cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Brewing control systems: chemical analytes

Publisher Summary This chapter presents that many chemical transformations take place in the brewing process; as a result, relatively few of the compounds found in beer are in the same chemical forms as they were in the raw materials. For example, of the compounds most important to beer flavor (those typically present at more than twice their flavor threshold), the hop bitter compounds in beer (isoalpha acids) are derived from the alpha acids in hops during kettle boiling, and ethanol and CO 2 are formed during fermentation from simple sugars produced from starch breakdown during mashing. Many other compounds found in beer are similarly altered during the process. Measurements of chemical substances are thus needed to maintain consistent quality of products, to control process economics and in some cases to comply with government regulations. Successful analytical methods employ a means of detection that is sufficiently sensitive to determine a substance of interest in relevant samples with reasonable precision and accuracy. The analyte must be adequately separated from interferences prior to detection; the degree of separation required is determined by the specificity of the detector and the nature of the sample. In some cases, the separation may be achieved mathematically rather than physically. Methods are increasingly likely to be automated or moved online; both offer advantages. New technologies (including the use of biological recognition systems, micro fluidics and laboratory information management systems) should lead to improvements in speed, precision and throughput.
Lista de mamíferos marinos en Golfo Dulce e Isla del Coco, Costa Rica

Se realizaron avistamientos de mamiferos marinos en Golfo Dulce (1991-1992) y en Isla del Coco (1993- 1994). Los avistamientos se llevaron a cabo desde embarcaciones inflables, con motor fuera de borda. Ambas areas de estudio comparten una predominancia de Tursiops truncatus , una baja frecuencia de visitantes y una poca variedad de mamiferos marinos
Impact of Operational Flexibility on Electricity Generation Planning With Renewable and Carbon Targets

Recent work on operational flexibility—a power system’s ability to respond to variations in demand and supply—has focused on the impact of large penetration of renewable generation on existing power systems. Operational flexibility is equally important for long-term capacity expansion planning. Future systems with larger shares of renewable generation, and/or carbon emission limits, will require flexible generation mixes; yet, flexibility is rarely fully considered in capacity planning models because of the computational demands of including mixed integer unit commitment within capacity expansion. We present a computationally efficient unit commitment/maintenance/capacity planning formulation that includes the critical operating constraints. An example of capacity planning for a Texas-like system in 2035 with hypothetical RPS and carbon policies shows how considering flexibility results in different capacity and energy mixes and emissions, and that the omission of flexibility can lead to a system that is unable to simultaneously meet demand, carbon, and RPS requirements.
Wooden hutch space allowance influences male Holstein calf health, performance, daily lying time, and respiratory immunity

Dairy calves in the western United States are commonly raised individually in wooden hutches with a space allowance of 1.23m(2)/calf. Recent legislative initiatives in California and across the United States were passed regarding concern over space allowance for farm animals. The objective of this study was to determine if rearing male Holstein calves in wooden hutches modified to increase space allowance would influence measures of performance, lying time per day, health, and respiratory immunocompetence. At 4d of age, 60 calves were randomly assigned to 1 of 3housing treatments: (1) conventional housing (CONV; 1.23m(2)/calf), (2) 1.5 × CONV (MOD; 1.85m(2)/calf), or (3) 3 × CONV (MAX; 3.71m(2)/calf). Intakes of milk and solid feed were recorded daily and body weight was measured at 0, 3, 6, 10, and 12 wk of age. For the first 3 wk of the trial, calves were scored daily for fecal consistency, hydration, and hide cleanliness. In addition, calves were scored for respiratory health (i.e., nasal and eye discharge, ear position) until 7 wk of age. The total lying duration per day was recorded using data loggers at 3, 6, and 10 wk of age. Eight clinically healthy calves from each treatment were sensitized with subcutaneous ovalbumin (OVA) and then challenged with aerosolized OVA to assess calf respiratory immunity at 11 wk of age. Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) was collected 4d after the OVA challenge and analyzed for leukocyte differentials and OVA-specific IgG, IgG1, IgA, and IgE. Calf average daily gain and body weight were positively associated with space allowance at approximately 3 wk before weaning and throughout postweaning, respectively. A greater space allowance decreased lying time after 46d. Space allowance did not influence fecal consistency, but there was a tendency for MAX calves to take 1d longer to recover from loose feces than MOD calves. The MAX calves had the fewest (%) observations with feces on their body compared with CONV or MOD. At 3 wk of age, peripheral eosinophil concentrations decreased with increased space allowance. However, observations (%) of eye discharge increased with greater space allowance. Among calves challenged with OVA, MOD calves had the least BALF OVA-IgE, and the percent of BALF eosinophils decreased with increased space allowance. Increased space allowance for calves raised in wooden hutches may improve some measures of calf performance, health, and respiratory immunocompetence.
Synthesis of Highly Functionalized Decalins via Metallacycle-Mediated Cross-Coupling

