cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A unified approach for Littlewood-Paley Decomposition of Abstract Besov Spaces

We apply spectral theoretic methods to obtain a Littlewood-Paley decomposition of abstract inhomogeneous Besov spaces in terms of “smooth” and “bandlmited” functions. Well-known decompositions in several contexts are as special examples and are unified under the spectral theoretic approach.
Event-related Potentials and Psychological Theory

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses event-related potentials (ERPs) and psychological theory. Correlational statements about the “relationship” between some psychological variable and an ERP component are of little inherent value. What is needed are clear experimental predictions, based on specific psychological theories. Changes in the amplitudes, latencies, or scalp distributions of ERP components must be predicted in such a manner that the confirmation or rejection of hypotheses would either strengthen or weaken the underlying psychological theories. A substantial amount of work in field is botanical in character. Investigators seem to be content to roam the fields of the ERP plucking new flowers and naming them. The identification of a novel species (or component) becomes a goal. Taxonomy becomes an end rather than a means. While this activity does have some value, its importance should not be exaggerated. At this stage of research it behooves to eschew botany and concentrate on attempts to understand the functional significance of those ERP components that have been identified.
Repeated Redundant Inequalities in Constraint Logic Programming

Future redundant inequalities in a constraint logic program are those that are guaranteed to be subsumed after no more than one subsequent procedure call, whenever they are encountered at run time. It has been noted that such inequalities need only be tested for consistency with the current constraint set, thus resulting in dramatic savings in execution speed and space usage. Furthermore, they can be detected at compile time, leading to a valuable compiler optimization. By considering the role of such inequalities in a program, we generalize the notion of future redundancy in a number of ways and thus broaden its applicability. As a result, we show how to dramatically improve the performance of a wider class of programs that rely heavily on inequalities.
Origins of extrinsic variability in eukaryotic gene expression

Summary form only given. Variable gene expression within a clonal population of cells has been implicated in a number of important processes including mutation and evolution, determination of cell fates and the development of genetic disease. Recent studies have demonstrated that a significant component of expression variability arises from extrinsic factors thought to influence multiple genes in concert, yet the biological origins of this extrinsic variability have received little attention. Here we combine computational modeling with fluorescence data generated from multiple promoter-gene inserts in {\em Saccharomyces cerevisiae} to identify two major sources of extrinsic variability. One unavoidable source arising from the coupling of gene expression with population dynamics leads to a ubiquitous noise floor in expression variability. A second source originating from a common upstream transcription factor exemplifies how regulatory networks can convert intrinsic or extrinsic noise in regulator expression into extrinsic noise at the output of a target gene. These results highlight the importance of the interplay of gene regulatory networks with population heterogeneity for understanding the origins of cellular diversity
Stereoselective Synthesis of trans-Olefins by the Copper-Mediated SN2′ Reaction of Vinyl Oxazines with Grignard Reagents. Asymmetric Synthesis of D-threo-Sphingosines

Abstract The S N 2′ reaction of 6-vinyl-5,6-dihydro-4 H -[1,3]oxazines with Grignard reagents in the presence of CuCN was studied, and high trans selectivity for the formation of double bond was observed with a variety of RMgX. The S N 2′ reaction, coupled with regioselective asymmetric aminohydroxylation reaction, provided a highly efficient route for the asymmetric synthesis of d - threo - N -acetylsphingosine.
The law and economics of supranationalism: the European Union and the subsidiarity principle in collective action perspective

This article, prepared for an issue devoted to the work of Judge Richard A. Posner, considers the implications of law and economics for the structure of supranational organizations, with particular attention to the application of collective action theory to the relationships among states in the EU. After discussing the connections between this approach and Judge Posner’s work, the article describes collective action theory and its implications for our understanding of the state and of relationships among states. From this perspective, supranational organizations such as the EU can be understood as institutional structures that facilitate collective action among states by reducing the transactions and enforcement costs of making and implementing collective decisions. At the same time, the delegation of authority to supranational institutions creates agency costs for states and their peoples because the interests of the state and its people diverge from the interests of the collective in some instances. Viewed in this perspective, the institutional structure of the EU—like that of other supranational organizations or federal nation states—reflects an effort to strike a balance between collective decision making and local control so as to maximize the collective gains and minimize the resulting agency costs. Understood in these terms, various features of the EU’s institutional design make sense. The ordinary legislative process permits the EU to act without the unanimous consent of member states, thus reducing transactions costs in those areas where collective action is necessary, particularly in relation to the creation and regulation of the internal market. The EU reduces enforcement costs through principles of direct applicability or effects and the supremacy of EU law, which are effective legal restraints in states governed by the rule of law. The institutional structure of the EU also incorporates a representative and deliberative process for collective action that helps control the resulting agency costs for member states and their peoples through supermajority and co-decisional requirements. The collective action perspective also illuminates the function of the subsidiarity principle and the enhanced role of national parliaments in its enforcement.
Law Enforcement's Ability to Deal with Digital Crime and the Implications for Business

