cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Government Identity Speech and Religion: Establishment Clause Limits After Summum

This Article offers in-depth analysis of the opinions in Pleasant Grove v. Summum. Summum is a significant case because it expands “government speech” to cover broad, thematic government identity messages in the form of donated monuments, including the much-litigated Fraternal Order of Eagles-donated Ten Commandments. The Article explores the fine distinctions between the new “government speech doctrine”— a defense in Free Speech Clause cases that allows government to express its own viewpoint and to reject alternative views—and “government speech” analyzed under the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government from expressing a viewpoint on religion, and from favoring some religions over others. The Court’s decision, to characterize all public monuments as expressing “government-controlled” messages which reflect municipal identity, should impact the Establishment Clause calculus. Using social meaning theory, I show how the Culture Wars have transformed the message of governmental religious displays, and how Summum has eliminated the donor’s ambiguating role, which played a part in Justice Breyer’s Van Orden concurrence. The Article also serves a valuable function by contesting claims that Summum has eliminated the Establishment Clause endorsement test, or that it dangerously allows government to convert any and all private speech to its own, thus deflecting Free Speech claims. My interpretation shows that the decision is multi-faceted and contextual; it relies on government’s expressive intent, an inherently communicative medium, and viewers’ reasonable attributions regarding monument speech. As shown below, the Court’s exposition on the unfettered indeterminacy of monuments’ content either has been misconstrued, or renders the opinion internally inconsistent. I conclude by proposing a compromise solution: it requires a new level of transparency for the history-based rationales used to explain existing public religious displays, and closer scrutiny of any new government religious displays that are initiated in this religiouslydivisive time. Finally, my proposal is illustrated by application to Ten Commandments monuments and the Salazar v. Buono narrative. * Assistant Professor of Law, John Marshall Law School (Chicago) (mdolan@jmls.edu). For helpful comments and encouragement, I would like to thank Caroline Mala Corbin, Marc DeGirolami, Steven Goldberg, Leslie Griffin, Jessie Hill, Walt Kendall, Bruce Ledewitz, Chris Lund, Helen Norton, Larry Rosenthal, Michael Seng, Winni Sullivan, and Spencer Waller. Additional thanks to Deans John Corkery and Ralph Ruebner for institutional resources and support, Dan Hynan for support, and Gina Adduci for research assistance.
Taking Laughter Seriously at the Supreme Court

Laughter in Supreme Court oral arguments has been misunderstood, treated as either a lighthearted distraction from the Court’s serious work, or interpreted as an equalizing force in an otherwise hierarchical environment. Examining the more than 9000 instances of laughter witnessed at the Court since 1955, this Article shows that the justices of the Supreme Court use courtroom humor as a tool of advocacy and as a signal of their power and status. As the justices have taken on a greater advocacy role in the modern era, they have also provoked an increasing level of laughter. The performative nature of courtroom humor is apparent from the uneven distribution of judicial jokes, jests, and jibes. The justices overwhelmingly direct their most humorous comments at the advocates who they disagree with, the advocates who are losing, and at novice advocates. Building on prior work, we show that laughter in the courtroom is yet another aspect of judicial behavior that can be used to predict cases before justices have even voted. Many laughs occur in response to humorous comments, but that should not distract from the serious and strategic work being done by that humor. To fully understand oral argument, Court observers would be wise to take laughter seriously.
Wealth Effects of International Investments and Agency Problems for Korean Multinational Firms

This paper recognizes the recent surge in cross-border investments by MNCs from newly industrialized countries and investigates the wealth effects of FDI announcements by Korean firms, which are the leading FDI providers in Asia. The empirical results indicate that for Korean MNCs: 1) cross-border investments increase shareholder wealth; and 2) they do not obtain the firm-specific technological advantages over international competitors. The paper also presents evidence that cross-border investments do not increase shareholder wealth for the 30 largest chaebol-affiliates, and that shareholder wealth losses are greater when corporate ownership is concentrated, as suggested by Shleifer and Vishny (1997) and La Porta et al. (1998, 2000).
Incompletely Theorized Agreements in Constitutional Law