Bridged bicyclic metallacyclopentenes generated from the [4 + 2] cycloaddition of metallacyclopentadienes with alkenes have been proposed as reactive intermediates in the course of [2 + 2 + 2] annulation reactions. Recently a collection of alkoxide-directed Ti-mediated [2 + 2 + 2] annulation reactions have been discovered for the synthesis of densely functionalized hydrindanes, where the bridged bicyclic metallacyclopentenes from intramolecular [4 + 2] were treated as fleeting intermediates en route to cyclohexadiene products formed by formal cheletropic extrusion of Ti(Oi-Pr)2. In studies aimed at understanding the course of these organometallic cascade reactions it was later discovered that these bridged bicyclic intermediates can be trapped by various elimination processes. Here, we have realized metallacycle-mediated annulation reactions for the assembly of angularly substituted decalins—structural motifs that are ubiquitous in natural products and molecules of pharmaceutical relevance. In addition to...
Self-Management Interventions in Stages 1 to 4 Chronic Kidney Disease: An Integrative Review

The prevalence, effect on health outcomes, and economic impact of chronic kidney disease (CKD) have created interest in self-management interventions to help slow disease progression to kidney failure. Seven studies were reviewed to identify knowledge gaps and future directions for research. All studies were published between 2010 and 2013; no investigations were conducted in the United States. Knowledge gaps included the focus on medical self-management tasks with no attention to role or emotional tasks, lack of family involvement during intervention delivery, and an inability to form conclusions about the efficacy of interventions because methodological rigor was insufficient. Educational content varied across studies. Strategies to improve self-management skills and enhance self-efficacy varied and were limited in scope. Further development and testing of theory-based interventions are warranted. There is a critical need for future research using well-designed trials with appropriately powered sample sizes, well-tested instruments, and clear and consistent reporting of results.
Functionalized α,α-Dibromo Esters through Claisen Rearrangements of Dibromoketene Acetals

Allylic alcohols can be transformed into γ,δ-unsaturated α,α-dibromo esters through a two-step process: formation of a bromal-derived mixed acetal, followed by tandem dehydrobromination/Claisen rearrangement. The scope and selectivity of both steps have been investigated. The product α,α-dibromo esters were subjected to various carbon–carbon bond-forming reactions, oxidations, and lactonizations.
A Device for Filtering Toxins, etc., By the Use of Water Pressure

The use of gas or air pressure to drive toxins, or other bacterial fluids, which it is desired to filter, and at the same time to sterilize through bougies of porcelain etc., has been common for a long time. The ordinary aspiration filter is, of course, really a pressure filter, the limit of pressure being rather less than one atmosphere, and depending on the degree of exhaustion obtainable. But direct air or gas pressure?secured say by compression?has always presented, besides the mechanical difficulties, chemical or physical difficulties, dependent on the pressure-modifications of the action of the gases used upon the liquids to be filtered. It occurred to the writer that the interposition of a thin sheet of rubber between the surface of the liquid to be filtered and the liquid (air, gas, or water) which was used as the vehicle to transmit the pressure would at once remove almost all the objections which could be brought against pressure filtration. Because of its relative density and inelasticity, water presents so many mechanical advantages over air, that attention was concentrated wholly upon the use of water
Integrated Tribo-Chemical Modeling of Copper CMP

Copper CMP is a corrosion-wear process, in which mechanical and chemical-electrochemical phenomena interact synergistically. Existing models generally treat copper CMP as a corrosion enhanced wear process. However, the underlying mechanisms suggest that copper CMP would be better modeled as a wear enhanced corrosion process, where intermittent asperity/abrasive action enhances the local oxidation rate, and is followed by time-dependent passivation of copper. In this work an integrated tribo-chemical model of material removal at the asperity/abrasive scale was developed. Abrasive and pad properties, process parameters, and slurry chemistry are all considered. Three important components of this model are the passivation kinetics of copper in CMP slurry chemicals; the mechanical response of protective films on copper; and the interaction frequency of copper with abrasives/pad asperities. The material removal rate during copper CMP was simulated using the tribo-chemical model, using input parameters obtained experimentally in accompanying research or from the literature.
Reactivity and Synthesis Inspired by the Zincke Ring-Opening of Pyridines

The century-old Zincke process for ring-opening of pyridinium salts produces 5-amino-2,4-pentadienals, a type of donor-acceptor dienes known as Zincke aldehydes. Inspired by this reasonably general and often efficient process for dearomatization, my laboratory has used pyridines as a starting point for heterocycle synthesis, which resulted in unusual syntheses of indoles, pyrrolines, and a formal synthesis of the natural product porothramycin A. Furthermore, our study of the reactivity of Zincke aldehydes has led to accidental discoveries of pericyclic cascade reactions that produce Z-α,β-unsaturated amides or polycyclic lactams, depending upon the identity of the substituents on nitrogen. Finally, a base-mediated formal cycloaddition reaction of tryptamine-derived Zincke aldehydes has served as the key step in concise syntheses of the indole alkaloids norfluorocurarine and strychnine.
Thomson scattering from a three-component plasma.

