cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Sponsored Search Auctions with Markovian Users

Sponsored search involves running an auction among advertisers who bid in order to have their ad shown next to search results for specific keywords. The most popular auction for sponsored search is the "Generalized Second Price" (GSP) auction where advertisers are assigned to slots in the decreasing order of their score , which is defined as the product of their bid and click-through rate. One of the main advantages of this simple ranking is that bidding strategy is intuitive: to move up to a more prominent slot on the results page, bid more. This makes it simple for advertisers to strategize. However this ranking only maximizes efficiency under the assumption that the probability of a user clicking on an ad is independent of the other ads shown on the page. We study a Markovian user model that does not make this assumption. Under this model, the most efficient assignment is no longer a simple ranking function as in GSP. We show that the optimal assignment can be found efficiently (even in near-linear time). As a result of the more sophisticated structure of the optimal assignment, bidding dynamics become more complex: indeed it is no longer clear that bidding more moves one higher on the page. Our main technical result is that despite the added complexity of the bidding dynamics, the optimal assignment has the property that ad position is still monotone in bid. Thus even in this richer user model, our mechanism retains the core bidding dynamics of the GSP auction that make it useful for advertisers.
A HODOGRAPH-BASED METHOD FOR THE DESIGN OF SHOCK-FREE CASCADES

A hodograph-based method, originally developed by the first author for the design of shock-free aerofoils, has been modified and extended to allow for the design of shock-free compressor blades. In the present procedure, the subsonic and supersonic regions of the flow are decoupled, allowing the solution of either an elliptic or a hyperbolic-type partial differential equation for the stream function. The coupling of both regions of the flow is carried out along the sonic line which adjoins both regions. For the subcritical portion of the flow considered here, the pressure distribution is prescribed in addition to the upstream and downstream flow conditions. For the supercritical portion of the flow, the stream function on the sonic line is given instead of the supercritical pressure distribution which is found as part of the solution. In the special hodograph variables used, the equation for the stream function is solved iteratively using a second-order accurate line relaxation procedure for the subsonic portion of the flow. For the supercritical portion of the flow, a characteristic marching procedure in the hodograph plane is used to solve for the supersonic flow. The results are then mapped back to the physical plane to determine the blade shape and the supercritical pressures. Examples of shock-free compressor blade designs are presented. They show good agreement with the direct computation of the flow past the designed blade.
Kinetics and thermodynamics of amyloid fibril assembly

With some exceptions, amyloids appear to be accidental aggregated structures whose formation was not selected for in molecular evolution. Despite this, amyloid fibrils are in many respects surprisingly well-behaved molecules. For example, Huntington's disease-related polyglutamine sequences aggregate via a relatively simple nucleated growth polymerization mechanism. In addition, the Alzheimer's plaque protein Aβ has been shown to undergo reversible amyloid fibril formation to a position of dynamic equilibrium such that reaction thermodynamics can be quantified. Studies of these well-behaved amyloid systems are allowing us to peer more deeply into the process and products of off-pathway misfolding and aggregation.
On iterated torus knots and transversal knots

A knot type is exchange reducible if an arbitrary closed n–braid representative K of K can be changed to a closed braid of minimum braid index nmin(K) by a finite sequence of braid isotopies, exchange moves and ±–destabilizations. (See Figure 1). In the manuscript [6] a transversal knot in the standard contact structure for S3 is defined to be transversally simple if it is characterized up to transversal isotopy by its topological knot type and its self-linking number. Theorem 2 of [6] establishes that exchange reducibility implies transversally simplicity. Theorem 1.1, the main result in this note, establishes that iterated torus knots are exchange reducible. It then follows as a Corollary that iterated torus knots are transversally simple. AMS Classification numbers Primary: 57M27, 57N16, 57R17 Secondary: 37F20
Low Voltage Initiation of Damaging Arcs Between Electrical Contacts

Metallic arcs were found to precede the firm contacting of electrical contacts which were closed without bounce. When the open-circuit voltages were below the ionization potential, the initiation of these arcs was found to depend on the presence of asperities on the .surfaces and on asperity contacting, melting, and pinching off by magnetic forces. The arc is thought to be initiated inductively when the molten metallic asperity contact is pinched off, and the electrode damage is similar to that produced by the arcing of opening contacts. Arcing could not be produced for exceptionally Smooth surfaces, or, for rough surfaces when the open-circuit potential was below the melting voltage of the electrode metals. In order to prevent damage to contact surfaces by melting or arcing, it is suggested that test potentials be limited to below the melting voltages, that the current be limited, the test circuits be designed to prevent inductively generated high voltage transients, and the contact surfaces be very smooth. In order to facilitate arc initiation in arc welding applications, it is suggested that the surfaces of electrodes and work pieces be roughened.
Games with Imperfectly Observable Actions in Continuous Time