ABSTRACT Much has been made of the capabilities to commit a crime that has a digital component, whether it is hacking, fraud, embezzlement, identity theft, organized crime, child pornography, or other criminal act. While the capabilities of the perpetrators and IT professionals' response are often discussed, what is often overlooked is the ability of law enforcement to investigate and prosecute digital crime. An information security plan that is not developed with prosecution as a possible outcome is short sighted. This article is a research report on Michigan's law enforcement capabilities, including training, staffing levels, and trends, and it provides information that will help IT professionals understand the challenges they may encounter when soliciting help from law enforcement agencies.
Leveraging integrated information systems to enhance strategic flexibility and performance: The enabling role of enterprise risk management

Abstract Enterprise risk management (ERM) has arguably become the dominant strategic management focus of organizations primarily due to a combination of factors—stakeholders' aversion to uncertainty, volatility of the current marketplace, and compliance mandates such as the Sarbanes–Oxley Act. The purpose of this study is to develop and test a theory of the impact of ERM on two aspects of organizational performance, strategic flexibility and supply chain performance. The study is designed to examine conflicting views on the effect of increased levels of governance on organizations' flexibility and supply chain performance, and determine whether ERM capability influences the observed differential effects. Building on theories related to the electronic integration perspective of firm agility and the role of knowledge integration on the activation of the link between strategic flexibility and performance, we develop a theory of ERM as an enabler of IT integration, flexibility, and performance. A cross-sectional field study of six companies illustrates the interrelationships and provides preliminary support for the theory. Subsequent testing using data from 155 Chief Audit Executives provides strong support for the theory. The results show that a broad-based, strategic approach to ERM enhances flexibility and strengthens the relationship between flexibility and performance. The results also provide evidence that enhanced IT integration is the mechanism through which ERM strengthens both flexibility and in turn performance.
The U.S. investment tax credit for solar energy: Alternatives to the anticipated 2017 step-down

Abstract Solar photovoltaic (PV) installations in the United States have been deployed at a rapid pace in recent years, a development that is attributed in significant part to the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC). Yet, this credit is scheduled to step-down from 30% to 10% at the beginning of 2017 for corporate investors. For a sample of five U.S. states and different segments of the solar industry, we find that the anticipated ITC step-down in 2017 would increase the levelized cost of solar power by a significant margin, raising the specter of a ‘cliff’ for the solar industry. Our analysis identifies and evaluates an alternative phase-down scenario that would reduce the ITC gradually over time and eliminate it completely by 2024. For this alternative phase-down scenario, it is shown that solar PV would remain broadly competitive, provided the solar industry can maintain the pace of cost reductions demonstrated in past years.
Goals as Reference Points in Marathon Running: A Novel Test of Reference Dependence

Theories of reference-dependent preferences, such as Prospect Theory, imply that outcomes that are just below or just above a reference point are evaluated in a qualitatively distinct fashion. In a large-scale eld study of marathon runners, we test whether goals act as reference points in shaping the valuation of outcomes. Consistent with the Prospect Theory value function, we nd that satisfaction as a function of relative performance (the dierence between a runner’s time goal and her nishing time) exhibits loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity in both predictions of and actual experienced satisfaction. However, in contrast to the standard accounts of reference dependence, we observe that loss aversion is partially driven by a discontinuity or jump at the reference point. In addition, loss aversion is moderated by goal importance, with higher goal importance producing more loss aversion. Finally, we nd that a runner’s time goal as well as their previous marathon times simultaneously impact runner satisfaction, providing support for the impact of multiple reference points on satisfaction.
An Overview of Islamic Finance

Islamic finance has started to grow in international finance across the globe, with some concentration in few countries. Nearly 20% annual growth of Islamic finance in recent years seems to point to its resilience and broad appeal, partly owing to principles that govern Islamic financial activities, including equity, participation, and ownership. In theory, Islamic finance is resilient to shocks because of its emphasis on risk sharing, limits on excessive risk taking, and strong link to real activities. Empirical evidence on the stability of Islamic banks (IBs), however, is so far mixed. While these banks face similar risks as conventional banks (CBs) do, they are also exposed to idiosyncratic risks, necessitating a tailoring of current risk management practices. The macroeconomic policy implications of the rapid expansion of Islamic finance are far reaching and need careful considerations.
Dynamic well-spaced point sets

