cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
On the power of abstract interpretation

Increasingly sophisticated applications of static analysis make it important to precisely characterize the power of static analysis techniques. Sekar et al. recently studied the power of strictness analysis techniques and showed that strictness analysis is perfect up to variations in constants. We generalize this approach to abstract interpretation in general by defining a notion of similarity semantics. This semantics associates to a program a collection of interpretations all of which are obtained by blurring the distinctions that a particular static analysis ignores. We define completeness with respect to similarity semantics and obtain two completeness results. For first-order languages, abstract interpretation is complete with respect to a standard similarity semantics provided the base abstract domain is linearly ordered. For typed higher-order languages, it is complete with respect to logical similarity semantics again under the condition of linearly ordered base abstract domains.
Monoclonal Antibodies to a Human Prostate Antigen

Abstract Three monoclonal antibodies reactive with a purified extractable Mr 34,000 prostate antigen (PA) have been prepared by fusing splenocytes of BALB/c mice preimmunized with purified PA with the NS1 mouse myeloma cell line. The three antibodies were all of the IgG-1 subclass. The antibodies defined two noncross-blocking unique determinants on PA; each present as one site per molecule. IF3 defined one antigenic site and 2G7 and 1C5 defined another antigenic determinant. All of the antibodies reacted with PA in a solid-phase radioimmunoassay and immunoprecipitated 125I-labeled PA. Absorption and sandwich radioimmunoassays showed PA in prostate tissues but not in tonsil, liver, or kidney. Immunoperoxidase staining of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded sections of benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostatic carcinoma revealed strong prostate epithelial reactivity. None of the antibodies showed reactivity with prostate membrane preparations. A sandwich radioimmunoassay used 2G7 as a plate coat. 125I-labeled 1F3 was used to detect 5 ng PA per ml in sera of patients with prostate cancer. These results confirm previous observations regarding the specificity of PA and shed new evidence for its intracellular localization.
Gene2Function: An Integrated Online Resource for Gene Function Discovery

One of the most powerful ways to develop hypotheses regarding the biological functions of conserved genes in a given species, such as humans, is to first look at what is known about their function in another species. Model organism databases and other resources are rich with functional information but difficult to mine. Gene2Function addresses a broad need by integrating information about conserved genes in a single online resource.
Urachal Carcinoma: CT Findings

The computed tomographic (CT) appearance of urachal carcinoma in ten patients was studied and compared with the pathologic findings. Magnetic resonance images were available in one case. All tumors were mucinous adenocarcinomas; four were solid, three were cystic, and three were mixed. The tumor had a characteristic location along the expected midline course of the urachus directly behind the anterior abdominal wall. The main tumor mass was supravesical in eight patients. Seven tumors contained calcification. CT correctly depicted bladder wall involvement and supravesical extent of tumor in all cases. CT provided incorrect information about invasion of the perivesical fat in three patients and about bladder mucosal invasion in two patients.
Renal Magnesium Wasting Associated With Amphotericin B Therapy

The effect of amphotericin B on magnesium metabolism was studied in 10 patients (aged 30 to 68 years) with systemic fungal infections. Renal magnesium wasting resulting in mild to moderate hypomagnesemia was demonstrated by the second week of therapy following relatively small cumulative dosages of amphotericin B (208 +/- 40 mg). The lowest serum levels and largest fractional excretions of magnesium were observed by the fourth week of therapy after cumulative dosages of 510 +/- 118 mg. A plateauing of the renal magnesium wasting is suggested, as there were no further increases or reductions in fractional magnesium excretion and serum magnesium level, respectively, despite continued amphotericin B administration. Reversibility of the magnesium wasting is indicated by data in three of the patients approximately one year following discontinuation of amphotericin B therapy, in whom the serum magnesium level and fractional magnesium excretion had returned to pretreatment baseline values. Although the available data do not allow precise localization of this defect, increased urinary excretion of magnesium despite its reduced filtered load suggests a tubular defect in magnesium reabsorption. Therefore, routine monitoring of the serum magnesium level during treatment with amphotericin B is recommended.
Tracing the evolution of nuclear forces under the similarity renormalization group

Abstract I examine the evolution of nuclear forces under the similarity renormalization group (SRG) using traces of the many-body configuration-space Hamiltonian. While SRG is often said to “soften” the nuclear interaction, I provide numerical examples which paint a complementary point of view: the primary effect of SRG, using the kinetic energy as the generator of the evolution, is to shift downward the diagonal matrix elements in the model space, while the off-diagonal elements undergo significantly smaller changes. By employing traces, I argue that this is a very natural outcome as one diagonalizes a matrix, and helps one to understand the success of SRG.
Central Venous Access in Oncology Patients: The “Peel-Away” Sheath for Rapid Insertion

