cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Beyond abstraction: applying the brakes to runaway patent ineligibility.

Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 697–703 doi:10.1093/jlb/lsw055 Advance Access Publication 22 November 2016 Response Beyond abstraction: applying the brakes to runaway patent ineligibility Dan L. Burk School of Law, University of California-Irvine, 401 East Peltason Drive, Irvine, CA 92697, USA Corresponding author: E-mail: dburk@law.uci.edu INTRODUCTION I was pleased to read and am now pleased to respond to the commentaries by Minssen and Schwartz 1 and by Thambisetty 2 on my article Dolly and Alice. 3 Each of these com- mentaries offers a welcome comparative perspective to the doctrinal quandaries that I initially pointed out, indicating some prescription for the American patent eligibility problem based upon the parallel European experience. But it seems already clear that the American courts, responding to an avalanche of lower court patent invalidations based on the Alice patent eligibility test, have already begun fashioning their own idiosyncratic response to the common global difficulty of distinguishing patentable subject matter. A set of recent opinions makes clear the de- termination of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to apply the brakes to runaway abstraction analysis under the Alice test. In some respects this re- sponse may indeed parallel that in other jurisdictions, but in major respects it departs from the prescriptions detailed by the commentators. APPLYING THE BR AKES Recent subject matter opinions by the United States Supreme court have thrown patent eligibility into some disarray, so there is a natural tendency to hope that the Supreme Court might intervene to sort out the chaos in the lower courts. Minssen and Schwartz look particularly to the Federal Circuit’s opinion in Ariosa Diagnostics v Sequenom, Inc., 4 hoping that it might be taken up by the Supreme Court as an additional opportunity to Timo Minssen & Robert M. Schwartz, Separating Sheep from Goats: A European View on the Patent Eligibility of Biomedical Diagnostic Methods, 3 J. L. & B IOSCI . 365 (2016). Siva Thambisetty, Alice and ‘Something More’: The Drift Towards European Patent Jurisprudence, 3 J. L. & B IOSCI . Dan L. Burk, Dolly and Alice, 3 J. L. & B IOSCI . 606 (2015). 788 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2015). C The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Duke University School of Law, Harvard Law School, Oxford University Press, and Stanford Law School. This is an Open Access arti- cle distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distri- bution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
Thin-sheet creation and threshold pressures in drop splashing

A liquid drop impacting a smooth solid substrate splashes by emitting a thin liquid sheet from near the contact line of the spreading liquid. This sheet is lifted from the substrate and ultimately breaks apart. Surprisingly, the splash is caused by the ambient gas, whose properties dictate when and if the sheet is created. Here, I focus on two aspects of this process. Using high-speed imaging I find that the time of thin-sheet creation displays a different quantitative dependence on air pressure if the sheet is created during the early stages of spreading, rather than when the liquid has already spread to a large radius. This result sheds light on previously observed impact velocity regimes. Additionally, by measuring impacts of drops on surfaces comprised of both rough and smooth regions, I identify a new threshold velocity that limits the times at which the thin sheet can be created. This velocity determines the threshold pressure below which splashing is suppressed.
Gate-Induced Insulator to Band-Like Transport Transition in Organolead Halide Perovskite

Understanding the intrinsic charge transport in organolead halide perovskites is essential for the development of high-efficiency photovoltaics and other optoelectronic devices. Despite the rapid advancement of the organolead halide perovskite in photovoltaic and optoelectronic applications, the intrinsic charge-carrier transport in these materials remains elusive partly due to the difficulty of fabricating electrical devices and obtaining good electrical contact. Here we report the fabrication of organolead halide perovskite microplates with mono- or bilayer graphene as low barrier electrical contact. Systematic charge-transport studies reveal an insulator to band-like transport transition. Our studies indicate that the insulator to band-like transport transition depends on the orthorhombic-to-tetragonal phase-transition temperature and defect densities of the organolead halide perovskite microplates. Our findings not only are important for the fundamental understanding of charge-transport behavior but a...
Scaling probabilistic models of genetic variation to millions of humans.

John Storey, David Blei and colleagues present a method, TeraStructure, for estimating population structure from human genomic data sets on a scale not possible with current methods. TeraStructure is able to analyze data from the Human Genome Diversity Panel and the 1000 Genomes Project in less than three hours.
Actively Calibrated Line Mountable Capacitive Voltage Transducer for Power Systems Applications

A class of actively calibrated line mounted capacitive voltage transducers are introduced as a viable line mountable instrumentation option for deploying large numbers of voltage transducers onto the medium and high voltage systems. Active calibration is shown to reduce the error of line mounted voltage measurements by an order of magnitude from previously published techniques. The instrument physics and sensing method is presented and the performance is evaluated in a laboratory setting. Finally, a roadmap to a fully deployable prototype is shown.
DNA: Not Merely the Secret of Life.