This paper investigates a new class of two-player games in continuous time, in which the players' observations of each other's actions are distorted by Brownian motions. These games are analogous to repeated games with imperfect monitoring in which the players take actions frequently. Using a differential equation, we find the set E(r) of payoff pairs achievable by all public perfect equilibria of the continuous-time game, where r is the discount rate. The same differential equation allows us to find public perfect equilibria that achieve any value pair on the boundary of the set 9(r). These public perfect equilibria are based on a pair of continuation values as a state variable, which moves along the boundary of E(r) during the course of the game. In order to give players incentives to take actions that are not static best responses, the pair of continuation values is stochastically driven by the players' observations of each other's actions along the boundary of the set S(r).
A serendipitous XMM-Newton observation of the intermediate polar WX Pyx

We briefly describe a serendipitous observation of the little-studied intermediate polar WX Pyx using XMM-Newton. The X-ray spin period is 1557.3 s, confirming the optical period published in 1996. An orbital period of ∼5.54 h is inferred from the separation of the spin-orbit sidelobe components. The soft and hard band spin-folded light curves are roughly sinusoidal in shape. The best-fit spectrum is consistent with a bremsstrahlung temperature of ∼18 keV. An upper limit of ∼300 eV is assigned to the presence of Fe line emission. WX Pyx lies near TX and TV Col in the Pspin − Porb plane.
Factors influencing the dynamics of gonadotropin response following bolus infusion of luteinizing hormone-releasing factor in women with menstrual abnormalities.

Thirty-five women with menstrual abnormalities were given 100 μg of luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) by bolus intravenous injection in an attempt to simplify and quantitate the usefulness of this test in clinical management. Peak and total gonadotropin responses are highly correlated. Peak and total LH are significantly related to basal LH but no similar relationship could be established for follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). There is no association between gonadotropin response and prolactin levels or body weight. Basal estradiol levels are inversely related to FSH response but not to LH response. It is concluded that the use of an intravenous 100-μg bolus of LHRH is of little use as a clinical test for the gynecologic endocrine patient.
A Quantitative Analysis Of AIS Professor Compensation

ABSTRACT Much research has been published related to compensation in major academic fields such as finance and economics, however little attention has been paid to Accounting Information Systems (AIS). Conspicuously absent from the literature are in-depth studies of faculty compensation and its relationship to research productivity for AIS faculty. This study examines compensation, rank and publication data collected from members of the American Accounting Association. Members of the Information Systems section and the Emerging Technology/Artificial Intelligence section were surveyed. The relationships between compensation and its possible determinants such as research productivity and institutional accreditation are reported as well as analyzed. We find that compensation is significantly correlated with professors’ profiles as well as the school profile where the professor is employed. INTRODUCTION n a free-market private enterprise system income should be distributed according to productivity. Moreover, business schools should apply the basic tenet that academics should be rewarded based on merit. This study examines academic compensation and the relationship to its determinants including productivity and other variables. Some determinants of academic salaries in the field of accounting information systems are suggested. The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) reports faculty salaries annually in many discipline areas such as finance, accounting, marketing, economics and management. Unfortunately, little is published about the process of evaluating and compensating Accounting Information Systems (AIS) professors. Although many universities have appointment guidelines by rank and experience in promoting and compensating faculty, more factors are often considered to have impacts on faculty salary determination. This study examines compensation, rank and publication data collected from members of the American Accounting Association (AAA). The relationships among rank, compensation and research productivity could supply valuable insight during promotion, tenure and compensation decisions. The results of this study could benefit professors that teach and research in this interdisciplinary area. In addition, information related to institutional attributes such as accreditation, size, location and degrees conferred are also included in the analysis.
SELECTIVE RECOGNITION: HOW TO RECOGNIZE DONORS TO INCREASE CHARITABLE GIVING

Recognizing donors by revealing their identities is important for increasing charitable giving. We conducted a field experiment to examine how different recognition methods impact giving, and found that all forms of recognition that we examined had a positive impact on increasing donations, whereby recognizing only highest donors (positive recognition) and recognizing only lowest donors (negative recognition) had the most pronounced effect. We argue that selective recognition (both positive and negative) creates tournament-like incentives. Recognizing the highest donors activates the desire to seek a positive prize of prestige, thus increasing the proportion of donors who contribute large amounts. Recognizing the lowest donors activates the desire to avoid a negative prize of shame, thus decreasing the proportion of donors who do not contribute or contribute very little. Therefore, selective recognition is an effective tool that can be used in the field by charities to increase donations.
Rigorous Coupling of Geomechanics and Multiphase Flow with Strong Capillarity

