cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Pulmonary reactions to sulfites in foods

Sulfites or sulfiting agents include sulfur dioxide (SO2) and a number of inorganic salts (including sodium and potassium metabisulfite, Na2S2O5, K2S2O5), sodium and potassium bisulfite (NaHSO3, KHSO3) and sodium sulfite (Na2SO3), which liberate sulfur dioxide under the conditions of use. Isolated reports of sulfite sensitivity appeared in the medical literature during the mid to late 1970s, but it was not until 1981 with the report of Stevenson & Simon (6) that the problem began to become widely recognized. Since that report, a number of investigators worldwide have demonstrated that approximately 5% of asthmatics react to sulfites placed in acidic solutions at levels comparable to that previously found in food, utilizing double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. Sulfite addition to foods served a number of purposes, including inhibition of enzymatic browning, the inhibition of non-enzymatic browning, antimicrobial actions, dough conditioning effects, antioxidant purposes, bleaching applications, and others. Foods that contained significant amounts of sulfite included fresh fruits and vegetables (salads), guacamole, shrimp, potatoes, dehydrated vegetables, dried fruits, wine, citrus drinks, juices, vinegar, and pickled foods. In 1985 the Food and Drug Administration required the declaration of sulfites on the labels of foods with sulfite residues exceeding 10 ppm SO2, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms followed suit with wines. In 1986 the FDA banned the use of sulfites from fresh fruits and vegetables other than potatoes. This ban particularly affected the once common practice of sulfiting the fresh fruits and vegetables in salad bars. Most recently the FDA has banned sulfites from fresh, pre-peeled potatoes. These actions have helped protect sulfite-sensitive individuals from the hazards associated with sulfited foods. However, since sulfites are still used in many foods (and drugs), sensitive individuals must be cautious to avoid inadvertent exposure. There are a number of proposed mechanisms for pulmonary reactions to sulfites. Clearly, the overwhelming majority of asthmatic reactions result from the inhalation of sulfur dioxide liberated under conditions of use. Asthmatic airways are particularly sensitive to the effects of sulfur dioxide, probably by stimulation of irritant/cholinergic receptors. Other possible mechanisms, particularly associated with ingestion of foods containing sulfites in bound form, are sulfite oxidase deficiency and also implicated in anaphylactic reactions, IgE-mediated mechanisms. Reactions provoked as a result of these latter two mechanisms represent a very small percentage of adverse reactions to sulfites.
Exploring the Schelling conjecture in reverse: ‘International constraints’ and cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

Students of bargaining have long focused on the dual nature of international negotiations, which take place both internationally and domestically. The prevailing wisdom is that under certain conditions political leaders can use domestic constraints to get a better deal at the negotiating table. In this article, I argue that under certain conditions leaders have an incentive to use ‘international constraints’ to pressure their domestic constituents into accepting a particular policy. I apply this argument to the Serbian and Croatian cases of Western pressure for cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (Hague Tribunal).
Karl Polanyi and the antinomies of embeddedness

While Polanyi argues that all economies are embedded and enmeshed in social relations and institutions, he tends to see market economy as disembedded, which reveals a tension in his thought. The main motivation for this paper is to understand the origins of this tension. On the basis of a systematic formulation of Polanyi's work, it is argued that Polanyi employs embeddedness in a dual manner: (a) as a methodological principle akin to methodological holism, and (b) as a theoretical proposition on the changing place of economy in society. These two formulations of embeddedness contradict each other. After tracing out the origins of this contradiction, this paper concludes by considering the implications of this analysis for economic sociology. It is argued that embeddedness as a methodological principle is the only acceptable usage of the term. Yet, in this capacity, embeddedness falls short of economic sociology's goal of providing a theoretical alternative to neoclassical economics.
The Formation and Characterization of Three-Membered Ring Carbanions in the Gas Phase: An Experimental and Theoretical Investigation of the Conjugate Bases of Thiirane, Thiirane S-Oxide, and Thiirane S,S-Dioxide

Deprotonation of thiirane, thiirane S-oxide, and thiirane S,S-dioxide was carried out in the gas phase, and the resulting anions were studied through a series of ion−molecule reactions. The cyclic conjugate bases of thiirane (1b) and thiirane S,S-dioxide (3a) are formed whereas a facile ring opening isomerization to vinyl sulfenate anion (2d, CH2CHSO-) is observed in the thiirane S-oxide case. Vinyl thiolate, the rearrangement product of the conjugate base of thiirane, also is obtained. Proton affinities were determined for 1b, 2d, and 3a. High-level ab initio calculations were also carried out, and the results compared with those obtained from experiment. Orbital arguments are advanced to explain the relative barriers to ring opening for the three anions of interest.
Visualization of stratospheric ozone depletion and the polar vortex

