cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
DYSKINETIC CEREBRAL PALSY IN ASPHYXIATED TERM NEONATES – THE CHALLENGE TO IDENTIFY MILD LESIONS

Scientific background: Dyskinetic CP is rare (7% of total CP), but typically caused by hypoxic lesions of thalami and basal ganglia in term aspyxiated neonates. Aims: This study illustrates the importance of good neuroimaging in dyskinetic cerebral palsy (CP) following asphyxia on example of two term born boys. Methods and subjects: The first boy was born with Apgar scores 1/5 and resuscitated. Motor development was delayed, but intellectual functions near normal. Communications problems occurred due to orofacial dyskinesia. The second boy suffered severe intrapartal asphyxia, caused by placental abruption and ruptured uterus, with Apgar score 1/3, resuscitated. His motor milestones were markedly delayed, while intellectual development was normal. His school performance was disturbed by severe dysarthria. Both children, assessed at age of 15 years, were diagnosed as dysknetic CP, using Surveillance of Cerebral Palsy (SCPE) functional classification: Patient 1, GMFCS 2, BFMCS 3b ; Patient 2, GMFCS 5, BMFM 5, with accompanying impairments of epilepsy and communications problems (Viking Speech Scale, 2010, level 3) in both patients. Results and discussion: In both children brain MRI, performed at the age of 15 years (1.5 Tesla), revealed mild but typical bilateral deep grey matter lesions involving the ventrolateral thalamus (Patient 1, 2) and posterior putamen (Patient 2) best seen on T2 w and Flair images. Both children were term born with clear signs of asphyxia and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and then developed dyskinetic CP with severe communication problems but near normal intellectual functions. Brain MRI of both children illustrated mild but bilateral lesions in thalami and in putamen (Patient 2). In cases of asphyxiated neonates developing dyskinetic CP, MRI of good quality is an important diagnostic step. Lesions although small but in strategic domains can cause severe motor impairment, but may be overlooked.
Simulation of an Optimal Regulator for A Partially Observed Markov Chain

Abstract Investigations in discrete-time, discrete-state, optimal stochastic control, using both theoretical analysis and computer simulation, are reported. The state and action spaces are both finite sets of integers. The equation which governs the evolution of a Markov chain on the state space, at each stage, for each action, is given. The problem is to choose the action at each stage to maximize a specified payoff function. The controller does not have access to the actual state at each stage, but only to a projection contaminated by noise. Nonlinear filtering and dynamic programming are employed to obtain two theorems which provide the theoretical solution to the problem. Although exact analytical expressions could not be obtained, the theorems provide clear insight into the form of the optimal controller, which is borne out by Monte-Carlo computer simulation.
Payments or Persuasion: Common Pool Resource Management with Price and Non-price Measures

We use lab experiments to study policies that address common pool resource overuse. We look at a price mechanism, specifically a Pigouvian subsidy, and four non-price interventions. The non-price policies are information alone, information with a normative message, communication alone, and normative messages with communication allowed. In all experiment sessions, no intervention occurs in the first seven and last seven rounds, allowing us to examine the effects of introducing and taking away a policy. The subsidy leads to near-efficient extraction, but surprisingly leads groups that were not over-extracting to also reduce extraction. This over-compliance decreases efficiency, although on net the subsidy is the most efficiency-enhancing intervention. Information provision, communication, normative appeals, and normative appeals combined with communication all reduce over-extraction (though by less than the subsidy) without exacerbating over-compliance; however, the effects of information alone and communication alone are small and not robust. The non-price policies cause a decline in over-extraction of from 0.549 (information) to 11.441 % (normative appeals with communication). These effects are of the same order of magnitude as the effects seen in major field studies of conservation messaging. The subsidy has the worst persistence properties (after the intervention ceases), while normative messages with communication have the best.
Surrogate Taxation and the Second-Best Answer to the In-Kind Benefit Valuation Riddle