We study sequential formulations for coupled multiphase flow and reservoir geomechanics. First, we identify the proper definition of effective stress in multiphase-fluid systems. Although the average pore-pressure p—defined as the sum of the product of saturation and pressure of all the fluid phases that occupy the pore space—is commonly used to describe multiphase-fluid flow in deformable porous media, it can be shown that the “equivalent” pore pressure pE —defined as p minus the interfacial energy—is the appropriate quantity (Coussy 2004). We show, by means of a fully implicit analysis of the system, that only the equivalent pore pressure pE leads to a continuum problem that is thermodynamically stable (thus, numerical discretizations on the basis of the average pore pressure p cannot render unconditionally stable and convergent schemes). We then study the convergence and stability properties of sequentialimplicit coupling strategies. We show that the stability and convergence properties of sequential-implicit coupling strategies for single-phase flow carry over for multiphase systems if the equivalent pore pressure pE is used. Specifically, the undrained and fixed-stress schemes are unconditionally stable, and the fixed-stress split is superior to the undrained approach in terms of convergence rate. The findings from stability theory are verified by use of nonlinear simulations of two-phase flow in deformable reservoirs.
Structured transforms for small-footprint deep learning

We consider the task of building compact deep learning pipelines suitable for deployment on storage and power constrained mobile devices. We propose a unified framework to learn a broad family of structured parameter matrices that are characterized by the notion of low displacement rank. Our structured transforms admit fast function and gradient evaluation, and span a rich range of parameter sharing configurations whose statistical modeling capacity can be explicitly tuned along a continuum from structured to unstructured. Experimental results show that these transforms can significantly accelerate inference and forward/backward passes during training, and offer superior accuracy-compactness-speed tradeoffs in comparison to a number of existing techniques. In keyword spotting applications in mobile speech recognition, our methods are much more effective than standard linear low-rank bottleneck layers and nearly retain the performance of state of the art models, while providing more than 3.5-fold compression.
Speculation and Financial Wealth Distribution under Belief Heterogeneity

Under limited commitment that prevents agents from pledging their future non…nancial wealth, agents with incorrect beliefs always survive by holding on their non…nancial wealth. Friedman (1953)’s market selection hypothesis suggests that their …nancial wealth trends towards zero in the long run. However, in this paper, I construct an example in dynamic general equilibrium in which over-optimistic agents not only survive but also prosper by holding an increasingly larger share of a real asset and driving up the price of the asset: they prosper by speculation. The endogenous price
Provisioning virtualized Cloud services in IP/MPLS-over-EON networks

Cloud computing enables the provisioning of resources in a reliable and on-demand manner. With the increasing importance of the network bandwidth in the Cloud environment, the networking related resources need to be optimally allocated together with the traditional Cloud computing resources. In addition, the significant growth of the global data center traffic raises the challenge of supporting demands with large bandwidth requirements for the Cloud provider. In our paper, we consider the network-efficient virtualized cloud infrastructure provisioning problem in IP over elastic optical network (IP-over-EON) based on the data center as a service model. The elastic optical network is adopted to provide spectrum and cost-efficient networking resources for large bandwidth requests in our work. We develop mixed integer linear programming formulations to construct the mathematic model for this problem and propose a cost-optimized heuristic to solve this problem. To investigate the cost and blocking rate for the served demands, different modulation formats are compared in the EON layer, and the sliceable bandwidth-variable transponders and optical traffic grooming technology are considered. The experimental results show that different modulation formats that are adopted in the EON layer will have different impacts on the total cost and demand blocking rate for the same data set size. Also the use of SBVT will reduce the total cost no matter which modulation format is adopted, and the reduction is related to the bandwidth requirement of the demands.
Can the Ticket to Work Program Be Self-Financing?

The Ticket to Work program (TTW) represents a new approach to an old problem: although many Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries work at some time after getting benefits, very few earn enough to be judged capable of substantial gainful activity, the key determinant of whether they are disabled and entitled to continued benefits.
Three Styles of Darwinian Evolution in the Analysis Of Stone Artefacts: Which One to Use in Mainland Southeast Asia?

Our understanding of flaked stone artefacts from assemblages in mainland Southeast Asia is constrained by a shortage of robust and flexible theory to generate suitable methods of analysis. I review three candidate theories derived from Darwinian evolutionary principles to identify the most suitable for investigating flaked stone artefacts from mainland Southeast Asia. The demands of the theory are compared with the evidential constraints of the assemblages. Human behavioural ecology is found to be the most suitable because of the reliable methods available to test predictions with artefact assemblages. A small case study is discussed to demonstrate the applicability of this approach.
Enhancing Transparency and Control When Drawing Data-Driven Inferences About Individuals.

