates offer a scenario in which a constituent approximation of hadron structure can emerge from QCD. This requires cutoffs that violate Lorentz covariance and gauge invariance, and a new renormalization group formalism based on a similarity transformation is used with coupling coherence to fix counterterms that restore these symmetries. The counterterms contain functions of longitudinal momentum fractions which severely complicate renormalization, but they also offer possible resolutions of apparent contradictions between the constituent picture and QCD. The similarity transformation and coupling coherence are applied to QED; and it is shown that the resultant Hamiltonian leads to the correct bound state results. The same techniques are applied to QCD and it is shown that a simple confinement mechanism and a reasonable description of heavy quark bound states emerge naturally.
X-Ray Spectra of Supernova Remnants

Until quite recently, there has been little hard evidence for the existence of discrete features (such as emission lines) in the spectra of X-ray sources. The basic problem, of course, has been that the exposure obtainable with contemporary instrumentation has precluded the effective utilization of dispersive techniques, so that we were limited to the use of proportional counters (with typical resolving power E/ΔE no better than ˜ 5) for spectroscopic study. Nevertheless, the high relative abundance of Fe has allowed the detection of both thermal and fluorescent emission lines from a variety of astrophysical contexts, even with the relatively poor resolution available with proportional counters, so that we could be certain that better resolution would eventually allow the detection of emission features from atomic transitions which were less pronounced relative to the surrounding continuum.
Carrier Conduction in a-Si:H Solar Cells

The conduction process in a-Si:H Schottky structures (I-N+/SS) is found to be barrier controlled at low forward bias ( 0.6 V). The I-layer shows evidence of space charge limited current conduction (SCLC) in the dark. A model incorporating these considerations has been presented to develop equations for the terminal I-V characteristics of these structures. Dark I-V characteristics of the P-I-N structure are also explained on the basis of the above model. Dark C-V-f characteristics of the Schottky structures also support the existence of SCLC conduction in these structures.