cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Oxy-Allyl Cation Catalysis: An Enantioselective Electrophilic Activation Mode.

A generic activation mode for asymmetric LUMO-lowering catalysis has been developed using the long-established principles of oxy-allyl cation chemistry. Here, the enantioselective conversion of racemic α-tosyloxy ketones to optically enriched α-indolic carbonyls has been accomplished using a new amino alcohol catalyst in the presence of electron-rich indole nucleophiles. Kinetic studies reveal that the rate-determining step in this SN1 pathway is the catalyst-mediated α-tosyloxy ketone deprotonation step to form an enantiodiscriminant oxy-allyl cation prior to the stereodefining nucleophilic addition event.
Factors Constraining Iowa Labor Force Growth Through 2020

Iowa endured high outmigration rates among young adults during the 2000 to 2010 period. In light of accelerating exits from the labor force as the "baby boom" generation reaches retirement age and Iowa's somewhat smaller labor force ages 25 through 44 than the national average, the state's labor force is projected to contract.This report uses age and sex specific mortality and migration rates from the 2000 to 2010 period to project Iowa's working age population by 2020. Overall, the projections indicate an expected contraction in the Iowa population ages 16 to 64 of 74,142 persons. If that is the case, Iowa's economy may have trouble expanding.
Growth under Extractive Institutions? Latin American Per Capita GDP in Colonial Times

This article presents new estimations of per capita GDP in colonial times for the two pillars of the Spanish empire: Mexico and Peru. We find dynamic economies as evidenced by increasing real wages, urbanization, and silver mining. Their growth trajectories are such that both regions reduced the gap with respect to Spain; Mexico even achieved parity at times. While experiencing swings in growth, the notable turning point is in 1780s as bottlenecks in production and later, the independence wars reduced economic activity. Our results question the notion that colonial institutions impoverished Latin America.
INFORMATION SHARING IN UNION–FIRM RELATIONSHIPS*

Large firms often negotiate wage rates with labor unions. When they do, an ex ante agreement to share information should make it more likely that they will reach an agreement and capture the gains from trade. However, if the firm refuses to share information, the union may shade down its wage demand to increase the probability of acceptance. This reduction in the wage can increase the joint surplus of the agents and increase social welfare. As a result, there are some circumstances in which bargaining with incomplete information can be better for the agents and society than bargaining with complete information. Many firms and their input suppliers form long-term relationships in which they periodically negotiate their terms of trade. As has long been recognized, the presence of private information can cause negotiations to break down on occasion, resulting in an inefficient disruption of production. For example, the United Auto Workers, with superior knowledge of its strike fund and/or its member’s outside options, may call for a strike against General Motors if the firm is unwilling to meet its wage demands. And the firm’s unwillingness to concede may be due to its superior knowledge of demand, productivity, and/or its stock of inventories. Theoretically, such disruptions could be avoided if the agents would simply agree to reveal their private information before the negotiations begin. 2 Whether or not this will occur is unclear, however, since some agents may be unwilling to enter into such an agreement if it sufficiently weakened their bargaining position. The literatures on noncooperative bargaining and mechanism design have already dealt with many of the issues that arise in this environment. In the bargaining literature, it is generally assumed that the agents already possess the private information and then the implications of different bargaining processes are examined (see Ausubel et al., 2002 for a survey). In the mechanism design literature, one of the questions addressed is whether the agents can find a way to commit to ex
Secondary spectrum market: To acquire or not to acquire side information?

In a secondary spectrum market primaries set prices for their unused channels to the secondaries. The payoff of a primary depends on the channel state information (CSI) of its competitors. We consider a model where a primary can acquire its competitors CSI at a cost. We formulate a game between two primaries where each primary decides whether to acquire its competitor's CSI or not and then selects its price based on that. Our result shows that no primary decide to acquire its competitor's CSI with an absolute certainty. When the cost of acquiring the CSI is above a threshold, there is a unique Nash Equilibrium (NE) where both the primaries remain uninformed of their respective competitor's CSI. When the cost is below the threshold, in the unique NE each primary randomizes between its decision to acquire the CSI or not. Our result reveals that irrespective of the cost of acquiring the CSI, the expected payoff of a primary remains the same.
Plug-in vehicles and the future of road infrastructure funding in the United States