How is constitutionalism possible, when people disagree on so many questions about what is good and what is right? This essay, written for a special issue of Social Research on Difficult Decisions, explores the role of two kinds of incompletely theorized agreements amidst sharp disagreements about the largest issues in social life. The first consist of agreements on abstract formulations (freedom of speech, equality under the law); these agreements are crucial to constitution-making as a social practice. The second consist of agreements on particular doctrines and practices; these agreements are crucial to life and law under existing constitutions. Incompletely theorized agreements help illuminate an enduring constitutional puzzle: how members of diverse societies can work together on terms of mutual respect amidst intense disagreements about both the right and the good. Such agreements help make constitutions and constitutional law possible, even within nations whose citizens cannot concur on the most fundamental matters. In many nations, citizens must proceed in the face of conflict and disagreement on the most fundamental matters. The existence of diverse values seems to threaten the very possibility of a constitutional order and social stability. People disagree on rights, on the good life, on equality and liberty, on the nature and the existence of God. How can constitutional decisions be feasible in these circumstances? The problem might seem especially serious for democratic societies, which aspire to self-governance amidst a great deal of heterogeneity. In this essay I deal with two issues—constitution-making and constitutional interpretation—in an effort to make some progress on that question. My basic suggestion is that people can often agree on constitutional practices, and even on constitutional rights, when they cannot agree on constitutional theories. In other words, well-functioning constitutional orders try to solve problems through incompletely theorized agreements. Sometimes these agreements involve abstractions, accepted as such amidst severe disagreements on particular cases. Thus people who disagree on * Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Chicago. I have dealt with aspects of this problem in other places. See Cass R. Sunstein, One Case At A Time (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999); Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict (New York: Oxford University
Voluntary and mandatory disclosures: Do managers view them as substitutes?

Abstract We examine the relation between firms' voluntary guidance and mandatory 8K filings. We find a negative relation between guidance and 8Ks, which strengthens following the 2004 expansion of mandatory 8K requirements, consistent with firms using the disclosures as substitutes. Increases in 8Ks coincide with declines in firms’ profits, but this negative relation weakens after the 2004 regulation, consistent with firms broadening the scope of information conveyed through 8Ks. Together, our findings suggest firms became more reliant on 8Ks to convey general types of information after the 2004 regulation, rather than primarily negative news, which reduces their incentives to issue guidance.
ADAM SMITH AND THE ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

The method of analysis Adam Smith uses is relatively similar to the method economics generally uses today, especially the subfield of experimental economics. The method of analysis that Smith uses is coherent and consistent throughout his whole work. He searches for constant variables and then sees what variables are changed by exogenous changes. In particular, Smith looks for the constancy in human nature, and analyzes how historical and material circumstances change the incentives that the constant human nature faces. This method, applied to human conduct in all its aspects, makes it easy for many economists today to see some continuity between Smith’s political economy and today’s economic science.
Democracy and Development in a Globalized World: Thinking About Latin America from Within

The choice among paths that countries should follow has been a staple of political debates in Latin America and, over the past 40 years, Fernando Cardoso has brought his analysis to bear on these debates. This article summarizes and then assesses Cardoso’s argument about the choice of paths faced by Latin American countries, the consequences for democracy and development of following different paths, and the political position that is supported by this analysis of choices and their consequences. Though Cardoso explicitly supports the path of globalized social democracy over an anti-globalization option in the current period, I suggest that the current state of knowledge does not offer unequivocal support for the argument that choosing to follow the path of globalized social democracy—or that of anti-globalization—is the best political option for all countries in Latin America. Different countries might very well be doing what is best for them, given their circumstances, by following different paths.
Joint and Several Jurisdiction

Is federal diversity jurisdiction case specific or claim specific? The complete-diversity rule makes clear that, when a diversity defect is noted in a putative diversity action, the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over that action as a whole. But does the court’s jurisdiction nevertheless extend to claims between diverse parties, such that the case continues if the nondiverse spoiler is dismissed? We engage this persistent and unsettled question by identifying and exploring two possible answers, each based on a distinct theory of subject-matter jurisdiction that boasts doctrinal support. The first we denote “joint jurisdiction”—an all-or-nothing theory—under which a diversity defect contaminates the whole case and deprives the court of jurisdiction over claims between diverse parties too. The second we denote “several jurisdiction”—a claim-by-claim theory—under which the court lacks jurisdiction over claims between nondiverse parties but always had, and continues to have, jurisdiction over claims between diverse parties. We then offer a way to reconcile these seemingly incompatible theories and precedent: shifting the time of jurisdictional assessment from the time of filing in federal court to the time of dismissal of the jurisdictional spoiler. We also discuss how that solution potentially Copyright © 2016 Scott Dodson & Philip A. Pucillo. † Harry & Lillian Hastings Research Chair and Professor of Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law. †† Professor of Law in Residence, Michigan State University College of Law. We received helpful comments on a very early draft from the civil procedure roundtable attendees at the 2014 SEALS annual conference and from the faculty of Michigan State University College of Law during a workshop in October 2014. We also are grateful to John Oakley, Joan Steinman, and Michael Collins for detailed and insightful comments on a fuller draft. DODSON AND PUCILLO IN PRINTER FINAL (DO NOT DELETE) 3/15/2016 12:17 PM 1324 DUKE LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 65:1323 creates new tensions, particularly regarding the notion that a court without subject-matter jurisdiction over an action may nonetheless render a binding adjudication of claims within that action. Finally, we explain how the application of other jurisdictional authorizations— including the jurisdiction-to-determine-jurisdiction doctrine and the jurisdictional-resequencing doctrine—might alleviate tensions created by our time-shifting proposal.
Auditing Intangible Assets and Evaluating Fair Market Value: The Case of Reacquired Franchise Rights