description of bound and continuum electrons. The model is used to obtain parameters needed to determine the dynamic structure factors for x-ray Thomson scattering from a three-component plasma. The contribution from inelastic scattering by free electrons is evaluated in the random-phase approximation. The contribution from inelastic scattering by bound electrons is evaluated using the bound-state and scattering wave functions obtained from the average-atom calculations. Finally, the partial static structure factors for elastic scattering by ions are evaluated using a two-component version of the Ornstein-Zernike equations with hypernetted chain closure, in which electron-ion interactions are accounted for using screened ion-ion interaction potentials. The model is used to predict the x-ray Thomson scattering spectrum from a CH plasma and the resulting spectrum is compared with experimental results obtained by Feltcher et al. [Phys. Plasmas 20, 056316 (2013)].
The Length of the Cervix and the Risk of Spontaneous Premature Delivery

Background The role of the cervix in the pathogenesis of premature delivery is controversial. In a prospective, multicenter study of pregnant women, we used vaginal ultrasonography to measure the length of the cervix; we also documented the incidence of spontaneous delivery before 35 weeks' gestation. Methods At 10 university-affiliated prenatal clinics, we performed vaginal ultrasonography at approximately 24 and 28 weeks of gestation in women with singleton pregnancies. We then assessed the relation between the length of the cervix and the risk of spontaneous preterm delivery. Results We examined 2915 women at approximately 24 weeks of gestation and 2531 of these women again at approximately 28 weeks. Spontaneous preterm delivery (at less than 35 weeks) occurred in 126 of the women (4.3 percent) examined at 24 weeks. The length of the cervix was normally distributed at 24 and 28 weeks (mean [+/- SD], 35.2 +/- 8.3 mm and 33.7 +/- 8.5 mm, respectively). The relative risk of preterm delivery increased as the length of the cervix decreased. When women with shorter cervixes at 24 weeks were compared with women with values above the 75th percentile, the relative risks of preterm delivery among the women with shorter cervixes were as follows: 1.98 for cervical lengths at or below the 75th percentile (40 mm), 2.35 for lengths at or below the 50th percentile (35 mm), 3.79 for lengths at or below the 25th percentile (30 mm), 6.19 for lengths at or below the 10th percentile (26 mm), 9.49 for lengths at or below the 5th percentile (22 mm), and 13.99 for lengths at or below the 1st percentile (13 mm) (P Conclusions The risk of spontaneous preterm delivery is increased in women who are found to have a short cervix by vaginal ultrasonography during pregnancy.
Creating molecular macrocycles for anion recognition

The creation and functionality of new classes of macrocycles that are shape persistent and can bind anions is described. The genesis of triazolophane macrocycles emerges out of activity surrounding 1,2,3-triazoles made using click chemistry; and the same triazoles are responsible for anion capture. Mistakes made and lessons learnt in anion recognition provide deeper understanding that, together with theory, now provides for computer-aided receptor design. The lessons are acted upon in the creation of two new macrocycles. First, cyanostars are larger and like to capture large anions. Second is tricarb, which also favors large anions but shows a propensity to self-assemble in an orderly and stable manner, laying a foundation for future designs of hierarchical nanostructures.
The molecular components of nitrofurantoin critical to its inhibitory effect upon platelet aggregation.

Nine analogues of nitrofurantoin were studied in order to determine the molecular components critical to its inhibitory effect upon primary ADP-induced platelet aggregation. The structural alterations represented by these analogues indicate that the inhibitory effect of nitrofurantoin is due to the simultaneous presence of the nitro group on the furan ring and the specific arrangement of the diketo groups on the imidazole ring. Molecular orbital calculations predicted the key role of the electron-deficient nitrofurantoin moiety in the inhibitory effect. A specific ADP-nitrofurantoin complex was demonstrated in solution by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, but the dissociation constant for the complex (approximately 10 -1 M) cannot account for the competitive inhibitory effect of nitrofurantoin on platelet aggregation ( K i ≈ 10 -5 M). The over-all data suggest that the nitrofuran and diketoimidazole portions of nitrofurantoin contribute to its inhibitory effect through different mechanisms. These studies also suggest a set of molecular requirements for the synthesis of new inhibitors which could be clinically useful.
PM Synchronous Machine Drive Response to Asymmetrical Short-Circuit Faults