A safe, fluoroscopically controlled method of rapid silastic catheter introduction in oncology patients provides long-term access to a high blood flow area near the right atrium. A "peel-away" disposable sheath and introducer have been adapted for the rapid introduction of the catheter. Benefits of the use of this technique are that (1) it can be easily adapted from the widely known technique of central venous line placement, (2) catheter position is easily confirmed by fluoroscopy, and (3) the procedure can be performed under local anesthesia, minimizing anesthetic risks and expense.
Rapid DNA replication origin licensing protects stem cell pluripotency

From red blood cells to nerve cells, animals’ bodies contain many different types of specialized cells. These all begin as stem cells, which have the potential to divide and make more stem cells or to specialize. All dividing cells must first unwind their DNA so that it can be copied. To achieve this, cells load DNA-unwinding enzymes called helicases onto their DNA during the part of the cell cycle known as G1 phase. Cells must load enough helicase enzymes to ensure that their DNA is copied completely and in time. Stem cells divide faster than their specialized descendants, and have a much shorter G1 phase too. Yet these cells still manage to load enough helicases to copy their DNA. Little is known about how the amount, rate and timing of helicase loading varies between cells that divide at different speeds. Now Matson et al. have measured how quickly helicase enzymes are loaded onto DNA in individual human cells, including stem cells and specialized or “differentiated” cells. Stem cells loaded helicases rapidly to make up for the short time they spent in G1 phase, while differentiated cells loaded the enzymes more slowly. Measuring how the loading rate changed when stem cells were triggered to specialize showed that helicase loading slowed as the G1 phase got longer. Matson et al. found that the levels of key proteins required for helicase loading correlated with the rates of loading. Altering the levels of the proteins changed how quickly the enzymes were loaded and how the cells behaved – for example, slowing down the loading of helicases made the stem cells specialize quicker. These findings show that the processes of cell differentiation and DNA replication are closely linked. This study and future ones will help scientists understand what is happening during early animal development, when specialization first takes place, as well as what has gone wrong in cancer cells, which also divide quickly. A better understanding of this process also helps in regenerative medicine – where one of the challenges is to make enough specialized cells to transplant into a patient with tissue damage without those cells becoming cancerous.
Stowage decisions in multi-zone storage systems

The stowage decision determines how arriving products are distributed in a storage system or warehouse. In particular, we consider the zone-stowage decision for large warehouses that are organised ...
Using Congestion-Priced Road User Charges to Restore Metropolitan Mobility and Fund Highways

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and evaluate a congestion-pricing strategy that could be used in metropolitan areas to supplement revenue generation mechanisms such as mileage-based user fees and fuel taxes. Congestion charges would be applied with transponder-based technology only on limited access metropolitan highway facilities to pay for the costs of their reconstruction and maintenance. Since most of the worst congestion in metropolitan and state roadways occurs on limited access facilities, this strategy would address the goal of restoring mobility without raising the kinds of privacy concerns that appear with regard to other types of more comprehensive road user charging systems that use location-based technology, such as mileage-based user fees. Proceeds from congestion charges could be used to pay for new low-cost, part-time (dynamic) shoulder travel lane capacity and transit and carpooling enhancements. This approach can increase public acceptability by providing multimodal travel alte...
Collusion in Markets with Syndication

Many markets are syndicated, including those for initial public offerings, club deal leveraged buyouts, and debt issuances; in such markets, each winning bidder invites competitors to join a syndic...
Agricultural pesticide use and adverse birth outcomes in the San Joaquin Valley of California.

Virtually all agricultural communities worldwide are exposed to agricultural pesticides. Yet, the health consequences of such exposure are poorly understood, and the scientific literature remains ambiguous. Using individual birth and demographic characteristics for over 500 000 birth observations between 1997–2011 in the agriculturally dominated San Joaquin Valley, California, we statistically investigate if residential agricultural pesticide exposure during gestation, by trimester, and by toxicity influences birth weight, gestational length, or birth abnormalities. Overall, our analysis indicates that agricultural pesticide exposure increases adverse birth outcomes by 5–9%, but only among the population exposed to very high quantities of pesticides (e.g., top 5th percentile, i.e., ~4200 kg applied over gestation). Thus, policies and interventions targeting the extreme right tail of the pesticide distribution near human habitation could largely eliminate the adverse birth outcomes associated with agricultural pesticide exposure documented in this study. The health consequences of exposure to pesticides are uncertain and subject to much debate. Here, the effect of exposure during pregnancy is investigated in an agriculturally dominated residential area, showing that an increase in adverse birth outcomes is observed with very high levels of pesticide exposure.
Loss Sharing Rules for Bank Holding Companies: An Assessment of the Federal Reserve's Source-of-Strength Policy and the FDIC's Cross Guarantee Authority