Abstract In the United States, road infrastructure funding is declining due to an increase in fuel efficiency and the non-adjustment of fuel taxes to inflation. Legislation to tax plug-in vehicles has been proposed or implemented in several states. Those propositions are contrary to policies to promote fuel efficient vehicles. This paper assesses (1) the magnitude of the decline in federal fuel tax revenue caused by plug-in vehicles and (2) quantifies the revenue that could be generated from a federal plug-in vehicle registration fee. We find that the contribution of plug-in vehicles to the decline of the federal fuel tax revenue is at most 1.6% and the majority of the shortfall can be attributed to the non-adjustment of the fuel tax rate and the increase in vehicle fuel efficiency by 2040. An additional tax of $50–$200 per plug-in vehicle per year in the reference case would generate $188–$745 million in 2040 which represents an increase of 1.69–6.71% in federal fuel tax revenue compared to no tax. The lesson for policy makers is that plug-in vehicles do not contribute significantly to the funding shortfall in the short- and medium-run and a supplemental tax would generate a small percentage of additional revenue.
The Possibilities and Limitations of Private Prediction Markets

We consider the design of private prediction markets, financial markets designed to elicit predictions about uncertain events without revealing too much information about market participants’ actions or beliefs. Our goal is to design market mechanisms in which participants’ trades or wagers influence the market’s behavior in a way that leads to accurate predictions, yet no single participant has too much influence over what others are able to observe. We study the possibilities and limitations of such mechanisms using tools from differential privacy. We begin by designing a private one-shot wagering mechanism in which bettors specify a belief about the likelihood of a future event and a corresponding monetary wager. Wagers are redistributed among bettors in a way that more highly rewards those with accurate predictions. We provide a class of wagering mechanisms that are guaranteed to satisfy truthfulness, budget balance on expectation, and other desirable properties while additionally guaranteeing e-joint differential privacy in the bettors’ reported beliefs, and analyze the trade-off between the achievable level of privacy and the sensitivity of a bettor’s payment to her own report. We then ask whether it is possible to obtain privacy in dynamic prediction markets, focusing our attention on the popular cost-function framework in which securities with payments linked to future events are bought and sold by an automated market maker. We show that under general conditions, it is impossible for such a market maker to simultaneously achieve bounded worst-case loss and e-differential privacy without allowing the privacy guarantee to degrade extremely quickly as the number of trades grows (at least logarithmically in number of trades), making such markets impractical in settings in which privacy is valued. We conclude by suggesting several avenues for potentially circumventing this lower bound.
Efficient genotype compression and analysis of large genetic-variation data sets

Genotype Query Tools (GQT) is an indexing strategy that expedites analyses of genome-variation data sets in Variant Call Format based on sample genotypes, phenotypes and relationships. GQT's compressed genotype index minimizes decompression for analysis, and its performance relative to that of existing methods improves with cohort size. We show substantial (up to 443-fold) gains in performance over existing methods and demonstrate GQT's utility for exploring massive data sets involving thousands to millions of genomes. GQT can be accessed at https://github.com/ryanlayer/gqt.
Regulatory Transformation: Lessons from Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection

As economies and citizen priorities continue to evolve, governance practices must also adjust to changing circumstances and public expectations. This article explores the important topic of regulatory transformation, drawing from both the academic literature and the author's recent experience heading Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The article makes the case for a focus on vision and execution as the critical starting points for good governance in the twenty-first century, drawing on best practices from the world of management. It then addresses some of the constraints faced by government organizations in this evolving era. Finally, the article identifies five core elements of regulatory excellence: integration, innovation, incentives, investment, and implementation.
Impact of Landing Fee Policy on Airlines’ Service Decisions, Financial Performance and Airport Congestion

The airline industry has been changed significantly after the September 11th of 2001, while delay and congestion at airport have been consistently a problem to passengers, airlines and airports since the last decade of the 20th century. Most of previous methods to reduce airport delay and congestion mainly focus on airport capacity expansion through building new runways, which incurs billions of dollars. Due to the complexity and dynamics in the aviation system, there is little study, theoretically or practically, on applying administrative and economic polices to reduce airport congestion and delays without huge investment in building more runways. In this paper, we study how airport landing fee policy could influence airlines’ service decisions and affect airlines’ financial performance and airport congestion. This research is based on our previous studies of the cost economics of aircraft size and of market share modeling for airlines using different aircraft size and service frequency in a competitive environment. In this paper, we propose a one-shot simultaneous gametheoretic model for two airlines competing in a non-cooperative duopoly market. We assume that airlines are profit maximizers – they make their own best operation decisions in order to achieve the maximum profit. Specifically, we study how the changes of airport landing fee policy could influence airlines’ decisions on aircraft size and service frequency in their operations, and how the changes could influence airlines’ profit, as well as congestions and delays at airport. Our researches find that, due to the properties of cost function and market share model, airlines’ optimal aircraft size and service frequency depend on the landing fees charged by the airport, and higher landing fee will force airlines to use larger aircraft and less frequency for the same number of passengers in service. We find that airlines’ load factor will be increased if higher landing fee policy is employed. We also find that, very interestingly, airlines will be better off if some of the extra landing fees are returned to airlines as a bonus for airlines using larger aircraft and consequently reducing airport congestion. Since airport capacity depends on the size of aircraft in operations, using larger aircraft and less frequency to serve the same number of passengers will significantly reduce airport congestion and delays. We also propose further researches in this area by applying cost model, market share model and game-theoretic models to understand how government policy could affect airlines’ behavior and airport performance in different demand and market scenarios.
On the Diophantine equation $$X^{2N}+2^{2\alpha }5^{2\beta }{p}^{2\gamma } = Z^5$$