DNA nanotechnology utilizes reciprocal exchange between DNA double helices to produce branched motifs. These motifs have been combined with single-stranded cohesion to construct objects, devices and lattices. The objects include stick polyhedra and a variety of DNA nanotubes. Robust devices have been built that are predicated both on structural transitions and on hybridization topology. 1D, 2D and 3D lattices have also been assembled, which has led to control over the geometrical structure of matter based solely on the design of DNA sequences. Combinations of devices and lattices offer programmable control of the structure of matter on the nanometer scale.
Delay-Encoded Harmonic Imaging (DE-HI) in Multiplane-Wave Compounding

The development of ultrafast ultrasound imaging brings great opportunities to improve imaging technologies such as shear wave elastography and ultrafast Doppler imaging. In ultrafast imaging, several tilted plane or diverging wave images are coherently combined to form a compounded image, leading to trade-offs among image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), resolution, and post-compounded frame rate. Multiplane wave (MW) imaging is proposed to solve this trade-off by encoding multiple plane waves with Hadamard matrix during one transmission event (i.e. pulse-echo event), to improve image SNR without sacrificing the resolution or frame rate. However, it suffers from stronger reverberation artifacts in B-mode images compared to standard plane wave compounding due to longer transmitted pulses. If harmonic imaging can be combined with MW imaging, the reverberation artifacts and other clutter noises such as sidelobes and multipath scattering clutters should be suppressed. The challenge, however, is that the Hadamard codes used in MW imaging cannot encode the $2^{\mathrm {nd}}$ harmonic component by inversing the pulse polarity. In this paper, we propose a delay-encoded harmonic imaging (DE-HI) technique to encode the $2^{\mathrm {nd}}$ harmonic with a one quarter period delay calculated at the transmit center frequency, rather than reversing the pulse polarity during multiplane wave emissions. Received DE-HI signals can then be decoded in the frequency domain to recover the signals as in single plane wave emissions, but mainly with improved SNR at the $2^{\mathrm {nd}}$ harmonic component instead of the fundamental component. DE-HI was tested experimentally with a point target, a B-mode imaging phantom, and in-vivo human liver imaging. Improvements in image contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), spatial resolution, and lesion-signal-to-noise ratio ( $l$ SNR) have been achieved compared to standard plane wave compounding, MW imaging, and standard harmonic imaging (maximal improvement of 116% on CNR and 115% on $l$ SNR as compared to standard HI around 55 mm depth in the B-mode imaging phantom study). The potential high frame rate and the stability of encoding and decoding processes of DE-HI were also demonstrated, which made DE-HI promising for a wide spectrum of imaging applications.
Identification of a linear system from inexact data: A three-variable example☆

Abstract In 1901 Pearson formulated the general problem of how to fit a hyperplane in the most efficient way to a system of points in a data space. This problem is still not exactly solved in all its generality. As Kalman and Los have shown, all statistical attemps to solve the problem have failed, because each of them can provide only prejudicial and statistical, but not objective and mathematical solutions. However, exact mathematical solutions do exist for special cases. This paper's main principle of linear identification from inexact data provides the mathematical framework in which the problem and the deficiencies of the statistical solutions are conveniently discussed, in particular those of the least squares regression and statistical common factors schemes. It will be argued that the exact common factors, or Frisch scheme, offers most promise to direct us to complete and exact solutions, even though it imposes severe restrictions on the orders of the systems because of Wilson's inequality. Throughout this paper the problem and its various solution schemes are illustrated by an empirical example consisting of three data variables describing the profitability performance of some large U.S. bank holding companies. For this empirical example the Frisch scheme provides a unique solution, contrary to some earlier pessimistic conclusions.
Anisotropic transport in modulation doped quantum well structures

The degree of anisotropy in the anisotropic electron transport that has been observed in GaAs modulation-doped quantum wells grown by MBE on Al(0.3)Ga(0.7)As is related to the thickness and growth parameters of this substrate, which is grown just prior to the inverted interface. It is presently observed that the inverted interface has an anisotropic roughness which affects the 77 K low field electron transport parallel to the interface, and gives rise to anisotropic electron scattering in the GaAs modulation-doped quantum well.
Lee–Yang Theorems and the Complexity of Computing Averages

We study the complexity of computing average quantities related to spin systems, such as the mean magnetization and susceptibility in the ferromagnetic Ising model, and the average dimer count (or average size of a matching) in the monomer-dimer model. By establishing connections between the complexity of computing these averages and the location of the complex zeros of the partition function, we show that these averages are #P-hard to compute, and hence, under standard assumptions, computationally intractable. In the case of the Ising model, our approach requires us to prove an extension of the famous Lee–Yang Theorem from the 1950s.
Mechanical effects of electrodes on the vibrations of quartz crystal plates