ABSTRACT: The Roman Holiday Pizza Paradise case provides a setting that requires students to understand and perform procedures related to the audit of a fair value estimate in connection with the impairment of an unusual intangible asset, reacquired franchise rights, in the pizza restaurant industry. The case focuses on one key aspect—auditing fair market values—a concept that is increasing in importance as financial accounting standards evolve toward a fair value basis and one that requires the development of auditor judgment. Planning activities as well as performance of year‐end auditing procedures are included in this self‐contained module that incorporates client interaction and obtained external evidence.
The source of fluctuations in money: Evidence from trade credit

Abstract This paper tests the relative importance of technology shocks and financial shocks as sources of fluctuations in money. The model extends the theory of King and Plosser (1984) by recognizing that both money and trade credit provide transactions services. Under certain conditions, the co-movements between money and trade credit can reveal the nature of the underlying shocks. The empirical results strongly suggest that shocks to the financial system account for most of the fluctuations in money in the long run and at business cycle frequencies. On the other hand, technology shocks appear to be more important at seasonal frequencies.
Corporate Governance in China: An Overview

Corporate governance (gongsi zhili) is a concept whose time seems definitely to have come in China. Chinese definitions of corporate governance in the abstract tend to cover the system regulating relationships among all parties with interests in a business organization, usually spelling out shareholders as a particularly important group (e.g., Liu, 1999; Yin, 1999). But Chinese corporate governance discourse in practice focuses almost exclusively on agency problems and within only two types of firms: state-owned enterprises (SOEs), particularly after their transformation into one of the corporate forms provided for under the Company Law, and listed companies, which must be companies limited by shares (CLS) under the Company Law. This article discusses Chinese corporate governance in this narrow sense and attempts to explain some perplexing features of its discourse, laws, and institutions (abbreviated hereinafter as ‘‘corporate governance laws and institutions’’ or CGLI). A fundamental dilemma of Chinese CGLI stems from the state policy of maintaining a full or controlling ownership interest in enterprises in several sectors. The state wants the enterprises it owns to be run efficiently, but not solely for the purpose of wealth maximization. If the state owned simply for the purpose of maximizing the economic value of its holdings, there would be no need for a policy mandating state ownership of enterprises. If the enterprise would be worth more managed by another, the state should
Complete Preemption and Copyright: Toward a Successive Analysis

District courts in most circuits face a problem: does the so-called “complete preemption” doctrine apply to the Copyright Act — that is, does the complete preemption doctrine allow a defendant to remove a case that states only state law claims from state court to federal court if the Copyright Act seems to cover the subject matter of the claims? This Article proposes that courts and practitioners need to start arguing the merits of both the complete preemption doctrine and the tests that apply to the doctrine — the congressional intent test, the exclusive federal cause of action test, and the extra element test.Commentators and courts disagree on the merits of using the complete preemption doctrine in context of the Copyright Act. Plaintiffs prefer state courts, and defendants prefer federal courts. Therefore, defendants often remove cases to federal courts, and plaintiffs move to remand cases to state courts. In cases that involve copyrights, sometimes plaintiffs file cases in state courts and omit claims of copyright infringement to avoid federal court jurisdiction, while defendants increasingly assert that causes of action of breach of contract claims and other claims that involve copyrights relate to the Copyright Act. Thus, the complete preemption doctrine allows the defendant to remove the case to federal court. The competing views of commentators and courts inform plaintiffs and defendants sufficiently to allow them to argue the merits of each step of the analysis.
Telling the tree: Narrative representation and the study of evolutionary history

Accounts of the evolutionary past have as much in common with works of narrative history as they do with works of science. Awareness of the narrative character of evolutionary writing leads to the discovery of a host of fascinating and hitherto unrecognized problems in the representation of evolutionary history, problems associated with the writing of narrative. These problems include selective attention, narrative perspective, foregrounding and backgrounding, differential resolution, and the establishment of a canon of important events. The narrative aspects of evolutionary writing, however, which promote linearity and cohesiveness in conventional stories, conflict with the underlying chronicle of evolution, which is not linear, but branched, and which does not cohere, but diverges. The impulse to narrate is so great, however, and is so strongly reinforced by traditional schemes of taxonomic attention, that natural historians have more often abandoned the diverging tree than they have abandoned the narrative mode of representation. If we are to understand the true nature of the evolutionary past then we must adopt “tree thinking”, and develop new and creative ways, both narrative and non-narrative, of telling the history of life.
Computing Worst-Case Disturbances for Finite-Horizon Linear Time-Varying Approximations of Uncertain Systems

