cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Making Time Matter: A Review of Research on Time and Meaning

In this conceptual paper, we review three decades of research on time and meaning in consumer research and psychology to identify key themes that have emerged, build frameworks that integrate past research, and reveal areas of potential for future empirical exploration. We begin by carving out a conceptual understanding of meaning in life and identifying time as a key lens through which the pursuit of meaning can be viewed. We then review extant research on how to spend and construe time in ways that enhance meaning, relying on two frameworks — one anchored in three dimensions of meaning (purpose, mattering, and comprehension) and the other in three levels of time (momentary, day-to-day, and lifetime). We conclude by outlining several directions for future research focused on deepening our understanding of how consumers can think about and use their time in ways that boost their sense of meaning in life.
Commodity-currencies or currency-commodities: Evidence from causality tests

Abstract This paper presents a comparative analysis of the return and volatility spillovers across the commodity and currency markets for an expanded set of commodity-exporters and currencies that includes several emerging commodity-exporting nations in addition to the developed exporters that have often been the focus in the literature. Strong causal effects are observed, largely in the direction of commodities from currencies with several cases of bidirectional causality, particularly between gold and the New Zealand dollar, Brent oil and the Brazilian real, and copper and the Chilean peso. The causal effects from currencies to commodities are not only limited to return causality, but exist in the case of volatility as well, implying the presence of significant risk transmissions from currencies. We also show that causal effects from currencies to commodities have become more widespread during the period following the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. Overall, our findings imply that currency market dynamics have informative value for commodity return and volatility with significant implications for volatility forecasting and active management of commodity price fluctuations.
Exploring the General Equilibrium Costs of Sector-Specific Environmental Regulations

The requisite scope of analysis to adequately estimate the social cost of environmental regulations has been subject to much discussion. The literature has demonstrated that engineering or partial equilibrium cost estimates likely underestimate the social cost of large-scale environmental regulations and environmental taxes. However, the conditions under which general equilibrium (GE) analysis adds value to welfare analysis for single-sector technology or performance standards, the predominant policy intervention in practice, remains an open question. Using a numerical computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, we investigate the GE effects of regulations across different sectors, abatement technologies, and regulatory designs. Our results show that even for small regulations GE effects are significant, and engineering estimates of compliance costs can substantially underestimate the social cost of single-sector environmental regulations. We find the downward bias from using engineering costs to approximate social costs depends on the input composition of abatement technologies and the regulated sector.
Error-correcting decoders for communities in networks

As recent work demonstrated, the task of identifying communities in networks can be considered analogous to the classical problem of decoding messages transmitted along a noisy channel. We leverage this analogy to develop a community detection method directly inspired by a standard and widely-used decoding technique. We further simplify the algorithm to reduce the time complexity from quadratic to linear. We test the performance of the original and reduced versions of the algorithm on artificial benchmarks with pre-imposed community structure, and on real networks with annotated community structure. Results of our systematic analysis indicate that the proposed techniques are able to provide satisfactory results.
RAGE Signaling in Skeletal Biology

The receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) and several of its ligands have been implicated in the onset and progression of pathologies associated with aging, chronic inflammation, and cellular stress. In particular, the role of RAGE and its ligands in bone tissue during both physiological and pathological conditions has been investigated. However, the extent to which RAGE signaling regulates bone homeostasis and disease onset remains unclear. Further, RAGE effects in the different bone cells and whether these effects are cell-type specific is unknown. The objective of the current review is to describe the literature over RAGE signaling in skeletal biology as well as discuss the clinical potential of RAGE as a diagnostic and/or therapeutic target in bone disease. The role of RAGE and its ligands during skeletal homeostasis, tissue repair, and disease onset/progression is beginning to be uncovered. For example, detrimental effects of the RAGE ligands, advanced glycation end products (AGEs), have been identified for osteoblast viability/activity, while others have observed that low level AGE exposure stimulates osteoblast autophagy, which subsequently promotes viability and function. Similar findings have been reported with HMGB1, another RAGE ligand, in which high levels of the ligand are associated with osteoblast/osteocyte apoptosis, whereas low level/short-term administration stimulates osteoblast differentiation/bone formation and promotes fracture healing. Additionally, elevated levels of several RAGE ligands (AGEs, HMGB1, S100 proteins) induce osteoblast/osteocyte apoptosis and stimulate cytokine production, which is associated with increased osteoclast differentiation/activity. Conversely, direct RAGE-ligand exposure in osteoclasts may have inhibitory effects. These observations support a conclusion that elevated bone resorption observed in conditions of high circulating ligands and RAGE expression are due to actions on osteoblasts/osteocytes rather than direct actions on osteoclasts, although additional work is required to substantiate the observations. Recent studies have demonstrated that RAGE and its ligands play an important physiological role in the regulation of skeletal development, homeostasis, and repair/regeneration. Conversely, elevated levels of RAGE and its ligands are clearly related with various diseases associated with increased bone loss and fragility. However, despite the recent advancements in the field, many questions regarding RAGE and its ligands in skeletal biology remain unanswered.
Generalized Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect for Stokes parameters

The classic experiments by Hanbury Brown and Twiss (HBT) were concerned with the correlation of intensity fluctuations at two different positions in a wave field. We generalize the HBT effect that occurs in random electromagnetic beams by examining its polarization-resolved version. This leads naturally to the concept of correlations of fluctuations of the four Stokes parameters. We calculate the correlations of such “Stokes fluctuations” for the case of Gaussian statistics. When the two points of observation coincide, these correlations reduce to “Stokes scintillations.” Our work reveals a new layer of complexity in random beams by showing that the HBT effect and the scintillation coefficient are just two of many correlations that are present. We illustrate that, in general, the fluctuations of the various Stokes parameters are all correlated by studying beams and sources with different polarization states.
A Potent CD1d-binding Glycolipid for iNKT-Cell-based Therapy Against Human Breast Cancer.