Columbia University, New York University, NYU Stern School of Business, NYU Center for Data Science
The Effects of Public Sector Hiring and Compensation Policies on the Egyptian Labor Market

This article examines the combined impact of the employment guarantee for graduates and public sector compensation policies on the Egyptian labor market. Besides contributing to an unsustainable rate of growth in the government labor force, these policies have encouraged queuing for government jobs, contributed to high graduate unemployment rates, and reduced the employment of graduates in the private sector. Despite substantial wage erosion in the public sector in recent years, government wages, when appropriately corrected for observed heterogeneity and sample selection, are on a par with, or higher than, private sector wages, especially for graduates. When combined with the more desirable nonwage aspects of government jobs, these compensation levels explain the attractiveness of public sector employment to graduates. Government pay scales are especially advantageous to female secondary school graduates, who appear to face considerable discrimination in the private sector.
Secular Labor Reallocation and Business Cycles

We study the eect of mean-preserving idiosyncratic industry shocks on business cycle outcomes. We develop an empirical methodology using a local area’s exposure to industry reallocation based on the area’s initial industry composition and employment trends in the rest of the country over a full employment cycle. Using confidential employment data by local area and industry over the period 1980-2014, we find sharp evidence of reallocation contributing to worse employment outcomes during national recessions but not during national expansions. We repeat our empirical exercise in a multi-area, multi-sector search and matching model of the labor market. The model reproduces the empirical results subject to inclusion of two key, empirically plausible frictions: imperfect mobility across industries, and downward nominal wage rigidity. Combining the empirical and model results, we conclude that reallocation can generate substantial amplification and persistence of business cycles at both the local and the aggregate level.
A Comprehensive Analysis of Adoption of Energy Crops, GM Crops and Conservation Practices

The future of the US agriculture relies on sustainable resource use and income generation for farmers, and maintaining the environmental quality. Hence, farmers are expected to adopt various technologies and practices, such as energy crops, genetically modified crops, and conservation practices. The objective of this study is, by using a multivariate probit model, to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the impact of certain socio-economic factors on adoption of Miscanthus, Roundup Ready® soybean, and maintaining a 100 foot setback between water resources and manure application areas. The results of the current study show that different policies will be needed to promote adoption of technologies with different objectives.
Catalytic deoxygenation on transition metal carbide catalysts

We discuss the evolution of catalytic function of interstitial transition metal formulations as a result of bulk and surface structure modifications via alteration of synthesis and reaction conditions, specifically, in the context of catalytic deoxygenation reactions. We compare and contrast synthesis techniques of molybdenum and tungsten carbides, including temperature programmed reaction and ultra-high vacuum methods, and note that stoichiometric reactions may occur on phase-pure materials and that in situ surface modification during deoxygenation likely results in the formation of oxycarbides. We surmise that catalytic metal–acid bifunctionality of transition metal carbides can be tuned via oxygen modification due to the inherent oxophilicity of these materials, and we demonstrate the use of in situ chemical titration methods to assess catalytic site requirements on these formulations.
Spatially- and temporally-controlled postnatal p53 knockdown cooperates with embryonic Schwann cell precursor Nf1 gene loss to promote malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor formation.

// Angela C. Hirbe 1 , Sonika Dahiya 2 , Dinorah Friedmann-Morvinski 3 , Inder M. Verma 3 , D. Wade Clapp 4 and David H. Gutmann 5 1 Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA 2 Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA 3 The Salk Institute of Biological Studies, Laboratory of Genetics, La Jolla, CA, USA 4 Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA 5 Department of Neurology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA Correspondence to: David H. Gutmann, email: // Keywords : Neurofibromatosis Type 1, MPNST, lentivirus, p53, mouse models Received : October 26, 2015 Accepted : January 27, 2016 Published : February 07, 2016 Abstract Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs) are highly aggressive sarcomas that arise sporadically or in association with the Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) cancer predisposition syndrome. In individuals with NF1, MPNSTs are hypothesized to arise from Nf1 -deficient Schwann cell precursor cells following the somatic acquisition of secondary cooperating genetic mutations ( e.g ., p53 loss). To model this sequential genetic cooperativity, we coupled somatic lentivirus-mediated p53 knockdown in the adult right sciatic nerve with embryonic Schwann cell precursor Nf1 gene inactivation in two different Nf1 conditional knockout mouse strains. Using this approach, ~60% of mice with Periostin-Cre-mediated Nf1 gene inactivation (Periostin-Cre; Nf1 flox/flox mice) developed tumors classified as low-grade MPNSTs following p53 knockdown (mean, 6 months). Similarly, ~70% of Nf1 +/- mice with GFAP-Cre-mediated Nf1 gene inactivation (GFAP-Cre; Nf1 flox/null mice) developed low-grade MPNSTs following p53 knockdown (mean, 3 months). In addition, wild-type and Nf1+/- mice with GFAP-Cre-mediated Nf1 loss develop MPNSTs following somatic p53 knockout with different latencies, suggesting potential influences of Nf1+/- stromal cells in MPNST pathogenesis. Collectively, this new MPNST model system permits the analysis of somatically-acquired events as well as tumor microenvironment signals that potentially cooperate with Nf1 loss in the development and progression of this deadly malignancy.
Bond-Weakening Catalysis: Conjugate Aminations Enabled by the Soft Homolysis of Strong N–H Bonds