We prove that for each prime p, positive integer \(\alpha \), and non-negative integers \(\beta \) and \(\gamma \), the Diophantine equation \(X^{2N} + 2^{2\alpha }5^{2\beta }{p}^{2\gamma } = Z^5\) has no solution with N, X, \(Z\in \mathbb {Z}^+\), \(N > 1\), and \(\gcd (X,Z) = 1\).
Credential Privilege or Cumulative Advantage? Prestige, Productivity, and Placement in the Academic Sociology Job Market

Using data on the population of US sociology doctorates over a five-year period, we examine different predictors of placement in research-oriented, tenure-track academic sociology jobs. More completely than in prior studies, we document the enormous relationship between PhD institution and job placement that has, in part, prompted a popular metaphor likening academic job allocation processes to a caste system. Yet, we also find comparable relationships between PhD program and both graduate student publishing and awards. Overall, we find results more consistent with PhD prestige operating indirectly through mediating achievements or as a quality signal than as a “pure prestige” effect. We suggest sociologists think of stratification in their profession as not requiring exceptionalist historical metaphors, but rather as involving the same ordinary but powerful processes of cumulative advantage that pervade contemporary life.
Effect of prolonged sitting and breaks in sitting time on endothelial function.

ABSTRACTSitting time (ST) is associated with cardiovascular disease risk factors, whereas breaking ST has been reported to be beneficial for reducing cardiovascular risk.PurposeThe objective of this study is to examine the effects of breaking ST on superficial femoral artery (SFA) endothelial functi
Exchange Rate Volatility, Financial Crisis and Large Output Loss: Stylized Facts and Some Useful Theories

In recent times certain countries or regions have experienced severe financial crises with large output loss. This has occurred whether the exchange rates were pegged or flexible. There appear to be basic mechanisms at work from which even flexible exchange rate regimes cannot escape. This paper reviews some of the stylized facts that appear to be common to such financial crises and surveys some recent financial market models that attempt to model such macro-caused financial and real crises. We focus on the connection between exchange rate volatility, financial crisis and large output loss. We find models that exhibit multiple equilibria particularly relevant to explain macro-caused financial and real crises.
Association of Hormone-Replacement Therapy with Various Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Postmenopausal Women

Background Most epidemiologic studies of cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women suggest that estrogen-replacement therapy has a protective effect. The effects of the use of estrogen combined with progestin are less well studied. Methods To examine the associations of hormone-replacement therapy with concentrations of plasma lipids and hemostatic factors, fasting serum concentrations of glucose and insulin, and blood pressure, we studied 4958 postmenopausal women participating in a population-based investigation. Using cross-sectional data, we classified the women into four groups according to their use of hormone-replacement therapy: current users of estrogen alone, current users of estrogen with progestin, nonusers who had formerly used these hormones, and nonusers who had never used them. Results Current users had higher mean levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, its subfractions high-density lipoprotein2 and high-density lipoprotein3, and apolipoprotein A-I than nonusers, and lower me...
Porphyry Cu-Mo Stockwork Formation by Dynamic, Transient Hydrothermal Pulses: Mineralogic Insights from the Deposit at Butte, Montana

The systematic distribution of vein and alteration mineral assemblages in porphyry Cu deposits largely arises from changes in the temperature and pressure of fluids that traversed fractures throughout the hydrothermal system. Magmatic and hydrothermal minerals record the complex history of the fluctuating temperature and pressure regime as hydrothermal fluids transfer heat from their magmatic source to cold wall rock in response to lithostatic-to-hydrostatic pressure variations. We examine the thermal profile of the porphyry Cu-Mo deposit in Butte, Montana, by determining formation temperatures for magmatic and hydrothermal samples representing different time frames and depths within the deposit, in context with sample pressure estimates. We use three independent mineral thermobarometers: Ti in quartz, Zr in rutile, and X Mg -Ti in biotite, from which we estimate that final dike injection temperature, and hence the initial magmatic-hydrothermal fluid temperature, was ~700°C while the ambient host-rock temperature was ~450° to 500°C. We find a magmatic-hydrothermal continuum represented in hydrothermal veins, ranging from ~710° to
Z-contrast imaging and ab initio study on "d" superstructure in sedimentary dolomite