Direct analysis of spacecraft observations of stratospheric ozone yields information about the morphology of annual austral depletion. Visual correlation of ozone with other atmospheric data illustrates the diurnal dynamics of the polar vortex and contributions from the upper troposphere, including the formation and breakup of the depletion region each spring. These data require care in their presentation to minimize the introduction of visualization artifacts that are erroneously interpreted as data features. Non-geographically registered data of differing mesh structures can be visually correlated via cartographic warping of underlying geometries without interpolation. Since this approach is independent of realization technique, it provides a framework for experimenting with different visualization strategies. This methodology preserves the fidelity of the original data sets in a coordinate system suitable for three-dimensional, dynamic examination of upper atmospheric phenomena. >
Entrepreneurship programs in developing countries : a meta regression analysis

Fostering entrepreneurship is widely perceived to be a critical policy agenda to expand employment and earning opportunities and to reduce poverty. Sound macroeconomic conditions and business environment including infrastructure, regulation, and legal environment have typically been emphasized to increase entrepreneurial activities and create jobs. While these remain relevant, in developing countries, increasing attention is being paid to the role of labor policies that aim to reduce constraints and enhance productivity among the self-employed and small-scale entrepreneurs. The next section describes the procedure for constructing data and discusses main features of the entrepreneurship programs in our sample studies. Section three presents a standardization and estimation strategy using Meta regressions and discusses methodology. Section four then discusses the main findings of the Meta analysis. Finally, Section five concludes the study.
Fast linear algebra is stable

In Demmel et al. (Numer. Math. 106(2), 199–224, 2007) we showed that a large class of fast recursive matrix multiplication algorithms is stable in a normwise sense, and that in fact if multiplication of n-by-n matrices can be done by any algorithm in O(n ω+η) operations for any η > 0, then it can be done stably in O(nω+η) operations for any η > 0. Here we extend this result to show that essentially all standard linear algebra operations, including LU decomposition, QR decomposition, linear equation solving, matrix inversion, solving least squares problems, (generalized) eigenvalue problems and the singular value decomposition can also be done stably (in a normwise sense) in O(nω+η) operations.
On the Benefits of Partial Channel State Information for Repetition Protocols in Block Fading Channels

This paper studies the throughput performance of hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) protocols over block fading Gaussian channels. It proposes new protocols that use the available feedback bit(s) not only to request a retransmission, but also to inform the transmitter about the instantaneous channel quality. An explicit protocol construction is given for any number of retransmissions and any number of feedback bits. The novel protocol is shown to simultaneously realize the gains of HARQ and of power control with partial channel state information. Remarkable throughput improvements are shown, especially at low and moderate signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), with respect to protocols that use the feedback bits for retransmission request only. In particular, for the case of a single retransmission and a single feedback bit, it is shown that the repetition is not needed at low SNR where the throughput improvement is due to power control only. On the other hand, at high SNR, the repetition is useful and the performance gain comes from a combination of power control and ability to make up for deep fades.
Capitalism and Urbanization in a New Key? The Cognitive-Cultural Dimension

critique of the currently fashionable idea of the "creative city." I advance the claim that we need to go beyond advocacies about local economic development that prescribe the deployment of packages of selected amenities as a way of attracting elite workers into given urban areas. Instead, I propose that policy makers should pay more attention to the dynamics of the cognitive-cultural production system as such, and that in the interests of shaping viable urban communities in contemporary capitalism we must be more resolute in attempts to rebuild sociability, solidarity and democratic participation.
Vector-Space Markov Random Fields via Exponential Families

We present Vector-Space Markov Random Fields (VS-MRFs), a novel class of undirected graphical models where each variable can belong to an arbitrary vector space. VS-MRFs generalize a recent line of work on scalar-valued, uni-parameter exponential family and mixed graphical models, thereby greatly broadening the class of exponential families available (e.g., allowing multinomial and Dirichlet distributions). Specifically, VSMRFs are the joint graphical model distributions where the node-conditional distributions belong to generic exponential families with general vector space domains. We also present a sparsistent M-estimator for learning our class of MRFs that recovers the correct set of edges with high probability. We validate our approach via a set of synthetic data experiments as well as a realworld case study of over four million foods from the popular diet tracking app My Fitness Pal. Our results demonstrate that our algorithm performs well empirically and that VS-MRFs are capable of capturing and highlighting interesting structure in complex, real-world data. All code for our algorithm is open source and publicly available.
Recovering affine motion and defocus blur simultaneously

Motion in depth and/or zooming cause defocus blur. We show how the defocus blur in an image can be recovered simultaneously with affine motion. We introduce the theory, develop a solution method and demonstrate the validity of the theory and the solution by conducting experiments with real scenery.
Cooperative Wireless Medium Access Exploiting Multi-Beam Adaptive Arrays and Relay Selection