In a well-spaced point set the Voronoi cells all have bounded aspect ratio. Well-spaced point sets satisfy some important geometric properties and yield quality Voronoi or simplicial meshes that are important in scientific computations. In this paper, we consider the dynamic well-spaced point set problem, which requires constructing a well-spaced superset of a dynamically changing input set, e.g., as input points are inserted or deleted. We present a dynamic algorithm that allows inserting/deleting points into/from the input in O(log@D) time, where @D is the geometric spread, a natural measure that yields an O(logn) bound when input points are represented by log-size words. We show that this algorithm is time-optimal by proving a lower bound of @W(log@D) for a dynamic update. We also show that this algorithm maintains size-optimal outputs: the well-spaced supersets are within a constant factor of the minimum possible size. The asymptotic bounds in our results work in any constant dimensional space. Experiments with a preliminary implementation indicate that dynamic changes may be performed with considerably greater efficiency than re-constructing a well-spaced point set from scratch. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first time- and size-optimal algorithms for dynamically maintaining well-spaced point sets.
Interactive Proofs under Continual Memory Leakage

We consider the task of constructing interactive proofs for NP which can provide meaningful security for a prover even in the presence of continual memory leakage. We imagine a setting where an adversarial verifier participates in multiple sequential interactive proof executions for a fixed NP statement x. In every execution, the adversarial verifier is additionally allowed to leak a fraction of the (secret) memory of the prover. This is in contrast to the recently introduced notion of leakage-resilient zero-knowledge (Garg-Jain-Sahai’11) where there is only a single execution. Under multiple executions, in fact the entire prover witness might end up getting leaked thus leading to a complete compromise of prover security.
Innovation Premium of Water Quality Trading for Jordan Lake, NC

In this paper, the amount of farmers’ trading cost in Jordan Lake will be estimated based on farmers’ willingness to accept (WTA) for participating in water quality trading (WQT) program and then the amount of innovative premium will be interpreted based on the trading cost. In order to achieve this goal, a survey was done by person in Jordan Lake watershed from 90 farmers.
Scalable topical phrase mining from text corpora

While most topic modeling algorithms model text corpora with unigrams, human interpretation often relies on inherent grouping of terms into phrases. As such, we consider the problem of discovering topical phrases of mixed lengths. Existing work either performs post processing to the results of unigram-based topic models, or utilizes complex n-gram-discovery topic models. These methods generally produce low-quality topical phrases or suffer from poor scalability on even moderately-sized datasets. We propose a different approach that is both computationally efficient and effective. Our solution combines a novel phrase mining framework to segment a document into single and multi-word phrases, and a new topic model that operates on the induced document partition. Our approach discovers high quality topical phrases with negligible extra cost to the bag-of-words topic model in a variety of datasets including research publication titles, abstracts, reviews, and news articles.
Estimating farmers’ risk attitudes and risk premiums for the adoption of conservation practices under different contractual arrangements: A stated choice experiment

The diffusion of technologies is a gradual process; it takes time for the information about these new practices to be diffused (Jaffe et al., 2002). While the first assay examines adoption at a point in time, it is also possible to examine adoption in a dynamic setting using a duration model. Using duration models allows for the temporal aspect of adoption and the heterogeneity in the timing of adoption to be accounted for (Abdulai & Huffman, 2005). The second essay examines the timing of adoption of three conservation practices: continuous no-till, cover crops, and VRA of inputs. The timing of adoption was measured as the time it took for farmers to adopt a practice since they first started managing the farm or since the introduction of the practice if the practice was available after the farmer started farming. Findings in this study suggest that the adoption of certain practices delay the adoption of other conservation practices. In addition, the findings in this study suggest that risk aversion is not a significant factor in delaying the speed of adoption of continuous NT. Similar to the first paper, it is possible that farmers do not see NT as a risky practice, thus risk aversion may not affect its adoption or speed of adoption. However, risk aversion was found to delay the adoption of cover crops and VRA of inputs. In addition, the results in this study suggest that farmers who considered themselves innovators adopt the three conservation practices at a faster rate than their counterparts.
Graph Laplacians and discrete reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces from restrictions

ABSTRACTWe study kernel functions, and associated reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces over infinite, discrete, and countable sets V. Numerical analysis builds discrete models (e.g., finite element) for the purpose of finding approximate solutions to boundary value problems; using multiresolution-subdivision schemes in continuous domains. In this article, we turn the tables: Our object of study is realistic infinite discrete models in their own right; and we then use an analysis of suitable continuous counterpart problems, but now serving as a tool for obtaining solutions in the discrete world.
The Texas Advance Directives Act: Must a Death Panel Be a Star Chamber?