Nano-precipitates with tripled periodicity along the c -axis are observed in a Ca-rich dolomite sample from Proterozoic carbonate rocks with “molar tooth” structure. This observation is consistent with previous description of d reflections. High-angle annular dark-field STEM imaging (or Z-contrast imaging) that avoids dynamic diffraction as seen in electron diffraction and high-resolution TEM imaging modes, confirms that d reflections correspond to nanoscale precipitates aligned parallel to (001) of the host dolomite. The lamellae precipitates have a cation ordering sequence of Ca-Ca-Mg-Ca-Ca-Mg along the c direction resulting in a chemical composition of Ca0.67Mg0.33CO3. This superstructure is attributed to the extra or d reflections, thus is referred to as the d superstructure in this study. The structure can be simply described as interstratified calcite/dolomite. The crystal structure of the d superstructure calculated from density functional theory (DFT) has a space group of P 31 c and has a and c unit-cell parameters of 4.879 and 16.260 A, respectively, values between those of dolomite and calcite. The detailed structural characteristics and parameters obtained from ab initio calculations are also reported in this paper. The method of combining Z-contrast imaging and ab initio calculations can be used for solving structures of other nano-precipitates and nano-phases.
Regulation of Intracellular Protein Traffic

Publisher Summary An important aspect of biosynthesis, as well as biodegradation, is the intracellular topology of proteins. Many protein species spend their entire life in the same compartment in which they are synthesized, others have to be translocated across the hydrophobic barrier of one, or in some cases, two distinct cellular membranes to reach the intracellular compartment or extracellular site where they exert their function. Numerous protein species have to be integrated asymmetrically into distinct cellular membranes. For many proteins this requires partial translocation—that is, selective transfer of one or several distinct hydrophilic or charged segments of the polypeptide chain across the hydrophobic barrier of one or two intracellular membranes. Following complete or partial translocation across a translocation-competent membrane(s), subpopulations may undergo further “post-translocational” traffic. Soluble or membrane proteins may be shipped in bulk or by receptor-mediated processes from a translocation- competent donor compartment to a translocation-incompetent receiver compartment. This post-translocational traffic may be unidirectional (in which case the protein ends up as a permanent resident of a particular cellular membrane) or may follow a cyclic pattern between distinct cellular membranes (e.g. recycling of receptors). The collective term “topogenesis” has been introduced to encompass protein translocation across membranes as well as subsequent post-translocational protein traffic. Not included in these processes that define topogenesis are distinct traffic patterns that may be required for protein degradation. This chapter attempts to amplify some of the previous proposals and to discuss some of the recent experimental data that are relevant to these proposals.
Does the Gender Preference for Competition Affect Job Performance? Evidence from a Real Effort Experiment

Experimental evidence has documented that competition may enhance the performance of male subjects in some tasks when competition is imposed exogenously by the experimenter. This note describes data for a task where a simple agency relationship is established in the laboratory between two groups of agents, managers, and workers. The manager chooses from either the piece rate or tournament payment scheme for the worker. The results show that male performance decreases when the tournament is chosen for them by the manager and also suggests that the gender of the manager may be an important facet of the agency relationship. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Capturing the co-benefits of disaster risk management on the private sector side

In most countries, the private sector owns the vast majority of the buildings and a considerable portion of the infrastructure at risk. However, most investment in disaster risk management is made by the public sector, with the private sector lagging far behind. The situation represents missed opportunities for businesses to capture not only higher levels of the direct benefits of disaster risk management, but also a broader set of co-benefits to themselves and society as a whole. These co-benefits include ways of lowering production costs, improving the health of workers, and contributing to general economic stability. Ironically, many of these co-benefits are more tangible and immediate than ordinary disaster risk management benefits, which may not appear until a disaster has struck many years after the investment has been made. This study analyzes several important facets of private sector investment in disaster risk management, primarily from an economic perspective. It is intended as a first step toward promoting greater investment in disaster risk management by identifying potential co-benefits, explaining why they are not always pursued, and suggesting ways to integrate them into private sector decision-making. The latter includes government incentives, justified on the grounds that many private sector investments have extensive co-benefits, many of which pay dividends to society as a whole.
Accounting for Right Censoring in Interdependent Duration Analysis

Duration data are often subject to various forms of censoring that require adaptations of the likelihood function to properly capture the data generating process, but existing spatial duration models do not yet account for these potential issues. Here, we develop a method to estimate spatial-lag duration models when the outcome suffers from right censoring, the most common form of censoring. We adapt Wei and Tanner's (1991) imputation algorithm for censored (non-spatial) regression data to models of spatially interdependent durations. The algorithm treats the unobserved duration outcomes as censored data and iterates between multiple imputation of the incomplete, that is, right censored, values and estimation of the spatial duration model using these imputed values. We explore the performance of an estimator for log-normal durations in the face of varying degrees of right censoring via Monte Carlo and provide empirical examples of its estimation by analyzing spatial dependence in states' entry dates into World War I.
Staging Sexuality: Reading Wallach's Poetry