This paper investigates the impact of machine topology and parameters on the fault-mode characteristics of permanent-magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs) exposed to asymmetrical short-circuit (ASC) faults, one of the most dangerous faults in terms of peak current amplitudes and demagnetization risks. Simulations using an equivalent circuit model combined with finite-element (FE) analysis are used to explore the differences between the ASC fault-mode responses of three major types of PM machines. The effects of several different rotor and winding configurations have been studied to identify the key machine parameters that have a major influence on the fault current amplitudes. Results indicate that fractional-slot concentrated winding (FSCW) PM machines tend to exhibit lower peak currents compared to distributed winding (DW) machines during ASC fault events. Finally, the results from three different types of short-circuit faults are summarized and compared for several PM machine configurations to provide information that will be helpful for choosing the best machine for new applications. Experimental results are provided for constrained ASC fault conditions that build confidence in the models and their predictions.
Discovering useful parts for pose estimation in sparsely annotated datasets

Our work introduces a novel way to increase pose estimation accuracy by discovering parts from unannotated regions of training images. Discovered parts are used to generate more accurate appearance likelihoods for traditional part-based models like Pictorial Structures [13] and its derivatives. Our experiments on images of a hawkmoth in flight show that our proposed approach significantly improves over existing work [27] for this application, while also being more generally applicable. Our proposed approach localizes landmarks at least twice as accurately as a baseline based on a Mixture of Pictorial Structures (MPS) model. Our unique High-Resolution Moth Flight (HRMF) dataset is made publicly available with annotations.
A bias bound approach to nonparametric inference

The traditional approach to obtain valid confidence intervals for non-parametric quantities is to select a smoothing parameter such that the bias of the estimator is negligible relative to its standard deviation. While this approach is apparently simple, it has two drawbacks: first, the question of optimal bandwidth selection is no longer well-defined, as it is not clear what ratio of bias to standard deviation should be considered negligible. Second, since the bandwidth choice necessarily deviates from the optimal (mean squares-minimizing) bandwidth, such a confidence interval is very inefficient. To address these issues, we construct valid confidence intervals that account for the presence of a non-negligible bias and thus make it possible to perform inference with optimal mean squared error minimizing bandwidths. The key difficulty in achieving this involves finding a strict, yet feasible, bound on the bias of a non-parametric estimator. It is well-known that it is not possible to consistently estimate the pointwise bias of an optimal non-parametric estimator (for otherwise, one could subtract it and obtain a faster convergence rate violating Stone’s bounds on the optimal convergence rates). Nevertheless, we find that, under minimal primitive assumptions, it is possible to consistently estimate an upper bound on the magnitude of the bias, which is sufficient to deliver a valid confidence interval whose length decreases at the optimal rate and which does not contradict Stone’s results.
Model Checking - My 27-Year Quest to Overcome the State Explosion Problem

Model Checking is an automatic verification technique for state-transition systems that are finite=state or that have finite-state abstractions. In the early 1980 s in a series of joint papers with my graduate students E.A. Emerson and A.P. Sistla, we proposed that Model Checking could be used for verifying concurrent systems and gave algorithms for this purpose. At roughly the same time, Joseph Sifakis and his student J.P. Queille at the University of Grenoble independently developed a similar technique. Model Checking has been used successfully to reason about computer hardware and communication protocols and is beginning to be used for verifying computer software. Specifications are written in temporal logic, which is particularly valuable for expressing concurrency properties. An intelligent, exhaustive search is used to determine if the specification is true or not. If the specification is not true, the Model Checker will produce a counterexample execution trace that shows why the specification does not hold. This feature is extremely useful for finding obscure errors in complex systems. The main disadvantage of Model Checking is the state-explosion problem, which can occur if the system under verification has many processes or complex data structures. Although the state-explosion problem is inevitable in worst case, over the past 27 years considerable progress has been made on the problem for certain classes of state-transition systems that occur often in practice. In this talk, I will describe what Model Checking is, how it works, and the main techniques that have been developed for combating the state explosion problem.
Cloak of Visibility: Detecting When Machines Browse a Different Web

The contentious battle between web services and miscreants involved in blackhat search engine optimization and malicious advertisements has driven the underground to develop increasingly sophisticated techniques that hide the true nature of malicious sites. These web cloaking techniques hinder the effectiveness of security crawlers and potentially expose Internet users to harmful content. In this work, we study the spectrum of blackhat cloaking techniques that target browser, network, or contextual cues to detect organic visitors. As a starting point, we investigate the capabilities of ten prominent cloaking services marketed within the underground. This includes a first look at multiple IP blacklists that contain over 50 million addresses tied to the top five search engines and tens of anti-virus and security crawlers. We use our findings to develop an anti-cloaking system that detects split-view content returned to two or more distinct browsing profiles with an accuracy of 95.5% and a false positive rate of 0.9% when tested on a labeled dataset of 94,946 URLs. We apply our system to an unlabeled set of 135,577 search and advertisement URLs keyed on high-risk terms (e.g., luxury products, weight loss supplements) to characterize the prevalence of threats in the wild and expose variations in cloaking techniques across traffic sources. Our study provides the first broad perspective of cloaking as it affects Google Search and Google Ads and underscores the minimum capabilities necessary of security crawlers to bypass the state of the art in mobile, rDNS, and IP cloaking.
Leveraging Contextual Cues for Generating Basketball Highlights