In this article, we critically examine two policies designed to protect the deposit insurance funds—the Federal Reserve Board’s source-of-strength policy and the FDIC’s cross-guarantee authority. We discuss why each of the policies was adopted and how effective each has been in practice since its implementation. We then evaluate the future application and usefulness of the two policies in light of the structural changes that have resulted from industry consolidation and the financial modernization of the 1990s.
Effects of Long and Short Relaxation Times of Particle Interactions in Dense and Slow Granular Flows

The rheological properties and the duration of particle interactions in a dense granular media are closely related to the formation of particle interaction networks. The behavior of particle interaction networks depends not only on the particle volume fractions but also on friction between particles. For examples, for frictionless particles, a particle interaction network may not form at particle volume fraction greater than 0.62, the random dense packing volume fraction for monodisperse spheres. Without network formation, particle interactions are short in time and mostly binary. Under this condition, the granular medium can be modeled as a viscous fluid with variable viscosity as in kinetic theory. Formation of particle interaction networks dramatically increases particle interaction time and results in a phase transition in the constitutive relations of the granular medium. Then, the stress relaxation time is inversely proportional to the macroscopic shear rate in simple shear flows, and the granular medium can be modeled as a viscoelastic material with a stress relaxation time depending on the macroscopic shear rate. For small shear rates, the stresses in the granular medium are independent of macroscopic shear rates in simple shear flows. Thus, as the shear rate approaches zero, the relaxation time approaches infinity, and the shear stress approaches a finite value, the yield stress, instead of zero. We also studied the relaxation behavior of the stress tensor under time-dependent shear rates. The dynamics of the particle interaction network leads to a nonlinear behavior of stress relaxation not exhibited by ordinary viscoelastic materials, such as polymeric fluids.Copyright © 2003 by ASME
Clique Clustering Yields a PTAS for Max-Coloring Interval Graphs

We are given an interval graph $$ G = (V,E) $$ where each interval $$ I \in V$$ has a weight $$ w_I \in \mathbb {Q}^+ $$ . The goal is to color the intervals $$ V$$ with an arbitrary number of color classes $$ C_1, C_2, \ldots , C_k $$ such that $$ \sum _{i=1}^k \max _{I \in C_i} w_I $$ is minimized. This problem, called max-coloring interval graphs or weighted coloring interval graphs, contains the classical problem of coloring interval graphs as a special case for uniform weights, and it arises in many practical scenarios such as memory management. Pemmaraju, Raman, and Varadarajan showed that max-coloring interval graphs is NP-hard [21] and presented a 2-approximation algorithm. We settle the approximation complexity of this problem by giving a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS), that is, we show that there is an $$ (1+\epsilon ) $$ -approximation algorithm for any $$ \epsilon > 0 $$ . The PTAS also works for the bounded case where the sizes of the color classes are bounded by some arbitrary $$ k \le n $$ .
Sickle cell trait knowledge and health literacy in caregivers who receive in-person sickle cell trait education.

Background Despite universal screening that detects sickle cell trait (SCT) in infancy, only 16% of Americans with SCT know their status. To increase SCT status awareness, effective education for patients and their families is needed. The objective of this study was to assess caregivers’ SCT knowledge before and after an in-person SCT education session. Methods A trained educator provides in-person SCT education to caregivers of referred infants with SCT at Nationwide Children's Hospital. From August 2015 to July 2016, primarily English-speaking caregivers of infants with hemoglobin S-trait were recruited and completed a health literacy assessment and a SCT knowledge assessment (SCTKA) before and after receiving education. Caregivers repeated the SCTKA again after ≥6 months, if they could be contacted. Results Thirty-eight (38.1%) percent of 113 caregivers had high SCTKA scores (≥75%) before education but 90.3% achieved high scores after education. Caregivers with low SCTKA scores after education had significantly lower health literacy (P = 0.029) and baseline SCTKA scores (P = 0.003) compared to those with higher scores after education. At ≥6 months, caregivers’ scores were significantly higher (P = 0.014) than baseline, but only 73.3% scored ≥75%. Conclusion Our results suggest that caregivers’ baseline SCT knowledge is low, improves with in-person education but may decline with time. Caregivers who do not achieve high SCT knowledge after education had lower health literacy and baseline knowledge. Future studies should determine if adapting in-person education to caregivers’ health literacy and knowledge levels results in high and sustained SCT knowledge among all caregivers and more individuals who know their SCT status.
Metrology, psychometrics, and new horizons for innovation