Background/aim Invariant natural killer T-cells (iNKT) stimulated by CD1d-binding glycolipids have been shown to exert antitumor effects by a number of studies in a mouse model. Breast cancer is a devastating disease, with different types of breast cancer recurring locally or distant as metastatic/advanced disease following initial treatment. The aim of this study was to examine the tumoricidal effect of a CD1d-binding glycolipid, called 7DW8-5, against a highly invasive human breast cancer cell line both in vitro and in vivo. Materials and methods Parental MDA-MB-231 cells and MDA-MB-231 cells transduced with human CD1d were labeled with carboxyfluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester (CFSE), followed by loading with glycolipids. After co-culturing with human iNKT cells, the cells were permeabilized and stained with Alexa Flour 647-conjugated antibody to active caspase-3, and analyzed using a BD LSR II. For the in vivo tumoricidal effect, MDA-MB-231 cells transduced with human CD1d and luciferase genes were injected into the mammary fat pad of female NOD/SCID/IL2rγnull (NSG) mice, followed by the injection of human iNKT cells with or without 7DW8-5, and the levels of luminescence were analyzed with whole-body imaging. Results Human iNKT cells could kill CD1d-expressing human breast cancer cells in vitro in the presence of 7DW8-5, but not α-GalCer. As for in vivo, the adoptive transfer of human iNKT cells into tumor-challenged NSG mice significantly inhibited the growth of CD1d+ MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells in the presence of 7DW8-5. Conclusion CD1d-binding, glycolipid-based iNKT-cell therapy is suggested as a potent and effective treatment against breast cancer in humans.
Chapter 1 – Numerical Representation

This chapter deals with the issues of numerical representation of data in a digital signal processing. As all digital devices operate using bits, numerical values must be converted into a value representable using bits. Fixed point representation is most common, where numerical values are mapped into a field of bits covering a range of integer values, or alternately, a set of fractional values from −1 to 1. A more complex alternative is floating point that is similar to scientific notation. In this case, a numerical value is represented using a mantissa and exponent, along with a sign bit. This has the advantage of being able to cover a much wider range of numbers, both very large and very small.
How Monetary Policy Shaped the Housing Boom

Abstract Between 2003 and 2006, the Federal Reserve raised rates by 4.25%. Yet it was precisely during this period that the housing boom accelerated, fueled by rapid growth in mortgage lending. There is deep disagreement about how, or even if, monetary policy impacted the boom. Using differences in exposure to the deposits channel of monetary policy, we show that Fed tightening induced a large reduction in banks’ deposit funding, which led banks to contract portfolio mortgage lending by 32%. However, this contraction was largely offset by substitution to privately-securitized (PLS) mortgages, led by nonbank originators. Fed tightening thus induced a shift in mortgage lending away from stable, insured deposit funding toward run-prone and fragile capital markets funding with little impact on overall lending. We find similar results during the most recent tightening cycle over 2014–2017 when PLS lending reemerged.
Designing Succinct Secondary Indexing Mechanism by Exploiting Column Correlations

Database administrators construct secondary indexes on data tables to accelerate query processing in relational database management systems (RDBMSs). These indexes are built on top of the most frequently queried columns according to the data statistics. Unfortunately, maintaining multiple secondary indexes in the same database can be extremely space consuming, causing significant performance degradation due to the potential exhaustion of memory space. In this paper, we demonstrate that there exist many opportunities to exploit column correlations for accelerating data access. We propose HERMIT, a succinct secondary indexing mechanism for modern RDBMSs. HERMIT judiciously leverages the rich soft functional dependencies hidden among columns to prune out redundant structures for indexed key access. Instead of building a complete index that stores every single entry in the key columns, HERMIT navigates any incoming key access queries to an existing index built on the correlated columns. This is achieved through the Tiered Regression Search Tree (TRS-Tree), a succinct, ML-enhanced data structure that performs fast curve fitting to adaptively and dynamically capture both column correlations and outliers. Our extensive experimental study in two different RDBMSs have confirmed that HERMIT can significantly reduce space consumption with limited performance overhead, especially when supporting complex range queries.
You Don't Always Get What You Want: The Effect of Financial Incentives on State Fiscal Health