A system of approximate first-order equations is extracted from an infinite system of 2D equations for piezoelectric crystal plates with thickness-graded material properties, which is deduced from the 3D equations of linear piezoelectricity. These equations are used to study mechanical effects on the thickness-shear (TS), flexural (F), and face-shear (FS) vibrations of an AT-cut quartz plated with two identical electrodes. Dispersion curves are calculated from the present 2D equations as well as the 3D equations. The comparison of these curves shows that the agreement is very close for all three frequency branches of TS, F, and FS modes in a range up to 1.5 times the fundamental TS frequency and for gold and aluminum electrodes with R, the ratio of the mass of the electrodes to that of the plate, equal to 0.05, without introducing any correction factors. In order to assess electrode effects, spectra of /spl Omega/ vs. a/b/sub q/ (length-to-thickness ratio of the quartz) are computed for plates with gold and aluminum electrodes and different R ratios. The spectrum of /spl Omega/ vs. R is computed for plates with aluminum electrodes and a given a/b/sub q/ ratio. For a plate with gold electrodes, the frequencies of predominant TS, F, and FS modes are decreasing as R increases, but the amount of frequency changes for the TS mode is much greater than those for the other two modes. However, for a plate with aluminum electrodes, the frequencies of the TS and FS modes are decreasing, but those of the F modes are increasing as R increases.
SURGICAL TREATMENT OF INFECTED TUMOUR MEGAPROSTHESES WITH STAGED RECONSTRUCTION

Limb salvage in musculoskeletal tumor surgery may be complicated by infection. With the advent of modern techniques and medical management limb sparing surgeries can be considered as an alternative to ablation. Between 1992 and 2014, 17 patients were treated for infected megaprostheses after being surgically treated for musculoskeletal tumors. There were nine females and eight males. The mean time from the index procedure until infection was 30 months. Following radical debridement, the resultant skeletal defect averaged 30 cm. Patients were treated with local antibiotics in polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) spacers and endoprostheses as well as IV antibiotics for a minimum of six weeks followed by oral antibiotics for an additional six weeks. The initial tumor procedure involved the femur in eleven patients, the tibia in two, the acetabulum in one, the humerus in two, and the ulna in one. Patients had repeat cultures before two-stage reimplantation when their WBC, ESR, and CRP returned to normal. Patients were reimplanted when final cultures were negative. Thirteen patients were treated using a two-stage protocol with customized intraoperative antibiotic impregnated PMMA spacers including intramedullary nails for a mean of 10 months and the other four patients had a one-stage procedure. These four patients included two patients with a total femur replacement and two patients with an allograft-prosthetic composite of the proximal humerus and ulna. The organisms cultured were gram positive in 14 cases, mixed gram positive and negative in one case, and two patients had no growth on cultures but histologic evidence of acute infection. Reimplantation was successful in 13 patients after the initial procedure (76%). Four patients had recurrent infections. One of these patients was successfully reimplanted after a one-stage procedure, two had a second two-stage procedure and have retained their spacers, and one had an amputation. Successful limb salvage in regards to infection control occurred in 14/17 patients (82%). One additional patient required an amputation for an oncologic complication (local recurrence), so the overall limb salvage rate was 13/17 (76%). Patients with megaprosthetic infections following limb salvage treatment for musculoskeletal tumors do not have to be uniformly subject to amputation. Radical debridement and appropriate antibiotics in conjunction with custom spacers followed by selective one- and two-stage reimplantation results in successful limb salvage in 82% of patients. This result is similar to other reports despite the large size average defects.
Nanosecond magnetization dynamics during spin Hall switching of in-plane magnetic tunnel junctions

We present a study of the magnetic dynamics associated with nanosecond scale magnetic switching driven by the spin Hall effect in 3-terminal nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with in-plane magnetization. Utilizing fast pulse measurements in a variety of material stacks and detailed micromagnetic simulations, we demonstrate that this unexpectedly fast and reliable magnetic reversal is facilitated by the self-generated Oersted field, and that the short-pulse energy efficiency can be substantially enhanced by spatial non-uniformity in the initial magnetization of the magnetic free layer. The sign of the Oersted field is essential for this enhancement—in simulations in which we artificially impose a field-like torque with a sign opposite to the effect of the Oersted field, the result is a much slower and stochastic switching process that is reminiscent of the so-called incubation delay in conventional 2-terminal spin-torque-switched MTJs.
A homotopy method for solving multilinear systems with M-tensors

Abstract Multilinear systems of equations arise in various applications, such as numerical partial differential equations, data mining, and tensor complementarity problems. In this paper, we propose a homotopy method for finding the unique positive solution to a multilinear system with a nonsingular M-tensor and a positive right side vector. We analyze the method and prove its convergence to the desired solution. We report some numerical results based on an implementation of the proposed method using a prediction–correction approach for path following.
Co-constructing a Sense of Community at Work: The Emergence of Community in Coworking Spaces:

As more individuals are working remotely, many feel increasingly isolated and socially adrift. To address this challenge, many independent workers are choosing to work in coworking spaces – shared ...
SG1120-1202: Mass-quenching as Tracked by UV Emission in the Group Environment at z = 0.37

We use the Hubble Space Telescope to obtain WFC3/F390W imaging of the supergroup SG1120-1202 at z=0.37, mapping the UV emission of 138 spectroscopically confirmed members. We measure total (F390W-F814W) colors and visually classify the UV morphology of individual galaxies as "clumpy" or "smooth." Approximately 30% of the members have pockets of UV emission (clumpy) and we identify for the first time in the group environment galaxies with UV morphologies similar to the jellyfish galaxies observed in massive clusters. We stack the clumpy UV members and measure a shallow internal color gradient, which indicates unobscured star formation is occurring throughout these galaxies. We also stack the four galaxy groups and measure a strong trend of decreasing UV emission with decreasing projected group distance ($R_{proj}$). We find that the strong correlation between decreasing UV emission and increasing stellar mass can fully account for the observed trend in (F390W-F814W) - $R_{proj}$, i.e., mass-quenching is the dominant mechanism for extinguishing UV emission in group galaxies. Our extensive multi-wavelength analysis of SG1120-1202 indicates that stellar mass is the primary predictor of UV emission, but that the increasing fraction of massive (red/smooth) galaxies at $R_{proj}$ < 2$R_{200}$ and existence of jellyfish candidates is due to the group environment.
The Unit Box Approach: A Novel Facet of Elementary School Science Teacher Preparation.

This paper is Part I of a two-part report. The purpose of the complete report is threefold: 1) To describe the origins, evolution, details of, and rationale for an innovation developed by the author over a five year period at Jersey City State College. The Unit Box Experience, which is the principal assignment and major project in the author's elementary school science methods course, involves the preparation of a multimedia, multisensory, and multilevel package of instructional materials and strategies to implement a classroom tested published unit. Each Unit Box is a custom made kit prepared, used, and owned by the apprentice teacher. 2) To report the findings of a followup study on the Unit Box Experience conducted over a four year period. The followup study entailed three facets: a) brief telephone interviews with 94 per cent of the 704 graduates who completed Unit Boxes in the author's course; b) in-depth, face-to-face interviews with 77 or one out of nine graduates; c) 627 classroom visits to and ob...
Warming Up Density Functional Theory

Density functional theory (DFT) has become the most popular approach to electronic structure across disciplines, especially in material and chemical sciences. In 2016, at least 30,000 papers used DFT to make useful predictions or give insight into an enormous diversity of scientific problems, ranging from battery development to solar cell efficiency and far beyond. The success of this field has been driven by usefully accurate approximations based on known exact conditions and careful testing and validation. In the last decade, applications of DFT in a new area, warm dense matter, have exploded. DFT is revolutionizing simulations of warm dense matter including applications in controlled fusion, planetary interiors, and other areas of high energy density physics. Over the past decade or so, molecular dynamics calculations driven by modern density functional theory have played a crucial role in bringing chemical realism to these applications, often (but not always) in excellent agreement with experiment. This chapter summarizes recent work from our group on density functional theory at nonzero temperatures, which we call thermal DFT. We explain the relevance of this work in the context of warm dense matter, and the importance of quantum chemistry to this regime. We illustrate many basic concepts on a simple model system, the asymmetric Hubbard dimer.
On the Number of Maximum Empty Boxes Amidst n Points

We revisit the following problem (along with its higher dimensional variant): Given a set S of n points inside an axis-parallel rectangle U in the plane, find a maximum-area axis-parallel sub-rectangle that is contained in U but contains no points of S.
DUAL MOBILITY: AN “EVERYMAN'S” CHOICE FOR PRIMARY THA – AFFIRMS

Dislocation is a particular problem after total hip replacement in femoral neck fractures and elderly, especially female, patients. The increased rate of dislocation in this population is probably due to significant ligamentous laxity in these patients and poor coordination and proprioception. Another population of patients with increased propensity for dislocation is the revision hip replacement patient. Current dislocation rates in these patients can approach 10% with conventional implant systems. The Dual Mobility total hip system is composed of a cobalt chrome acetabular shell that has a grit blasted, beaded and/or hydroxyapatite coating to improve bone ingrowth. The polyethylene liner is highly crosslinked polyethylene and fits congruently into the cobalt chrome shell and acts like a large femoral head (usually > 40 mm). The femoral head attached to the trunnion is usually 28 mm. The femoral head snaps into the polyethylene liner to acts as a second protection against dislocation. Indications for the Dual Mobility socket are in the high risk for dislocation patient and particularly in elderly, female patients. It is also indicated in patients with neuromuscular disease who are at more risk to dislocate. To date 237 dual mobility cups have been performed with an average age of 79 and 207 of the procedures in women. The follow up extends to 5.6 years with an average of 3.5. There has been 1 dislocation which occurred after a traumatic event. There have been no mechanical failures, no infections and no other revisions in this series. Interprosthetic dislocation has been reported in long term follow up and there was, in this series, when reduction was performed on the only liner dislocation. Pain relief has been no different than conventional hip replacement and range of motion is unchanged as well.
Prospect theory for enhanced cyber-physical security of drone delivery systems: A network interdiction game