The vital roles of common languages, metrics, and standards in team-based innovation are well established. The historical success of science has depended extensively on mathematically rigorous, theoretically explained, experimentally evaluated, and socially distributed communications networks comprised of metrologically traceable measuring instruments. Recent descriptions of practical and theoretical correspondences between metrology and psychometrics extend scientific model-based reasoning into education and other fields. Realizing psychometrics’ metrological potentials requires attending to interrelated ethical, technical, and social issues. First, measurement must embody the ethics of the Golden Rule in support of compassionate and tolerant comparisons. Technically, effective measurement systems involve (a) invariant units, with known uncertainties, (b) scientific laws modelling substantive relationships in the world, (c) hypotheses experimentally tested against data, (d) explanatory theories providing predictive control over the construct, and (e) methods for ensuring traceability to the standard unit. But to be effective, measurement systems incorporating these features will need to be situated in a larger social context cognizant of needs for the relevant standards bodies, educational programs and textbooks, professional societies, legal and regulatory oversight, accounting and economic applications, etc. Paraphrasing Rasch, the challenges are huge, but having formulated the problem, human ingenuity will likely find a way to solve it.
Valid inequalities for separable concave constraints with indicator variables

We study valid inequalities for optimization models that contain both binary indicator variables and separable concave constraints. These models reduce to a mixed-integer linear program (MILP) when the concave constraints are ignored, or to a nonconvex global optimization problem when the binary restrictions are ignored. In algorithms designed to solve these problems to global optimality, cutting planes to strengthen the relaxation are traditionally obtained using valid inequalities for the MILP only. We propose a technique to obtain valid inequalities that are based on both the MILP constraints and the concave constraints. We begin by characterizing the convex hull of a four-dimensional set consisting of a single binary indicator variable, a single concave constraint, and two linear inequalities. Using this analysis, we demonstrate how valid inequalities for the single node flow set and for the lot-sizing polyhedron can be “tilted” to give valid inequalities that also account for separable concave functions of the arc flows. We present computational results demonstrating the utility of the new inequalities for nonlinear transportation problems and for lot-sizing problems with concave costs. To our knowledge, this is one of the first works that simultaneously convexifies both nonconvex functions and binary variables to strengthen the relaxations of practical mixed-integer nonlinear programs.
International comity in comparative perspective

In the United States many of the doctrines that mediate the relationships between different legal systems are viewed as manifestations of international comity. Continental European states have similar doctrines but do not see them through a comity lens. This chapter explains the difference in approach through the influence of Joseph Story in the United States and Friedrich Carl von Savigny in Europe. While explaining that international comity does not preclude the adoption of rules or the codification of doctrines, the chapter suggests that international comity highlights the distinction between domestic law and international law, emphasizes the freedom of each state to shape these doctrines as it sees fit, and makes it easier to see interrelationships among the doctrines.
How much oil is the Islamic state group producing ? evidence from remote sensing

Accurately measuring oil production in low-governance contexts is an important task. Many terrorist organizations and insurgencies -- including the Islamic State group, also known as ISIL/ISIS or Daesh -- tap oil as a revenue source. Understanding spatial and temporal variation in production in their territory can help address such threats by providing near real-time monitoring of their revenue streams, helping to assess long-term economic potential, and informing reconstruction strategies. More broadly, remotely measuring extractive industry activity in conflict-affected areas and other regions without reliable administrative data can support a broad range of public policy decisions and academic research. This paper uses satellite multi-spectral imaging and ground-truth pre-war output data to effectively construct a real-time day-to-day census of oil production in areas controlled by the terrorist group. The estimates of production levels were approximately 56,000 barrels per day (bpd) from July-December 2014, drop to an average of 35,000 bpd throughout 2015, before dropping further to approximately 16,000 bpd in 2016.
Chromatin histone modifications and rigidity affect nuclear morphology independent of lamins

Chromatin decompaction via increasing euchromatin or decreasing heterochromatin results in a softer nucleus and abnormal nuclear blebbing, independent of lamin perturbations. Conversely, increasing...
FAME: Fast Attribute-based Message Encryption

Time and again, attribute-based encryption has been shown to be the natural cryptographic tool for building various types of conditional access systems with far-reaching applications, but the deployment of such systems has been very slow. A central issue is the lack of an encryption scheme that can operate on sensitive data very efficiently and, at the same time, provides features that are important in practice. This paper proposes the first fully secure ciphertext-policy and key-policy ABE schemes based on a standard assumption on Type-III pairing groups, which do not put any restriction on policy type or attributes. We implement our schemes along with several other prominent ones using the Charm library, and demonstrate that they perform better on almost all parameters of interest.
Orwell’s 1984 and a Fourth Amendment Cybersurveillance Nonintrusion Test