Governments frequently use financial incentives to encourage the creation, expansion, or relocation of businesses within their borders. Previous research on financial incentives have given little clarity as to what impact these incentives may have on the government. While incentives may draw in more economic growth, they also pull resources from the government’s coffers and may commit future funding for public services that benefit the incentivized business. Using a panel of 32 states from 1990 to 2015, we seek to understand how incentives affect a state’s fiscal health. After controlling for the governmental, political, economic, and demographic characteristics of a state, we find that incentives draw resources away from the state. Ultimately, the results show that financial incentives negatively affect the overall fiscal health of a state.
Parent Housing Wealth, Credit Constraints, and Homeownership Transitions

Abstract In this paper, I examine how family housing wealth affects homeownership transitions during divergent periods of credit access. I use matched parent-child data from the Panel Study of Inco...
Novel fluorescent quater- and quinquifurans: Syntheses and photophysical properties

In the quest for fast fluors for use in waveshifting polystyrene fibers, symmetrical oligofurans were investigated. Furan moieties were coupled by means of the Ullmann Reaction or by palladium-catalyzed unsym-metrical coupling; the latter gave higher yields. While the benzoxazole-terminated quater- and quinquifurans we prepared were both stable and fast, exhibiting a green fluorescence and decay times of about 2.4 nsec, they were inferior to other types of fluors in solubility and emission intensity when incorporated into polystyrene.
A glycosylation protocol based on activation of glycosyl 2-pyridyl sulfones with samarium triflate.

Reaction of glycosyl 2-pyridyl sulfones (e.g., 2) with alcohols and samarium(III) triflate affords glycosides in moderate to excellent yields. Benzylated sulfones can be activated in preference to their benzoylated counterparts, and the methodology has been used to prepare di- and trisaccharides containing both furanose and pyranose residues. Thioglycosides do not react under these conditions, and the sulfones are inert to the N-iodosuccinimide/silver triflate promoter system commonly used to activate thioglycosides. This selectivity allowed the efficient preparation of oligosaccharides via orthogonal glycosylation protocols.
Microwave-assisted intramolecular [2 + 2] Allenic cycloaddition reaction for the rapid assembly of bicyclo[4.2.0]octa-1,6-dienes and bicyclo[5.2.0]nona-1,7-dienes.

Microwave irradiation of alkynyl allenes affords an intramolecular [2 + 2] cycloaddition reaction. This cycloaddition provides an efficient route to bicyclomethylenecyclobutenes. The reaction occurs with complete regioselectivity for the distal double bond of the allene for the selective formation of a variety of hetero- and carbocyclic substrates. Bicyclo[4.2.0]octadienes and bicyclo[5.2.0]nonadienes have been prepared in high yield.
Synthesis of large-ring lactams by a carbene-anion bond forming reaction

Treatment of large-ring lactams 1 with potassium t-butoxide results in the formation of bicyclic structures 2. Evidence was obtained to support the formation of 2 through a carbene-anion coupling. The structures of a series of bicyclic lactams 2 have been rigorously defined.
Chandra High-Resolution Spectrum of the Anomalous X-Ray Pulsar 4U 0142+61

We report on a 25 ks observation of the 8.7 s anomalous X-ray pulsar 4U 0142+61 with the High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer on the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The continuum spectrum is consistent with previous measurements and is well fitted by an absorbed power law+blackbody with a photon index Γ = 3.3 ± 0.4 and kT = 0.418 ± 0.013 keV. No evidence was found for emission or absorption lines, with an upper limit of ≈50 eV on the equivalent width of broad features in the 2.5-13 A (0.95-5.0 keV) range and an upper limit of ≈10 eV on the equivalent width of narrow features in the 4.1-17.7 A (0.7-3.0 keV) range. If the source is a magnetar, then the absence of a proton cyclotron line strongly constrains magnetar atmosphere models and hence the magnetic field strength of the neutron star. We find no strong features that are indicative of cyclotron absorption for magnetic field strengths of (1.9-9.8) × 1014 G. This is still consistent with the dipole field strength of B = 1.3 × 1014 G (at the polar cap) estimated from the pulsar's spin-down.
2,4,6-TRICHLOROPYRIMIDINE. REACTION WITH 4-SUBSTITUTED PHENOLATE IONS

A systematic investigation of the reactivity of 2,4,6-trichloropyrimidine with phenoxide nucleophiles has been conducted. Conditions have been described which lead to mono-, di-, and trisubstituted-pyrimidines. Unexpected product distributions for mono- and disubstituted products were observed and explanations for these results are offered.
Identification and biological activity of microbial metabolites of xanthohumol.