For well over a century, theorists have debated how the receipt of inkind benefits, such as meals and lodging furnished for the convenience of an employer and business entertainment opportunities, should be taxed. While debate participants have generally agreed that the receipt of such in-kind benefits constitutes income, the question has remained about whether to value such benefits at fair market value or at the recipient's subjective value or to use some other metric. Because of administrative considerations in determining the tax base, the Internal Revenue Code (Code) historically used a binary approach: either include the in-kind benefit at its fair market value or exclude it entirely. This analysis explores an intermediate approach known as surrogate taxation, a process by which one taxpayer bears another taxpayer's tax burden. Over the past several decades, surrogate taxation has evolved and grown in prominence. It is now commonly used to tax the receipt of in-kind benefits (and other forms of income) in ways that produce outcomes that are more administrable, equitable, and efficient than the Code's binary approach. While this analysis concludes that direct taxation is preferable to surrogate taxation, administrative concerns sometimes dictate that surrogate taxation is often a necessary substitute. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION 154 II. THE VALUATION RIDDLE OF TAXING IN-KIND BENEFITS ..... 158 III. SURROGATE TAXATION AND ITS UNDERLYING RATIONALES 164 A. Mechanism to Tax Income 165 B. Mechanism to Minimize Deadweight Loss to the Economy 167 C. Mechanism to Preserve die Tax Base 169 IV. DIFFERENT FORMS OF SURROGATE TAXES AND THEIR SALIENT CHARACTERISTICS 171 A. Denial of Otherwise Allowable Deductions 172 B. Imposition of an Excise Tax on die Party Making the Expenditure 175 C. Placement of a Withholding Tax on die Remunerating Party 179 V. THE IMPORTANCE OF SURROGATE TAXATION AND ITS VARIED USES 181 A. Surrogate Taxation and Its Role in Fostering a Good Tax System 181 1. Surrogate tax's role in promoting equity under the code 181 2. Surrogate tax's role in promoting efficiency under the code 183 3. Surrogate tax's role in promoting administrability under the code 185 B. Congressional employment of surrogate taxation 189 1. Code § 274(c): a deduction denial 189 2. Code § 4972: an excise tax 190 3. Code § 1441: a withholding tax 191 VI.CONCLUSION 191 I. Introduction Problems associated with taxing the value of items received in kind radier than in cash have historically bedeviled and baffled both income tax dieorists and administrators. Simply put, the problem is as follows: When taxpayers receive cash payments, such as salary emoluments, they have unlimited consumption opportunities, signaling that a tax on the amounts they received is appropriate. Conversely, when taxpayers receive in-kind benefits, such as business gifts, dieir consumption choices are typically constrained, signaling that a tax on the fair market value of the items they received is inappropriate. …
Multi-Attribute Auctions with Unobserved Heterogeneity in Supplier Qualities and Buyers Tastes

Multi-attribute auctions are widely used in industry procurement. Recently many Internet-based auction markets adopted multi-attribute structure. Multi-attribute auctions differ from standard low price auctions in that (a) a buyer chooses a winner on the basis of several indicators instead of taking only a price quote into account; (b) the exact weighting scheme that is used to determine the winner is not announced. Often the exact set of characteristics included in the score is left unspecified. These features create natural obstacles to the analysis of multi-attribute auctions since they imply that auctioneers' tastes as well as some of the relevant bidder characteristics may not be observed in the data. The structure of the market is such that exactly the same set of suppliers is considered by a negligibly small set of buyers. Therefore, in contrast to the markets with differentiated products we cannot assume that the probability of winning given the choice set is observed in the data. This paper shows that the multi-attribute auction model with unobserved bidder characteristic and unobserved auctioneer tastes is identified from the data. An important identification step deals with recovering bidders' quality rankings. This step essentially proposes an algorithm to recover bidder classification into unobserved groups. Once quality classification is constructed unobserved bidders tastes are recovered by exploiting the variation in a bidder probability of winning in response to price variation. We show that are model is capable of generating price variation required for identification. We apply our methodology to the data for on-line multi-attribute procurement auctions for services and estimate the distribution of buyers' tastes, sellers' unobserved characteristics and the distribution of sellers' private costs.
The Economic Value of the University of Northern Iowa

This analysis measures the regional economic value of the University of Northern Iowa. There are two dimensions evaluated: the overall worth of operating the university and the value of student spending in the area economy. This analysis incorporates a number of best practices for measuring the worth of universities to regional economies.
Nonconvexity, efficiency and equilibrium in exhaustible resource depletion

We consider the problem of efficiency and existence of a competitive equilibrium in exhaustible resource markets where extraction costs are nonconvex. Nonconvexity is shown to imply that (1) (efficient) extraction ceases to the left of the minimum efficient scale, i.e., where average costs exceed marginal costs; and (2) a competitive equilibrium does not exist. Introduction of a backstop technology (which induces a flat portion of the industry demand curve) restores both existence and efficiency, provided that the backstop price is sufficiently low. If firms face even a small amount of uncertainty regarding their rivals' stocks, a backstop technology is sufficient to restore existence of competitive equilibrium, even if the backstop price is very high. In this case, however, the competitive equilibrium is not efficient.
Competition and the location of overseas assembly

. How does international competition affect overseas outsourcing? To address this question, this paper studies production decisions in the U.S.'s overseas assembly program (OAP). In this setting, a number of regularities emerge. First, prior participation is highly correlated with current participation, which suggests that sunk costs influence outsourcing choices. Second, increases in own-country costs and declines in competitor-country costs reduce participation probabilities. In addition, these persistence and cost effects are much larger for outsourcing in developing countries. Finally, outsourcing responses appear to reflect differences in 'market thickness,’ as cost sensitivity generally rises with competitor presence. Comment est-ce que la concurrence affecte la sous-traitance a l'etranger? Pour analyser cette question, ce texte etudie les decisions de production dans le programme de chaines de montage a l'etranger des entreprises americaines. Dans ce contexte, un certain nombre de regularites emergent. D'abord, l'experience anterieure est fortement co-reliee a l'experience presente; voila qui suggere que les couts deja engloutis ont un impact sur les choix de sous-traitance. Ensuite, l'accroissement des couts pour le pays de base et la chute des couts dans le pays concurrent reduisent les probabilites de participation. De plus, ces effets de persistance et de couts sont beaucoup plus grands pour ce qui est de la sous-traitance dans les pays en voie de developpement. Enfin, les reponses dans les strategies de sous-traitance dependent de « l'epaisseur du marche» car la sensibilite des couts augmente generalement a proportion que la presence de la concurrence est plus importante. Email: dswenson@ucdavis.edu
Deals among rational agents