This Article describes a cybersurveillance nonintrusion test under the Fourth Amendment that is grounded in evolving customary law to replace the reasonable expectation of privacy test formulated in Katz v. United States. To illustrate how customary law norms are shaping modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, this Article examines the recurrence of judicial references to George Orwell’s novel, 1984, within the Fourth Amendment context when federal courts have assessed the constitutionality of modern surveillance methods. The Supreme Court has indicated that the Fourth Amendment privacy doctrine must now evolve to impose meaningful limitations on the intrusiveness of new surveillance technologies. A cybersurveillance nonintrusion test implicitly suggested by the Supreme Court in United States v. Jones first shifts the vantage point of the Fourth Amendment analysis from an individual-based tangible harm inquiry to an inquiry of a society-wide intangible harm — whether the modern surveillance method creates a “1984 problem” for society. A cybersurveillance nonintrusion test requires the government to justify the intrusion of the surveillance on society. A new test would remediate increasingly ineffective Fourth Amendment jurisprudence currently grounded in property and tort law. The Article argues that the adoption of a cybersurveillance nonintrusion test and the abandonment of the current privacy test is not only required; but, in practice, is already used by the federal courts.
Dual tRNA Mimicry in the Cricket Paralysis Virus IRES Uncovers an Unexpected Similarity With the Hepatitis C Virus IRES

Co-opting the cellular machinery for protein production is a compulsory requirement for viruses. The Cricket Paralysis Virus employs an Internal Ribosomal Entry Site (CrPV-IRES) to express its structural genes in the late stage of infection. Ribosome hijacking is achieved by a sophisticated use of molecular mimicry to tRNA and mRNA, employed to manipulate intrinsically dynamic components of the ribosome. Binding and translocation through the ribosome is required for this IRES to initiate translation. We report two structures, solved by single particle electron cryo-microscopy (cryoEM), of a double translocated CrPV-IRES with aminoacyl-tRNA in the peptidyl site (P site) of the ribosome. CrPV-IRES adopts a previously unseen conformation, mimicking the acceptor stem of a canonical E site tRNA. The structures suggest a mechanism for the positioning of the first aminoacyl-tRNA shared with the distantly related Hepatitis C Virus IRES.
Vulnerability analysis and consequences of false data injection attack on power system state estimation

An unobservable false data injection (FDI) attack on AC state estimation (SE) is introduced and its consequences on the physical system are studied. With a focus on understanding the physical consequences of FDI attacks, a bi-level optimization problem is introduced whose objective is to maximize the physical line flows subsequent to an FDI attack on DC SE. The maximization is subject to constraints on both attacker resources (size of attack) and attack detection (limiting load shifts) as well as those required by DC optimal power flow (OPF) following SE. The resulting attacks are tested on a more realistic non-linear system model using AC state estimation and ACOPF, and it is shown that, with an appropriately chosen sub-network, the attacker can overload transmission lines with moderate shifts of load.
Do Proxies for Informed Trading Measure Informed Trading? Evidence from Illegal Insider Trades

This paper exploits hand-collected data on illegal insider trades to test whether standard illiquidity measures can detect informed trading. Controlling for unobserved cross-sectional and time-series variation, sampling bias, and strategic timing of insider trades, I find that only absolute order imbalance and the negative autocorrelation of order flows are statistically and economically robust predictors of insider trading. However, this result only holds for short-lived information. When information is long-lived, none of the measures of illiquidity I consider detect informed trading, including bid-ask spreads, Kyle's lambda, and Amihud illiquidity. These results suggest that standard measures of illiquidity have limited applications.
Closed-Loop Policies for Operational Tests of Safety-Critical Systems

Manufacturers of safety-critical systems must make the case that their product is sufficiently safe for public deployment. Much of this case often relies upon critical event outcomes from real-world testing, requiring manufacturers to be strategic about how they allocate testing resources in order to maximize their chances of demonstrating system safety. This paper frames the partially observable and the belief-dependent problem of test scheduling as a Markov decision process, which can be solved efficiently to yield closed-loop manufacturer testing policies. By solving for policies over a wide range of problem formulations, we are able to provide high-level guidance for manufacturers and regulators on issues relating to the testing of safety-critical systems. This guidance spans an array of topics, including circumstances under which manufacturers should continue testing despite observed incidents, when manufacturers should test aggressively, and when regulators should increase or reduce the real-world testing requirements for safety-critical systems.
Patterns of care and outcomes for glioblastoma in patients with poor performance status.