The dispute resolution mechanism in the Texas Advance Directives Act (TADA) fails to comply with core ethical and legal notions of fundamental fairness. Kapottos and Youngner (2015) acknowledge the...
Eosinophilia in the returning traveler

The most common cause of eosinophilia in the traveler returning from the developing world is from infection with a helminth parasite. Protozoal, bacterial, and fungal infections are uncommon causes of eosinophilia. Allergic disorders and drug reactions must also be considered, as well as numerous uncommon miscellaneous disorders. This article reviews the diagnostic features of the more common causes of eosinophilia in the returned traveler and suggested drug treatment.
Discretization of div---curl Systems by Weak Galerkin Finite Element Methods on Polyhedral Partitions

In this paper, the authors present a new discretization scheme for div---curl systems defined in connected domains with heterogeneous media by using the weak Galerkin finite element method. Two types of boundary value problems are considered in this study: (1) normal boundary condition, and (2) tangential boundary condition. A new variational formulation is developed for the normal boundary value problem by using the Helmholtz decomposition which avoids the computation of functions in the harmonic fields. Both boundary value problems are reduced to a general saddle-point problem involving the curl and divergence operators, for which the weak Galerkin finite element method is employed and analyzed. The novelty of the numerical technique lies in the discretization of the divergence operator applied to vector fields in heterogeneous media. Error estimates of optimal order are established for the corresponding finite element approximations in various discrete Sobolev norms.
Artificial intelligence and molecular biology

1. Molecular Biology for Computer Scientists, Lawrence Hunter. 2. The Computational Linguistics of Biological Sequences, David B. Searls. 3. Neural Networks, Adaptive Optimisation, and RNA Secondary Structure Prediction, Evan W Steeg. 4. Predicting Protein Structural Features With Artificial Neural Networks, Stephen R. Holbrook, et al 5. Developing Hierarchical Representations for Protein Structures: An Incremental Approach, Xiru Zhang and David Waltz. 6. Integrating AI with Sequence Analysis, Richard H. Lathrop, et al. 7. Planning to Learn about Protein Structure, Lawrence Hunter. 8. A Qualitative Biochemistry and its Application to the Regulation of the Tryptophan Operon, Peter D. Karp. 9. Identification of Qualitatively Feasible Metabolic Pathways, Michael L Mavrovouniotis. 10. Knowledge-Based Simulation of DNA Metabolism: Prediction of Action and Envisionment of Pathways, Adam R. Galper, et al. 11. An AI Approach to the Interpretation of the NMR Spectra of Proteins, Peter Edwards, et al. 12. Molecular Scene Analysis: Crystal Structure Determination Through Imagery, Janice I. Glasgow, et al. Afterword: The Anti-Expert System-Thirteen Hypotheses an AI Program Should Have Seen Through, Joshua Lederberg.
An Analysis of Activation And the Impact of Tritium Breeding Media and Structural Materials for a Commercial Tokamak Fusion Reactor Design

Activation analysis has been conducted for several primary fusion blanket materials based on a model of a commercial tokamak fusion reactor design, STARFIRE. The blanket materials studied include two solid tritium breeders, viz., Li/sub 2/O and ..cap alpha..-LiAlO/sub 2/, and four candidate structural materials, viz., PCA stainless steel, V15Cr5Ti, Ti6Al4V, and Al-6063 alloys. The importance of breeder material activation is identified in terms of its impurity contents such as potassium, iron, nickel, molybdenum, and zirconium trace elements. The breeder activation is also discussed with regard to its potential for recycling and its impact on the lithium resource requirements. The structural material activation is analyzed based on two measures, volumetric radioactivity concentration and contact biological dose due to decay gamma emission. Using the radioactivity concentration measure, it is revealed that a substantial advantage exists from a viewpoint of radwaste management, which is inherent in fusion reactor designs based on potential low-activation alloys such as V15Cr5Ti, Ti6Al4V, and Al-6063. On the other hand, from the dose standpoint, the V15Cr5Ti alloy is found to be the only alloy for which one could realize a significant dose reduction (below 2.5 mrem/h) within about100 yr after shutdown, possibly by some extrapolation on alloy purification techniques.
The Bobolink Project: Selling Public Goods From Ecosystem Services Using Provision Point Mechanisms☆

We report a two-year field experiment that solicited residents of Jamestown, Rhode Island, USA, to fund contracts with farmers willing to provide public goods associated with improving the nesting success of grassland birds, particularly the Bobolink. This experiment explores the potential to leverage valuation research for the purpose of enhancing charitable contributions in a manner consistent with developing markets for ecosystem-service public goods; we focus on individuals' willingness to contribute revenue. The direct-mail marketing experiment collected over $16,000 through four provision point, money-back guarantee mechanisms: a voluntary contribution mechanism with a proportional rebate; a pivotal mechanism based on the Clarke tax; and two novel uniform price mechanisms, each presented in discrete choice and open-ended response formats. We find that citizens do respond strategically: consistently lower offers in the open-ended format suggest a high incidence of cheap riding, but also a significant effect of higher suggested offer thresholds. These framing effects dominated differences among mechanisms, as revenue generated from the proportional rebate and one of the uniform price mechanisms approached the potential for revenue generation estimated under the incentive compatible pivotal mechanism.
Metal-Based Optical Probes for Live Cell Imaging of Nitroxyl (HNO)