A method is presented for computing the worst-case disturbance of a given norm for a finite-horizon linear time-varying system with a nonzero initial condition. This method is motivated by the linearized robustness analysis of a nonlinear system about a finite-horizon nominal trajectory. The system is linearized about this trajectory and interconnected with sampled model uncertainties. An additional input term to improve the fidelity of the linear interconnection is introduced and is absorbed into an augmented system with a nonzero initial condition. The method, which analyzes the robustness of the resulting interconnection to disturbance, is demonstrated on the numerical example of a two-link robot arm.
A numerical approach for radiative cooling in relativistic outflows

In high energy astrophysics scenarios such as blazars, GRBs or PWNe, it is highly probable that ultra-relativistic particles interact with photons in their environment through scattering. As long as the energy of the particle is greater than the energy of the interacting photon, the (classical) scattering is known to be in the Thomson regime. Otherwise, quantum effects will affect the scattering cross section, and we enter into the so-called Klein-Nishina regime. It is well known that radiative cooling in the Thomson regime is very efficient, leading to soft high-energy spectra. However, observations have shown that, in many cases, the high energy spectrum of some objects is rather hard. This has led to think that maybe particles are not being cooled down efficiently. Asymptotic approximations of the Klein-Nishina regime have been formulated in the last decades in order to account for these corrections in the distribution of particles responsible for the observed spectrum of high energy sources. In this work we presenta a numerical approach of the Klein-Nishina corrections to the radiative cooling. It has been developed to simulate the evolution of a distribution of particles interacting with photons in their surroundings via inverse Compton scattering.
Atomistic Basis of Microtubule Dynamic Instability Assessed Via Multiscale Modeling.

Microtubule “dynamic instability,” the abrupt switching from assembly to disassembly caused by the hydrolysis of GTP to GDP within the β subunit of the αβ-tubulin heterodimer, is necessary for vital cellular processes such as mitosis and migration. Despite existing high-resolution structural data, the key mechanochemical differences between the GTP and GDP states that mediate dynamic instability behavior remain unclear. Starting with a published atomic-level structure as an input, we used multiscale modeling to find that GTP hydrolysis results in both longitudinal bond weakening (~ 4 kBT) and an outward bending preference (~ 1.5 kBT) to both drive dynamic instability and give rise to the microtubule tip structures previously observed by light and electron microscopy. More generally, our study provides an example where atomic level structural information is used as the sole input to predict cellular level dynamics without parameter adjustment.
Keep It Simple: Data-Efficient Learning for Controlling Complex Systems With Simple Models

When manipulating a novel object with complex dynamics, a state representation is not always available, for example, deformable objects. Learning both a representation and dynamics from observations requires large amounts of data. We propose Learned Visual Similarity Predictive Control (LVSPC), a novel method for data-efficient learning to control systems with complex dynamics and high-dimensional state spaces from images. LVSPC leverages a given simple model approximation from which image observations can be generated. We use these images to train a perception model that estimates the simple model state from observations of the complex system online. We then use data from the complex system to fit the parameters of the simple model and learn where this model is inaccurate, also online. Finally, we use Model Predictive Control and bias the controller away from regions where the simple model is inaccurate and thus where the controller is less reliable. We evaluate LVSPC on two tasks; manipulating a tethered mass and a rope. We find that our method performs comparably to state-of-the-art reinforcement learning methods with an order of magnitude less data . LVSPC also completes the rope manipulation task on a real robot with 80% success rate after only 10 trials, despite using a perception system trained only on images from simulation.
Small increases in agent-based model complexity can result in large increases in required calibration data

Abstract Agent-based models (ABMs) are widely used to analyze coupled natural and human systems. Descriptive models require careful calibration with observed data. However, ABMs are often not calibrated in a formal sense. Here we examine the impact of data record size and aggregation on the calibration of an ABM for housing abandonment in the presence of flood risk. Using a perfect model experiment, we examine (i) model calibration and (ii) the ability to distinguish a model with inter-agent interactions from one without. We show how limited data sets may not adequately constrain a model with just four parameters and relatively minimal interactions. We also illustrate how limited data can be insufficient to identify the correct model structure. As a result, many ABM-based inferences and projections rely strongly on prior distributions. This emphasizes the need for utilizing independent lines of evidence to select sound and informative priors.
RODEO: Replay for Online Object Detection.