The ability of redox-active metal centers to weaken the bonds in associated ligands is well precedented, but has rarely been utilized as a mechanism of substrate activation in catalysis. Here we describe a catalytic bond-weakening protocol for conjugate amination wherein the strong N–H bonds in N-aryl amides (N–H bond dissociation free energies ∼100 kcal/mol) are destabilized by ∼33 kcal/mol upon by coordination to a reducing titanocene complex, enabling their abstraction by the weak H-atom acceptor TEMPO through a proton-coupled electron transfer process. Significantly, this soft homolysis mechanism provides a method to generate closed-shell, metalated nucleophiles under neutral conditions in the absence of a Bronsted base.
The mechanism of enantioselective ketone reduction with Noyori and Noyori-Ikariya bifunctional catalysts.

The catalytic hydrogenation of prochiral ketones with second and third-row transition metal complexes bearing chelating chiral ligands containing at least one N–H functionality has achieved unparalleled performance, delivering, in the best cases, chiral alcohols with up to 99.9% ee using extremely small catalyst loadings (∼10−5 mol%). Hence the efficacy of this reaction has closely approached that of natural enzymatic systems and the reaction itself has become one of the most efficient artificial catalytic reactions developed to date. This article describes the current level of understanding of the mechanism of enantioselective hydrogenation and transfer hydrogenation of aromatic ketones with pioneering prototypes of bifunctional catalysts, the Noyori and Noyori–Ikariya complexes. Analysis presented herein expands the concept of “metal–ligand cooperation”, redefines the term “cooperative ligand” and introduces “H–/H+ outer-sphere hydrogenation” as a novel paradigm in outer-sphere hydrogenation.
Pregnancy as a Window to Future Cardiovascular Health: Design and Implementation of the nuMoM2b Heart Health Study

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Nulliparous Pregnancy Outcomes Study-Monitoring Mothers-to-Be (nuMoM2b) Heart Health Study (HHS) was designed to investigate the relationships between adverse pregnancy outcomes and modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The ongoing nuMoM2b-HHS, which started in 2013, is a prospective follow-up of the nuMoM2b cohort, which included 10,038 women recruited between 2010 and 2013 from 8 centers across the United States who were initially observed over the course of their first pregnancies. In this report, we detail the design and study procedures of the nuMoM2b-HHS. Women in the pregnancy cohort who consented to be contacted for participation in future studies were approached at 6-month intervals to ascertain health information and to maintain ongoing contact. Two to 5 years after completion of the pregnancy documented in the nuMoM2b, women in the nuMoM2b-HHS were invited to an in-person study visit. During this visit, they completed psychosocial and medical history questionnaires and had clinical measurements and biological specimens obtained. A subcohort of participants who had objective assessments of sleep-disordered breathing during pregnancy were asked to repeat this investigation. This unique prospective observational study includes a large, geographically and ethnically diverse cohort, rich depth of phenotypic information about adverse pregnancy outcomes, and clinical data and biospecimens from early in the index pregnancy onward. Data obtained from this cohort will provide mechanistic and clinical insights into how data on a first pregnancy can provide information about the potential development of subsequent risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
A Software Approach to Defeating Side Channels in Last-Level Caches

We present a software approach to mitigate access-driven side-channel attacks that leverage last-level caches (LLCs) shared across cores to leak information between security domains (e.g., tenants in a cloud). Our approach dynamically manages physical memory pages shared between security domains to disable sharing of LLC lines, thus preventing "Flush-Reload" side channels via LLCs. It also manages cacheability of memory pages to thwart cross-tenant "Prime-Probe" attacks in LLCs. We have implemented our approach as a memory management subsystem called CacheBar within the Linux kernel to intervene on such side channels across container boundaries, as containers are a common method for enforcing tenant isolation in Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) clouds. Through formal verification, principled analysis, and empirical evaluation, we show that CacheBar achieves strong security with small performance overheads for PaaS workloads.
Energy Requirements of Mechanical Shear Degradation in Concentrated Polymer Solutions

Molecular weight decrease by mechanical shearing results when solutions of around 10% of polyisobutene having average molecular weights above 500 000 are forced through a capillary at nominal rates of shear above 10 000 sec—1. Comparison of observed plots of shear load vs duration of shearing at fixed rates of shear during this degradation process with the corresponding estimated plots which would be expected to obtain if degradation did not occur provide a means of evaluating the amount of applied shearing energy which is dissipated by the degradation process. The result is several hundred thousand kilocalories per mole of broken bonds, which is several thousand times the bond energy of carbon‐carbon bonds. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that whenever a bond breaks the system loses much of the free energy temporarily stored in bonds and macromolecular chains located in a comparatively large volume surrounding the broken bond, these bonds and chains having been involved in concentrating the required activation energy into the ruptured bond.
Perovskites for Solar Thermoelectric Applications: A First Principle Study of CH3NH3AI3 (A = Pb and Sn)