This article offers a reading of “Tefillin” as a staged performance of a theatrical piece. It reveals that staging sexuality is Wallach’s political, feminist strategy, one that produces and overcomes the reader’s resistance to the poem. On this stage, “Tefillin” unbinds a new poetic space, one that potentially transforms the Hebrew cultural and literary scene. This article was first published in Hebrew Studies, Vol. 43 (2002): 87-117. It is published here with the permission of the author.
Mechanochemically Responsive Viscoelastic Elastomers

Mechanochemically responsive (MCR) polymers have been designed to possess unconventional properties such as changing colors, self-healing, and releasing catalysts under deformation. These properties of MCR polymers stem from a class of molecules, referred to as mechanophores, whose chemical reactions can be controlled by mechanical forces. Although extensive studies have been devoted to the syntheses of MCR polymers by incorporating various mechanophores into polymer networks, the intricate interactions between mechanical forces and chemical reactions in MCR polymers across multiple length and time scales are still not well understood. In this paper, we focus on mechanochemical responses in viscoelastic elastomers and develop a theoretical model to characterize the coupling between viscoelasticity and chemical reactions of MCR elastomers. We show that the kinetics of viscoelasticity and mechanophore reactions introduce different time scales into the MCR elastomers. The model can consistently represent experimental data on both mechanical properties and chemical reactions of MCR viscoelastic elastomers. In particular, we explain recent experimental observations on the increasing chemical activation during stress relaxation of MCR elastomers, which cannot be explained with existing models. The proposed model provides a theoretical foundation for the design of future MCR polymers with desirable properties. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4033431]
Photochemical Approaches to Complex Chemotypes: Applications in Natural Product Synthesis

The use of photochemical transformations is a powerful strategy that allows for the formation of a high degree of molecular complexity from relatively simple building blocks in a single step. A central feature of all light-promoted transformations is the involvement of electronically excited states, generated upon absorption of photons. This produces transient reactive intermediates and significantly alters the reactivity of a chemical compound. The input of energy provided by light thus offers a means to produce strained and unique target compounds that cannot be assembled using thermal protocols. This review aims at highlighting photochemical transformations as a tool for rapidly accessing structurally and stereochemically diverse scaffolds. Synthetic designs based on photochemical transformations have the potential to afford complex polycyclic carbon skeletons with impressive efficiency, which are of high value in total synthesis.
A comparison of two methods of active learning in physics: inventing a general solution versus compare and contrast

A common approach for introducing students to a new science concept is to present them with multiple cases of the phenomenon and ask them to explore. The expectation is that students will naturally take advantage of the multiple cases to support their learning and seek an underlying principle for the phenomenon. However, the success of such tasks depends not only on the structure of the cases, but also the task that students receive for working with the examples. Two studies used contrasting cases in the context of teaching middle-school students about projectile motion. Using a simulation and the same set of cases for all students, students completed a traditional “compare and contrast” approach, or an instructional method called “inventing,” where students try to produce a single general explanation. The results show that inventing led to superior learning. Examination of student worksheets revealed that the “compare and contrast” instruction led students to focus mostly on the level of discrete, surface features of the phenomenon. Rather than trying to account for the variation across cases, students simply noticed each instance of it. In contrast, the inventing task led students to consider how the variations across the cases were related. As a result, “invent” students were more likely to search for and find the unifying functional relation. Driving towards an overall explanation is a fundamental tenet of science, and therefore, it is worthwhile to teach students to do the same.
Phase transitions of black holes in massive gravity

In this paper, we have studied thermodynamics of a black hole in massive gravity in the canonical ensemble. The massive gravity theory in consideration here has a massive graviton due to Lorentz symmetry breaking. The black hole studied here has a scalar charge due to the massive graviton and is asymptotically anti-de Sitter (AdS). We have computed various thermodynamical quantities such as temperature, specific heat and free energy. Both the local and global stability of the black hole are studied by observing the behavior of the specific heat and the free energy. We have observed that there is a first-order phase transition between small (SBH) and large black hole (LBH) for a certain range of the scalar charge. This phase transition is similar to the liquid/gas phase transition at constant temperature for a van der Waals fluid. The coexistence curves for the SBH and LBH branches are also discussed in detail.
Measures of Economic Inequality Focusing on the Status of the Lower and Middle Income Groups