Microbial transformation of xanthohumol using the culture broth of Cunninghamella echinulata NRRL 3655 afforded (2S)-8-[4″-hydroxy-3″-methyl-(2″-Z)-butenyl]-4′,7-dihydroxy-5-methoxyflavanone (5) and (2S)-8-[5″-hydroxy-3″-methyl-(2″-E)-butenyl]-4′,7-dihydroxy-5-methoxyflavanone (6). Xanthohumol (1) and flavanone 6 as well as (E)-2″-(2′′′-hydroxyisopropyl)-dihydrofurano[2″,3″:4′,3′]-2′,4-dihydroxy-6′-methoxychalcone (2), (2S)-2″-(2′′′-hydroxyisopropyl)-dihydrofurano[2″,3″:7,8]-4′-hydroxy-5-methoxyflavanone (3) obtained with Pichia membranifaciens showed antimalarial activity against Plasmodium falciparum.
Intraclass correlation: improved modeling approaches and applications for neuroimaging

Intraclass correlation (ICC) is a reliability metric that gauges similarity when, for example, entities are measured under similar, or even the same, well-controlled conditions, which in MRI applications include runs/sessions, twins, parent/child, scanners, sites, and so on. The popular definitions and interpretations of ICC are usually framed statistically under the conventional ANOVA platform. Here, we provide a comprehensive overview of ICC analysis in its prior usage in neuroimaging, and we show that the standard ANOVA framework is often limited, rigid, and inflexible in modeling capabilities. These intrinsic limitations motivate several improvements. Specifically, we start with the conventional ICC model under the ANOVA platform, and extend it along two dimensions: first, fixing the failure in ICC estimation when negative values occur under degenerative circumstance, and second, incorporating precision information of effect estimates into the ICC model. These endeavors lead to four modeling strategies: linear mixed-effects (LME), regularized mixed-effects (RME), multilevel mixed-effects (MME), and regularized multilevel mixed-effects (RMME). Compared to ANOVA, each of these four models directly provides estimates for fixed effects and their statistical significances, in addition to the ICC estimate. These new modeling approaches can also accommodate missing data and fixed effects for confounding variables. More importantly, we show that the MME and RMME approaches offer more accurate characterization and decomposition among the variance components, leading to more robust ICC computation. Based on these theoretical considerations and model performance comparisons with a real experimental dataset, we offer the following general-purpose recommendations. First, ICC estimation through MME or RMME is preferable when precision information (i.e., weights that more accurately allocate the variances in the data) is available for the effect estimate; when precision information is unavailable, ICC estimation through LME or the RME is the preferred option. Second, even though the absolute agreement version, ICC(2,1), is presently more popular in the field, the consistency version, ICC(3,1), is a practical and informative choice for whole-brain ICC analysis that achieves a well-balanced compromise when all potential fixed effects are accounted for. Third, approaches for clear, meaningful, and useful result reporting in ICC analysis are discussed. All models, ICC formulations, and related statistical testing methods have been implemented in an open source program 3dICC, which is publicly available as part of the AFNI suite. Even though our work here focuses on the whole-brain level, the modeling strategy and recommendations can be equivalently applied to other situations such as voxel, region, and network levels.
Synthesis and crystal structure of an O-silylated hexahomotriazacalix[3]arene

Abstract The first synthesis of an O-silylated derivative of a hexahomotriazacalix[3]arene has been achieved using 1-(trimethylsilyl)imidazole (TMSIM), 1,1,1,3,3,3-hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS), or bis(trimethylsilyl)trifluoroacetamide (BSTFA) in acetronitrile. The cone isomer was formed selectively using TMSIM and HMDS; whereas a cone/partial cone mixture was obtained using BSTFA.
A general, one-pot method for the synthesis of 2-substituted oxazoles

Abstract The reaction of 2-trimethylsilyl-1,2,3-triazole with acid chlorides readily forms triazole amides. The triazole amides, when heated to 150°C in sulfolane, rearrange with the elimination of nitrogen to give 2-substituted oxazoles in high yields. The oxazole synthesis is general, and can be carried out in one-pot.
Error Correction Maximization for Deep Image Hashing

We propose to use the concept of the Hamming bound to derive the optimal criteria for learning hash codes with a deep network. In particular, when the number of binary hash codes (typically the number of image categories) and code length are known, it is possible to derive an upper bound on the minimum Hamming distance between the hash codes. This upper bound can then be used to define the loss function for learning hash codes. By encouraging the margin (minimum Hamming distance) between the hash codes of different image categories to match the upper bound, we are able to learn theoretically optimal hash codes. Our experiments show that our method significantly outperforms competing deep learning-based approaches and obtains top performance on benchmark datasets.
Mild conversion of alkenyl boronic acids to alkenyl halides with halosuccinimides

Abstract Reaction of alkenyl boronic acids with halosuccinimides (NIS, NBS or NCS) gives the corresponding alkenyl halides with the same geometry. This method is suitable for the synthesis of geometrically pure (E) and (Z) alkenyl halides, as well as 1,1- and 1,2-dihaloalkenes.
Molecular safeguarding of CRISPR gene drive experiments

CRISPR-based homing gene drives have sparked both enthusiasm and deep concerns due to their potential for genetically altering entire species. This raises the question about our ability to prevent the unintended spread of such drives from the laboratory into a natural population. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the suitability of synthetic target site drives as well as split drives as flexible safeguarding strategies for gene drive experiments by showing that their performance closely resembles that of standard homing drives in Drosophila melanogaster. Using our split drive system, we further find that maternal deposition of both Cas9 and gRNA is required to form resistance alleles in the early embryo and that maternally-deposited Cas9 alone can power germline drive conversion in individuals that lack a genomic source of Cas9.
A ascensão da História Pública: uma perspectiva internacional

This article explores the birth and development of public history and presents the different criteria of its internationalization from the 1970s to the more recent creation of the International Federation of Public History. Based mostly on North America and Europe, the international perspective sets the development of public history in the United States into a broader context of debates about the changing role of historians. While public history was mostly perceived in the 1980s as the application – through consulting – of history to present - day issues, the more recent internationalization is made of a variety of local and national approaches to the field.
Impact of branching on the conformational heterogeneity of the lipopolysaccharide from Klebsiella pneumoniae: Implications for vaccine design.