Abstract Purpose/objectives While treatment with tumor resection followed by chemoradiation is generally the accepted standard of care for glioblastoma (GBM), the treatment for patients with poor performance status remains uncertain. Therefore we sought to examine patterns of care and survival outcomes among patients with poor performance status utilizing a large hospital database. Methods/materials We queried the National Cancer Database (NCDB) for patients with GBM and Karnofsky performance status (KPS) Results There were 488 patients included in the analysis of which 51.2% received chemoradiation and 46.1% underwent subtotal or gross total resection. None of the factors analyzed were significantly associated with increased likelihood of receiving chemoradiation over radiation alone. Survival data was available for 236 patients that received radiation therapy with and without combination chemotherapy. The median overall survival for those receiving radiation alone was 3.6 months and 8.7 months in those who received chemoradiation (p Conclusion Even patients with poor performance status had better survival outcomes when they received treatment with chemoradiation over radiation alone.
Health Insurance and Early Retirement Plans: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act

Understanding how individuals make retirement plans is key to designing effective policy. In particular, access to affordable insurance during retirement can play an important role in the labor sup...
Some Fundamental Issues in the History of Chinese Painting

T HE hisitory of Chinese painting is a relatively new discipline. None of us who work in that discipline can as yet rely on a binding tradition, accepted methods, or even on established facts of historical significance. It is possible for several critics to arrive at surprisingly contradictory judgments about one and the same work, or sequence of works, or about the meaning of the same evidence. Our judgments., naturally, will change; the work adjudged will not. We have to come to terms with it in the end. Coming to terms, however, does not mean a compromise between opposed views or viewers.. It means that the right understanding of the work or sequence in question will sooner or later prevail-that is, the right understanding of the work as a historical monument. But how is this understanding achieved? It is this seemingly simple question, the basic problem facing the historian, that I shall discuss.
Alternating “strange” functions

We consider infinite series similar to the “strange” function F(q) of Kontsevich studied by Zagier, Bryson–Ono–Pitman–Rhoades, Bringmann–Folsom–Rhoades, Rolen–Schneider, and others in connection to quantum modular forms. Here we show that a class of “strange” alternating series that are well-defined almost nowhere in the complex plane can be added (using a modified definition of limits) to familiar infinite products to produce convergent q-hypergeometric series, of a shape that specializes to Ramanujan’s mock theta function f(q), Zagier’s quantum modular form $$\sigma (q)$$ , and other interesting number-theoretic objects. We also give Cesaro sums for these “strange” series.
Trojan horse risks in the maritime transportation systems sector

This article sought to raise the awareness of vulnerabilities in the maritime transportation systems sector and to ask those involved in security and emergency management to answer for themselves, “What are your acceptable risks?” In particular, the review alerts security and emergency managers to the Trojan horse risks that expose maritime organizations, including shippers, mariners, and port employees, to dangers from physical, personnel, and cyber security problems and from natural and man-made disasters, which may appear as Trojan horses. The article first discusses maritime threat actors, motives, tactics, and targets. Next, vulnerabilities of the maritime transportation systems sector that could be exploited by those seeking to conduct a Trojan horse attack are examined. Finally, a variety of security measures used to protect the maritime transportation systems sector from Trojan horse attacks are described. Advice to those in security and emergency management for maritime organizations on how to recognize, plan, and mitigate Trojan horse issues is provided.
POST: A framework for set-based association analysis in high-dimensional data.

Abstract Evaluating the differential expression of a set of genes belonging to a common biological process or ontology has proven to be a very useful tool for biological discovery. However, existing gene-set association methods are limited to applications that evaluate differential expression across k ⩾ 2 treatment groups or biological categories. This limitation precludes researchers from most effectively evaluating the association with other phenotypes that may be more clinically meaningful, such as quantitative variables or censored survival time variables. Projection onto the Orthogonal Space Testing (POST) is proposed as a general procedure that can robustly evaluate the association of a gene-set with several different types of phenotypic data (categorical, ordinal, continuous, or censored). For each gene-set, POST transforms the gene profiles into a set of eigenvectors and then uses statistical modeling to compute a set of z-statistics that measure the association of each eigenvector with the phenotype. The overall gene-set statistic is the sum of squared z-statistics weighted by the corresponding eigenvalues. Finally, bootstrapping is used to compute a p-value. POST may evaluate associations with or without adjustment for covariates. In simulation studies, it is shown that the performance of POST in evaluating the association with a categorical phenotype is similar to or exceeds that of existing methods. In evaluating the association of 875 biological processes with the time to relapse of pediatric acute myeloid leukemia, POST identified the well-known oncogenic WNT signaling pathway as its top hit. These results indicate that POST can be a very useful tool for evaluating the association of a gene-set with a variety of different phenotypes. We have developed an R package named POST which is freely available in Bioconductor.
Regularization by Denoising: Clarifications and New Interpretations

Regularization by denoising (RED), as recently proposed by Romano, Elad, and Milanfar, is powerful image-recovery framework that aims to minimize an explicit regularization objective constructed from a plug-in image-denoising function. Experimental evidence suggests that the RED algorithms are a state of the art. We claim, however, that explicit regularization does not explain the RED algorithms. In particular, we show that many of the expressions in the paper by Romano et al. hold only when the denoiser has a symmetric Jacobian, and we demonstrate that such symmetry does not occur with practical denoisers such as nonlocal means, BM3D, TNRD, and DnCNN. To explain the RED algorithms, we propose a new framework called Score-Matching by Denoising (SMD), which aims to match a “score” (i.e., the gradient of a log-prior). We then show tight connections between SMD, kernel density estimation, and constrained minimum mean-squared error denoising. Furthermore, we interpret the RED algorithms from Romano et al. and propose new algorithms with acceleration and convergence guarantees. Finally, we show that the RED algorithms seek a consensus equilibrium solution, which facilitates a comparison to plug-and-play ADMM.
Is there evidence of a July effect among patients undergoing hysterectomy surgery