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as delivery systems of online goods is rapidly becoming a global norm, as corroborated by Amazon's “Prime Air” and Google's “Project Wing” projects. However, the real-world deployment of such drone delivery systems faces many cyber-physical security challenges. In this paper, a novel mathematical framework for analyzing and enhancing the security of drone delivery systems is introduced. In this regard, a zero-sum network interdiction game is formulated between a vendor, operating a drone delivery system, and a malicious attacker. In this game, the vendor seeks to find the optimal path that its UAV should follow, to deliver a purchase from the vendor's warehouse to a customer location, to minimize the delivery time. Meanwhile, an attacker seeks to choose an optimal location to interdict the potential paths of the UAVs, so as to inflict cyber or physical damage to it, thus, maximizing its delivery time. First, the Nash equilibrium point of this game is characterized. Then, to capture the subjective behavior of both the vendor and attacker, new notions from prospect theory are incorporated into the game. These notions allow capturing the vendor's and attacker's i) subjective perception of attack success probabilities, and ii) their disparate subjective valuations of the achieved delivery times relative to a certain target delivery time. Simulation results have shown that the subjective decision making of the vendor and attacker leads to adopting risky path selection strategies which inflict delays to the delivery, thus, yielding unexpected delivery times which surpass the target delivery time set by the vendor.
Empirical Dynamic Programming

We propose empirical dynamic programming algorithms for Markov decision processes. In these algorithms, the exact expectation in the Bellman operator in classical value iteration is replaced by an empirical estimate to get “empirical value iteration” (EVI). Policy evaluation and policy improvement in classical policy iteration are also replaced by simulation to get “empirical policy iteration” (EPI). Thus, these empirical dynamic programming algorithms involve iteration of a random operator, the empirical Bellman operator. We introduce notions of probabilistic fixed points for such random monotone operators. We develop a stochastic dominance framework for convergence analysis of such operators. We then use this to give sample complexity bounds for both EVI and EPI. We then provide various variations and extensions to asynchronous empirical dynamic programming, the minimax empirical dynamic program, and show how this can also be used to solve the dynamic newsvendor problem. Preliminary experimental results...
Solutions for a nonlocal conservation law with fading memory

Global entropy solutions in BV for a scalar nonlocal conservation law with fading memory are constructed as the limits of vanishing viscosity approximate solutions. The uniqueness and stability of entropy solutions in BV are established, which also yield the existence of entropy solutions in L∞ while the initial data is only in L∞. Moreover, if the memory kernel depends on a relaxation parameter e > 0 and tends to a delta measure weakly as measures when e→ 0+, then the global entropy solution sequence in BV converges to an admissible solution in BV for the corresponding local conservation law.
Using flow feature to extract pulsatile blood flow from 4D flow MRI images

4D flow MRI images make it possible to measure pulsatile blood flow inside deforming vessel, which is critical in accurate blood flow visualization, simulation, and evaluation. Such data has great potential to overcome problems in existing work, which usually does not reflect the dynamic nature of elastic vessels and blood flows in cardiac cycles. However, the 4D flow MRI data is often low-resolution and with strong noise. Due to these challenges, few eﬀorts have been successfully conducted to extract dynamic blood flow fields and deforming artery over cardiac cycles, especially for small artery like carotid. In this paper, a robust flow feature, particularly the mean flow intensity is used to segment blood flow regions inside vessels from 4D flow MRI images in whole cardiac cycle. To estimate this flow feature more accurately, adaptive weights are added to the raw velocity vectors based on the noise strength of MRI imaging. Then, based on this feature, target arteries are tracked in at diﬀerent time steps in a cardiac cycle. This method is applied to the clinical 4D flow MRI data in neck area. Dynamic vessel walls and blood flows are eﬀectively generated in a cardiac cycle in the relatively small carotid arteries. Good image segmentation results on 2D slices are presented, together with the visualization of 3D arteries and blood flows. Evaluation of the method was performed by clinical doctors and by checking flow volume rates in the vertebral and carotid arteries.
Content aggregation by platforms: The case of the news media