Humans can incrementally learn to do new visual detection tasks, which is a huge challenge for today's computer vision systems. Incrementally trained deep learning models lack backwards transfer to previously seen classes and suffer from a phenomenon known as $"catastrophic forgetting."$ In this paper, we pioneer online streaming learning for object detection, where an agent must learn examples one at a time with severe memory and computational constraints. In object detection, a system must output all bounding boxes for an image with the correct label. Unlike earlier work, the system described in this paper can learn this task in an online manner with new classes being introduced over time. We achieve this capability by using a novel memory replay mechanism that efficiently replays entire scenes. We achieve state-of-the-art results on both the PASCAL VOC 2007 and MS COCO datasets.
Named Data Networking for Content Delivery Network Workflows

In this work we investigate Named Data Networking's (NDN's) architectural properties and features, such as content caching and intelligent packet forwarding, in the context of Content Delivery Network (CDN) workflows. More specifically, we evaluate NDN's properties for PoP (Point of Presence) to PoP and PoP to device connectivity. We use the Apache Traffic Server (ATS) platform to create a CDN-like caching hierarchy in order to compare NDN with HTTP-based content delivery. Overall, our work demonstrates that several properties inherent to NDN can benefit content providers and users alike through in-network caching of content, fast retransmission, and stateful hop-by-hop packet forwarding. Our experimental results demonstrate that HTTP delivers content faster under stable conditions due to a mature software stack. However, NDN performs better in the presence of packet loss, even for a loss rate as low as 0.1%, due to packet-level caching in the network and fast retransmissions from close upstreams. We further show that the Time To First Byte (TTFB) in NDN is consistently lower than HTTP (∼ 100ms in HTTP vs.∼50ms in NDN), a vital requirement for CDNs. Unlike HTTP, NDN also supports transparent failover to another upstream when a failure occurs in the network. Finally, we present implementation-agnostic (implementation choices can be Software Defined Networking, Information Centric Networking, or something else) network properties that can benefit CDN workflows.
An efficient model for coupling structural vibrations with acoustic radiation

Abstract In this paper, the problem of coupling between panel vibration and near and far field acoustic radiation is studied. The panel vibration is governed by the non-linear plate equations while the loading on the panel, which is the pressure difference across the panel, depends on the reflected and transmitted waves. Two models are used to solve this structural-acoustic interaction problem. One solves the three-dimensional non-linear Euler equations for the acoustic field coupled with the non-linear plate equations (the fully coupled model). The second uses the linear wave equation for the acoustic field and expresses the load as a double integral involving the panel oscillation (the decoupled model). The panel oscillation governed by a system of integro-differential equations is solved numerically and the acoustic field is then defined by an explicit formula. Numerical results are obtained using the two models for linear and non-linear panel vibration regimes excited by incident waves having different sound pressure levels. The predictions given by these two models are in good agreement, but the computational time needed for the “fully coupled model” is 60 times longer than that for “the decoupled model”.
Aerodynamic Parameter Estimation Using Reconstructed Turbulence Measurements

A classical flow-vane approach for reconstructing translational gust velocities from air data and inertial sensor measurements was improved and implemented for real-time computation. The reconstruc...
Heterogeneous Vehicle Routing and Teaming with Gaussian Distributed Energy Uncertainty

For robot swarms operating on complex missions in an uncertain environment, it is important that the decision-making algorithm considers both heterogeneity and uncertainty. This paper presents a stochastic programming framework for the vehicle routing problem with stochastic travel energy costs and heterogeneous vehicles and tasks. We represent the heterogeneity as linear constraints, estimate the uncertain energy cost through Gaussian process regression, formulate this stochasticity as chance constraints or stochastic recourse costs, and then solve the stochastic programs using branch and cut algorithms to minimize the expected energy cost. The performance and practicality are demonstrated through extensive computational experiments and a practical test case.
Capturing Broadband Light in a Compact Bound State in the Continuum

Trapping and storing light for arbitrary time lengths in open cavities is a major goal of nanophotonics, with potential applications ranging from energy harvesting to optical information processing...
barCoder: a tool to generate unique, orthogonal genetic tags for qPCR detection.

