cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Retinopathy and Optic Neuropathy in Bone Marrow Transplantation for Breast Cancer

Purpose: To characterize the ocular toxicity of a bone marrow transplant regimen that does not include total body or focal head irradiation. Methods: Nine patients with advanced breast cancer were referred for visual symptoms after high-dose chemotherapy with cisplatin, cyclophosphamide, and carmustine and autologous bone marrow transplantation without total body irradiation or local head irradiation. Results: Symptoms consistent with optic neuropathy and retinopathy developed in five patients. Retinopathy alone developed in three patients and optic neuropathy alone developed in one. Retinal abnormalities included cotton-wool spots, intraretinal hemorrhages, and macular exudate. Optic nerve findings included disc swelling and subsequent pallor. Symptoms and signs associated with retinopathy were generally reversible, whereas those associated with optic neuropathy often were permanent. Retinopathy and/or optic neuropathy developed in all of the patients from 1 to 5 months after bone marrow transplantation. Resolution or stabilization of findings was observed 2-4 months after presentation. Two patients with optic neuropathy showed progression of field and acuity loss after 4 months. When compared with control subjects, the exposure of patients to cyclophosphamide and carmustine was no different. However, cisplatin exposure was 1.2-fold higher in patients with ocular toxicity compared with control subjects. Conclusion: Optic neuropathy and retinopathy are presumed to arise from the administration of a high-dose chemotherapy regimen. As techniques in supportive care improve, long-term adverse effects of these therapies now are becoming apparent.
Seasonal variation of diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes mellitus in children worldwide

Aims To determine if there is a worldwide seasonal pattern in the clinical onset of Type 1 diabetes. Methods Analysis of the seasonality in diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes was based on the incidence data in 0- to 14-year-old children collected by the World Health Organization Diabetes Mondiale (WHO DiaMond) Project over the period 1990–1999. One hundred and five centres from 53 countries worldwide provided enough data for the seasonality analysis. The incidence seasonality patterns were also determined for age- and sex-specific groups. Results Forty-two out of 105 centres exhibited significant seasonality in the incidence of Type 1 diabetes (P < 0.05). The existence of significant seasonal patterns correlated with higher level of incidence and of the average yearly counts. The correlation disappeared after adjustment for latitude. Twenty-eight of those centres had peaks in October to January and 33 had troughs in June to August. Two out of the four centres with significant seasonality in the southern hemisphere demonstrated a different pattern with a peak in July to September and a trough in January to March. Conclusions The seasonality of the incidence of Type 1 diabetes mellitus in children under 15 years of age is a real phenomenon, as was reported previously and as is now demonstrated by this large standardized study. The seasonality pattern appears to be dependent on the geographical position, at least as far as the northern/southern hemisphere dichotomy is concerned. However, more data are needed on the populations living below the 30th parallel north in order to complete the picture.
Synthesis of benzocycloheptanones through coupling of δ,ε-unsaturated chromium carbene complexes and 2-alkynylbenzoyl derivatives

The coupling of pentenylcarbene complexes and 2-alkynylbenzoyl derivatives affords naphthocycloheptanones in a single step involving simultaneous construction of both the seven-membered ring and one of the aromatic rings. Aryl tethered systems undergo intramolecular cyclopropanation.
DEFINING NORTH AMERICAN ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

Economic integration has important implications for growth, producers, and consumers, but definitions and measures of economic integration are numerous and varied. This paper defines economic integration, discusses why integration is important, and evaluates four prominent measures of integration for North America before and after NAFTA.
Unifying mesh- and tree-based programmable interconnect

We examine the traditional, symmetric, Manhattan mesh design for field-programmable gate-array (FPGA) routing along with tree-of-meshes (ToM) and mesh-of-trees (MoT) based designs. All three networks can provide general routing for limited bisection designs (Rent's rule with p<1) and allow locality exploitation. They differ in their detailed topology and use of hierarchy. We show that all three have the same asymptotic wiring requirements. We bound this tightly by providing constructive mappings between routes in one network and routes in another. For example, we show that a (c,p) MoT design can be mapped to a (2c,p) linear population ToM and introduce a corner turn scheme which will make it possible to perform the reverse mapping from any (c,p) linear population ToM to a (2c,p) MoT augmented with a particular set of corner turn switches. One consequence of this latter mapping is a multilayer layout strategy for N-node, linear population ToM designs that requires only /spl Theta/(N) two-dimensional area for any p when given sufficient wiring layers. We further show upper and lower bounds for global mesh routes based on recursive bisection width and show these are within a constant factor of each other and within a constant factor of MoT and ToM layout area. In the process we identify the parameters and characteristics which make the networks different, making it clear there is a unified design continuum in which these networks are simply particular regions.
Detecting long-run abnormal stock returns: The empirical power and specification of test statistics