The digitization of content has led to the emergence of platforms that draw information from multiple sources. This paper investigates whether aggregation of content by a single platform encourages users to “skim” content or to investigate it in depth. We study a contract dispute that led a major aggregator to remove information from a major content provider. After the removal, users were less likely to investigate additional, related content in depth, particularly sources that were horizontally or vertically differentiated.
Exact results for N=2 compactifications of heterotic strings

Abstract We search for N = 2, d = 4 theories which can be realized both as heterotic string compactifications on K3 × T 2 and as type II string compactifications on Calabi-Yau threefolds. In such cases, the exact non-perturbative superpotential of one string theory is given in terms of tree level computations in the other string theory. In particular we find concrete examples which provide the stringy realization of the results of Seiberg and Witten on N = 2 Yang-Mills theory, corrected by gravitational/ stringy effects. We also discuss some examples which shed light on how the moduli spaces of different N = 2 heterotic vacua are connected.
“Does this Look Infected to You?” Social Network Predictors of Dental Help-Seeking Among Mexican Immigrants

Compared to U.S. born Latinos, Mexican immigrants (MAs) have diminished health care access and face substantial barriers to accessing needed dental health services. However, little research has examined how MAs social networks shape their use of dental health services. Using data from 332 Mexican immigrants to the Midwest, this research examines the significance of individual and egocentric network characteristics on two measures of dental health service utilization. Findings reveal that network size, network dental service utilization, and the frequency with which MAs discuss acute problems with network ties, positively correspond to use of oral health services. Conversely, embeddedness in networks where ties hassle egos about dental issues and have low levels of dental health knowledge correspond to lower odds of using these services. This research is among the first to use ego network data and methods to examine the ways network characteristics shape oral health behaviors among this underserved population.
The generalized H 2 control problem

Abstract In this paper we consider the problem of finding an internally stabilizing controller such that the controlled or regulated signals have a guaranteed maximum peak value in response to arbitrary (but bounded) energy exogenous inputs. More specifically, we give a complete solution to the problem of finding a stabilizing controller such that the closed loop gain from L 2 [0, ∞) to L ∞ [0, ∞) is below a specified level. We consider both state-feedback and output feedback problems. In the state-feedback case it is shown that if this synthesis problem is solvable, then a solution can be chosen to be a constant state-feedback gain. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of solutions as well as a formula for a state-feedback gain that solves this control problem are obtained in terms of a finite dimensional convex feasibility program. After showing the separation properties of this synthesis problem, the output feedback case is reduced to a state-feedback problem. It is shown that, in the output feedback case, generalized H 2 controllers can be chosen to be observer based controllers. The theory is demonstrated with a numerical example.
Semi-supervised graph clustering: a kernel approach

Semi-supervised clustering algorithms aim to improve clustering results using limited supervision. The supervision is generally given as pairwise constraints; such constraints are natural for graphs, yet most semi-supervised clustering algorithms are designed for data represented as vectors. In this paper, we unify vector-based and graph-based approaches. We first show that a recently-proposed objective function for semi-supervised clustering based on Hidden Markov Random Fields, with squared Euclidean distance and a certain class of constraint penalty functions, can be expressed as a special case of the weighted kernel k-means objective (Dhillon et al., in Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 2004a). A recent theoretical connection between weighted kernel k-means and several graph clustering objectives enables us to perform semi-supervised clustering of data given either as vectors or as a graph. For graph data, this result leads to algorithms for optimizing several new semi-supervised graph clustering objectives. For vector data, the kernel approach also enables us to find clusters with non-linear boundaries in the input data space. Furthermore, we show that recent work on spectral learning (Kamvar et al., in Proceedings of the 17th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2003) may be viewed as a special case of our formulation. We empirically show that our algorithm is able to outperform current state-of-the-art semi-supervised algorithms on both vector-based and graph-based data sets.
38 offices: analyzing needs in individual offices

There is considerable interest within office automation for the creation of methodologies to describe the needs of offices and build tools to support those needs. Most of the analysis, design, and implementation methodologies, however, involve only a single type of support — the creation of tools to automate procedures found in the office. Although the procedures to be supported are generally less well structured than the procedures supported by classic data processing, the focus is still on procedures.These procedurally-oriented methodologies are likely to work extremely well in only one kind of office, which the author and Sprague have called the Type I department [10]. There is another general category of offices, Type II, that handles the firm's nonroutine information processing chores. Examples are the offices of top executives, the offices of line managers, legal departments, and engineering departments. In these offices, procedures exist, but immediately jumping from functional analysis and goals to the analysis of procedures is not likely to be helpful. First, the procedures in these offices are usually few, so their automation is not likely to bring extensive gains. Second, the strategies that Type II offices do need are likely to be professionally complex and nonprocedural. To strong a procedural focus in a methodology could blind analysts to the real needs of the office.Two studies were conducted in an attempt to test a broader analysis methodology that the author had earlier proposed to study Type II offices as well as Type I offices. While it was concluded that there were differences in Type I and Type II office support, it was found that people in both kinds of offices tended to pick mundane applications. A major goal for the future should be to find ways to help office principals articulate more visionary goals that can be made possible because of computer support.Type II offices present a major problem to designers of office methodologies. The traditional procedural analysis skills taught in systems analysis and office analysis methodologies are not likely to be central to the needs of the office. The strategies that must be designed and supported, rather, are likely to depend very heavily on the professional content of the work being done in that office. It is possible that the office analyst in the future will be less a driving force in the design of support systems than a catalyst to help users define their own needs — just as designers of decision support systems are increasily helping managers define their own data needs [13]. Critical success factors and external contribution analysis are likely to be only preludes to comprehensive methodologies to help office principals define their goals and strategies.
Raynaud's Phenomenon