Cooperative transmission among wireless network nodes can be exploited to resolve collisions and thereby enhance the network throughput. Incorporation of multi-beam adaptive array (MBAA) at a base station/access point (destination) receiver has been shown to improve the network performance. In this paper, we propose an efficient cooperative wireless medium access scheme that exploits novel relay selection methods in a network equipped with MBAA at the destination receiver. Unlike existing techniques that require the estimation of angles-of-arrival (AoAs), the proposed scheme uses the spatial correlation among users for simpler but more effective collision detection and resolution. We present two useful relay selection methods based on channel gain and spatial correlation. It is shown that the joint use of an effective relay selection method and an MBAA in a wireless network can significantly improve the uplink throughput. The throughput of the proposed scheme and its upper bound are analytically derived. Numerical and simulation results have demonstrated significant performance enhancement achieved by the proposed cooperative wireless medium access scheme.
The thermal cycloaddition of perfluoro-1,3-butadiene with buta-1.3-diene

Abstract The major products from the cross-dimerization of butadieneand perfluorobutadiene are a 2+2-cycloadduct and a 2+4-cycloadduct.Perfluorobutadiene is the diene and butadiene is thedienophile. Minor products include the 4+4-cycloadduct, a criss-crossproduct, and several others containing fluorine on four memberedrings. Pyrolysis converts both the 2+2- and the 2+4-adducts tothe criss-cross product. Pyrolysis of the 2+2-adduct in thepresence of carbon also gives 1,2,3- and 1,2,4-trifluorobenzenes. The fluorine nmr data for C4F6 cycloadducts helps assigningthe structures.
Motion planning in urban environments

We present the motion planning framework for an autonomous vehicle navigating through urban environments. Such environments present a number of motion planning challenges, including ultrareliability, high-speed operation, complex intervehicle interaction, parking in large unstructured lots, and constrained maneuvers. Our approach combines a model-predictive trajectory generation algorithm for computing dynamically feasible actions with two higher level planners for generating long-range plans in both on-road and unstructured areas of the environment. In the first part of this article, we describe the underlying trajectory generator and the on-road planning component of this system. We then describe the unstructured planning component of this system used for navigating through parking lots and recovering from anomalous on-road scenarios. Throughout, we provide examples and results from “Boss” an autonomous sport utility vehicle that has driven itself over 3,000 km and competed in, and won, the DARPA Urban Challenge. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The physics of light transmission through subwavelength apertures and aperture arrays

The passage of light through apertures much smaller than the wavelength of the light has proved to be a surprisingly subtle phenomenon. This report describes how modern developments in nanofabrication, coherent light sources and numerical vector field simulations have led to the upending of early predictions from scalar diffraction theory and classical electrodynamics. Optical response of real materials to incident coherent radiation at petahertz frequencies leads to unexpected consequences for transmission and extinction of light through subwavelength aperture arrays. This paper is a report on progress in our understanding of this phenomenon over the past decade.
Addition-hydroamination reactions of propargyl cyanamides: rapid access to highly substituted 2-aminoimidazoles.

A valuable pharmacophore, the 2-aminoimidazole moiety, can be accessed with a variety of substitution patterns through an addition–hydroamination–isomerization sequence (see scheme; R1,R4,R5=alkyl; R3=alkyl, aryl; R2=H, alkyl, aryl). The synthesis of the propargyl cyanamide precursors through a three-component coupling enables the preparation of this important heterocyclic core structure in just three steps.
Metabelian representations, twisted Alexander polynomials, knot slicing, and mutation

Given a knot complement X and its p-fold cyclic cover X p → X, we identify twisted polynomials associated to $${GL_1\left({\bf F}[t^{\pm 1}]\right)}$$ representations of π 1(X p ) with twisted polynomials associated to related $${GL_p\left({\bf F}[t^{\pm 1}]\right)}$$ representations of π 1(X) which factor through metabelian representations. This provides a simpler and faster algorithm to compute these polynomials, allowing us to prove that 16 (of 18 previously unknown) algebraically slice knots of 12 or fewer crossings are not slice. We also use this improved algorithm to prove that the 24 mutants of the pretzel knot P(3, 7, 9, 11, 15), corresponding to permutations of (7, 9, 11, 15), represent distinct concordance classes.
A language for planning with statistics

When a planner must decide whether it has enough evidence to make a decision based on probability, it faces the sample size problem. Current planners using probabilities need not deal with this problem because they do not generate their probabilities from observations. This paper presents an event-based language in which the planner's probabilities are calculated from the binomial random variable generated by the observed ratio of one type of event to another. Such probabilities are subject to error, so the planner must introspect about their validity. Inferences about the probability of these events can be made using statistics. Inferences about the validity of the approximations can be made using interval estimation. Interval estimation allows the planner to avoid making choices that are only weakly supported by the planner's evidence.
Epitomic Location Recognition