ConspectusNitroxyl (HNO) is a biological signaling agent that displays distinctive reactivity compared to nitric oxide (NO). As a consequence, these two reactive nitrogen species trigger different physiological responses. Selective detection of HNO over NO has been a challenge for chemists, and several fluorogenic molecular probes have been recently developed with that goal in mind. Common constructs take advantage of the HNO-induced reduction of Cu(II) to Cu(I). The sensing mechanism of such probes relies on the ability of the unpaired electron in a d orbital of the Cu(II) center to quench the fluorescence of a photoemissive ligand by either an electron or energy transfer mechanism. Experimental and theoretical mechanistic studies suggest that proton-coupled electron transfer mediates this process, and careful tuning of the copper coordination environment has led to sensors with optimized selectivity and kinetics.The current optical probes cover the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum. This...
Increasing Computer Use in Early Childhood Teacher Education: The Case of a “Computer Muddler”

How broadly will computers be used in PK-12 teaching? Reform efforts have often succeeded in getting many teachers to experiment in modest ways with some aspects of those reforms, although often only temporarily, and have also provided some stellar and enduring examples of transformed teaching (e.g., Dunn, 2000). However, in a century of American educational reforms, “we can produce few, if any, examples of large numbers of teachers engaging in these practices in large-scale institutions designed to deliver education to most children” (Elmore, 1996, p. 308). Hoping perhaps that educational technology reforms will encounter greater success, technology advocates have turned some of their attention to improving the preparedness of preservice teachers, an approach supported by the United States Department of Education Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grants. As a university faculty member, I participated in a PT3 project that was aimed at increasing the infusion of technology in a teacher education program at an urban state university. The following is one description of the focus of this PT3 grant: Capitalizing on the documented condition that novice teachers teach as they were taught, the MIMIC Project provides technology mentoring for higher education faculty so faculty can, inturn, model the effective use of instructional technology for the preservice teachers in their courses. One innovative aspect of the MIMIC Project mentoring process is that the majority of the mentors are K-12 classroom teachers who effectively integrate
A Pt(IV) Pro-drug Preferentially Targets Indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase, Providing Enhanced Ovarian Cancer Immuno-Chemotherapy

Expression of indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), an immunosuppressive enzyme in human tumors, leads to immune evasion and tumor tolerance. IDO is therefore a tumor immunotherapeutic target, and several IDO inhibitors are currently undergoing clinical trials. IDO inhibitors can enhance the efficacy of common cancer chemotherapeutics. Here we investigate Pt(IV)-(D)-1-methyltryptophan conjugates 1 and 2 for combined immunomodulation and DNA cross-link-triggered apoptosis for cancer "immuno-chemotherapy". Compound 2 effectively kills hormone-dependent, cisplatin-resistant human ovarian cancer cells, inhibiting IDO by transcriptional deregulation of the autocrine-signaling loop IDO-AHR-IL6, which blocks kynurenine production and promotes T-cell proliferation. Additionally, 1 and 2 display low toxicity in mice and are stable in blood. To our knowledge, this construct is the first Pt drug candidate with immune checkpoint blockade properties.
Multiplier-less Artificial Neurons exploiting error resiliency for energy-efficient neural computing

Large-scale artificial neural networks have shown significant promise in addressing a wide range of classification and recognition applications. However, their large computational requirements stretch the capabilities of computing platforms. The fundamental components of these neural networks are the neurons and its synapses. The core of a digital hardware neuron consists of multiplier, accumulator and activation function. Multipliers consume most of the processing energy in the digital neurons, and thereby in the hardware implementations of artificial neural networks. We propose an approximate multiplier that utilizes the notion of computation sharing and exploits error resilience of neural network applications to achieve improved energy consumption. We also propose Multiplier-less Artificial Neuron (MAN) for even larger improvement in energy consumption and adapt the training process to ensure minimal degradation in accuracy. We evaluated the proposed design on 5 recognition applications. The results show, 35% and 60% reduction in energy consumption, for neuron sizes of 8 bits and 12 bits, respectively, with a maximum of ∼2.83% loss in network accuracy, compared to a conventional neuron implementation. We also achieve 37% and 62% reduction in area for a neuron size of 8 bits and 12 bits, respectively, under iso-speed conditions.
Health Information Systems

This article provides surgical pathologists an overview of health information systems (HISs): what they are, what they do, and how such systems relate to the practice of surgical pathology. Much of this article is dedicated to the electronic medical record. Information, in how it is captured, transmitted, and conveyed, drives the effectiveness of such electronic medical record functionalities. So critical is information from pathology in integrated clinical care that surgical pathologists are becoming gatekeepers of not only tissue but also information. Better understanding of HISs can empower surgical pathologists to become stakeholders who have an impact on the future direction of quality integrated clinical care.
The complexity of reasoning with FODD and GFODD