Tracking dispersal of microbial populations in the environment requires specific detection methods that discriminate between the target strain and all potential natural and artificial interferents, including previously utilized tester strains. Recent work has shown that genomic insertion of short identification tags, called “barcodes” here, allows detection of chromosomally tagged strains by real-time PCR. Manual design of these barcodes is feasible for small sets, but expansion of the technique to larger pools of distinct and well-functioning assays would be significantly aided by software-guided design. Here we introduce barCoder, a bioinformatics tool that facilitates the process of creating sets of uniquely identifiable barcoded strains. barCoder utilizes the genomic sequence of the target strain and a set of user-specified PCR parameters to generate a list of suggested barcode “modules” that consist of binding sites for primers and probes, and appropriate spacer sequences. Each module is designed to yield optimal PCR amplification and unique identification. Optimal amplification includes metrics such as ideal melting temperature and G+C content, appropriate spacing, and minimal stem-loop formation; unique identification includes low BLAST hits against the target organism, previously generated barcode modules, and databases (such as NCBI). We tested the ability of our algorithm to suggest appropriate barcodes by generating 12 modules for Bacillus thuringiensis serovar kurstaki—a simulant for the potential biowarfare agent Bacillus anthracis—and three each for other potential target organisms with variable G+C content. Real-time PCR detection assays directed at barcodes were specific and yielded minimal cross-reactivity with a panel of near-neighbor and potential contaminant materials. The barCoder algorithm facilitates the generation of synthetically barcoded biological simulants by (a) eliminating the task of creating modules by hand, (b) minimizing optimization of PCR assays, and (c) reducing effort wasted on non-unique barcode modules.
PSR J1810+1744: Companion Darkening and a Precise High Neutron Star Mass

Keck-telescope spectrophotometry of the companion of PSR J1810+1744 shows a flat, but asymmetric light-curve maximum and a deep, narrow minimum. The maximum indicates strong gravity darkening near the L_1 point, along with a heated pole and surface winds. The minimum indicates a low underlying temperature and substantial limb darkening. The gravity darkening is a consequence of extreme pulsar heating and the near-filling of the Roche lobe. Light-curve modeling gives a binary inclination i=65.7+/-0.4deg. With the Keck-measured radial-velocity amplitude K_c=462.3+/-2.2km/s, this gives an accurate neutron star mass M_NS=2.13+/-0.04M_o, with important implications for the dense-matter equation of state. A classic direct-heating model, ignoring the L_1 gravitational darkening, would predict an unphysical M_NS>3M_o. A few other ``spider" pulsar binaries have similar large heating and fill factor; thus, they should be checked for such effects.
Persistence of Ambigrammatic Narnaviruses Requires Translation of the Reverse Open Reading Frame.

Narnaviruses are RNA viruses detected in diverse fungi, plants, protists, arthropods and nematodes. Though initially described as simple single-gene non-segmented viruses encoding RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), a subset of narnaviruses referred to as “ambigrammatic” harbor a unique genomic configuration consisting of overlapping open reading frames (ORFs) encoded on opposite strands. Phylogenetic analysis supports selection to maintain this unusual genome organization, but functional investigations are lacking. Here, we establish the mosquito-infecting Culex narnavirus 1 (CxNV1) as a model to investigate the functional role of overlapping ORFs in narnavirus replication. In CxNV1, a reverse ORF without homology to known proteins covers nearly the entire 3.2 kb segment encoding the RdRp. Additionally, two opposing and nearly completely overlapping novel ORFs are found on the second putative CxNV1 segment, the 0.8 kb “Robin” RNA. We developed a system to launch CxNV1 in a naive mosquito cell line, then showed that functional RdRp is required for persistence of both segments, and an intact reverse ORF is required on the RdRp segment for persistence. Mass spectrometry of persistently CxNV1-infected cells provided evidence for translation of this reverse ORF. Finally, ribosome profiling yielded a striking pattern of footprints for all four CxNV1 RNA strands that was distinct from actively-translating ribosomes on host mRNA or co-infecting RNA viruses. Taken together, these data raise the possibility that the process of translation itself is important for persistence of ambigrammatic narnaviruses, potentially by protecting viral RNA with ribosomes, thus suggesting a heretofore undescribed viral tactic for replication and transmission. IMPORTANCE Fundamental to our understanding of RNA viruses is a description of which strand(s) of RNA are transmitted as the viral genome, relative to which encode the viral proteins. Ambigrammatic narnaviruses break the mold. These viruses, found broadly in fungi, plants, and insects, have the unique feature of two overlapping genes encoded on opposite strands, comprising nearly the full length of the viral genome. Such extensive overlap is not seen in other RNA viruses, and comes at the cost of reduced evolutionary flexibility in the sequence. The present study is motivated by investigating the benefits which balance that cost. We show for the first time a functional requirement for the ambigrammatic genome configuration in Culex narnavirus 1, which suggests a model for how translation of both strands might benefit this virus. Our work highlights a new blueprint for viral persistence, distinct from strategies defined by canonical definitions of the coding strand.
Dynamic preferences and the behavioral case against sin taxes