This paper presents a novel method for location recognition, which exploits an epitomic representation to achieve both high efficiency and good generalization. A generative model based on epitomic image analysis captures the appearance and geometric structure of an environment while allowing for variations due to motion, occlusions, and non-Lambertian effects. The ability to model translation and scale invariance together with the fusion of diverse visual features yields enhanced generalization with economical training. Experiments on both existing and new labeled image databases result in recognition accuracy superior to state of the art with real-time computational performance.
Asymmetric Effects of Fashions on the Formation and Dissolution of Networks: Board Interlocks with Internet Companies, 1996–2006

This paper extends the contextual perspective of network evolution to account for a more complete process of network evolution by showing that the impacts of fads and fashions on the formation and dissolution of interorganizational networks are asymmetric. Building on contact theory, this paper proposes that direct contact affords a flow of knowledge that counters tendencies to social conformity. Network dissolution differs from network formation in that partners have already obtained direct information. As a result, network dissolution is not as responsive to fads and fashions as network formation, and network structures induced by fads and fashions often survive beyond the life cycle of a fashion. An analysis of the interlocking ties of S&P 1500 firms with Internet companies from 1996 to 2006 supports the view that fads and fashions have asymmetric effects on the evolution of networks and also shows that (1) fads and fashions have a strong impact on the formation of networks but not on their dissolution, (2) the networking behaviors of organizations with direct contact are less induced by fads and fashions, and (3) the networks formed by organizations with direct contact during the heyday of a fashion survive longer.
EFFECTS OF METABOLIC AND PHARMACOLOGIC INTERVENTIONS ON MYOCARDIAL INFARCT SIZE FOLLOWING CORONARY OCCLUSION

A number of hemodynamic, pharmacologic and metabolic interventions were found to change the extent of acute ischemic injury of the myocardium and subsequent necrosis following experimental coronary artery occlusion. Reduction in myocardial damage occurred by decreasing myocardial oxygen demands (beta-adrenergic blocking agents, intra-aortic balloon counter-pulsation, external counterpulsation, nitroglycerin, decreasing afterload in hypertensive patients, inhibition of lipolysis, and digitalis in the failing heart); by increasing myocardial oxygen supply either directly (coronary artery reperfusion or elevating arterial pO2), or through collateral vessels (elevation of coronary perfusion pressure by alpha-adrenergic agonists, intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation); or by increasing plasma osmolality (mannitol, hypertonic glucose); presumably by augmenting anaerobic metabolism (glucose-insulin-potassium, hypertonic glucose); by enhancing transport to the ischemic zone of substrates utilized in energy production (hyaluronidase); by protecting against autolytic and heterolytic damage (hydrocortisone, cobra venom factor, aprotinin). Augmentation of myocardial ischemic damage occurred as a consequence of increasing myocardial oxygen requirements (isoproterenol, glucagon, ouabain, bretylium tosylate, tachycardia); by decreasing myocardial oxygen supply either directly (hypoxia, anemia) or through reduction of collateral flow (hemorrhagic hypotension, minoxidil) or by decreasing substrate availability (hypoglycemia). Pilot studies have been carried out in patients with hyaluronidase, nitroglycerin, intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation, beta-blocking agents and Arfonad and have shown that these interventions may also reduce myocardial damage, suggesting that the concept of reduction in infarct size following coronary occlusion is applicable clinically.
New Uniformly Porous CaZrO3/MgO Composites with Three‐Dimensional Network Structure from Natural Dolomite

Porous CaZrO3/MgO composites with a uniform three-dimensional (3-D) network structure have been successfully synthesized using reactive sintering of highly pure mixtures of natural dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) and synthesized zirconia powders with LiF additive. Equimolar dolomite and zirconia powders doped with 0.5 wt% LiF were cold isostatically pressed at 200 MPa and sintered at 1100–1400°C for 2 h in air. Through the liquid formation via LiF doping, strong necks were formed between constituent particles before completion of the pyrolysis of dolomite, resulting in the formation of a 3-D network structure. During and after the formation of the network structure, CO2 was given off to form a homogeneous open-pore structure. The pore-size distribution was very narrow (with pore size ∼ 1 μm), and the porosity was controllable (e.g., ∼30%–50%) by changing the sintering temperature. The porous composites can be applied as filter materials with good structural stability at high temperatures.
Achieving a Long-Term Service Target with Periodic Demand Signals: A Newsvendor Framework