We analyze the empirical power and specification of test statistics in event studies designed to detect long-run (one- to five-year) abnormal stock returns. We document that test statistics based on abnormal returns calculated using a reference portfolio, such as a market index, are misspecified (empirical rejection rates exceed theoretical rejection rates) and identify three reasons for this misspecification. We correct for the three identified sources of misspecification by matching sample firms to control firms of similar sizes and book-to-market ratios. This control firm approach yields well-specified test statistics in virtually all sampling situations considered.
Catalytic intermolecular allylic C-H alkylation.

The first electrophilic Pd(II)-catalyzed allylic C—H alkylation is reported, providing a novel method for formation of sp3−sp3 C—C bonds directly from C—H bonds. A wide range of aromatic and heteroaromatic linear (E)-α-nitro-arylpentenoates are obtained as single olefin isomers in excellent yields directly from terminal olefin substrates and methyl nitroacetate. The use of DMSO as a π-acidic ligand was found to be crucial for promoting functionalization of the π-allylPd intermediate. Products from this reaction are valuable synthetic intermediates and are readily transformed to amino esters via selective reduction and optically enriched α,α-disubstituted amino acid precursors via asymmetric conjugate addition.
Z′ gauge models from strings

Abstract Potentially realistic string models often contain additional abelian gauge factors besides the standard model group. The consequences of such extended gauge structure are manifold both for theory and phenomenology, as I show focussing on the simplest case of just one additional non-anomalous U (1)′. First, I discuss the possible symmetry breaking patterns according to the scale at which the U (1)′ symmetry gets broken: in the first case, that scale must be below ∼ 1 TeV to avoid fine-tuning; in the second case, the breaking can take place along a flat direction at an intermediate scale between the string scale and the electroweak scale. In both cases, I present a number of the generic implications expected, e.g. for the μ problem, Z ′ and Higgs physics, dark matter and fermion masses.
Stability and dynamics of the continental tectosphere

Continental cratons overlie thick, high-viscosity, thermal and chemical boundary layers, where the chemical boundary layers are less dense than they would be due to thermal effects alone, perhaps because they are depleted in basaltic constituents. If the continental tectosphere is the same age as the overlying Archaean crust, then the continental tectosphere must be able to survive for several billion years without undergoing a convective instability, despite being both cold and thick. Since platforms and shields correlate only weakly with Earth's gravity and geoid anomalies, acceptable models of the continental tectosphere must also satisfy this gravity constraint. We investigate the long-term stability of the continental tectosphere by carrying out a number of numerical convection experiments within a two-dimensional Cartesian domain. We initiate our experiments with a tectosphere (thermal and chemical boundary layers) immersed in a region of uniform composition, temperature, and viscosity, and consider the effects on the stability of the tectosphere of (1) activation energy (used to define the temperature dependence of viscosity), (2) compositional buoyancy, and (3) linear or non-linear rheology. The large lateral thermal gradients required to match oceanic and tectosphere structures initiate the dominant instability, a “drip” which develops at the side of the tectosphere and moves to beneath its center. High activation energies and high background viscosities restrict the amount and rate of entrainment. Compositional buoyancy does not significantly change the flow pattern. Rather, compositional buoyancy slows the destruction process somewhat and reduces the stress within the tectosphere. With a non-Newtonian rheology, this reduction in stress helps to stiffen the tectosphere. In these experiments, dynamical systems that adequately model the present ocean-continent structures have activation energy E*≥180 kJ mole−1 — a value about one third the estimate of activation energy for olivine, E*≈520 kJ mole−1. Although for E*≈520 kJ mole−1, compositional buoyancy is not required for the tectosphere to survive, the joint application of longevity and gravity constraints allows us to reject all models not containing compositional buoyancy, and to predict that the ratio of compositional to thermal buoyancy within the continental tectosphere is approximately unity.
How Often Will It Rain