A formal framework is presented that models communication and promises in multi-agent interactions. This framework generalizes previous work on cooperation without communication, and shows the ability of communication to resolve conflicts among agents having disparate goals. Using a deal-making mechanism, agents are able to coordinate and cooperate more easily than in the communication-free model. In addition, there arc certain types of interactions where communication makes possible mutually beneficial activity that is otherwise impossible to coordinate.
Optimal time-space tradeoff in probabilistic inference

Recursive Conditioning, RC, is an any-space algorithm for exact inference in Bayesian networks, which can trade space for time in increments of the size of a floating point number. This smooth trade-off is possible by varying the algorithm's cache size. When RC is run with a constrained cache size, an important problem arises: Which specific results should be cached in order to minimize the running time of the algorithm? RC is driven by a structure known as a dtree, and many such dtrees exist for a given Bayesian network. In this paper, we examine the problem of searching for an optimal caching scheme for a given dtree, and present some optimal time-space tradeoff curves for given dtrees of several published Bayesian networks. We also compare these curves to the memory requirements of state-of-the-art algorithms based on join-trees. Our results show that the memory requirements of these networks can be significantly reduced with only a minimal cost in time, allowing for exact inference in situations previously impractical. They also show that probabilistic reasoning systems can be efficiently designed to run under varying amounts of memory.
Effects of resistance training on neuromuscular junction morphology

The aim of this study was to determine the impact of resistance exercise on neuromuscular junction (NMJ) architecture. Eighteen Sprague-Dawley rats either participated in a 7-week resistance training program or served as untrained controls. Following the experimental period, the NMJs of soleus muscles were visualized with immunofluorescent techniques, and muscle fibers were stained histochemically. Results indicate that resistance training significantly (P < 0.05) increased endplate perimeter length (15%) and area (16%), and significantly enhanced the dispersion of acetylcholine receptors within the endplate region. Pre- and post-synaptic modifications to resistance exercise were well-coupled. No significant alterations in muscle fiber size or fiber type were detected. The data presented here indicate that the stimulus of resistance training was sufficiently potent to remodel NMJ structure, and that this effect cannot be attributed to muscle fiber hypertrophy or fiber type conversion.
High-Dimensional Mixed Graphical Models

ABSTRACTWhile graphical models for continuous data (Gaussian graphical models) and discrete data (Ising models) have been extensively studied, there is little work on graphical models for datasets with both continuous and discrete variables (mixed data), which are common in many scientific applications. We propose a novel graphical model for mixed data, which is simple enough to be suitable for high-dimensional data, yet flexible enough to represent all possible graph structures. We develop a computationally efficient regression-based algorithm for fitting the model by focusing on the conditional log-likelihood of each variable given the rest. The parameters have a natural group structure, and sparsity in the fitted graph is attained by incorporating a group lasso penalty, approximated by a weighted lasso penalty for computational efficiency. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method through an extensive simulation study and apply it to a music annotation dataset (CAL500), obtaining a sparse and inte...
Star Height via Games

This paper proposes a new algorithm deciding the star height problem. As shown by Kirsten, the star height problem reduces to a problem concerning automata with counters, called limitedness. The new contribution is a different algorithm for the limitedness problem, which reduces it to solving a Gale-Stewart game with an a#x03C9;-regular winning condition.
Adam Smith's “tolerable administration of justice” and the Wealth of Nations

In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argues that a country's national income depends on its labor productivity, which in turn hinges on the division of labor. But why are some countries able to take advantage of the division of labor and become rich, while others fail to do so and remain poor? Smith's answer, in an important but neglected theme of his work, is the security of property rights that enable individuals to "secure the fruits of their own labor" and allow the division of labor to occur. Countries that can establish a "tolerable administration of justice" to secure property rights and allow investment and exchange to take place will see economic progress take place. Smith's emphasis on a country's "institutions" in determining its relative income has been supported by recent empirical work on economic development.
Reversing Gene Erosion - Reconstructing Ancestral Bacterial Genomes from Gene-Content and Order Data