We deal with the problem of a profit-maximizing vendor selling a perishable product. At the beginning of a planning cycle, the vendor determines a minimum committed order per period. During the cycle, he may also place a supplemental order in each period based on the observed demand signal in that period. Moreover, the vendor is committed to a specific service target evaluated over the planning cycle. This is a complex problem, and we, as an approximation, offer a single-period, two-stage modeling approach. Under this approach, the vendor determines a first-stage order as the minimum committed order with the possibility of supplementing it based on a demand signal observed at the second stage. The problem is to maximize his expected profit subject to a constraint on his overall service performance across all possible values of the demand signal. We characterize the optimal policy for in-stock rate and fill-rate targets, and make comparisons. Whereas in the classical newsvendor model a service target can be replaced by a single unit shortage cost, it is not so in our model. Instead, a set of unit shortage costs are imputed---one for each demand signal. The imputed shortage costs reflect trade-offs among the profits under different demand signals in meeting the service targets. We also show that under a given ordering policy, the in-stock rate is lower (higher) than the fill rate when the demand has an increasing (decreasing) hazard rate. This result suggests that the vendor can infer a fill-rate measure from the corresponding in-stock rate without the difficult task of tracking lost sales. Furthermore, we analyze how the order quantity varies according to the observed signal, which allows us to formalize the notion of a valuable demand signal.
PERSONALITY AND SITUATIONS IN CO-WORKER PREFERENCE: SIMILARITY AND COMPLEMENTARITY IN WORKER COMPATIBILITY

Guided by fit-oriented personality theories, we asked with whom people prefer to work, given their own and others' personality traits and in light of trait-relevant work situations. Participants (N = 185) completed the Personal- ity Research Form (Jackson, 1989) and rated preference for hypothetical co-work- ers at opposite poles of Dominance, Affiliation, Autonomy, Defendence, and Abase- ment in simulated job settings varying in work proximity and supervisory status. As expected, judges preferred co-workers providing opportunity for trait expres- sion (e.g., affiliative judges preferred affiliative co-workers), especially when ex- pecting to work together and in light of who would be in charge (e.g., low-autono- mous judges preferred dominant supervisors). Use of personality data in team building is discussed.
Price Elasticities of Key Agricultural Commodities in China

Abstract We estimate a simultaneous equations model of Chinese agricultural markets for wheat, rice, corn, pork, and poultry meat. Elasticities are estimated for consumption, feed demand, production, stocks demand, and foreign demand or supply faced in China. While commodity models are estimated using ITSUR in a single commodity simultaneous equations framework, an AIDS model of food demand is estimated using ITSUR as a system covering all commodities. Results fall within the wide range of results from previous studies, and are quite reasonable magnitudes. China has market power in the trade for all five commodities under study.
An Implementation and Analysis of the Virtual Interface Architecture

Rapid developments in networking technology and a rise in clustered computing have driven research studies in high performance communication architectures. In an effort to standardize the work in this area, industry leaders have developed the Virtual Interface Architecture (VIA) specification. This architecture seeks to provide an operating system-independent infrastructure for high-performance user-level networking in a generic environment. This paper evaluates the inherent costs and performance potential of the Virtual Interface Architecture through a prototype implementation over Myrinet. The VIA prototype is compared against established research user-level networks using simple communication benchmarks on the same hardware. We consider extensions to the VI Architecture that improve its performance for certain types of communication traffic and outline further research areas in the VIA design space that merit investigation.
Perceptually based learning of shape descriptions for sketch recognition

We are interested in enabling a generic sketch recognition system that would allow more natural interaction with design tools in various domains, such as mechanical engineering, military planning, logic design, etc. We would like to teach the system the symbols for a particular domain by simply drawing an example of each one -- as easy as it is to teach a person. Studies in cognitive science suggest that, when shown a symbol, people attend preferentially to certain geometric features. Relying on such biases, we built a system capable of learning descriptions of hand-drawn symbols from a single example. The generalization power is derived from a qualitative vocabulary reflecting human perceptual categories and a focus on perceptually relevant global properties of the symbol. Our user study shows that the system agrees with the subjects' majority classification about as often as any individual subject did.
Fairness and optimal stochastic control for heterogeneous networks

We consider optimal control for general networks with both wireless and wireline components and time varying channels. A dynamic strategy is developed to support all traffic whenever possible, and to make optimally fair decisions about which data to serve when inputs exceed network capacity. The strategy is decoupled into separate algorithms for flow control, routing, and resource allocation, and allows each user to make decisions independent of the actions of others. The combined strategy is shown to yield data rates that are arbitrarily close to the optimal operating point achieved when all network controllers are coordinated and have perfect knowledge of future events. The cost of approaching this fair operating point is an end-to-end delay increase for data that is served by the network.
A 4-stated DICE: quantitatively addressing uncertainty effects in climate change