The massive growth of sports videos has resulted in a need for automatic generation of sports highlights that are comparable in quality to the hand-edited highlights produced by broadcasters such as ESPN. Unlike previous works that mostly use audio-visual cues derived from the video, we propose an approach that additionally leverages contextual cues derived from the environment that the game is being played in. The contextual cues provide information about the excitement levels in the game, which can be ranked and selected to automatically produce high-quality basketball highlights. We introduce a new dataset of 25 NCAA games along with their play-by-play stats and the ground-truth excitement data for each basket. We explore the informativeness of five different cues derived from the video and from the environment through user studies. Our experiments show that for our study participants, the highlights produced by our system are comparable to the ones produced by ESPN for the same games.
CONTINUED vs INTERMITTENT CELL EXPOSURE TO PARATHYROID HORMONE-RELATED PEPTIDE (1–36) ON OSTEOGENIC AND ANGIOGENIC GENE EXPRESSION IN HUMAN OSTEOBLASTS AND BONE MARROW STROMAL CELLS

Introduction Parathyroid hormone-related peptide (PTHrP) has been shown to be an important regulator of bone remodelling1. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the N-terminal domain of PTHrP (1–36) on osteogenic and angiogenic gene expression in human osteoblasts (HOB) and human bone marrow stromal cells (hBMSCs). Materials and Methods Primary hBMSC9s and HOBs were cultured in standard or osteogenic media with different concentrations of PTHrP, either continuously for 8, 24, 48 h and 9 days, or with 3 cycles of intermittent exposure (24 h with PTHrP, 24 h without) over 6 days. Cell lysates were then processed for analysis of gene expression. Expression of the osteogenic markers runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX-2), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and Collagen 1, and the angiogenic marker; vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), were measured. Results Exposure to PTHrP for ≤ 48 hours resulted in an upregulation of the angiogenic marker VEGF and the osteogenic markers RUNX-2, ALP and Collagen 1 in both cell types, peaking at a 1 nM PTHrP. Conversely, continuous exposure for 9 days, resulted in a downregulation of all osteogenic and angiogenic gene expression. HOB cells exposed intermittently to PTHrP showed an upregulation in VEGF and ALP, peaking at 10nM PTHrP. Discussion and Conclusion Continuous exposure for short durations (
Catalytic, asymmetric difluorination of alkenes to generate difluoromethylated stereocenters

Difluoromethyl groups possess specific steric and electronic properties that invite their use as chemically inert surrogates of alcohols, thiols, and other polar functional groups important in a wide assortment of molecular recognition processes. We report here a method for the catalytic, asymmetric, migratory geminal difluorination of β-substituted styrenes to access a variety of products bearing difluoromethylated tertiary or quaternary stereocenters. The reaction uses commercially available reagents (m-chloroperbenzoic acid and hydrogen fluoride pyridine) and a simple chiral aryl iodide catalyst and is carried out readily on a gram scale. Substituent effects and temperature-dependent variations in enantioselectivity suggest that cation-π interactions play an important role in stereodifferentiation by the catalyst.
Online Ensemble Learning: An Empirical Study

We study resource-limited online learning, motivated by the problem of conditional-branch outcome prediction in computer architecture. In particular, we consider (parallel) time and space-efficient ensemble learners for online settings, empirically demonstrating benefits similar to those shown previously for offline ensembles. Our learning algorithms are inspired by the previously published “boosting by filtering” framework as well as the offline Arc-x4 boosting-style algorithm. We train ensembles of online decision trees using a novel variant of the ID4 online decision-tree algorithm as the base learner, and show empirical results for both boosting and bagging-style online ensemble methods. Our results evaluate these methods on both our branch prediction domain and online variants of three familiar machine-learning benchmarks. Our data justifies three key claims. First, we show empirically that our extensions to ID4 significantly improve performance for single trees and additionally are critical to achieving performance gains in tree ensembles. Second, our results indicate significant improvements in predictive accuracy with ensemble size for the boosting-style algorithm. The bagging algorithms we tried showed poor performance relative to the boosting-style algorithm (but still improve upon individual base learners). Third, we show that ensembles of small trees are often able to outperform large single trees with the same number of nodes (and similarly outperform smaller ensembles of larger trees that use the same total number of nodes). This makes online boosting particularly useful in domains such as branch prediction with tight space restrictions (i.e., the available real-estate on a microprocessor chip).
LOW GAS FRACTIONS CONNECT COMPACT STAR-FORMING GALAXIES TO THEIR z ∼ 2 QUIESCENT DESCENDANTS