In the last few years, it has become routine to use gene-order data to reconstruct phylogenies, both in terms of edge distances (parsimonious sequences of operations that transform one end point of the edge into the other) and in terms of genomes at internal nodes, on small, duplication-free genomes. Current gene-order methods break down, though, when the genomes contain more than a few hundred genes, possess high copy numbers of duplicated genes, or create edge lengths in the tree of over one hundred operations. We have constructed a series of heuristics that allow us to overcome these obstacles and reconstruct edges distances and genomes at internal nodes for groups of larger, more complex genomes. We present results from the analysis of a group of thirteen modern γ-proteobacteria, as well as from simulated datasets.
The value of a statistical life for transportation regulations: A test of the benefits transfer methodology

Policy applications of the value of a statistical life (VSL) often make a benefits transfer assumption that the VSL from one market context is broadly applicable to other contexts. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s estimate of $9.2 million is based on labor market estimates of VSL. This article examines whether there are any significant differences in labor market estimates of the VSL by the nature of the fatality, utilizing two different approaches that distinguish between fatalities resulting from transportation events and vehicle-related sources based on the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) data. The labor market estimates of VSL generalize across transport and non-transport contexts so that it is appropriate to use labor market estimates of VSL to value the benefits of transport regulations. This result holds even after accounting for the level and composition of nonfatal job injuries.
Reexamining The Determinants Of Fiscal Decentralization: What Is The Role Of Geography?

This paper contributes to the existing literature on the determinants of fiscal decentralization by exploring in depth the empirical relevance of physical geography as a determinant of fiscal decentralization; more geographically diverse countries show greater heterogeneity among their citizens. The theoretical framework imbeds geography into the concept of spatial decay in the provision of public services and our empirical estimation employs a panel data set for 94 countries for the period 1970–2010. Following the ‘first nature’ geography literature we construct a geographical fragmentation index based on elevation data and find that geographical fragmentation and area are significantly and positively related to fiscal decentralization. Following the ‘second nature’ geography literature we interact the geographical fragmentation index with time variant infrastructure variables, in order to test the effect that infrastructure and communications have on physical geography and fiscal decentralization. While the development of infrastructure tends to reduce the effect of physical geography on decentralization, this effect is rather small and mostly statistically insignificant.
What Does CEOs' Personal Leverage Tell Us about Corporate Leverage?

We find that firms behave remarkably similarly to how their CEOs behave personally when it comes to leverage choices. We start our analysis by compiling a comprehensive sample of home purchases and financings among S&P 1,500 CEOs. Debt financing in a CEO's most recent home purchase is used as a revealed preference of the CEO's personal attitude towards debt. We find a robust positive relation between personal and corporate leverage. We also find that firms tend to hire CEOs with a similar personal attitude towards debt as the previous CEO. When the new and previous CEOs have different personal preferences, corporate leverage changes in the direction of the new CEO's personal leverage. These results support a model with endogenous matching of CEOs to firms. We also find that the positive relation between CEOs' personal leverage and corporate leverage is stronger in firms with poor governance, suggesting that CEOs imprint their personal preferences on the firms they manage when they are able to do so. These results suggest that heterogeneity in CEOs' personal attitudes towards debt partly explains differences in corporate capital structures, and suggest more generally that an analysis of CEOs' personalities and personal traits may provide important information about the financial policies of the firms they manage.
Lawfare and Legal Ethics in Guantanamo

* University Professor and Professor of Law and Philosophy, Georgetown University Law Center. I would like to thank Jennifer Clark, Anna Melamud, and Capt. Yvette Wood for research assistance. I would also like to thank David Glazier, Vicki Jackson, Marty Lederman, Peter Margulies, Deborah Rhode, Phil Schrag, Ellen Yaroshefsky, and above all the former and present Guantanamo lawyers who took time from their busy schedules to talk with me at considerable length, and in some cases reviewed my draft for factual accuracy. These include Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, J. Wells Dixon, Joshua Dratel, Gitanjali Gutierrez, Matthew Maclean, Maj. Michael Mori, Clive Stafford Smith, Lt. Cmdr. (ret.) Charles Swift, and two who prefer to remain anonymous. As I discuss in infra note 1 15, 1 wrote an affidavit in one of the cases analyzed in this Article, as a pro bono ethics consultant for the defendant. 1 . The audio interview is on the website of Federal News Radio. Guantanomo Bay: Five Years Later (Federal News Radio broadcast Jan. 11, 2007) (interview by Jane Norris with Charles Stimson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, in Washington, D.C. (Jan. 11, 2007)), available at http://www.federalnewsradio.com/
Health Care Utilization Data, Analysis

Data on health care utilization are used to address important questions about what is done for whom, and can shed light on why and with what outcome, in the large segment of economic life that “delivers” health care services to populations. We describe the purposes of and major issues associated with common study types (e.g. small area variations, disparities, provider profiling, cost effectiveness). Methodologic issues include: defining the study scope in accordance with its purpose (data source, population, timeframe, units of analysis and units of inference); choosing appropriate models (dealing with clustered observations, skewness, heteroscedasticity, and “point masses” at zero); and addressing the “censoring” effect of death on cost. Keywords: cost; window of observation; modeling; outcomes; comparing providers
Synthesis, structures, and photochemistry of tricarbonyl metal polyoxoanion complexes, [X2W20O70{M(CO)3}2]12– (X = Sb, Bi and M = Re, Mn).