We introduce a version of the DICE-2007 model designed for uncertainty analysis. DICE is a wide-spread deterministic integrated assessment model of climate change. Climate change, long-term economic development, and their interactions are highly uncertain. The quantitative analysis of optimal mitigation policy under uncertainty requires a recursive dynamic programming implementation of integrated assessment models. Such implementations are subject to the curse of dimensionality. Every increase in the dimension of the state space is paid for by a combination of (exponentially) increasing processor time, lower quality of the value or policy function approximations, and reductions of the uncertainty domain. The paper promotes a state-reduced, recursive dynamic programming implementation of the DICE-2007 model. We achieve the reduction by simplifying the carbon cycle and the temperature delay equations. We compare our model’s performance and that of the DICE model to the scientific AOGCM models emulated by MAGICC 6.0 and find that our simplified model performs equally well as the original DICE model. Our implementation solves the infinite planning horizon problem in an arbitrary time step. The paper is the first to carefully analyze the quality of the value function approximation using two different types of basis functions and systematically varying the dimension of the basis. We present the closed form, continuous time approximation to the exogenous (discretely and inductively defined) processes in DICE, and we present a numerically more efficient re-normalized Bellman equation that, in addition, can disentangle risk attitude from the propensity to smooth consumption over time.
Supersymmetry with light stops

Recent LHC data, together with the electroweak naturalness argument, suggest that the top squarks may be significantly lighter than the other sfermions. We present supersymmetric models in which such a split spectrum is obtained through “geometries”: being “close to” electroweak symmetry breaking implies being “away from” supersymmetry breaking, and vice versa. In particular, we present models in 5D warped spacetime, in which supersymmetry breaking and Higgs fields are located on the ultraviolet and infrared branes, respectively, and the top multiplets are localized to the infrared brane. The hierarchy of the Yukawa matrices can be obtained while keeping near flavor degeneracy between the first two generation sfermions, avoiding stringent constraints from flavor and CP violation. Through the AdS/CFT correspondence, the models can be interpreted as purely 4D theories in which the top and Higgs multiplets are composites of some strongly interacting sector exhibiting nontrivial dynamics at a low energy. Because of the compositeness of the Higgs and top multiplets, Landau pole constraints for the Higgs and top couplings apply only up to the dynamical scale, allowing for a relatively heavy Higgs boson, including m h = 125 GeV as suggested by the recent LHC data. We analyze electroweak symmetry breaking for a well-motivated subset of these models, and find that fine-tuning in electroweak symmetry breaking is indeed ameliorated. We also discuss a flat space realization of the scenario in which supersymmetry is broken by boundary conditions, with the top multiplets localized to a brane and other matter multiplets delocalized in the bulk.
A Simpler Approach to Matrix Completion

This paper provides the best bounds to date on the number of randomly sampled entries required to reconstruct an unknown low-rank matrix. These results improve on prior work by Candes and Recht (2009), Candes and Tao (2009), and Keshavan et al. (2009). The reconstruction is accomplished by minimizing the nuclear norm, or sum of the singular values, of the hidden matrix subject to agreement with the provided entries. If the underlying matrix satisfies a certain incoherence condition, then the number of entries required is equal to a quadratic logarithmic factor times the number of parameters in the singular value decomposition. The proof of this assertion is short, self contained, and uses very elementary analysis. The novel techniques herein are based on recent work in quantum information theory.
Gene Therapy for Cancer: What Have We Done and Where Are We Going?

Gene-based therapies for cancer in clinical trials include strategies that involve augmentation of immunotherapeutic and chemotherapeutic approaches. These strategies include ex vivo and in vivo cytokine gene transfer, drug sensitization with genes for prodrug delivery, and the use of drug-resistance genes for bone marrow protection from high-dose chemotherapy. Inactivation of oncogene expression and gene replacement for tumor suppressor genes are among the strategies for targeting the underlying genetic lesions in the cancer cell. A review of clinical trial results to date, primarily in patients with very advanced cancers refractory to conventional treatments, indicates that these treatments can mediate tumor regression with acceptably low toxicity. Vector development remains a critical area for future research. Important areas for future research include modifying viral vectors to reduce toxicity and immunogenicity, increasing the transduction efficiency of nonviral vectors, enhancing vector targeting and specificity, regulating gene expression, and identifying synergies between gene-based agents and other cancer therapeutics.
Near-Optimal Adaptive Compressed Sensing