U.S. National Science Foundation [AST-1312950]; NASA - Space Telescope Science Institute [HF-51318, HF-51368]; NASA [NAS5-26555]; NIRCam [NAS5-02015]
CCL2 Produced by the Glioma Microenvironment Is Essential for the Recruitment of Regulatory T Cells and Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells

In many aggressive cancers, such as glioblastoma multiforme, progression is enabled by local immunosuppression driven by the accumulation of regulatory T cells (Treg) and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC). However, the mechanistic details of how Tregs and MDSCs are recruited in various tumors are not yet well understood. Here we report that macrophages and microglia within the glioma microenvironment produce CCL2, a chemokine that is critical for recruiting both CCR4+ Treg and CCR2+Ly-6C+ monocytic MDSCs in this disease setting. In murine gliomas, we established novel roles for tumor-derived CCL20 and osteoprotegerin in inducing CCL2 production from macrophages and microglia. Tumors grown in CCL2-deficient mice failed to maximally accrue Tregs and monocytic MDSCs. In mixed-bone marrow chimera assays, we found that CCR4-deficient Treg and CCR2-deficient monocytic MDSCs were defective in glioma accumulation. Furthermore, administration of a small-molecule antagonist of CCR4 improved median survival in the model. In clinical specimens of glioblastoma multiforme, elevated levels of CCL2 expression correlated with reduced overall survival of patients. Finally, we found that CD163-positive infiltrating macrophages were a major source of CCL2 in glioblastoma multiforme patients. Collectively, our findings show how glioma cells influence the tumor microenvironment to recruit potent effectors of immunosuppression that drive progression. Cancer Res; 76(19); 5671-82. ©2016 AACR.
Thin InSb layers with metallic gratings: a novel platform for spectrally-selective THz plasmonic sensing

We present a computational study of terahertz optical properties of a grating-coupled plasmonic structure based on micrometer-thin InSb layers. We find two strong absorption resonances that we interpret as standing surface plasmon modes and investigate their dispersion relations, dependence on InSb thickness, and the spatial distribution of the electric field. The observed surface plasmon modes are well described by a simple theory of the air/InSb/air tri-layer. The plasmonic response of the grating/InSb structure is highly sensitive to the dielectric environment and the presence of an analyte (e.g., lactose) at the InSb interface, which is promising for terahertz plasmonic sensor applications. We determine the sensor sensitivity to be 7200 nm per refractive index unit (or 0.06 THz per refractive index unit). The lower surface plasmon mode also exhibits a splitting when tuned in resonance with the vibrational mode of lactose at 1.37 THz. We propose that such interaction between surface plasmon and vibrational modes can be used as the basis for a new sensing modality that allows the detection of terahertz vibrational fingerprints of an analyte.
KANTIAN ETHICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ARGUMENT : AUTONOMY, ECOSYSTEM INTEGRITY, AND OUR DUTIES TO NATURE

In this essay I will argue that, preconceptions notwithstanding, Immanuel Kant does have an environmental ethics which uniquely contributes to two current debates in the field. First, he transcends the controversy between individualistic and holistic approaches to nature with a theory that considers humanity in terms of the autonomy of moral individuals and nature in terms of the integrity of functional wholes. Second, he diminishes the gulf between Conservationism and Preservationism. He does this by constructing an ideal-regarding conception of the former that values nature not as "merely " a thing to be used by human preferences and translated by markets, but as an essential component and prerequisite to the intrinsic autonomy of human beings. Simultaneously, he argues for a definition of preservation which places responsibility on humanity to harmonize moral agency with the functional integrity of natural systems. Here humanity and nature become the two unique and equally important components of what we might call the greater "Kantian ecosystem. " In addition to the theoretical contributions of Kant's approach to our appreciation of the duties we owe to our natural environment, I will also suggest that Kantian Conservationism and Kantian Preservationism provide a sound moral basis for public policy arguments that wish to take the intrinsic value of humanity and nature into account. By requiring decision makers to consider citizens as ethical ends and nature as a functional end-in-itself, public choice becomes a process of restricting the use of the "kingdom of nature" to the essential requirements of the
The use of nonregular fractional factorial designs in combination toxicity studies

When there is interest to study n chemicals using x dose levels each, factorial designs that require x n treatment groups have been put forward as one of the valuable statistical approaches for hazard assessment of chemical mixtures. Exemplary applications and cost-eciency comparisons of full factorial designs and regular fractional
A Simpler Theory of Optimal Capital Taxation