Background It is hypothesized that the quality of health care decreases during trainee turnovers at the beginning of the academic year. The influx of new gynecology and surgery residents into hospitals in this setting may be associated with poorer surgical outcomes, known as the July effect. Objective We sought to systematically study hysterectomy outcomes in the state of Maryland during the 3-month period July through September as compared to all other months of the academic year, in order to assess for the presence of a July effect in hysterectomy surgery. Study Design This is a retrospective study of the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission Database from July 2012 through September 2015 focused on women undergoing hysterectomies for benign or malignant disease, either by obstetricians and gynecologists or gynecologic oncologists, during July through September vs October through June. Multivariable logistic regressions accounted for clustering by hospitals and adjusted for several cofactors. The primary outcome includes at least 1 of 11 major perioperative in-hospital complications; the secondary outcomes were extended postoperative length of stay (defined as >2 days) and 30-day inpatient readmission rates. Results We identified 6311 hysterectomies (78.2% benign) performed by 424 surgeons at 20 academic hospitals. Patients were primarily white (42.8%), 45–64 years old (54.4%), and had private insurance (66.3%). The unadjusted rate of in-hospital complications was 16.8%, extended length of stay was 30.3%, and 30-day readmissions was 6.6%. After adjustment, patients undergoing hysterectomies during July through September did not have more adverse outcomes relative to those undergoing surgery at other times of the year: complications (adjusted odds ratio, 0.87; 95% confidence interval, 0.75–1.01), length of stay >2 days (adjusted odds ratio, 1.03; 95% confidence interval, 0.90–1.19), and 30-day readmissions (adjusted odds ratio, 0.99; 95% confidence interval, 0.80–1.23). Sensitivity analyses assessing individual complications, hysterectomy outcomes at nonacademic hospitals, and benign vs malignant indications for hysterectomies yielded similar findings. Conclusion Women in Maryland undergoing hysterectomy surgery at academic hospitals during July through September of the academic year did not experience worse outcomes relative to women having surgery in other months. Additional studies are necessary to further assess the possibility of a July effect in hysterectomy on a national basis. Institutions should continue to provide effective surgical training environments for new interns and residents transitioning to more senior roles, while maintaining optimal patient safety.
Back pressure effect on three-way catalyst light-off:

The effect of back pressure on the light-off of a modern spark ignition engine three-way catalyst has been assessed by measuring the hydrocarbon conversion efficiency in a hot flow bench and in the...
Yes we can! Teaching DSGE models to undergraduate students

Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models have become the workhorse of modern macroeconomics and the standard way to communicate ideas among applied macroeconomists. Undergraduate students, however, often remain unaware of their existence. The lack of specialized knowledge can hurt them if they decide to attend graduate school. Indeed, many first-year PhD students discover that the material they are currently learning differs significantly from what they mastered in college. But this can change. In this essay, I describe how to teach a full-fledged macroeconomics course where DSGE models take center stage. I discuss how to arrange such a course within a one-semester time frame, detail the main components of instruction, and finish with some thoughts based on my teaching experience at Macalester College.
North American Xyleborini north of Mexico: a review and key to genera and species (Coleoptera, Curculionidae, Scolytinae)

Bark and ambrosia beetles (Scolytinae) are the most successful group of invasive wood borers worldwide, and the most invasive among them are species in the tribe Xyleborini. This haplodiploid, highly inbred, fungus-farming group is represented by 30 non-native species in North America, of which at least five are serious pests. The few identification resources for Xyleborini that exist are becoming outdated due to new species arrivals and nomenclatural changes. Here we present a new comprehensive key to Xyleborini currently known from the continental United States. Compared to the previous key, the following species have been added to the North American fauna: Ambrosiodmus minor (Stebbing), Ambrosiophilus nodulosus (Eggers), Anisandrus maiche Kurentsov, Coptoborus pseudotenuis (Schedl), Cyclorhipidion fukiense (Eggers), Dryocoetoides reticulatus Atkinson, Dryoxylon onoharaense (Murayama), Euwallacea interjectus (Blandford), Xyleborinus andrewesi (Blandford), Xyleborinus artestriatus (Eichhoff), Xyleborinus octiesdentatus (Murayama), Xyleborus bispinatus Eichhoff, Xyleborus seriatus Blandford, Xyleborus spinulosus Blandford, and Xylosandrus amputatus (Blandford).
Proportional choosability: A new list analogue of equitable coloring