Raynaud's phenomenon is common but often comes to medical attention only after many years. This review updates the understanding of the pathogenesis, the approach to management, and current approaches to drug therapy.
Real time volumetric ultrasound imaging system.

A real time volumetric ultrasound imaging system has been developed for medical diagnosis. The scanner produces images analogous to an optical camera and supplies more information than conventional sonograms. Potential medical applications include improved anatomic visualization, tumor localization, and better assessment of cardiac function. The system uses pulse-echo phased array principles to steer a two-dimensional array transducer of 289 elements in a pyramidal scan format. Parallel processing in the receive mode produces 4992 scan lines at a rate of approximately B frames/second. Echo data for the scanned volume is presented as projection images with depth perspective, stereoscopic pairs, multiple tomographic images, or C-mode scans.
Analysis of PV Drains for Mitigation of Seismically Induced Ground Deformations in Sand Slopes

AbstractPrefabricated vertical (PV) drain arrays have been proposed as a minimally intrusive technique for mitigating seismically induced ground deformations in sandy liquefiable slopes. This paper...
PReP: Path-Based Relevance from a Probabilistic Perspective in Heterogeneous Information Networks

As a powerful representation paradigm for networked and multi-typed data, the heterogeneous information network (HIN) is ubiquitous. Meanwhile, defining proper relevance measures has always been a fundamental problem and of great pragmatic importance for network mining tasks. Inspired by our probabilistic interpretation of existing path-based relevance measures, we propose to study HIN relevance from a probabilistic perspective. We also identify, from real-world data, and propose to model cross-meta-path synergy, which is a characteristic important for defining path-based HIN relevance and has not been modeled by existing methods. A generative model is established to derive a novel path-based relevance measure, which is data-driven and tailored for each HIN. We develop an inference algorithm to find the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate of the model parameters, which entails non-trivial tricks. Experiments on two real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and relevance measure.
Disturbance Cancellation and Drift of Adaptive Gains

Abstract When possible the adaptive laws may adjust the controller gains to create zeros which cancel the disturbance poles. If not, controller gains will drift to infinity in order to create a feedback loop with infinite gain.
Atomically flat III-antimonide epilayers grown using liquid phase epitaxy

A novel process has been developed which allows the growth of device grade ultra-smooth epitaxial layers of antimonide based III-V compounds with a controlled thickness using liquid phase epitaxy (LPE). GaSb epilayers (with thickness in the range of 20-50 /spl mu/m) on GaSb single crystalline substrates have been grown with a root mean square surface roughness of less than 1 nm over an area of 5/spl conint/ /spl larr/ 5 /spl mu/m.
An In Vitro Evaluation of the Stability of Mechanical Properties of Surgical Suture Materials in Various pH Conditions

The effects of pH on the tensile properties of eight commonly used 2-0 suture materials--plain catgut, Dexon, Vicryl, silk, Nurolon, Ethilon, Mersilene, and Prolene--were examined. The pH level ranged from 3.0 to 10.0. In general, absorbable suture materials were more sensitive to pH than non-absorbable suture materials; within the same suture materials, a strong alkaline condition would have a more adverse effect on the strength of suture materials than physiologic and acidic pHs. Plain catgut sutures lost relatively significant amounts of strength at both acidic and alkaline conditions when compared with Dexon and Vicryl sutures; hence, precaution should be taken when they are used in closing tissues in contact with acidic environment like the stomach. Among the non-absorbable suture materials, silk and Nurolon exhibited the largest loss of strength in both alkaline and acidic environments after one month, while other sutures retained almost all of their original strength. Physical configuration of the suture materials seemed also to contribute to the sensitivity of suture materials toward pH. A comparison of Nurolon and Ethilon sutures demonstrated this point of view.
Localized and Systemic Hypersensitivity Reactions to Human Seminal Fluid