Abstract This paper develops a theory of optimal capital taxation that expresses optimal tax formulas in sufficient statistics. We first consider a simple model with utility functions linear in consumption and featuring heterogeneous utility for wealth. In this case, there are no transitional dynamics, the steady-state is reached immediately and has finite elasticities of capital with respect to the net-of-tax rate. This allows for a tractable optimal tax analysis with formulas expressed in terms of empirical elasticities and social preferences that can address many important policy questions. These formulas can easily be taken to the data to simulate optimal taxes, which we do using U.S. tax return data on labor and capital incomes. Second, we show how these results can be extended to the case with concave utility for consumption. The same types of formulas carry over by appropriately defining elasticities. We show that one can recover all the results from the simpler model using a new and non standard steady state approach that respects individual preferences even with a fully general utility function.
Copyright Enforcement: Evidence from Two Field Experiments

Effective dispute resolution is important for reducing private and social costs. We study how resolution responds to changes in price and communication using a new, extensive data set of copyright infringement incidences by firms. The data cover two field experiments run by a large stock-photography agency. We find that substantially reducing the requested amount generates a small increase in the settlement rate. However, for the same reduced request, a message informing infringers of the price reduction and acknowledging the possible unintentionality generates a large increase in the settlement rate; including a deadline further increases response rate. The small price effect, compared to the large message effect, can be explained by two countervailing effects of a lower price: an inducement to settle early, but a lower threat of escalation. Furthermore, acknowledging possible unintentionality may encourage settlement due to the typically inadvertent nature of these incidences. The resulting higher settlement rate prevents additional legal action and significantly reduces social costs.
Quantum state estimation when qubits are lost: a no-data-left-behind approach

We present an approach to Bayesian mean estimation of quantum states using hyperspherical parametrization and an experiment-specific likelihood which allows utilization of all available data, even when qubits are lost. With this method, we report the first closed-form Bayesian mean estimate (BME) for the ideal single qubit. Due to computational constraints, we utilize numerical sampling to determine the BME for a photonic two-qubit experiment in which our novel analysis reduces burdens associated with experimental asymmetries and inefficiencies. This method can be applied to quantum states of any dimension and experimental complexity.
DEMO: Integrating MPC in Big Data Workflows

Secure multi-party computation (MPC) allows multiple parties to perform a joint computation without disclosing their private inputs. Many real-world joint computation use cases, however, involve data analyses on very large data sets, and are implemented by software engineers who lack MPC knowledge. Moreover, the collaborating parties -- e.g., several companies -- often deploy different data analytics stacks internally. These restrictions hamper the real-world usability of MPC. To address these challenges, we combine existing MPC frameworks with data-parallel analytics frameworks by extending the Musketeer big data workflow manager [4]. Musketeer automatically generates code for both the sensitive parts of a workflow, which are executed in MPC, and the remainder of the computation, which runs on scalable, widely-deployed analytics systems. In a prototype use case, we compute the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), an index of market concentration used in antitrust regulation, on an aggregate 156GB of taxi trip data over five transportation companies. Our implementation computes the HHI in about 20 minutes using a combination of Hadoop and VIFF [1], while even "mixed mode" MPC with VIFF alone would have taken many hours. Finally, we discuss future research questions that we seek to address using our approach.
Leveraging Diversity and Sparsity in Blind Deconvolution

This paper considers recovering $L$ -dimensional vectors $ {w}$ , and ${x}_{1}, {x}_{2}, \ldots, {x}_{N}$ from their circular convolutions ${y}_{n} = {w}* {x}_{n}, \,\,n = 1,2,3, \ldots, N$ . The vector ${w}$ is assumed to be $S$ -sparse in a known basis that is spread out in the Fourier domain, and each input $ {x}_{n}$ is a member of a known $K$ -dimensional random subspace. We prove that whenever $K + S\log ^{2}S \lesssim L /\log ^{4}(LN)$ , the problem can be solved effectively by using only the nuclear-norm minimization as the convex relaxation, as long as the inputs are sufficiently diverse and obey $N \gtrsim \log ^{2}(LN)$ . By “diverse inputs,” we mean that the ${x}_{n}$ ’s belong to different, generic subspaces. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first theoretical result on blind deconvolution where the subspace to which ${w}$ belongs is not fixed but needs to be determined. We discuss the result in the context of multipath channel estimation in wireless communications. Both the fading coefficients and the delays in the channel impulse response ${w}$ are unknown. The encoder codes the $K$ -dimensional message vectors randomly and then transmits coded messages ${x}_{n}$ ’s over a fixed channel one after the other. The decoder then discovers all of the messages and the channel response when the number of samples taken for each received message are roughly greater than $(K+S\log ^{2}S)\log ^{4}(LN)$ , and the number of messages is roughly at least $\log ^{2}(LN)$ .
PATIENT SPECIFIC CUTTING BLOCKS: OF UNPROVEN VALUE – OPPOSES