Abstract In 2003, Kostochka, Pelsmajer, and West introduced a list analogue of equitable coloring called equitable choosability. In this paper, we motivate and define a new list analogue of equitable coloring called proportional choosability. A k -assignment L for a graph G specifies a list L ( v ) of k available colors for each vertex v of G . An L -coloring assigns a color to each vertex v from its list L ( v ) . For each color c , let η ( c ) be the number of vertices v whose list L ( v ) contains c . A proportional L -coloring of G is a proper L -coloring in which each color c ∈ ⋃ v ∈ V ( G ) L ( v ) is used ⌊ η ( c ) ∕ k ⌋ or ⌈ η ( c ) ∕ k ⌉ times. A graph G is proportionally k -choosable if a proportional L -coloring of G exists whenever L is a k -assignment for G . We show that if a graph G is proportionally k -choosable, then every subgraph of G is also proportionally k -choosable and also G is proportionally ( k + 1 ) -choosable, unlike equitable choosability for which analogous claims would be false. We also show that any graph G is proportionally k -choosable whenever k ≥ Δ ( G ) + ⌈ | V ( G ) | ∕ 2 ⌉ , and we use matching theory to completely characterize the proportional choosability of stars and the disjoint union of cliques.
Stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells from chlamydia-infected women release predominantly Th1-polarizing cytokines

Chlamydia trachomatis infection (chlamydia) is the most prevalent sexually transmitted bacterial infection and causes significant reproductive morbidity in women. Little is known about how immunity to chlamydia develops in women, though animal models of chlamydia indicate that T-helper type 1 (Th1) responses are important for chlamydia clearance and protective immunity, whereas T-helper type 2 (Th2) responses are associated with persisting infection. In chlamydia-infected women, whether the predominant immune response is Th1- or Th2-polarizing remains controversial. To determine the cytokine profiles elicited by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from chlamydia-infected women, we stimulated PBMCs with C. trachomatis elementary bodies and recombinant C. trachomatis Pgp3 and measured supernatant levels of select cytokines spanning Th1- and Th2-polarizing responses. We found that stimulated PBMCs from chlamydia-infected women secreted cytokines that indicate strong Th1-polarizing responses, especially interferon-gamma, whereas Th2-polarizing cytokines were expressed at significantly lower levels. In chlamydia-infected women, the predominant cytokine responses elicited on stimulation of PBMCs with C. trachomatis antigens were Th1-polarizing, with interferon-gamma as the predominant cytokine.
Concentrated Differentially Private Gradient Descent with Adaptive per-Iteration Privacy Budget

Iterative algorithms, like gradient descent, are common tools for solving a variety of problems, such as model fitting. For this reason, there is interest in creating differentially private versions of them. However, their conversion to differentially private algorithms is often naive. For instance, a fixed number of iterations are chosen, the privacy budget is split evenly among them, and at each iteration, parameters are updated with a noisy gradient. In this paper, we show that gradient-based algorithms can be improved by a more careful allocation of privacy budget per iteration. Intuitively, at the beginning of the optimization, gradients are expected to be large, so that they do not need to be measured as accurately. However, as the parameters approach their optimal values, the gradients decrease and hence need to be measured more accurately. We add a basic line-search capability that helps the algorithm decide when more accurate gradient measurements are necessary. Our gradient descent algorithm works with the recently introduced zCDP version of differential privacy. It outperforms prior algorithms for model fitting and is competitive with the state-of-the-art for $(e,δ)$-differential privacy, a strictly weaker definition than zCDP.
The burden of water shortages on informal firms

The informal sector in developing economies is a significant source of livelihood for a sizable portion of the population. This study uncovers the effect of poor water infrastructure on the productivity of informal firms. This is achieved using firm-level data for 12 developing economies between 2009 and 2014. The findings indicate that an increase of one standard deviation of the total duration of water shortages in a month can lead to annual average losses of about 14.5 percent of the monthly sales per worker for the average informal firm in the sample that uses water for business activities.
Multi-Task Learning for Sequence Tagging: An Empirical Study

We study three general multi-task learning (MTL) approaches on 11 sequence tagging tasks. Our extensive empirical results show that in about 50% of the cases, jointly learning all 11 tasks improves upon either independent or pairwise learning of the tasks. We also show that pairwise MTL can inform us what tasks can benefit others or what tasks can be benefited if they are learned jointly. In particular, we identify tasks that can always benefit others as well as tasks that can always be harmed by others. Interestingly, one of our MTL approaches yields embeddings of the tasks that reveal the natural clustering of semantic and syntactic tasks. Our inquiries have opened the doors to further utilization of MTL in NLP.