A new series of complexes containing two electron donating groups, {M(CO)3}+ ions, M = Re or Mn, on one polytungstate electron acceptor group have been prepared and characterized. These complexes containing two electron donating groups, {M(CO)3}+ ions, M = Re or Mn, on one polytungstate electron acceptor group have been prepared and characterized. These two-component polyoxometalate (POM) compounds have been made by reaction of solvated {M(CO)3}+ ions (M = Re or Mn) with [X2W22O74(OH)2]12– (X = Sb or Bi) POM multidentate ligands in aqueous solution. These syntheses reveal that the fac-{WO(OH)2}2+ groups in the terminal positions of these two POM ligands are easily replaced by the topologically equivalent units fac-{M(CO)3}+. Four compounds, [X2W20O70{M(CO)3}2]12– (1a: X = Sb, M = Re; 1b: X = Bi, M = Re; 2a: X = Sb, M = Mn; 2b: X = Bi, M = Mn) have been isolated and characterized of X-ray crystallography, spectroscopic, and computational methods. The charge transfer dynamics, investigated by femtosecond tr...
Understanding Disconnection and Stabilization of Chord

Previous analytical work on the resilience of P2P networks has been restricted to disconnection arising from simultaneous failure of all neighbors in routing tables of participating users. In this paper, we focus on a different technique for maintaining consistent graphs-Chord's successor sets and periodic stabilizations-under both static and dynamic node failure. We derive closed-form models for the probability that Chord remains connected under both types of node failure and show the effect of using different stabilization interval lengths (i.e., exponential, uniform, and constant) on the probability of partitioning in Chord.
The Effect of Thermal Mismatch on Stresses, Morphology and Failures in Thermal Barrier Coatings

Platinum modified aluminide bond coat used for oxidation protection in thermal barrier coatings are prone to develop morphological instabilities in the interface to the ceramic top coat. Previous work has shown that thereare a range of factors influencing this development, where key factors are the lateral growth strain in the thermally grown oxide, the relatively low yield strength of the Pt-modified bond coat at high temperature, and cyclic loading. In this study we show that the development of the instabilities can be greatly enhanced due to the thermal mismatch between the substrate and the bond coat.
The CVS Algorithm for View Synchronization in Evolvable Large-Scale Information Systems

Current view technology supports only static views in the sense that views become undefined and hence obsolete as soon as the underlying information sources (ISs) undergo capability changes. We propose to address this new view evolution problem — which we call view synchronization — by a novel solution approach that allows affected view definitions to be dynamically evolved to keep them in synch with evolving ISs. We present in this paper a general strategy for the view synchronization process that guided by constraints imposed by the view evolution preferences embedded in the view definition achieves view preservation (i.e., view redefinition). We present the formal correctness, the CVS algorithm, as well as numerous examples to demonstrate the main concepts.
Toxicity (Adverse Events)

In the setting of a clinical trial, an adverse event (AE) is any unfavorable change in the structure, function, or chemistry in a patient or subject that is temporally associated with the participation in a clinical trial, regardless of whether or not this change is considered related to the therapeutic intervention. An AE, which is treatment emergent, is classified by its relationship to the therapeutic intervention. In a randomized controlled trial, only increases in AEs in the intervention group compared with the control group are attributable to the intervention. A serious adverse event (SAE) is an AE that is at least possibly related to the therapeutic intervention that results in death, life-threatening experience, inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization, persistent and significant disability or incapacity, jeopardy to patient and requires intervention, or a congenital anomaly or birth defect. An unexpected AE is as any unanticipated AE that is possibly related to the therapeutic intervention. AEs are graded and classified using standardized coding dictionaries into broad categories based on anatomy and/or pathophysiology, and by specific terms within each category. In clinical trials, we perform routine laboratory tests prior to the start of the study, to screen patients for eligibility into the trials, and during the trials to ensure patient safety. AEs and SAEs are monitored during a study and are summarized to provide assessments of the safety of the treatment or intervention. Keywords: clinical trial; adverse event (AE); serious adverse event; treatment emergent AE; AE grade; unexpected AE; toxicity; safety
Viewpoint induced deformation statistics and the design of viewpoint invariant features: singularities and occlusions

We study the set of domain deformations induced on images of three-dimensional scenes by changes of the vantage point. We parametrize such deformations and derive empirical statistics on the parameters, that show a kurtotic behavior similar to that of natural image and range statistics. Such a behavior would suggest that most deformations are locally smooth, and therefore could be captured by simple parametric maps, such as affine ones. However, we show that deformations induced by singularities and occluding boundaries, although rare, are highly salient, thus warranting the development of dedicated descriptors. We therefore illustrate the development of viewpoint invariant descriptors for singularities, as well as for occluding boundaries. We test their performance on scenes where the current state of the art based on affine-invariant region descriptors fail to establish correspondence, highlighting the features and shortcomings of our approach.
A new cosmological paradigm: the cosmological constant and dark matter