Resistance of Klebsiella pneumoniae (KP) to antibiotics has motivated the development of an efficacious KP human vaccine that would not be subject to antibiotic resistance. Klebsiella lipopolysaccharide (LPS) associated O polysaccharide (OPS) types have provoked broad interest as a vaccine antigen as there are only 4 that predominate worldwide (O1, O2a, O3, O5). Klebsiella O1 and O2 OPS are polygalactans that share a common D-Gal-I structure, for which a variant D-Gal-III was recently discovered. To understand the potential impact of this variability on antigenicity, a detailed molecular picture of the conformational differences associated with the addition of the D-Gal-III (1 → 4)-α-Galp branch is presented using enhanced-sampling molecular dynamics simulations. In D-Gal-I two major conformational states are observed while the presence of the 1 → 4 branch in D-Gal-III resulted in only a single dominant extended state. Stabilization of the more folded states in D-Gal-I is due to a O4-H⋯O2 hydrogen bond in the linear backbone that cannot occur in D-Gal-III as the O4 is in the Galp(1 → 4)Galp glycosidic linkage. The impact of branching in D-Gal-III also significantly decreases the accessibility of the monosaccharides in the linear backbone region of D-Gal-I, while the accessibility of the terminal D-Gal-II region of the OPS is not substantially altered. The present results suggest that a vaccine that targets both the D-Gal-I and D-Gal-III LPS can be developed by using D-Gal-III as the antigen combined with cross-reactivity experiments using the Gal-II polysaccharide to assure that this region of the LPS is the primary epitope of the antigen.
Synthesis and characterization of three new rare-earth titanium oxyselenides: Ln3.67Ti2O3Se6 (Ln = Ce, Nd, Sm)

Three new compounds, Ln 3.67 Ti 2 O 3 Se 6 (Ln = Ce, Nd, Sm), have been prepared from the reaction in stoichiometric ratios of Ln, TiO 2 , Ti, and Se in sealed fused-silica tubes at 950°C. A KBr flux was used to promote the crystal growth. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction measurements show that these compounds are isostructural. They crystallize with four formula units in the monoclinic space group C2/m in a new structure type that contains four crystallographically independent Ln atoms with three different coordination geometries and three nonequivalent Ti atoms in octahedral geometry. The structure comprises infinite condensed slabs of composition 2 ∞[Ln 4 Ti 2 O 4 Se 4 Se 5/2 ] alternating along the a axis with extended slabs of composition 2 ∞[Ln 3.33 Ti 2 O 2 Se 3 Se 5/2 ]. To achieve charge balance, Ti 3+ and Ti 4+ cations must be present in equal numbers; these are randomly distributed over the Ti sites. Crystal data at -120 °C follow: Ce 3.67 Ti 2 O 3 Se 6 , a = 28.315(6) A, b = 3.8719(8) A, c = 11.271(2) A, β = 90.45(3)°, R(F) = 0.0286; Nd 3.67 Ti 2 O 3 Se 6 , a = 28.121(6) A, b = 3.8232(8) A, c = 11.179(2) A, β = 90.15(3)°, R(F) = 0.0322; Sm 3.67 Ti 2 O 3 Se 6 , a = 27.961(6) A, b = 3.7827(8) A, c = 11.128(2) A, β = 90.26(3)°, R(F) = 0.0294. The magnetic susceptibilities of the Ln 3.67 Ti 2 O 3 Se 6 (Ln = Ce, Nd, Sm) compounds are dominated by the trivalent rare-earth cations and display paramagnetic behavior down to 5 K.
Population coding of valence in the basolateral amygdala

The basolateral amygdala (BLA) plays important roles in associative learning, by representing conditioned stimuli (CSs) and unconditioned stimuli (USs), and by forming associations between CSs and USs. However, how such associations are formed and updated remains unclear. Here we show that associative learning driven by reward and punishment profoundly alters BLA population responses, reducing noise correlations and transforming the representations of CSs to resemble the valence-specific representations of USs. This transformation is accompanied by the emergence of prevalent inhibitory CS and US responses, and by the plasticity of CS responses in individual BLA neurons. During reversal learning wherein the expected valences are reversed, BLA population CS representations are remapped onto ensembles representing the opposite valences and predict the switching in valence-specific behaviors. Our results reveal how signals predictive of opposing valences in the BLA evolve during learning, and how these signals are updated during reversal learning thereby guiding flexible behaviors.
Electrochemical Properties and Electronic Structures of Conjugated Polyquinolines and Polyanthrazolines