Abstract Recent work introduced Generalized First Order Decision Diagrams (GFODD) as a knowledge representation language that is useful in mechanizing decision theoretic planning in relational domains. GFODDs generalize function-free first order logic and include numerical values and numerical generalizations of existential and universal quantification. Previous work presented heuristic inference algorithms for GFODDs and implemented these heuristics in systems for decision theoretic planning. In this paper, we study the complexity of the computational problems addressed by such implementations. In particular, we study the evaluation problem, the satisfiability problem, and the equivalence problem for GFODDs under the assumption that the size of the intended model is given with the problem, a restriction that guarantees decidability. Our results provide a complete characterization placing these problems within the polynomial hierarchy. The same characterization applies to the corresponding restriction of problems in first order logic, giving an interesting new avenue for efficient inference when the number of objects is bounded. Our results show that for Σ k formulas, and for corresponding GFODDs, evaluation and satisfiability are Σ k P complete, and equivalence is Π k + 1 P complete. For Π k formulas evaluation is Π k P complete, satisfiability is one level higher and is Σ k + 1 P complete, and equivalence is Π k + 1 P complete.
A case for historic joint rupture of the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults

The San Andreas fault is considered to be the primary plate boundary fault in southern California and the most likely fault to produce a major earthquake. I use dynamic rupture modeling to show that the San Jacinto fault is capable of rupturing along with the San Andreas in a single earthquake, and interpret these results along with existing paleoseismic data and historic damage reports to suggest that this has likely occurred in the historic past. In particular, I find that paleoseismic data and historic observations for the ~M7.5 earthquake of 8 December 1812 are best explained by a rupture that begins on the San Jacinto fault and propagates onto the San Andreas fault. This precedent carries the implications that similar joint ruptures are possible in the future and that the San Jacinto fault plays a more significant role in seismic hazard in southern California than previously considered. My work also shows how physics-based modeling can be used for interpreting paleoseismic data sets and understanding prehistoric fault behavior.
The Governance of Financial Regulation: Reform Lessons from the Recent Crisis

There was a systemic failure of financial regulation: Senior policymakers repeatedly enacted and implemented policies that destabilized the global financial system, and the authorities maintained these policies even as they learned about the deleterious consequences of their policies during the decade before the crisis. The absence of an informed, expertly staffed, and independent institution that evaluates financial regulation from the public’s perspective is a critical defect in the governance of financial regulation ‐ the system associated with selecting, enforcing, and reforming financial policies. I propose a new institution to address this defect. I. INTRODUCTION This paper’s first objective is to document that systemic weaknesses with the governance of financial regulation ‐ the system associated with designing, implementing, and reforming financial policies ‐ contributed to the global financial crisis. Senior officials repeatedly designed, implemented, and most importantly, maintained policies that destabilized financial markets. Regulators maintained these policies even when they learned that their policies were increasing financial system fragility. Moreover, the authorities acquired this information during the decade before the crisis, when they had ample time and power to adjust their policies under relatively calm conditions. Nonetheless,
Collective Hydrogen Bond Reorganization in Water Studied with Temperature-Dependent Ultrafast Infrared Spectroscopy∥

We use temperature-dependent ultrafast infrared spectroscopy of dilute HOD in H2O to study the picosecond reorganization of the hydrogen bond network of liquid water. Temperature-dependent two-dimensional infrared (2D IR), pump−probe, and linear absorption measurements are self-consistently analyzed with a response function formalism that includes the effects of spectral diffusion, population lifetime, reorientational motion, and nonequilibrium heating of the local environment upon vibrational relaxation. Over the range 278−345 K, we find the time scales of spectral diffusion and reorientational relaxation decrease from approximately 2.4 to 0.7 ps and 4.6 to 1.2 ps, respectively, which corresponds to barrier heights of 3.4 and 3.7 kcal/mol, respectively. We compare the temperature dependence of the time scales to a number of measures of structural relaxation and find similar effective activation barrier heights and slightly non-Arrhenius behavior, which suggests that the reaction coordinate for the hydrog...
Are Investors Misled by “Pro Forma” Earnings?*

This paper uses stock market data to investigate the popular claim that investors are misled by the “pro forma” earnings numbers conspicuously featured in the press releases of some U.S. firms. We first document the frequency and magnitude of pro forma earnings in press releases issued during June through August 2000, and describe the 433 firms that engaged in this financial disclosure strategy. Our test period predates public expressions of concern by trade associations and regulators that pro forma earnings may mislead investors and the subsequent issuance of guidelines and rules on the disclosure of pro forma earnings numbers. We use two complementary approaches to determine whether the share prices that investors assign to pro forma firms are systematically higher than the prices assigned to other firms. Our market-multiples tests for differences in price levels find some evidence suggesting that pro forma firms may be priced higher than firms that do not use the disclosure strategy. This apparent overpricing is not, however, related to the pro forma earnings numbers themselves. Our narrow-window stock returns tests reveal no evidence of a stock return premium for pro forma firms at the quarterly earnings announcement date. Collectively, the results cast doubt on the notion that investors are, on average, misled by pro forma earnings disclosures despite the widespread concern expressed in the financial press and by regulators.
Pulsed Laser Melting of Amorphous Silicon: Time-Resolved and Post-Irradiation Studies