Hybrid organic/inorganic CH3NH3AI3 (A = Pb and Sn) perovskites have been recognized as promising photovoltaic materials. Using ab initio calculations, we showed that these systems may also be promising materials for solar thermoelectric applications. We found that their large carrier mobilities mainly originate from a combination of the small effective masses of electrons and holes and a relatively weak carrier–phonon interaction. We propose that by tuning the carrier concentration to values of the order of ∼1018cm–3, the thermoelectric figure of merit of Sn and Pb based perovskites may reach values ranging from 1 to 2, which could possibly be further increased by optimizing the lattice thermal conductivity through engineering perovskite superlattices.
Internalizing the Societal Costs of Agricultural Production

Societies and social groups within them are becoming aware that food and fibre are not gifts of nature that come to us cost-free from the natural world because their production involves consumption of renewable and non-renewable resources as well as expenses for capital and variable inputs in the production process, plus outlays for transportation, processing, marketing, and food preparation. The essence of food and fibre production is that on one hand, the key production resources (seeds, tubers, soil, manures, and rain water) are renewable resources, thus potentially enabling agriculture to be a highly sustainable activity. On the other hand, agriculture has some actual or potential characteristics of an extractive industry, similar to mining, and accordingly has the potential to be highly unsustainable. In addition, food and fibre production may involve long-term non-environmental costs (e.g. impacts on workers, communities, regions, and consumers) to a greater or lesser degree. In this paper, I use the expression “societal costs” of agriculture to pertain to adverse impacts of agrofood systems on human health, environmental quality, and the welfare and livelihoods of social groups. (A focus on the societal costs of food and fibre production does not, of course, involve a presumption that the benefits of this production, both to humans and non-human portions of the biosphere, are insignificant.)
Measuring Decision Values for CEA and CA 125 in Effusions

We recently reported on reciprocal findings for CA 125 antigen and CEA antigen levels measured in abdominal and pleural effusions in relationship to the diagnosis of serous ovarian or mucinous carcinomas, respectively. We applied tests and assigned patients to benign or either of the two malignant classifications with the fewest possible errors based on the mutual dependence of CEA and CA 125 in the data.
The wave modes in ducted swirling flows

The small amplitude wave modes inside a ducted inviscid, compressible swirling flow are investigated. In order to avoid possible mathematical ambiguities arising from the use of an inviscid flow model, the wave modes are cast as the solution of an initial boundary value problem. Two families of propagating waves are found. The acoustic modes are supported by the compressibility effect of the flow. The rotational modes are sustained by the centrifugal force field associated with the mean flow rotation. Two cases, one with a free vortex swirl and the other with a rigid body swirl, are investigated in some depth. Numerical results are provided. The effect of swirl on the propagation characteristics of the acoustic modes and the effect of compressibility on those of the rotational modes are found to be relatively insignificant.
Stereodefined Homopropargyl Amines by Tandem Nucleophilic Addition/Fragmentation of Dihydropyridone Triflates

Dihydropyridone (DHPD) triflates undergo nucleophile-triggered fragmentation to provide homopropargyl amine derivatives, the stereochemistry of which is defined by starting from readily available β-amino esters.
Government Old-Age Support and Labor Supply: Evidence from the Old Age Assistance Program

Many major government programs transfer resources to older people and implicitly or explicitly tax their labor. In this paper, we shed new light on the labor supply and welfare effects of such programs by investigating the Old Age Assistance Program (OAA), a means-tested and state-administered pension program created by the Social Security Act of 1935. Using newly available Census data on the entire US population in 1940, we exploit the large differences in OAA programs across states to estimate the labor supply effects of OAA. Our estimates imply that OAA reduced the labor force participation rate among men aged 65–74 by 5.8 percentage points, nearly half of its 1930–40 decline. However, both reduced-form evidence and an estimated structural model of labor supply imply that the welfare cost to recipients of the high tax rates implicit in OAA's earnings test were small. The evidence also suggests that Social Security could account for at least half of the large decline in late-life work from 1940 to 1960.
Homoatomic Clustering in T4Ga5 (T = Ta, Nb, Ta/Mo): A Story of Reluctant Intermetallics Crystallizing in a New Binary Structure Type

In the formation of binary compounds, heteroatomic interactions are generally expected to play the leading role in providing stability. In this Article, we present a series of gallides, T4Ga5 (T = Ta, Nb, and Ta/Mo), which appear to defy this expectation. Their complex crystal structures represent a new binary structure type (to the best of our knowledge),, which can be visualized in terms of a host lattice of T@T8 body centered cubic (bcc) clusters linked through face-capping Ga2 dumbbells to form a primitive cubic framework. The cubic spaces that result are alternately filled by distorted T pentagonal dodecahedra (sharing atoms with the host lattice) and dimers of bcc fragments, leading to a √2 × √2 × 2 supercell of the host framework structure. Ga tetrahedra and icosahedral units fill the remaining void spaces. Underlying these structural features is a strong tendency for homoatomic clustering of Ta and Ga, which is evident in all of the coordination polyhedra. Electronic structure calculations using d...
Variational inference for rare variant detection in deep, heterogeneous next-generation sequencing data