The Standard Cosmological Model of the 1980’s is no more. I describe the definitive evidence that the density of matter is insufficient to result in a flat universe, as well as the mounting evidence that the cosmological constant is not zero. I finally discuss the implications of these results for particle physics and direct searches for non-baryonic dark matter.
Grand Unified Theories From Superstrings

I discuss how traditional grand unified theories, which require adjoint (or higher representation) Higgs fields for breaking to the standard model, can be contained within string theory. The status of stringy free fermionic three generation SO(10) SUSY-GUT models is reviewed. Progress in classification of both SO(10)2 charged and uncharged embeddings and in N = 1 spacetime solutions is discussed.
Tight Revenue Bounds With Possibilistic Beliefs and Level‐k Rationality

Mechanism design enables a social planner to obtain a desired outcome by leveraging the players' rationality and their beliefs. It is thus a fundamental, but yet unproven, intuition that the higher the level of rationality of the players, the better the set of obtainable outcomes. In this paper, we prove this fundamental intuition for players with possibilistic beliefs, a model long considered in epistemic game theory. Specifically, • We define a sequence of monotonically increasing revenue benchmarks for single-good auctions, G0≤G1≤G2≤⋯, where each Gi is defined over the players' beliefs and G0 is the second-highest valuation (i.e., the revenue benchmark achieved by the second-price mechanism). • We (1) construct a single, interim individually rational, auction mechanism that, without any clue about the rationality level of the players, guarantees revenue Gk if all players have rationality levels ≥k+1, and (2) prove that no such mechanism can guarantee revenue even close to Gk when at least two players are at most level-k rational.
Change of Base in Bailey Pairs

Versions of Bailey's lemma which change the base from q to q2 or q3 are given. Iterates of these versions give many new versions of multisum Rogers-Ramanujan identities.
The Zollverein and the Formation of a Customs Union

The Zollverein, the German customs union of 1834, was the institutional centrepiece of Germany’s economic unification. A bargaining model is applied to analyze the structure of its negotiation process and accession sequence. The existence of negative coalition externalities, the effect of a coalition on non-participants, led Prussia to choose sequential over multilateral negotiations. The nature of these externalities within the areas of financial revenues, trade policy and domestic political economy also explains the observed accession sequence. The choice of a customs union as institutional structure allowed Prussia to extract higher concessions from other states due to stronger coalition externalities.
Comparative Law and Language

Comparative law is law’s cybernetics, or “theory of messiness.” It attempts to steer through the messiness of the foreign by reordering it into the language of the familiar without betraying the original. It is needed urgently in contexts of unrecognized metamorphosis, and today metamorphoses are burgeoning in murky areas outside of law’s traditional categories of either the national or the international. The less apparent, the less visibly foreign, the foreign is, the more comparative law has a task of translation involving the formation of a vocabulary to transmit new configurations that resist detection and articulation. This essay examines the centrality of translation to processes of language and meaning construction, and links translation to comparative law as a model for the study of similarity and difference, the universal and the particular. The debate in comparative law over the relative importance of similarity and difference among legal systems has its counterpart in linguistics in conflicting views about whether commonalities among languages are fundamental or marginal. These issues situate both language and comparative law between mutually contradictory aspirations of universalism and pluralism which have stalked the evolution of both fields. Despite appearances of the ascendancy of universalism in today’s world, it is not difference and pluralism that are receding, but, rather, that former domains of pluralism and difference recede, while others emerge. Like language, inevitably imprecise and perpetually in flux, comparative law can not be frozen once and for all, to be captured for future application if only it is developed with sufficient acuity and insight. It shares what Isaiah Berlin attributed to philosophy and distinguished from the scientific: it does not carry within itself the method of its own solution, and therefore must be reinvented in each generation, destroying its own past rigidities and methods of decoding and transmitting, in order to construct a new modality of analysis, a new vocabulary better adapted to changed meaning. Comparative law shares with language the pitfalls of miscommunication and misunderstanding, as well as the potentials of learning to see, to communicate and to shed light in that elusive, inevitable, shifting and ever-reconfiguring space that, like language, it occupies between the same and the other.
Towards a general-purpose belief maintenance system

This paper addresses the problem of probabilistic reasoning as it applies to Truth Maintenance Systems. A Belief Maintenance System has been constructed which manages a current set of probabilistic beliefs in much the same way that a TMS manages a set of true/false beliefs. Such a system may be thought of as a generalization of a Truth Maintenance System. It enables one to reason using normal two or three-valued logic or using probabilistic values to represent partial belief. The design of the Belief Maintenance System is described and some problems are discussed which require further research. Finally, some examples are presented which show the utility of such a system.
Inequality and Fiscal Redistribution in Middle Income Countries: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru and South Africa