The effects of molecular structure on the electronic structure and redox properties of a series of 22 systematically designed conjugated polyquinolines and polyanthrazolines are explored by cyclic voltammetry and spectroelectrochemistry on thin films. The measured electrochemical bandgap of the series of conjugated polymers was in the range 2.0−3.1 eV and found to be in good agreement with the optical bandgap. The oxidation and reduction potentials, ionization potential, and electron affinity of the series of polymers were correlated with their main structural features. All the polyquinolines and polyanthrazolines had reversible reduction with formal potentials of −1.57 to −2.08 V (versus SCE) which make them excellent n-type semiconducting polymers. Polymers containing anthrazoline units have a higher electron affinity by 0.3−0.4 eV than those containing bis(quinoline) units. On the other hand, thiophene-linked polymers have a lower ionization potential by 0.45−0.5 eV than those with phenylene linkages. ...
GENERATION AND STUDY OF BENZYLCHLOROCARBENE FROM A PHENANTHRENE PRECURSOR

The curved plots of (carbene adduct)/(carbene-rearrangement product) versus carbene trapping agent, tetramethylene [TME], reported with benzylchlorodiazirine 1 have been reproduced. However, with the use of a non-nitrogenous precursor, plots of this type are approximately linear over the range of [TME] employed. Thus, any complex formed between benzylchlorocarbene and TME must collapse to form cyclopropane faster then it can fragment with rearrangement to β-chlorostyrene and TME. Diazirine 1 does photoisomerize to diazo compound 7, but this process is inefficient (φ = 0.075) and is not likely to be responsible for the curvature in plots of adduct/styrene versus [TME] observed with the diazirine precursor. Thus, the second, noncarbene, pathway to β-chlorostyrene is neither a carbene−olefin complex nor a diazo intermediate. It is proposed that the second pathway involves a rearrangement in the excited state of the diazirine, although other explanations cannot be discarded.
A Three-Component Coupling Strategy for Tetrahydrofuran Synthesis: Application of the Diisopropyl Tartrate Modified (E)-γ-(Dimethylphenylsilyl)allylboronate as an α,γ-Allyl Dianion Equivalent

A highly convergent three-component coupling strategy for the stereocontrolled synthesis of 2,3,5-trisubstituted tetrahydrofurans is described. After allylboration of the first aldehyde with 1, the chiral, nonracemic allylsilanes 2 are coupled with a second aldehyde or ketone with Lewis acid catalysis to give tetrahydrofurans 3 or 4 with excellent selectivity. The 2,5-stereochemistry is controlled by operating under nonchelate (e.g., 3) or chelate (e.g., 4) conditions.
Fluorous technologies for solution-phase high-throughput organic synthesis

1. IntroductionThe combination of compound library synthesis and high-throughput screening has become a powerful tool in today’sdrug discovery effort. Implementation of traditionalsolution-phase reactions in library synthesis, however, ishampered by the time-consuming step of product puriﬁ-cation. The development of combinatorial synthesis on solidsupport has reduced the separation to be an easy wash andﬁltration process.
Chelation-assisted intramolecular hydroacylation: synthesis of medium ring sulfur heterocycles

Medium ring sulfur heterocycles are prepared from ω-alkenals and alkynals containing a sulfur tether atom via a novel chelation-assisted intramolecular hydroacylation catalyzed by rhodium(I).
Base-Induced Dimerization of Urethane-Protected Amino Acid N-Carboxanhydrides

tert-Butyloxycarbonyl-protected N-carboxanhydrides of amino acids dimerize in the presence of base in aprotic media to form 3,5-dialkyl-2,4-dioxo-1-pyrrolidine analogs. Depending on the nature of the base, different ratios of isomers were obtained. The reaction with lithium bis(trimethylsilyl)amide lead to one isomer only. After deprotection of the tert-butyloxycarbonyl groups and coupling of (benzyloxycarbonyl)valine, a homogeneous product was obtained. Reduction with sodium borohydride again gave a homogeneous product. Nuclear Overhauser enhancement spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography identified the stereochemistry in positions 3 and 5 of the pyrolidine as Z. When 1, 8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene was used as the base, the condensation led to a 1:3 ratio of isomers. The major isomer was different from the one obtained with lithium bis(trimethylsilyl)amide. The (benzyloxycarbonyl)valine derivative from this compound was obtained as a 1:1 mixture of isomers, leading to the conclusion that this conden...
Dual reaction pathways in the magnesium-mediated synthesis of aziridines from benzal halides and imines

Abstract Reaction between benzal dihalides, benzaldehyde imines, and magnesium in ether affords aziridines in modest yields. Two mechanistic pathways for aziridine formation are discerned. One path involves nucleophilic attack by an alpha-halo Grignard species on the imine; the other involves electrophilic attack on imine by phenylcarbene to afford an azomethine ylide.
Intramolecular Ketone−Nitrile Reductive Coupling Reactions Promoted by Samarium(II) Iodide

Samarium(II) iodide (SmI2) has been successfully utilized as a reducing agent for the intramolecular coupling of ketones with nitriles. The use of visible light to promote the reductive coupling represents an improvement over previously reported protocols. The procedure also avoids overreduction of the resulting α-hydroxy ketones. Monocyclic, fused bicyclic, and bridged bicyclic α-hydroxy ketones composed of a number of substitution patterns have been synthesized in moderate to excellent yield via this method. A sequential reaction consisting of a nucleophilic acyl substitution followed by a ketyl−nitrile coupling has also been accomplished.
Mono C-alkylation and mono C-benzylation of barbituric acids through zinc/acid reduction of acyl, benzylidene, and alkylidene barbiturate intermediates