Reaginic humoral antibodies to human seminal plasma were present in two women with systemic reactions. In one patient, IgE antibodies were demonstrated by direct skin tests, leukocyte histamine release, passive transfer to a nonallergic human recipient, the radioallergosorbent test, inhibition of the radioallergosorbent test and neutralization of passive transfer antibodies. A similar mechanism was established in the other case by direct skin tests and antigen-induced leukocyte histamine release. Sephadex G-100 fraction 2, derived from human seminal plasma, showed greater reaginic activity than other chromatographic fractions. Two other patients with histories of localized reactions did not develop humoral antibodies but did evince cell-mediated immunity to seminal fluid antigens. One patient with localized reactions also had significant titers of IgM and IgG sperm agglutinating antibodies to seminal plasma. Both reaginic and cell-mediated sensitization to human sperm extract were also observed in this series of patients. Histocompatibility leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing of all patients and their sexual partners showed a marked degree of shared histocompatibility focus antigens in members of each of two couples.
General or Vocational Schooling? Evidence on School Choice, Returns, and 'Sheepskin' Effects from Egypt 1998

In general, vocational education does not lead to higher wages. However, in some countries, labor markets are characterized by employment growth and skill shortages. In these, vocational schooling has produced higher wages and returns on investment than general education. Using 1998 Egyptian household survey, the study adds evidence to the debate on relative benefits of vocational education and of general education at the secondary level. The findings suggest that providing general education to the workforce followed by on-the-job training would provide the most benefit.
Studies on Osteoporoses. VIII. Effect of Estrogen on Steroid Induced Osteoporosis

Neutron activation analysis was employed to determine total body calcium in 5-8 month and 15-18 month old C3H/St(Ha) and C57/BL6 (JACOBS) female mice. Ninety-nine percent of calcium is in bone and loss of calcium was used as an index of osteoporosis. Prednisolone (50 mg/kg q.d.) treatment for three months resulted in significant osteoporosis in the C3H/St(Ha) mice of both age groups but did not cause significant bone loss in the C57/BL6 (JACOBS) mice of either age group. Premarin (20 mg/kg q.d.) failed to prevent steroid accelerated osteoporosis.
Convolutional Embedding of Attributed Molecular Graphs for Physical Property Prediction

The task of learning an expressive molecular representation is central to developing quantitative structure–activity and property relationships. Traditional approaches rely on group additivity rules, empirical measurements or parameters, or generation of thousands of descriptors. In this paper, we employ a convolutional neural network for this embedding task by treating molecules as undirected graphs with attributed nodes and edges. Simple atom and bond attributes are used to construct atom-specific feature vectors that take into account the local chemical environment using different neighborhood radii. By working directly with the full molecular graph, there is a greater opportunity for models to identify important features relevant to a prediction task. Unlike other graph-based approaches, our atom featurization preserves molecule-level spatial information that significantly enhances model performance. Our models learn to identify important features of atom clusters for the prediction of aqueous solubil...
Unbiased weighted variance and skewness estimators for overlapping returns.

This article develops unbiased weighted variance and skewness estimators for overlapping return distributions. These estimators extend the variance estimation methods constructed in Bod et. al. (Applied Financial Economics 12:155-158, 2002) and Lo and MacKinlay (Review of Financial Studies 1:41-66, 1988). In addition, they may be used in overlapping return variance or skewness ratio tests as in Charles and Darne (Journal of Economic Surveys 3:503-527, 2009) and Wong (Cardiff Economics Working Papers, 2016). An example using synthetic overlapping returns from a model fit to data from the SPY S&P 500 exchange traded fund is given in order to demonstrate under which circumstances the unbiased correction becomes significant in skewness estimation. Finally, we compare the effect of the HAC weighting schemes of Andrews (Econometrica 53:817-858, 1991) as a function of sample size and overlapping return window length.
Attorneys' Career Dissatisfaction in the New Normal

The 2008 economic recession had a seismic impact on the legal market. In this article, we empirically assess whether the recession has made law an unsatisfying career. Relying on survey data from o...
Cut-Set Bound is Loose for Gaussian Relay Networks

The cut-set bound developed by Cover and El Gamal in 1979 has since remained the best known upper bound on the capacity of the Gaussian relay channel. We develop a new upper bound on the capacity of the Gaussian primitive relay channel, which is tighter than the cut-set bound. Our proof uses Gaussian measure concentration to establish geometric relations, satisfied with high probability, between the $n$ -letter random variables associated with a reliable code for communicating over this channel. We then translate these geometric relations into new information inequalities that cannot be obtained with classical methods. Combined with a tensorization argument proposed by Courtade and Ozgur in 2015, our result also implies that the current capacity approximations for Gaussian relay networks, which have linear gap to the cut-set bound in the number of nodes, are order-optimal and lead to a lower bound on the pre-constant.