Traditionally, economists and tax theorists justify taxation by means of externalities. In recent years, both scholars and policymakers have begun advocating ‘sin taxes’ on goods whose consumption causes ‘internalities’: unaccounted-for costs that a person imposes on herself, not on others. In this paper, we argue that sin taxes rest on a static model of individual choice. They retain neoclassical rationality—with its endorsement of stable and context-independent preferences—as a normative benchmark for good, i.e., welfare-increasing choice. We contrast this model with a more dynamic understanding of choice in which preferences are context-dependent, evolving, and open to individual processes of experimentation. Such a dynamic understanding of choice is backed by recent findings in psychology and behavioral economics and is integral to the political economy of John Stuart Mill. Contributing to the most recent literature in behavioral welfare economics, we argue that the reality of dynamic and evolving preferences animates a contractarian perspective on public policy which, in turn, provides strong arguments against the sin-tax agenda and supports preference-neutral tax rules.
Fluctuations of Time Averages Around Closed Geodesics in Non-Positive Curvature

We consider the geodesic flow for a rank one non-positive curvature closed manifold. We prove an asymptotic version of the Central Limit Theorem for families of measures constructed from regular closed geodesics converging to the Bowen-Margulis-Knieper measure of maximal entropy. The technique expands on ideas of Denker, Senti and Zhang, who proved this type of asymptotic Lindeberg Central Limit Theorem on periodic orbits for expansive maps with the specification property. We extend these techniques from the uniform to the non-uniform setting, and from discrete-time to continuous-time. We consider Holder observables subject only to the Lindeberg condition and a weak positive variance condition. If we assume a natural strengthened positive variance condition, the Lindeberg condition is always satisfied. Our results extend to dynamical arrays of Holder observables, and to weighted periodic orbit measures which converge to a unique equilibrium state.
SNR-enhanced diffusion MRI with structure-preserving low-rank denoising in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces.

Purpose To introduce, develop, and evaluate a novel denoising technique for diffusion MRI that leverages nonlinear redundancy in the data to boost the SNR while preserving signal information. Methods We exploit nonlinear redundancy of the dMRI data by means of kernel principal component analysis (KPCA), a nonlinear generalization of PCA to reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. By mapping the signal to a high-dimensional space, a higher level of redundant information is exploited, thereby enabling better denoising than linear PCA. We implement KPCA with a Gaussian kernel, with parameters automatically selected from knowledge of the noise statistics, and validate it on realistic Monte Carlo simulations as well as with in vivo human brain submillimeter and low-resolution dMRI data. We also demonstrate KPCA denoising on multi-coil dMRI data. Results SNR improvements up to 2.7 × were obtained in real in vivo datasets denoised with KPCA, in comparison to SNR gains of up to 1.8 × using a linear PCA denoising technique called Marchenko-Pastur PCA (MPPCA). Compared to gold-standard dataset references created from averaged data, we showed that lower normalized root mean squared error was achieved with KPCA compared to MPPCA. Statistical analysis of residuals shows that anatomical information is preserved and only noise is removed. Improvements in the estimation of diffusion model parameters such as fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, and fiber orientation distribution functions were also demonstrated. Conclusion Nonlinear redundancy of the dMRI signal can be exploited with KPCA, which allows superior noise reduction/SNR improvements than the MPPCA method, without loss of signal information.
Gene expression associated with disease resistance and long-term growth in a reef-building coral

Rampant coral disease, exacerbated by climate change and other anthropogenic stressors, threatens reefs worldwide, especially in the Caribbean. Physically isolated yet genetically connected reefs s...
Dynamic pneumococcal genetic adaptations support bacterial growth and inflammation during coinfection with influenza

Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is one of the primary bacterial pathogens that complicates influenza virus infections. These bacterial coinfections increase influenza-associated morbidity and mortality through a number of immunological and viral-mediated mechanisms, but the specific bacterial genes that contribute to postinfluenza pathogenicity are not known. Here, we used genome-wide transposon mutagenesis (Tn-Seq) to reveal bacterial genes that confer improved fitness in influenza virus-infected hosts. The majority of the 32 genes identified are involved in bacterial metabolism, including nucleotide biosynthesis, amino acid biosynthesis, protein translation, and membrane transport. We generated mutants with single-gene deletions (SGD) of five of the genes identified, SPD1414, SPD2047 (cbiO1), SPD0058 (purD), SPD1098, and SPD0822 (proB), to investigate their effects on in vivo fitness, disease severity, and host immune responses. The growth of the SGD mutants was slightly attenuated in vitro and in vivo, but each still grew to high titers in the lungs of mock- and influenza virus-infected hosts. Despite high bacterial loads, mortality was significantly reduced or delayed with all SGD mutants. Time-dependent reductions in pulmonary neutrophils, inflammatory macrophages, and select proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines were also observed. Immunohistochemical staining further revealed altered neutrophil distribution with reduced degeneration in the lungs of influenza virus-SGD mutant-coinfected animals. These studies demonstrate a critical role for specific bacterial genes and for bacterial metabolism in driving virulence and modulating immune function during influenza-associated bacterial pneumonia.
Role of Triplet States in the Photodynamics of Aniline.