Measurements of the time of the onset of melting of self-implantation amorphized (a) Si, during an incident laser pulse, have been combined with modified melting model calculations and measurements of surface melt duration to demonstrate that the thermal conductivity, Ka, of a-Si is very low (≃0.02 W/cm-K). Ka is also shown to be the dominant parameter determining the dynamical response of ion-implanted Si to pulsed laser radiation; the latent heat and melting temperature of a-Si are relatively unimportant. Cross-sectional transmission electron micrographs on implantation-amorphized Si layers of several different thicknesses show that for energy densities less than the threshold value for complete annealing there are usually two distinct regions in the re-solidified a-Si, consisting of fine-grained and large-grained polycrystalline Si, respectively. The presence of the fine-grained poly-Si suggests that bulk nucleatlon occurs directly from the highly under-cooled liquid phase. Thermal melting model calculations suggest that the nucleation temperature, Tn, is ~1200°C.
Parallel performance results for the OpenMOC neutron transport code on multicore platforms

The shift toward multicore architectures has ushered in a new era of shared memory parallelism for scientific applications. This transition has introduced challenges for the nuclear engineering com...
The Lycopodium alkaloids

Covering: 1993–2004Lycopodium alkaloids are quinolizine, or pyridine and α-pyridone type alkaloids. Some Lycopodium alkaloids are potent inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase (AChE). Huperzine A (HupA) is reported to increase efficiency for learning and memory in animals, and it shows promise in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). 201 Lycopodium alkaloids from 54 species of Lycopodium (sensu lato) have been reported so far. This review is intended to cover the chemical, pharmacological and clinical research on Lycopodium alkaloids reported in the literature from the spring of 1993 to August 2004. Structures of 81 new Lycopodium alkaloids are presented, classified and analyzed. The structural characters and biogenetic relationships of the four major Lycopodium alkaloid groups (lycopodine, lycodine, fawcettimine and miscellaneous) are discussed. Bioactivities of Lycopodium alkaloids, especially HupA, are summarized. In particular, the effect of HupA and other cholinesterase inhibitors (anti-AD drugs) on acetylcholine esterase (AChE) activity in the rat cortex and butylcholine esterase activity are compared. Structure–activity relationships and structure modifications of HupA and its analogs are described. Information on clinical trials with HupA and its derivative ZT-1 is presented. The state of HupA availability and recent advances in in vitro propagation of HupA producing plants are outlined. Finally, hypotheses about Lycopodium alkaloid biosynthetic pathways are discussed.
Iron-Catalyzed Stereoselective Cross-Coupling Reactions of Stereodefined Enol Carbamates with Grignard Reagents

A practical and highly stereoselective iron-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction of stereodefined enol carbamates and Grignard reagents to yield tri- and tetrasubstituted acrylates is reported. A facile method for the stereoselective generation of these enol carbamates has also been developed.
The Compensatory Consumer Behavior Model: How self-discrepancies drive consumer behavior

Abstract Consumer goods and services have psychological value that can equal or exceed their functional value. A burgeoning literature demonstrates that one source of value emerges from the capacity for products to serve as a psychological salve that reduces various forms of distress across numerous domains. This review systematically organizes and integrates the literature on the use of consumer behavior as a means to regulate self-discrepancies, or the incongruities between how one currently perceives oneself and how one desires to view oneself (Higgins, 1987). We introduce a Compensatory Consumer Behavior Model to explain the psychological consequences of self-discrepancies on consumer behavior. This model delineates five distinct strategies by which consumers cope with self-discrepancies: direct resolution , symbolic self-completion , dissociation , escapism , and fluid compensation . Finally, the authors raise critical questions to guide future research endeavors. Overall, the present review provides both a primer on compensatory consumer behavior and sets an agenda for future research.
Thermoelectric properties of n-type SrTiO3

We present an investigation of the thermoelectric properties of cubic perovskite SrTiO3. The results are derived from a combination of calculated transport functions obtained from Boltzmann transport theory in the constant scattering time approximation based on the electronic structure and existing experimental data for La-doped SrTiO3. The figure of merit ZT is modeled with respect to carrier concentration and temperature. The model predicts a relatively high ZT at optimized doping and suggests that the ZT value can reach 0.7 at T = 1400 K. Thus ZT can be improved from the current experimental values by carrier concentration optimization.
Fibronectin and integrins in cell adhesion and migration.