This paper examines the redistributive impact of fiscal policy for Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru and South Africa using comparable fiscal incidence analysis with data from around 2010. The largest redistributive effect is in South Africa and the smallest in Indonesia. Success in fiscal redistribution is driven primarily by redistributive effort (share of social spending to GDP in each country) and the extent to which transfers/subsidies are targeted to the poor and direct taxes targeted to the rich. While fiscal policy always reduces inequality, this is not the case with poverty. Fiscal policy increases poverty in Brazil and Colombia (over and above market income poverty) due to high consumption taxes on basic goods. The marginal contribution of direct taxes, direct transfers and in-kind transfers is always equalizing. The marginal effect of net indirect taxes is unequalizing in Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and South Africa. Total spending on education is pro-poor except for Indonesia, where it is neutral in absolute terms. Health spending is pro-poor in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and South Africa, roughly neutral in absolute terms in Mexico, and not pro-poor in Indonesia and Peru.
Homotopy G -algebras and moduli space operad

This paper emphasizes the ubiquitous role of mod- uli spaces of algebraic curves in associative algebra and algebraic topology. The main results are: (1) the space of an operad with multiplication is a homotopy G- (i.e., homotopy graded Poisson) algebra; (2) the singular cochain complex is naturally an operad; (3) the operad of decorated moduli spaces acts naturally on the de Rham complexX of a Kahler manifold X, thereby yielding the most general type of homotopy G-algebra structure onX. This latter statement is based on a typical construction of supersymmet- ric sigma-model, the construction of Gromov-Witten invariants in Kontsevich's version.
The Net Present Value of Stabilizing Inflation

When countries attempt to stabilize annual inflation rates that are greater than 40 percent, the domestic stock market appreciates by 24 percent on average. The present value of the long-run benefits to shareholders of reducing high inflation outweighs the present value of the short-run costs. In contrast, the average market response is economically weak and statistically insignificant if the pre-stabilization inflation rate is less than 40 percent. Stock market responses also help predict the change in inflation and output in the year following stabilization efforts. This additional result indicates that the stock market evidence for the 81 inflation stabilization episodes studied here is not spurious.
A Quantitative Study of Limb Darkening In Accretion Disks

The UV emission of accretion disks was synthesized for a grid of optically thick models that cover the high-M nova-like regime, aiming to quantify the effect of limb darkening in the integrated and radially resolved spectrum of the disk.
Ordered Many-Electron Motions in Atoms and X-Ray Lasers

Subpicosecond ultraviolet laser technology is enabling the exploration of nonlinear atomic interactions with electric field strengths considerably in excess of an atomic unit. As this regime is approached, experiments studying multiple ionization, photoelectron energy spectra, and harmonically produced radiation all exhibit strong nonlinear coupling. Peak total energy transfer rates on the order of ∼ 2 × 10−4 W/atom have been observed at an intensity of ∼ 1016 W/cm2, and it is expected that energy transfer rates approaching ∼0.1–1 W/atom will occur under more extreme conditions for which the ultraviolet electric field E is significantly greater than e/a2 0. In this high intensity regime, a wide range of new nonlinear phenomena will be open to study. These will include the possibility of ordered driven motions in atoms, molecules, and plasmas, mechanisms involving collisions, and relativistic processes such as electron-positron pair production. An understanding of these physical interactions may provide a basis for the generation of stimulated emission in the x-ray range.
Discovering functional communities in dynamical networks

Many networks are important because they are substrates for dynamical systems, and their pattern of functional connectivity can itself be dynamic -- they can functionally reorganize, even if their underlying anatomical structure remains fixed. However, the recent rapid progress in discovering the community structure of networks has overwhelmingly focused on that constant anatomical connectivity. In this paper, we lay out the problem of discovering functional communities, and describe an approach to doing so. This method combines recent work on measuring information sharing across stochastic networks with an existing and successful community-discovery algorithm for weighted networks. We illustrate it with an application to a large biophysical model of the transition from beta to gamma rhythms in the hippocampus.
Cosmic Noise: A History of Early Radio Astronomy

1. Prologue 2. Searching for solar hertzian waves 3. Jansky and his star static 4. Grote Reber: science in your backyard 5. Wartime discovery of the radio sun 6. Hey's army group after the war 7.Radiophysics laboratory, Sydney 8. Ryle's group at the Cavendish 9. Lovell at Jodrell Bank 10. Other radio astronomy groups before 1952 11. Meteor radar 12. Reaching for the moon 13. The radio sun 14. Radio stars 15. Theories of galactic noise 16. The 21-cm hydrogen line 17. New astronomers 18. A new astronomy Appendixes References Index.
Compassion Is a Necessity and an Individual and Collective Responsibility Comment on "Why and How Is Compassion Necessary to Provide Good Quality Healthcare?"