The dynamics of excited heteroaromatic molecules is a key to understanding the photoprotective properties of many biologically relevant chromophores that dissipate their excitation energy nonreacti...
Members of the Legionella pneumophila Sde family target tyrosine residues for phosphoribosyl-linked ubiquitination

Legionella pneumophila establishes a replication vacuole by translocating hundreds of protein effectors through a type IV secretion system (T4SS). Among these translocated effectors are members of the Sde family, which catalyze phosphoribosyl-linked ubiquitination (pR-Ub) of host targets. Previous work has posited that Sde proteins solely target serine (Ser) residues within acceptor protein substrates. We show here that SdeC-mediated pR-Ub modification results from a stepwise reaction that also modifies tyrosine (Tyr) residues. Unexpectedly, the presence of an HA tag on Ub resulted in poly-pR-ubiquitination, consistent with the HA tag acting as an acceptor target. Interrogation of phosphoribosyl-linked HA-Ub revealed that Tyr4 was the preferred targeted residue, based on LC-MS/MS analysis of the crosslinked product. Further analysis using synthetic HA variants revealed promiscuous modification of Tyr, as crosslinking was prevented only by constructing a triple mutant in which all three Tyr within the HA sequence were substituted with Phe. Although previous work has indicated that Ser is the sole acceptor residue, we found no evidence of Ser preference over Tyr using Tyr → Ser replacement mutants. This work demonstrates that pR-ubiquitination by the Sde family is not limited to Ser-modification as previously proposed, and broadens the potential sites targeted by this family.
Fast and Smooth Interpolation on Wasserstein Space

We propose a new method for smoothly interpolating probability measures using the geometry of optimal transport. To that end, we reduce this problem to the classical Euclidean setting, allowing us to directly leverage the extensive toolbox of spline interpolation. Unlike previous approaches to measure-valued splines, our interpolated curves (i) have a clear interpretation as governing particle flows, which is natural for applications, and (ii) come with the first approximation guarantees on Wasserstein space. Finally, we demonstrate the broad applicability of our interpolation methodology by fitting surfaces of measures using thin-plate splines.
A revisit of the energy quadratization method with a relaxation technique

Abstract This letter revisits the energy quadratization (EQ) method by introducing a novel and essential relaxation technique to improve its accuracy and consistency. The EQ method has witnessed significant popularity in the past few years. Though we acknowledge its effectiveness in designing energy-stable schemes for thermodynamically consistent models, the primary known drawback is apparent, i.e., it respects a “modified” energy law represented by auxiliary variables instead of the original variables. Truncation errors are introduced during numerical calculations so that the numerical solutions of the auxiliary variables are no longer equivalent to their original continuous definitions. Even though the “modified” energy dissipation law is respected by the numerical solutions, the original energy dissipation law is not guaranteed. In this letter, we overcome this inconsistency by introducing a relaxation step, for which we named the relaxed-EQ (REQ) method. The computational cost of this relaxation step is negligible compared with the baseline EQ method. Meanwhile, the REQ method holds all the baseline EQ method’s good properties, such as linearity and unconditionally energy stability. Then we apply the REQ method to several widely-used phase field models to highlight its effectiveness.
Gauge-invariant TMD factorization for Drell-Yan hadronic tensor at small x

The Drell-Yan hadronic tensor for electromagnetic (EM) current is calculated in the Sudakov region $$ s\gg {Q}^2\gg {q}_{\perp}^2 $$ with $$ \frac{1}{Q^2} $$ accuracy, first at the tree level and then with the double-log accuracy. It is demonstrated that in the leading order in Nc the higher-twist quark-quark-gluon TMDs reduce to leading-twist TMDs due to QCD equation of motion. The resulting tensor for unpolarized hadrons is EM gauge-invariant and depends on two leading-twist TMDs: f1 responsible for total DY cross section, and Boer-Mulders function $$ {h}_1^{\perp } $$ . The order-of-magnitude estimates of angular distributions for DY process seem to agree with LHC results at corresponding kinematics.