Abstract Through systematic exploration of reaction conditions, very efficient preparative procedures for obtaining large quantities of substituted 5-alkyl and 5-benzylbarbituric acids were developed. The procedure involves a two step preparation in which the second step is zinc dust/acid reduction. For preparation of 5-alkylbarbiturates, the first step is the preparation of either 5-acyl or 5-alkylidenebarbiturate. If 5-benzylbarbiturate is the target product, then the first step includes the preparation of 5-benzylidene. Regardless of the nature of the first step, all reactions presented synthetic yields around 90% and isolation and purification involves only crystallization.
A Synthetic Route to a New Surface-Active Phosphine Ligand: 12-DPDP (12-Diphenylphosphinododecylphosphonate)

Abstract A water-soluble phosphonate-functionalized phosphine ligand Na 2 [Ph 2 P(CH 2 ) 12 PO 3 ] ( 8 ), was prepared in eight steps from cyclododecanone. Phosphine 8 reacts with [Rh(COD)Cl] 2 in methanol to give the new complex Na 2 [Rh(COD)(Ph 2 P(CH 2 ) 12 PO 3 )Cl] ( 9 ). Complex 9 is inactive in the catalytic hydrogenation of 1-hexene and cyclohexene due to the decomposition of 9 to rhodium metal in the presence of hydrogen gas. Hydrogenation of decene using [Rh(COD) 2 ]BF 4 and 3 equiv. of 8 in an aqueous emulsion was achieved using 1 atm H 2 . 31 P NMR studies on 8 suggest a lack of well-defined aggregation in water, which has been ascribed to the steric bulk of the diphenylphosphino group.
Rb4Hg5(Te2)2 (Te3)2Te3, [Zn(en)3]4In16 (Te2)4(Te3)Te22, and K2Cu2(Te2)(Te3): Novel metal polytellurides with unusual metal-tellurium coordination

Three novel metal polytellurides Rb4Hg5(Te2)2(Te3)2Te3 (I), [Zn(en)3]4In16(Te2)4(Te3)Te22 (II), and K2Cu2(Te2)(Te3) (III) have been prepared by solvothermal reactions in superheated ethylenediamine...
Facile synthesis of a chiral auxiliary bearing the isocyanide group

The synthesis of a chiral isocyanide possessing the easily cleaved menthoxy group is reported. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Heteroatom Chem 12:561–562, 2001
OpenKI: Integrating Open Information Extraction and Knowledge Bases with Relation Inference

In this paper, we consider advancing web-scale knowledge extraction and alignment by integrating OpenIE extractions in the form of (subject, predicate, object) triples with Knowledge Bases (KB). Traditional techniques from universal schema and from schema mapping fall in two extremes: either they perform instance-level inference relying on embedding for (subject, object) pairs, thus cannot handle pairs absent in any existing triples; or they perform predicate-level mapping and completely ignore background evidence from individual entities, thus cannot achieve satisfying quality. We propose OpenKI to handle sparsity of OpenIE extractions by performing instance-level inference: for each entity, we encode the rich information in its neighborhood in both KB and OpenIE extractions, and leverage this information in relation inference by exploring different methods of aggregation and attention. In order to handle unseen entities, our model is designed without creating entity-specific parameters. Extensive experiments show that this method not only significantly improves state-of-the-art for conventional OpenIE extractions like ReVerb, but also boosts the performance on OpenIE from semi-structured data, where new entity pairs are abundant and data are fairly sparse.
Effect of an Abrupt Change in Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy on Adolescent Birth Rates in Ecuador, 2008–2017

Abstract Several countries have implemented “family-centered” abstinence-only policies for teenagers, as opposed to encouraging utilization and expansion of reproductive health services and education. Little is known, however, about the effects of these more restrictive policies on adolescent birth rates at the national level or their differential effects by race and ethnicity. The extant literature is even scarcer in low- and middle-income countries. We analyze an unexpected policy change in Ecuador that abruptly reversed course and restricted reproductive health services for teenage women in 2014. We use a canton- and time-fixed effects difference-in-differences analysis of Ecuador’s 221 cantons with time-varying controls to analyze the impact of the abrupt policy change on the difference of teen (15−19 years) minus young adult (20−24 years) birth rates. In a difference-in-difference-in-differences analysis, the policy change increases birth rates by 8.5 births per 1000 women in cantons with higher indigenous concentration. Results are robust to changes in the comparison population (young adults vs. women in their late 20 s or in their early 30 s), pre-intervention control periods, population weighting, serial correlation, logarithmic model specification, adjustments for intervention year, definition of indigenous concentration, and potential delays in policy implementation.
Asymmetric Effects on Fatality Rates of Changes in Workers’ Compensation Laws