The detection of rare single nucleotide variants (SNVs) is important for understanding genetic heterogeneity using next-generation sequencing (NGS) data. Various computational algorithms have been proposed to detect variants at the single nucleotide level in mixed samples. Yet, the noise inherent in the biological processes involved in NGS technology necessitates the development of statistically accurate methods to identify true rare variants. We propose a Bayesian statistical model and a variational expectation maximization (EM) algorithm to estimate non-reference allele frequency (NRAF) and identify SNVs in heterogeneous cell populations. We demonstrate that our variational EM algorithm has comparable sensitivity and specificity compared with a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling inference algorithm, and is more computationally efficient on tests of relatively low coverage (27× and 298×) data. Furthermore, we show that our model with a variational EM inference algorithm has higher specificity than many state-of-the-art algorithms. In an analysis of a directed evolution longitudinal yeast data set, we are able to identify a time-series trend in non-reference allele frequency and detect novel variants that have not yet been reported. Our model also detects the emergence of a beneficial variant earlier than was previously shown, and a pair of concomitant variants. We developed a variational EM algorithm for a hierarchical Bayesian model to identify rare variants in heterogeneous next-generation sequencing data. Our algorithm is able to identify variants in a broad range of read depths and non-reference allele frequencies with high sensitivity and specificity.
The CRISPR Way to Think about Duchenne’s

Duchenne's muscular dystrophy is caused by a loss-of-function mutation in DMD. Studies of the CRISPR–Cas9 method of excising the mutated region show efficacy in a mouse model of the disease.
Association between mitochondrial DNA haplogroup and myelodysplastic syndromes.

Polymorphisms in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are used to group individuals into haplogroups reflecting human global migration and are associated with multiple diseases, including cancer. Here, we evaluate the association between mtDNA haplogroup and risk of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Cases were identified by the Minnesota Cancer Surveillance System. Controls were identified through the Minnesota State driver's license/identification card list. Because haplogroup frequencies vary by race and ethnicity, we restricted analyses to non-Hispanic whites. We genotyped 15 mtSNPs that capture common European mitochondrial haplogroup variation. We used SAS v.9.3 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC) to calculate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) overall and stratified by MDS subtype and IPSS-R risk category. We were able to classify 215 cases with confirmed MDS and 522 controls into one of the 11 common European haplogroups. Due to small sample sizes in some subgroups, we combined mt haplogroups into larger bins based on the haplogroup evolutionary tree, including HV (H + V), JT (J + T), IWX (I + W + X), UK (U + K), and Z for comparisons of cases and controls. Using haplogroup HV as the reference group, we found a statistically significant association between haplogroup JT and MDS (OR = 0.58, 95% CI 0.36, 0.92, P = 0.02). No statistically significant heterogeneity was observed in subgroup analyses. In this population-based study of MDS, we observed an association between mtDNA haplogroup JT and risk of MDS. While previously published studies provide biological plausibility for the observed association, further studies of the relationship between mtDNA variation and MDS are warranted in larger sample sizes. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
KT-1000 ANALYSIS OF BICRUCIATE RETAINING TOTAL KNEE ARTHROPLASTY

Introduction Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is the definitive treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee. The primary goal of the operation is to minimize or eliminate pain associated with osteoarthritis and secondarily to regain functional mobility and stability around the knee joint in order improve overall quality of life. The vast majority of techniques utilized for this procedure involves removal of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). In a native knee the ACL is a primary stabilizing ligament and essential for providing proprioceptive feedback. In the absence of the ACL, the kinematics of the knee are compromised. In an effort to more accurately replicate normal knee stability, new implant designs have emerged which maintain an intact ACL. Described herein is a cadaveric study looking at ACL competency after implantation of a TKA in which the cruciate ligaments are preserved. Methods Twenty fresh, frozen cadaveric knees were utilized in which the ACL was intact. Specimens were excluded if there was concern for ACL stability as determined by physical examination, direct visualization during the arthrotomy and a KT-1000 measurement of anterior tibial translation in millimeters at 67N and 89N of anterior force. Each KT-1000 measurement was repeated three times using three individual examiners at both force values for a total of six data points. Bicruciate retaining components were implanted into each knee using a medial parapatellar approach. After adequate sagittal and coronal balancing was obtained, the knee was reexamined using the KT-1000 protocol described above to assess for any changes in ACL competency. The ACL was then transected and the knee was examined for a third time with the same KT-1000 protocol. For statistical analysis, a 2-way repeated-measures ANOVA was utilized. Pairwise differences were assessed utilizing Fisher9s least significant difference method. Results The KT-1000 measurement in millimeters of anterior tibial translation in relation to the femur provided the primary data points. The anterior translation of the tibia of the cadaveric knees before insertion of the components averaged 2.2mm at 67N of force and 3.6mm at 89N of force. After insertion of the components, the anterior tibial translation averaged 3.6mm at 67N of force and 5.0mm at 89N of force. After the ACL was transected, the averaged KT-1000 measurements were 6.8mm at 67N and 9.2mm at 89N of force. Discussion and Conclusion Significant debate remains regarding which knee implant provides the optimum outcome in patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty. As the indications for TKA continue to expand and younger more active patients, with higher post-operative performance expectations pursue surgical intervention for degenerative knee osteoarthritis, bicruciate-retaining designs have re-emerged as potential alternative to traditional implants. While this study does demonstrate an increase in anterior translation after implantation of the components, the amount of increased laxity is unlikely to be of clinical significance. Overall ACL integrity is maintained and joint stability preserved.
Quantifying the Effects of Uncertainty in a Decentralized National Airspace System