Contemporary techniques to perform total knee arthroplasty use either conventional instrumentation with intramedullary and extramedullary referencing or use a computer navigation system that requires insertion of femoral and tibial tracking pins and an intra-operative registration process. Much of the initial enthusiasm for computer navigation in TKA has waned as many of these systems have proved cumbersome, time consuming and expensive with no substantial evidence of a clinical benefit. Patient specific instrumentation is an additional option that is now widely available which seeks to harness some of the accuracy of computer navigation while improving intra-operative surgical efficiency. In 2015 there are now patient specific options available from multiple vendors and these vary in several different ways including: alignment goals; imaging modality; pin guide vs. cutting guide; all plastic vs. metal-plastic composite; and the degree of surgeon input into pre-operative planning. In all systems but one alignment is typically set relative to the mechanical axis; one system uses so-called kinematic alignment. Imaging can be done via CT, MRI, or MRI in conjunction with a hip-knee-ankle radiograph. The guides that are produced are typically made of a plastic material and in some cases are meant only to position pins onto which traditional metal cutting guides are then placed. In some systems the plastic guides come pre-assembled with an integrated metal cutting-guide that allows resection of the distal femur or proximal tibia in one step; in other systems cutting is intended to be carried out through a plastic captured guide. Finally there is wide variability in the degree of surgeon involvement in the pre-operative planning for the guides, ranging from no involvement in the so-called kinematic approach all the way to the ability for surgeons to dictate the depth, location, flexion-extension angle, varus-valgus angle, and rotation in some systems. At this point relatively little comparative data exists to objectively compare one system versus another. Surgeons most likely to find substantial benefit from patient specific instrumentation are those who perform moderate numbers of TKA each year but who have inconsistent surgical scrub teams. For those surgeons, substantial surgical inefficiency can be attributable to the scrub team9s unfamiliarity with the complex instrumentation needed for TKA. Patient specific instrumentation can bypass many of those relatively complex instruments and allow the surgeon to complete TKA in a timely and efficient manner. For TKA subspecialists, patient specific instrumentation may have an appeal from a precision standpoint or from an ease-of-room turnover perspective but are unlikely to yield major intra-operative time savings at this point. In the future, combining patient specific instruments with size-specific disposable instruments that are financially and environmentally favorable may make this technology more applicable to even broader groups of surgeons.
Orders of quaternion algebras with involution

Abstract We introduce the notion of maximal orders over quaternion algebras with orthogonal involution and give a classification over local and global fields. Over local fields, we show that there is a correspondence between maximal and/or modular lattices and orders closed under the involution.
A fault-tolerant air data/inertial reference unit

The fault-tolerant air data/inertial reference unit (ADIRU) described is a key part of a fault-tolerant air data/inertial reference system (ADIRS) designed to be the inertial and air data reference for the ARINC 651 Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) distributed architecture. The ADIRU has been designed to meet the commercial aviation market demands for low life cycle cost and high integrity fault detection, fault isolation, and redundancy management. The ADIRU's internal redundant resources provide quad channel redundancy that is one level higher than conventional triple redundant systems, allowing it to provide deferred maintenance capability. Robust partitioning, simple serial internal interfaces, and simple voting planes ensure that internal redundant components are properly utilized to provide high integrity system outputs. This relieves systems using it from having to perform their own redundancy management of the air data and inertial outputs from multiple sources required by conventional systems. >
How HIAP can contribute to Health Equity in Finland

Health in All Policies has been a long-term aim and practice in Finland. I would like to emphasise the importance of issue-based/problem-based/substantive cooperation, but also that HIAP needs to be seen as strategic approach, where options are shaped by broader government priorities. In the end not only knowing where problems are or skills in negotiation, but as well power and framing of issues in broader policy-making bear …
Online Stochastic Matching: Online Actions Based on Offline Statistics

We consider the online stochastic matching problem proposed by Feldman et al. [Feldman J, Mehta A, Mirrokni VS, Muthukrishnan S (2009) Online stochastic matching: Beating 1-1/e. Annual IEEE Sympos. Foundations Comput. Sci. 117--126] as a model of display ad allocation. We are given a bipartite graph; one side of the graph corresponds to a fixed set of bins, and the other side represents the set of possible ball types. At each time step, a ball is sampled independently from the given distribution and it needs to be matched upon its arrival to an empty bin. The goal is to maximize the number of allocations. We present an online algorithm for this problem with a competitive ratio of 0.702. Before our result, algorithms with a competitive ratio better than 1-1/e were known under the assumption that the expected number of arriving balls of each type is integral. A key idea of the algorithm is to collect statistics about the decisions of the optimum offline solution using Monte Carlo sampling and use those statistics to guide the decisions of the online algorithm. We also show that our algorithm achieves a competitive ratio of 0.705 when the rates are integral. On the hardness side, we prove that no online algorithm can have a competitive ratio better than 0.823 under the known distribution model (and henceforth under the permutation model). This improves upon the 5/6 hardness result proved by Goel and Mehta [Goel G, Mehta A (2008) Online budgeted matching in random input models with applications to adwords. ACM-SIAM Symposium Discrete Algorithms 982--991] for the permutation model.