With irreversible investments in safety, changes in workers’ compensation laws should affect employer incentives asymmetrically: increases in workers’ compensation generosity should cause employers to invest more in safety, but comparable decreases might not cause them to disinvest in existing precautionary programs or equipment. Although maximum weekly benefits caps have been fairly stable, state laws have expanded or restricted workers’ compensation on multiple other dimensions. State laws may impose new requirements regarding burdens of proof, access to medical care, and the duration of benefits. This article estimates the effect of changes in these more comprehensive measures of workers’ compensation laws on workplace safety. Using confidential, restricted data from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, the article finds that increases in workers’ compensation generosity lead to a significant decrease in fatality rates, while decreases in workers’ compensation generosity do not significantly increase fatality rates.
On orbifold Gromov–Witten theory in codimension one

Abstract We propose a conjectural determination of the Gromov–Witten theory of a root stack along a smooth divisor. We verify our conjecture under an additional assumption.
GIT constructions of moduli spaces of stable curves and maps

This largely expository paper first gives an introduction to Hilbert stability and its use in Gieseker's GIT construction of $\overline{M}_g$. Then I review recent work in this area--variants for unpointed curves that arise in Hassett's log minimal model program, starting with Schubert's moduli space of pseudostable curves, and constructions for weighted pointed stable curves and for pointed stable maps due to Swinarski and to Baldwin and Swinarski respectively. The focus is on the steps at which new ideas are needed. Finally, I list open problems in the area, particularly some arising in the log minimal model program that seem inaccessible to current techniques.
Implicit Causal Models for Genome-wide Association Studies

Progress in probabilistic generative models has accelerated, developing richer models with neural architectures, implicit densities, and with scalable algorithms for their Bayesian inference. However, there has been limited progress in models that capture causal relationships, for example, how individual genetic factors cause major human diseases. In this work, we focus on two challenges in particular: How do we build richer causal models, which can capture highly nonlinear relationships and interactions between multiple causes? How do we adjust for latent confounders, which are variables influencing both cause and effect and which prevent learning of causal relationships? To address these challenges, we synthesize ideas from causality and modern probabilistic modeling. For the first, we describe implicit causal models, a class of causal models that leverages neural architectures with an implicit density. For the second, we describe an implicit causal model that adjusts for confounders by sharing strength across examples. In experiments, we scale Bayesian inference on up to a billion genetic measurements. We achieve state of the art accuracy for identifying causal factors: we significantly outperform existing genetics methods by an absolute difference of 15-45.3%.
Asymptotics and Optimal Designs of SLOPE for Sparse Linear Regression

In sparse linear regression, the SLOPE estimator generalizes LASSO by assigning magnitude-dependent regularizations to different coordinates of the estimate. In this paper, we present an asymptotically exact characterization of the performance of SLOPE in the high-dimensional regime where the number of unknown parameters grows in proportion to the number of observations. Our asymptotic characterization enables us to derive optimal regularization sequences to either minimize the MSE or to maximize the power in variable selection under any given level of Type-I error. In both cases, we show that the optimal design can be recast as certain infinite-dimensional convex optimization problems, which have efficient and accurate finite-dimensional approximations. Numerical simulations verify our asymptotic predictions. They also demonstrate the superiority of our optimal design over LASSO and a regularization sequence previously proposed in the literature.
SLE as a Mating of Trees in Euclidean Geometry

The mating of trees approach to Schramm–Loewner evolution (SLE) in the random geometry of Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) has been recently developed by Duplantier et al. (Liouville quantum gravity as a mating of trees, 2014. arXiv:1409.7055 ). In this paper we consider the mating of trees approach to SLE in Euclidean geometry. Let $${\eta}$$ be a whole-plane space-filling SLE with parameter $${\kappa > 4}$$ , parameterized by Lebesgue measure. The main observable in the mating of trees approach is the contour function, a two-dimensional continuous process describing the evolution of the Minkowski content of the left and right frontier of $${\eta}$$ . We prove regularity properties of the contour function and show that (as in the LQG case) it encodes all the information about the curve $${\eta}$$ . We also prove that the uniform spanning tree on $${\mathbb{Z}^2}$$ converges to SLE8 in the natural topology associated with the mating of trees approach.
Quasi Pieces of the Bilinear Hilbert Transform Incorporated into a Paraproduct

We prove the boundedness of a class of tri-linear operators consisting of a quasi piece of bilinear Hilbert transform whose scale equals to or dominates the scale of its linear counter part. Such type of operators is motivated by the tri-linear Hilbert transform and its curved versions.
From local measurements to network spectral properties: Beyond degree distributions

It is well-known that the behavior of many dynamical processes running on networks is intimately related to the eigenvalue spectrum of the network. In this paper, we address the problem of inferring global information regarding the eigenvalue spectrum of a network from a set of local samples of its structure. In particular, we find explicit relationships between the so-called spectral moments of a graph and the presence of certain small subgraphs, also called motifs, in the network. Since the eigenvalues of the network have a direct influence on the network dynamical behavior, our result builds a bridge between local network measurements (i.e., the presence of small subgraphs) and global dynamical behavior (via the spectral moments). Furthermore, based on our result, we propose a novel decentralized scheme to compute the spectral moments of a network by aggregating local measurements of the network topology. Our final objective is to understand the relationships between the behavior of dynamical processes taking place in a large-scale complex network and its local topological properties.