This paper proposes a simple adaptive sensing and group testing algorithm for sparse signal recovery. The algorithm, termed compressive adaptive sense and search (CASS), is shown to be near-optimal in that it succeeds at the lowest possible signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) levels, improving on previous work in adaptive compressed sensing. Like traditional compressed sensing based on random nonadaptive design matrices, the CASS algorithm requires only \(k\log n\) measurements to recover a \(k\) -sparse signal of dimension \(n\) . However, CASS succeeds at SNR levels that are a factor \(\log n\) less than required by standard compressed sensing. From the point of view of constructing and implementing the sensing operation as well as computing the reconstruction, the proposed algorithm is substantially less computationally intensive than standard compressed sensing. The CASS is also demonstrated to perform considerably better in practice through simulation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of an adaptive compressed sensing algorithm with near-optimal theoretical guarantees and excellent practical performance. This paper also shows that methods like compressed sensing, group testing, and pooling have an advantage beyond simply reducing the number of measurements or tests - adaptive versions of such methods can also improve detection and estimation performance when compared with nonadaptive direct (uncompressed) sensing.
Corner extraction from radar images

The 3D structure of a moving object such as a satellite may be estimated from a sequence of radar images using machine intelligence techniques. A region growing approach for the extraction of features such as the corner of a panel is explored. The grown regions are seeded by strong radar returns. Since the extracted regions are fragmented and do not lead to an outline as would be perceived by a human observer, an adaptive nonlinear algorithm was designed to obtain an improved estimate of the outlines. Corners were detected by a method based on the polygon approximation of the outlines. The proposed corner detector was compared to a number of other corner detectors and was found to be superior. >
Polarization properties of a broadband multi-moded concentrator.

We present the design and performance of a non-imaging concentrator for use in broad-band polarimetry at millimeter through submillimeter wavelengths. A rectangular geometry preserves the input polarization state as the concentrator couples f/2 incident optics to a 2pi sr detector. Measurements of the co-polar and cross-polar beams in both the few-mode and highly over-moded limits agree with a simple model based on mode truncation. The measured co-polar beam pattern is nearly independent of frequency in both linear polarizations. The cross-polar beam pattern is dominated by a uniform term corresponding to polarization efficiency 94%. After correcting for efficiency, the remaining cross-polar response is -18 dB.
Public Policy Implications of Imperfections in the Market for Worker Participation

Increasing worker participation in decision-making can often increase productivity, but remains uncommon in the US. This paper reviews theories of why the market may produce less than the efficient amount of worker participation. A novel policy intervention in which tax subsidies are tied to multiple imperfect measures of participation is proposed.
Electron-Phonon Scattering in Metallic Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Electron scattering rates in metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes are studied using an atomic force microscope as an electrical probe. From the scaling of the resistance of the same nanotube with length in the low- and high-bias regimes, the mean-free paths for both regimes are inferred. The observed scattering rates are consistent with calculations for acoustic-phonon scattering at low biases and zone boundary/optical phonon scattering at high biases.
MANAGERIAL REPUTATION AND THE "ENDGAME"

Abstract This paper examines endgame behavior, specifically the behavior of managers whose primary concern is to retain their jobs. Managers are taken to be of two types, good and bad, and only one manager is randomly selected as the firm’s first-period manager. The manager unobservably chooses the mean and standard deviation (limited by a mean-standard deviation frontier) of the process that generates his observable performance. The good manager can choose higher values of the mean of the outcome-generating process, for given standard deviation, than the bad manager can. After the first of the two periods, the firm’s owner must choose to retain or replace her manager based upon performance. In an endgame-perfect Bayesian equilibria of this reputation game, a good manager chooses a strategy with minimal standard deviation for a given mean while a bad manager chooses a strategy of maximal standard deviation for a given mean. Examples of this type of behavior drawn from finance and sports are given in the paper. The perfect Bayesian equilibria of this game also include conservative, reckless, and herd managerial behavior.
Red Fluorescent Proteins: Advanced Imaging Applications and Future Design

In the past few years a large series of the advanced red-shifted fluorescent proteins (RFPs) has been developed. These enhanced RFPs provide new possibilities to study biological processes at the levels ranging from single molecules to whole organisms. Herein the relationship between the properties of the RFPs of different phenotypes and their applications to various imaging techniques are described. Existing and emerging imaging approaches are discussed for conventional RFPs, far-red FPs, RFPs with a large Stokes shift, fluorescent timers, irreversibly photoactivatable and reversibly photoswitchable RFPs. Advantages and limitations of specific RFPs for each technique are presented. Recent progress in understanding the chemical transformations of red chromophores allows the future RFP phenotypes and their respective novel imaging applications to be foreseen.
Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment

Decades of racial progress have led some researchers and policymakers to doubt that discrimination remains an important cause of economic inequality. To study contemporary discrimination, we conducted a field experiment in the low-wage labor market of New York City, recruiting white, black, and Latino job applicants who were matched on demographic characteristics and interpersonal skills. These applicants were given equivalent resumes and sent to apply in tandem for hundreds of entry-level jobs. Our results show that black applicants were half as likely as equally qualified whites to receive a callback or job offer. In fact, black and Latino applicants with clean backgrounds fared no better than white applicants just released from prison. Additional qualitative evidence from our applicants' experiences further illustrates the multiple points at which employment trajectories can be deflected by various forms of racial bias. These results point to the subtle yet systematic forms of discrimination that continue to shape employment opportunities for low-wage workers.
A Simultaneous Model and Empirical Test of the Demand and Supply of Retail Space.