ABSTRACTThe substantial increase in economic inequality in favor of the upper income group in the United States and many other developed and developing nations during the past 30 years has become a major concern in public policy. Modifications of the standard measures of inequality, the Lorenz curve and Gini index, are proposed that better reflect the decline in the share of income received by the poor and middle portions of the income distribution relative to the upper end. A second pair of curves based on the fractions of either the middle or lower portion of the income curve that has the same share as the top u% and the areas between them and the line of equality are introduced. The proposed curves and related measures indicate that a noticeably greater change in the U.S. income distribution occurred during the 1967–2013 time period than are observed in the Lorenz curve and Gini index. The maximum difference between the proposed curves for the income and wealth data in the United Kingdom's 2010–2012 su...
Epidural anesthesia following thoracotomy in patients with chronic obstructive airway disease

Epidural analgesia for control of postoperative thoracotomy pain in patients with carcinoma of the lung and chronic obstructive airway disease is described. The rationale and procedure for its use are presented. Epidural analgesia used in 8 patients requiring pulmonary resection who had chronic obstructive airway disease resulted in an improved postoperative course and avoided use of narcotics or a respirator in 7 of the 8 patients.
Osteochondral lesions of the talar dome.

Osteochondral lesions of the talar dome are relatively common causes of ankle pain and disability. Trauma is the most common cause, but ischemic necrosis, endocrine disorders, and genetic factors may have etiologic significance. Medial lesions are usually located posteriorly on the dome of the talus, whereas lateral lesions are most frequently located anteriorly. Although the staging system described by Berndt and Harty remains popular, it may not accurately reflect the integrity of the articular cartilage. Small lesions of the talar dome may be present despite a normal appearance on plain radiography. Bone scintigraphy may show increased radionuclide uptake in the talar dome. Magnetic resonance imaging is also sensitive for identifying intraosseous abnormalities in the talus and has the added benefit of revealing other types of soft-tissue lesions not visible on routine radiographic studies. Computed tomography remains the imaging technique of choice when delineation of a bone fragment is desired. Nonoperative management of osteochondral lesions, including restricted weight-bearing and/or immobilization, is recommended unless a loose fragment is clearly present. Surgical options include drilling (usually reserved for intact lesions), debridement of the lesion with curettage or abrasion of the bone bed, internal fixation of the fragment, and bone grafting. Recent technical advances allow these procedures to be performed arthroscopically, with potential reduction of surgical trauma, length of hospital stay, and complication rates. J Am Acad Orthop Surg 1996;4:63-73
Governance and Economic Growth: Interpretations for MENA Countries

Using Two-stage Least Square (TSLS) regression for cross-sectional observations of 197 countries for the year 2009, the study estimates the impact of the improvement in the quality of governance on per capita income and the increase in per capita income on the quality of governance. Following Kaufman and Kraay (2002) methodology, the results suggest a positive, strong statistically significant causation from quality of governance to per capita income. In addition, the results suggest a positive causation from per capita income to quality of governance. The estimation results are used to interpret the relationship between governance and growth for 22 MENA countries. A striking result suggests that despite the relatively low performance of most of these countries on almost all of the six measures of governance, their estimated levels of per capita of income are relatively higher than the rest of the countries in the sample. This implies that most MENA countries have achieved a relatively high but fragile standard of living for their citizens that is not based on firm governance. The fragility of standard of living in most these countries was manifested by the latest uprising in Tunisia followed by Egypt and Libya. The study has two policy implications; first development requires a strong intervention in improving governance and secondly, though to a lesser extent, improving governance requires an exogenous increase in income through multilateral aid for instance.
Does encoding matter? A novel view on the quantitative genetic trait prediction problem

Given a set of biallelic molecular markers, such as SNPs, with genotype values encoded numerically on a collection of plant, animal or human samples, the goal of genetic trait prediction is to predict the quantitative trait values by simultaneously modeling all marker effects. Genetic trait prediction is usually represented as linear regression models which require quantitative encodings for the genotypes. There are lots of work on the prediction algorithms, but none of the existing work investigated the effects of the encodings on the genetic trait prediction problem. In this work, we view the genetic trait prediction problem from a novel angle: a multiple regression on categorical data problem, which requires encoding the categorical data into numerical data. We further proposed two novel encoding methods and we show that they are able to generate numerical features with higher predictive power. Our experiments show that our methods are superior to the other encoding methods for both single marker model and epistasis model. We showed that the quantitative genetic trait prediction problem heavily depends on the encoding of genotypes, for both single marker model and epistasis model. We conducted a detailed analysis on the performance of the hybrid encodings. To our knowledge, this is the first work that discusses the effects of encodings for genetic trait prediction problem.
Towards Machine Learning on the Automata Processor