Introduction Fibronectin, other cell-adhesion molecules, and their integrin receptors appear to play important roles in cell migration during embryonic development, tumour-cell invasion and metastasis, and wound healing (reviewd in [ 11). Recent studies have defined critical peptide-recognition regions in fibronectin that are required for its interactions with cell-surface receptors. For example, the Arg-GlyAsp (RGD) sequence is important for the functioning of the central cell-binding domain of fibronectin [Z-41, while the Leu-Asp-Val (LDV) and Arg-GluAsp-Val sequences in alternatively spliced regions of fibronectin are involved in cell-type specific adhesion by derivatives of the embryonic neural crest and by certain lymphocytes [5, 61. Conversely, a variety of integrin receptors can mediate cell adhesion and migration on fibronectin and other extracellular molecules [7-131. We have applied site-directed mutagenesis and monoclonal-antibody analysis to examine the molecular mechanisms of cell-surface interactions with fibronectin. We have focused in detail on the central cell-binding domain of fibronectin, which mediates cell attachment, cell spreading, and migration of a wide variety of cell types.
CALCITONIN THERAPY IN OSTEOPOROTIC SYNDROMES

Since its introduction in 1961, calcitonin has effectively been used to reverse bone loss observed in paraplegic patients, atrophy of bone, and other disorders. This article focuses on the effect of calcitonin therapy in the treatment of osteoporosis.
Metadata-conscious anonymous messaging

Anonymous messaging platforms like Whisper and Yik Yak allow users to spread messages over a network (e.g., a social network) without revealing message authorship to other users. The spread of messages on these platforms can be modeled by a diffusion process over a graph. Recent advances in network analysis have revealed that such diffusion processes are vulnerable to author deanonymization by adversaries with access to metadata, such as timing information. In this work, we ask the fundamental question of how to propagate anonymous messages over a graph to make it difficult for adversaries to infer the source. In particular, we study the performance of a message propagation protocol called adaptive diffusion introduced in (Fanti et al., 2015). We prove that when the adversary has access to metadata at a fraction of corrupted graph nodes, adaptive diffusion achieves asymptotically optimal source-hiding and significantly outperforms standard diffusion. We further demonstrate empirically that adaptive diffusion hides the source effectively on real social networks.
Extended LTLvis motion planning interface

This paper introduces a graphical interface for Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) specifications for mobile robots. It is a sketch based interface built on the Android platform which makes the LTL control interface more friendly to non-expert users. By predefining a set of areas of interest, this interface can quickly and efficiently create plans that satisfy extended plan goals in LTL. The interface can also allow users to customize the paths for this plan by sketching a set of reference trajectories. Given the custom paths by the user, the LTL specification and the environment, the interface generates a plan balancing the customized paths and the LTL specifications. We also show experimental results with the implemented interface.
Improving the Thermodynamic Stability of Aluminate Spinel Nanoparticles with Rare Earths

Surface energy is a key parameter to understand and predict the stability of catalysts. In this work, the surface energy of MgAl2O4, an important base material for catalyst support, was reduced by using dopants prone to form surface excess (surface segregation): Y3+, Gd3+, and La3+. The energy reduction was predicted by atomistic simulations of spinel surfaces and experimentally demonstrated by using microcalorimetry. The surface energy of undoped MgAl2O4 was directly measured as 1.65 ± 0.04 J/m2 and was reduced by adding 2 mol % of the dopants to 1.55 ± 0.04 J/m2 for Y-doping, 1.45 ± 0.05 J/m2 for Gd-doping, and 1.26 ± 0.06 J/m2 for La-doping. Atomistic simulations are qualitatively consistent with the experiments, reinforcing the link between the role of dopants in stabilizing the surface and the energy of segregation. Surface segregation was experimentally assessed using electron energy loss spectroscopy mapping in a scanning transmission electron microscopy image. The reduced energy resulted in coarse...
Efficient and Predictable Group Communication for Manycore NoCs

Massive manycore embedded processors with network-on-chip (NoC) architectures are becoming common. These architectures provide higher processing capability due to an abundance of cores. They provide native core-to-core communication that can be exploited via message passing to provide system scalability. Despite these advantages, manycores pose predictability challenges that can affect both performance and real-time capabilities.
Software safety goal verification using fault tree techniques: a critically ill patient monitor example

Fault tree analysis techniques as applied to a patient monitoring system are discussed. This process provides mapping for test procedures to stated safety goals, a concise archive of the safety subset of the product test documentation, and hazard avoidance verification as indicated by a preliminary hazard analysis. The process as applied to one product is explained. The fault tree for this instrument produced a total of 42 test procedures for final system test use. The time for tree and test generation was six man-weeks. The tests required two man weeks to complete. These tests were instrumental in finding 16% of the total defects and 36% of the critical defects for this product. >