Much of the burgeoning distress of the 1990s in the United States retail space markets reflects a mismatch in the amount and location of retail space demand and supply. Understanding the demand and supply for retail space is critically important to academics, professionals and others associated with owning, operating and financing retail space. Using data from nineteen major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) for the period 1986-95, this article develops a simultaneous model of retail space demand and supply which includes the influence of vacancy rate. The model and results provide evidence about how demand and supply for retail space respond to changes in retail sales, rental prices, land-use regulation and land availability, and the cost of capital. The results show inelastic price elasticities of demand and supply for retail space.
The Rise of the s-Process in the Galaxy

From newly obtained high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio spectra the abundances of the elements La and Eu have been determined over the stellar metallicity range -3 < [Fe/H] < +0.3 in 159 giant and dwarf stars. Lanthanum is predominantly made by the s-process in the solar system, while Eu owes most of its solar system abundance to the r-process. The changing ratio of these elements in stars over a wide metallicity range traces the changing contributions of these two processes to the Galactic abundance mix. Large s-process abundances can be the result of mass transfer from very evolved stars, so to identify these cases we also report carbon abundances in our metal-poor stars. Results indicate that the s-process may be active as early as [Fe/H] = -2.6, although we also find that some stars as metal-rich as [Fe/H] = -1 show no strong indication of s-process enrichment. There is a significant spread in the level of s-process enrichment even at solar metallicity.
Improved operation of networked control systems using Lebesgue sampling

This paper introduces an improved network communication method for mission-critical real-time computer controlled processes. Based on Lebesgue sampling theory, this method is referred to as the timed event architecture/protocol (TEA/TEP). As an alternative the time-triggered protocol for control (TTP/C), TEP is designed to minimize the number of communication events on a communication bus and thereby reduce the cost and complexity of network control systems. Experimental results for an automated material handling system based on a modified controller area network (CAN 2.0b) protocol with a feedback motion control system are presented. These results demonstrate the benefits of TEP compared to conventional sampled data systems implemented with TTP/C.
Approximate noninteracting control with stability for nonlinear systems

A notion of approximate noninteracting control with stability for nonlinear systems is introduced, and the design of both static and dynamic state-feedback control laws that achieve this property for a given plant is considered. This approach to the problem is based on the notion of extended linearization, and begins with an extension of the linearization approach pointwise to all constant operating points in an open neighborhood of the nominal. Under natural assumptions it is shown that obstructions to extract noninteracting control with internal stability, or input-state/output stability, can be circumvented in the context of approximate noninteraction. >
The linear parameters and the decoupling matrix for linearly coupled motion in 6 dimensional phase space

It will be shown that starting from a coordinate system where the 6 phase space coordinates are linearly coupled, one can go to a new coordinate system, where the motion is uncoupled, by means of a linear transformation. The original coupled coordinates and the new uncoupled coordinates are related by a 6/spl times/6 matrix, R. It will be shown that of the 36 elements of the 6/spl times/6 decoupling matrix R, only 12 elements are independent. A set of equations is given from which the 12 elements of R can be computed from the one period transfer matrix. This set of equations also allows the linear parameters, the /spl beta//sub i/, /spl alpha//sub i/, i=1, 3, for the uncoupled coordinates, to be computed from the one period transfer matrix.
Surface Micromachined Silicon Carbide Accelerometers for Gas Turbine Applications

A finite-element analysis of possible silicon carbide (SiC), folded-beam, lateral-resonating accelerometers is presented. Results include stiffness coefficients, acceleration sensitivities, resonant frequency versus temperature, and proof-mass displacements due to centripetal acceleration of a blade-mounted sensor. The surface micromachined devices, which are similar to the Analog Devices® Inc., (Norwood, MA) air-bag crash detector, are etched from 2-μm thick, 3C-SiC films grown at 1600 K using atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD). The substrate is a 500 μm-thick, (100) silicon wafer. Polysilicon or silicon dioxide is used as a sacrificial layer. The finite-element analysis includes temperature-dependent properties, shape change due to volume expansion, and thermal stress caused by differential thermal expansion of the materials. The finite-element results are compared to experimental results for a SiC device of similar, but not identical, geometry. Along with changes in mechanical design, blade-mounted sensors would require on-chip circuitry to cancel displacements due to centripetal acceleration and improve sensitivity and bandwidth. These findings may result in better accelerometer designs for this application.Copyright © 1999 by ASME