A variety of applications employ ensemble learning models, using a collection of decision trees, to quickly and accurately classify an input based on its vector of features. In this paper, we discuss the implementation of such a method, namely Random Forests, as the first machine learning algorithm to be executed on the Automata Processor (AP). The AP is an upcoming reconfigurable co-processor accelerator which supports the execution of numerous automata in parallel against a single input data-flow. Owing to this execution model, our approach is fundamentally different, translating Random Forest models from existing memory-bound tree-traversal algorithms to pipelined designs that use multiple automata to check all of the required thresholds independently and in parallel. We also describe techniques to handle floating-point feature values which are not supported in the native hardware, pipelining of the execution stages, and compression of automata for the fastest execution times. The net result is a solution which when evaluated using two applications, namely handwritten digit recognition and sentiment analysis, produce up to 63 and 93 times speed-up respectively over single-core state-of-the-art CPU-based solutions. We foresee these algorithmic techniques to be useful not only in the acceleration of other applications employing Random Forests, but also in the implementation of other machine learning methods on this novel architecture.
On bounds for token probabilities in a class of generalized stochastic Petri nets

Methods to compute tight bounds for steady-state token probabilities of a class of generalized stochastic Petri net (GSPN) models are presented. Such bounds also give a better estimate of the error produced when decompositions and aggregations are used to compute the various performance measures. A method to compute the best lower and upper bounds for conditional token probability of a class of GSPN subnets when only the subnet is considered is described. Such bounds can be improved when additional information about other subnets can be used. This technique is extended, and an algorithm to compute the bounds for error due to aggregation and decomposition at the GSPN level is outlined. An example is presented to illustrate the technique and algorithm. >
International Cancer Control Leadership Forum Program

Abstract 43A National Cancer Control Plan (NCCP) comprises an important part of a country's non-communicable disease (NCD) plan and can help countries meet NCD targets outlined in the WHO Global NCD Action Plan. A comprehensive cancer control plan is based on data such as a country's cancer burden and cancer risk factors, available resources, and local context of culture and health care. The plan provides a systematic framework for implementation of evidence-based and cost-effective strategies for cancer prevention and control.The International Cancer Control Leadership Forum is a 2-3 day regional workshop with thematic seminar modules on cancer control planning and implementation, as well as interactive action planning sessions. The goal is to increase the capacity of participating countries to initiate or enhance cancer control planning and implementation through a multisectoral approach. The country teams are composed of high-level leaders who represent government agencies, civil society, oncology prof...
Function of the Diiron Cluster of Escherichia coli Class Ia Ribonucleotide Reductase in Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer

The class Ia ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) from Escherichia coli employs a free-radical mechanism, which involves bidirectional translocation of a radical equivalent or “hole” over a distance of ∼35 A from the stable diferric/tyrosyl-radical (Y122•) cofactor in the β subunit to cysteine 439 (C439) in the active site of the α subunit. This long-range, intersubunit electron transfer occurs by a multistep “hopping” mechanism via formation of transient amino acid radicals along a specific pathway and is thought to be conformationally gated and coupled to local proton transfers. Whereas constituent amino acids of the hopping pathway have been identified, details of the proton-transfer steps and conformational gating within the β sununit have remained obscure; specific proton couples have been proposed, but no direct evidence has been provided. In the key first step, the reduction of Y122• by the first residue in the hopping pathway, a water ligand to Fe1 of the diferric cluster was suggested to donate a proto...
QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS AND ASSESSMENT OF GLENOID BONE LOSS IN A SPECTRUM OF PATIENTS WITH GLENOHUMERAL OSTEOARTHRITIS

Background A challenge to obtaining proper glenoid placement in total shoulder arthroplasty is eccentric posterior bone loss and associated glenoid retroversion. This bone loss can lead to poor stability and perforation of the glenoid during arthroplasty. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the three dimensional morphology of the glenoid with associated bone loss for a spectrum of osteoarthritis patients using 3-D computed tomography imaging and simulation software. Methods This study included 29 patients with advanced glenohumeral osteoarthritis treated with shoulder arthroplasty. Three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of preoperative CT images was performed using image analysis software. Glenoid bone loss was measured at ten, vertically equidistant axial planes along the glenoid surface at four distinct anterior-posterior points on each plane for a total of 40 measurements per glenoid. The glenoid images were also fitted with a modeled pegged glenoid implant to predict glenoid perforation. Results The average bone loss was greatest posteriorly in the AP plane at the central axis of the glenoid in the SI plane. Walch A2 and B1 shoulders had bone loss more centrally located, while Walch B2 shoulders displayed more posterior and inferior bone loss. There was a significant difference in the overall average bone loss for patients with no predicted peg perforation compared to patients predicted to have peg perforation (p=0.37). Peg perforation was most common in Walch B2 shoulders, in the posterior direction, and involved the central and posterior-inferior peg. Discussion These data demonstrate a clear, anatomical pattern of glenoid bone loss for different classes of glenohumeral arthritis. These findings can be used to develop various models of glenoid bone loss to guide surgeons, predict failures, and help develop better glenoid implant.
The faster, the better? The impact of internet speed on employment