Modernization of the National Air Traffic Control System is on the horizon and with it the likely introduction of autonomous air vehicles into the national airspace. With the increase in air traffic to an already congested management scheme, the implementation of a decentralized control protocol may be the answer to replace the current classical centralized management system. Equipping each aircraft with the information necessary to navigate safely through integrated airspace becomes an information-sharing problem: How much information about other aircraft is required for a pilot to fly the gamut of a heavily populated airspace safely? What paradigm shifts may be necessary for safe and efficient use of available airspace? This paper describes the development of a tool for testing alternative traffic management systems—centralized and decentralized—in the presence of uncertainty. Applying a computational fluid dynamics–inspired approach to the problem both creates a simulation tool to model the movement of...
Efficient Integrative Multi-SNP Association Analysis via Deterministic Approximation of Posteriors

With the increasing availability of functional genomic data, incorporating genomic annotations into genetic association analysis has become a standard procedure. However, the existing methods often lack rigor and/or computational efficiency and consequently do not maximize the utility of functional annotations. In this paper, we propose a rigorous inference procedure to perform integrative association analysis incorporating genomic annotations for both traditional GWASs and emerging molecular QTL mapping studies. In particular, we propose an algorithm, named deterministic approximation of posteriors (DAP), which enables highly efficient and accurate joint enrichment analysis and identification of multiple causal variants. We use a series of simulation studies to highlight the power and computational efficiency of our proposed approach and further demonstrate it by analyzing the cross-population eQTL data from the GEUVADIS project and the multi-tissue eQTL data from the GTEx project. In particular, we find that genetic variants predicted to disrupt transcription factor binding sites are enriched in cis-eQTLs across all tissues. Moreover, the enrichment estimates obtained across the tissues are correlated with the cell types for which the annotations are derived.
AUTO2, A Saturation-Based Heuristic Prover for Higher-Order Logic

We introduce a new theorem prover for classical higher-order logic named auto2. The prover is designed to make use of human-specified heuristics when searching for proofs. The core algorithm is a best-first search through the space of propositions derivable from the initial assumptions, where new propositions are added by user-defined functions called proof steps. We implemented the prover in Isabelle/HOL, and applied it to several formalization projects in mathematics and computer science, demonstrating the high level of automation it can provide in a variety of possible proof tasks.
Fast and accurate long-range phasing in a UK Biobank cohort.

Po-Ru Loh, Pier Francesco Palamara and Alkes Price develop a new long-range phasing method, Eagle, that harnesses long, shared identical-by-descent tracts and can be applied to large outbred populations. They use Eagle to phase samples from the UK Biobank and find that it is faster and has better accuracy than existing methods.
Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 testing in breast cancer: 30% versus 10% cutoff for immunohistochemistry.

10060) 9. Sleijfer S, Papai A, Le Cesne M, et al: Phase II study of pazopanib (GW786034) in patients (pts) with relapsed or refractory soft tissue sarcoma (STS): EORTC 62043. J Clin Oncol 25,2007 (abstr 10031) 10. Lambrechts D, Storkebaum E, Morimoto M, et al: VEGF is a modifier of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in mice and humans and protects motoneurons against ischemic death. Nat Genet 34:383-394, 2003
COMPACTEST: a method to generate compact test sets for combinational circuits

Heuristics to aid the derivation of small test sets that detect single stuck-at faults in combinational logic circuits are proposed. The heuristics can be added to existing test pattern generators without compromising fault coverage. Experimental results obtained by adding the proposed heuristics to a simple PODEM procedure and applying it to the ISCAS-85 and fully-scanned ISCAS-89 benchmark circuits are presented to substantiate the effectiveness of the proposed heuristics. >