Compassion is a complex process that is innate, determined in part by individual traits, and modulated by a myriad of conscious and unconscious factors, immediate context, social structures and expectations, and organizational “culture.” Compassion is an ethical foundation of healthcare and a widely shared value; it is not an optional luxury in the healing process. While the interrelations between individual motivation and social structure are complex, we can choose to act individually and collectively to remove barriers to the innate compassion that most healthcare professionals bring to their work. Doing so will reduce professional burnout, improve the well-being of the healthcare workforce, and facilitate our efforts to achieve the triple aim of improving patients’ experiences of care and health while lowering costs.
Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in Transportation: An Analysis of Alternatives

Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) are in the forefront of approaches to funding transportation infrastructure improvements. Highlighted in the highway area by long-term leases of the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road, a variety of states are investigating the use of public private partnerships either as “Brownfield” leases like the Chicago and Indiana cases, or “Greenfield” Design, Build, Operate, Transfer arrangements. These and other PPP projects raise a variety of issues, including the length of the lease, toll escalation permitted, and use of funds. This paper develops a rationale for PPPs in transportation, evaluates several approaches to PPPs using this rationale, and analyzes some of the difficult issues that can surface.
Rural Wealth Creation: Concepts, Strategies, and Measures

This report presents a conceptual framework for rural wealth creation, drawing upon the U.S. and international development literature. The framework emphasizes the importance of multiple types of assets (physical, financial, human, intellectual, natural, social, political, and cultural capital) and the economic, institutional, and policy context in which rural wealth strategies are devised. The report discusses the role of wealth creation in the rural development process, how wealth can be created in rural communities, and how its accumulation and effects can be measured.
Distributional Effects of the Panama Canal Expansion

This paper uses a dynamic macro-micro framework to evaluate the potential distributional effects of the expansion of the Panama Canal. The results show that large macroeconomic effects are only likely during the operations phase (2014 and onward), and income gains are likely to be concentrated at the top of the income distribution. The additional foreign exchange inflows during the construction and operations phases result in the loss of competitiveness of non-Canal sectors (Dutch disease) and in higher domestic prices, which hurt the poorest consumers. In addition, the construction and operation activities increase demand for more educated non-farm formal workers. Although these changes encourage additional labor movement out of agriculture and from the informal to the formal sector, much of the impact is manifested in growing wage disparities and widening income inequality. Using the additional revenues of the Canal expansion in a targeted cash transfer program such as “Red de Oportunidades”, the Government of Panama could offset the adverse distributional effects and eradicate extreme poverty.
Input Sparsity and Hardness for Robust Subspace Approximation

In the subspace approximation problem, we seek a k-dimensional subspace F of Rd that minimizes the sum of p-th powers of Euclidean distances to a given set of n points a1, an a#x03B5; Rd, for p a#x2265; 1. More generally than minimizing a#x03A3;i dist(ai, F)p, we may wish to minimize a#x03A3;i M(dist(ai, F)) for some loss function M(), for example, M-Estimators, which include the Huber and Tukey loss functions. Such subspaces provide alternatives to the singular value decomposition (SVD), which is the p=2 case, finding such an F that minimizes the sum of squares of distances. For p a#x03B5; [1, 2), and for typical M-Estimators, the minimizing F gives a solution that is more robust to outliers than that provided by the SVD. We give several algorithmic results for these robust subspace approximation problems. We state our results as follows, thinking of the n points as forming an n × d matrix A, and letting nnz(A)denote the number of non-zero entries of A. Our results hold for pa#x03B5; [1, 2). We use poly(n) to denote nO(1) as n a#x2192;a#x221E;. 1) For minimizing a#x03A3;i dist(ai, F)p, we give an algorithm running in O(nnz(A) + (n+d) poly(k/a#x03B5;) + exp(poly(k/a#x03B5;))) time which outputs a k-dimensional subspace F whose cost is at most a (1+a#x03B5;)-factor larger than the optimum. 2) We show that the problem of minimizing a#x03A3;i dist(ai, F)p is NP-hard, even to output a (1+1/poly(d))-approximation. This extends work of Deshpande et al. (SODA, 2011) which could only show NP-hardness or UGC-hardness for p > 2, their proofs critically rely on p > 2. Our work resolves an open question of [Kannan Vempala, NOW, 2009]. Thus, there cannot be an algorithm running in time polynomial in k and 1/a#x03B5; unless P = NP. Together with prior work, this implies that the problem is NP-hard for all p a#x2260; 2. For loss functions for a wide class of M-Estimators, we give a problem-size reduction: for a parameter K=(log n){O(log k), our reduction takes O(nnz(A)log n + (n+d)poly(K/a#x03B5;)) time to reduce the problem to a constrained version involving matrices whose dimensions are poly(Ka#x03B5; -- 1 log n). We also give bicriteria solutions. Our techniques lead to the first O(nnz(A) + poly(d/a#x03B5;)) time algorithms for (1+a#x03B5;)-approximate regression for a wide class of convex M-Estimators. This improves prior results [1], which were (1+a#x03B5;)-approximation for Huber regression only, and O(1)-approximation for a general class of M-Estimators.