Abstract Does faster broadband generate more economic benefits than normal-speed broadband? This study examines the differential economic impacts of broadband of different speeds. Utilizing the broadband availability and speed data from the National Broadband Map, a first-differenced regression analysis was conducted to investigate if faster broadband more effectively boosts the employment. The analysis shows a positive relationship between broadband availability and county-level employment. However, compared to normal-speed broadband, faster broadband did not generate greater positive effects on employment.
Changing Paradigm in Pancreatic Cancer: From Adjuvant to Neoadjuvant Chemoradiation

Background: Historically, management of pancreatic cancer has been determined based on whether the tumor was amenable to resection and all patients deemed resectable received curative intent surgery followed by adjuvant therapy with chemotherapy (CT) ± RT. However, patients who undergo resection with microscopic (R1) positive margins have inferior rates of survival. The purpose of this study is to identify patients who have undergone pancreatectomy for pancreatic cancer, determine the surgical margins, types of adjuvant therapies given and patterns of failure. Our hypothesis was that in patients who have surgery without pre-operative therapy, there is a high rate of R1 resections and subsequent local recurrence, despite adjuvant therapy. Methods: Seventy-one patients with curative resections for pancreatic cancer between 2003 and 2015 were reviewed. Tumor stage, margin status, distance to closest margin, receipt of adjuvant therapy and length of survival were collected. Patients were divided into two groups based on whether they received adjuvant CT + RT (n=37) or CT alone (n=37). Patients were further divided based on whether resection was R1 (n=29) or R0 (n=42). Wilcoxon survival tests and Cox proportional hazards regression models were performed to determine the effects of CT + RT vs. CT alone, stratified by surgical margin status. Results: Of the 29 patients (39%) who had R1, 15 received CT + RT and 14 received only CT. Patients who received CT + RT experienced a significantly longer period of PFS (13 vs . 7.5 mos, P=0.03) than patients who received CT alone. However, there was no significant difference found in time to death post cancer resection between CT + RT vs . CT alone (P=0.73). Of the 42 patients with R0, 21 received CT + RT and 21 received CT. There was a trend towards increase in PFS in patients treated with CT + RT (25 vs . 17 months, P=0.05), but there was no significant increase in time to death compared to patients treated with CT alone (P=0.53. Of the 36 patients with CT + RT, 21 had R0 and 15 had R1. Patients with R0 were more likely to have longer PFS (25 vs . 13 months, P=0.06), but there was no significant difference in time to death compared to patients with CT alone (P=0.68). Conclusions: After curative resection, the addition of RT to CT improves PFS in both R0 and R1 settings. However, patients with R1 have significantly worse PFS and OS compared to patients with R0 and even aggressive adjuvant therapy does not make up for the difference. The paradigm has shifted and now for patients with resectable pancreatic cancers we recommend neoadjuvant CT + RT to improve RT targeting and treatment response assessment and most importantly, improve chances of obtaining R0.
Role of Charge Transfer in Catalytic Hydrogen Oxidation over Platinum

The chemicurrent is a flux of energetic charge carriers, which may be observed experimentally within thin metal films in response to an exothermic surface catalytic chemical reaction. This article suggests a picture behind the chemicurrent in hydrogen oxidation in a high temperature regime over a platinum surface. The picture is intrinsic to the reaction mechanism. Surface reaction intermediates, “O–”, “H–”, “OH–”, are negatively charged while the product, H2O, and reactants, H2 and O2, are neutral. Hence, charge transfers between the metal and reacting species are inevitable. After electrons are transferred from the metal to the interface in dissociative oxygen and hydrogen adsorption, translationally excited electrons in the metal arise in part as a result of decay of negatively charged transition states in reaction steps connecting surface species of different charges, “O– + H–” ⇄ “e + OH–” and “OH– + H–” ⇄ “2e + H2O”. These transition states are the lowest energy configurations possible for changing t...
Bank credit and corporate working capital management

Abstract We investigate how changes in the availability of bank credit influence how public firms manage their working capital, which is essential to their operations. In doing so, we provide an enhanced understanding of what significantly influences corporate working capital management. We find that changes in the availability of bank credit significantly influence a number of aspects of a firm's working capital policies, and these effects often differ across firms that are more or less dependent on bank financing. Interestingly, our evidence points to the importance of the changing mix of U.S. companies for working capital practices.