Daily precipitation data from climate change simulations using the latest generation of coupled climate system models are analyzed for potential future changes in precipitation characteristics. For the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) B1 (a low projection), A1B (a medium projection), and A2 (a high projection) during the twenty-first century, all the models consistently show a shift toward more intense and extreme precipitation for the globe as a whole and over various regions. For both SRES B1 and A2, most models show decreased daily precipitation frequency and all the models show increased daily precipitation intensity. The multimodel averaged percentage increase in the precipitation intensity (2.0% K 1 ) is larger than the magnitude of the precipitation frequency decrease (0.7% K 1 ). However, the shift in precipitation frequency distribution toward extremes results in large increases in very heavy precipitation events (50 mm day 1 ), so that for very heavy precipitation, the percentage increase in frequency is much larger than the increase in intensity (31.2% versus 2.4%). The climate model projected increases in daily precipitation intensity are, however, smaller than that based on simple thermodynamics (7% K 1 ). Multimodel ensemble means show that precipitation amount increases during the twenty-first century over high latitudes, as well as over currently wet regions in low- and midlatitudes more than other regions. This increase mostly results from a combination of increased frequency and intensity. Over the dry regions in the subtropics, the precipitation amount generally declines because of decreases in both frequency and intensity. This indicates that wet regions may get wetter and dry regions may become drier mostly because of a simultaneous increase (decrease) of precipitation frequency and intensity.
Symplectic symmetries of 4-manifolds

Abstract A study of symplectic actions of a finite group G on smooth 4-manifolds is initiated. The central new idea is the use of G -equivariant Seiberg–Witten–Taubes theory in studying the structure of the fixed-point set of these symmetries. The main result in this paper is a complete description of the fixed-point set structure (and the action around it) of a symplectic cyclic action of prime order on a minimal symplectic 4-manifold with c 1 2 = 0 . Comparison of this result with the case of locally linear topological actions is made. As an application of these considerations, the triviality of many such actions on a large class of 4-manifolds is established. In particular, we show the triviality of homologically trivial symplectic symmetries of a K 3 surface (in analogy with holomorphic automorphisms). Various examples and comments illustrating our considerations are also included.
Explaining the Choice Among Regulatory Plans in the U.S. Telecommunications Industry

We investigate why different states in the United States choose different regulatory plans in their telecommunications industry. We present a simple theoretical model and an empirical analysis of the issue. We find that a state is more likely to replace rate-of-return regulation with incentive regulation when: (1) residential basic local service rates have historically been relatively high; (2) allowed earnings under rate-of-return regulation in the state have been either particularly high or particularly low; (3) the state's leaders tend to come from both major political parties, rather than from a single party; (4) the state's urban population is growing relatively rapidly; and (5) the bypass activity of competitors in the state is less pronounced.
Thin Films: Past, Present, Future

Thin-film photovoltaics was developed as a means of substantially reducing the cost of photovoltaic (PV) systems. The rationale for this was that thin-film modules would be cheaper to manufacture owing to their reduced material costs, energy costs, handling costs and capital costs. However, thin films had to he developed using new materials, including amorphous silicon, copper indium diselenide, cadmium telluride and film crystalline silicon. In all cases, these technologies faced major technical and financial hurdles. The most crucial technical barriers are described within the text. Today, much progress has been made and the performance of the best thin-film laboratory cells approaches the best performance of polycrystalline silicon cells. Outdoor stability has been a problem, especially with amorphous silicon, but this material and newer thin films now display good to excellent stability. It appears that the goal of thin films—truly low-cost PV electricity that can be sold into energy-significant markets—can be achieved. However, its achievement will require both the continuing resolution of technical problems and the ongoing investment of significant public and/or private resources.
Electronically conducting doped chromium oxides

Samples of polycrystalline chromium oxide doped with Li/sub 2/O, MgO, NiO, and Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/ were prepared by hot-pressing to test for suitability as current collector materials of the sulfur electrode in the sodium-sulfur cell. Density, grain size, dopant uniformity, and resistivity (to 350/sup 0/C) were measured. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) tends to support the established model of Ni/sup 2 +/ on Cr/sup 3 +/ sites to explain the compositional dependence of electrical resistivity after air anneal. A higher level of Cr/sub 2/O/sub 3/ powder purity was required to obtain the low resistivities with the Li/sub 2/O dopant than with the MgO or NiO dopant. An observed increase in the bulk resistivity during several months of electrochemical cycling in sodium polysulfide/sulfur melts is attributed to loss of electronic carriers caused by equilibration of those carriers with the low oxygen partial pressure of the melt. Li/sub 2/O- and (to a lesser extent) MgO-doped Cr/sub 2/O/sub 3/ appear to be suitable as container coating materials.
The Cauchy problem for a forced harmonic oscillator

odinger equation with a time-dependent Hamiltonian operator for the forced harmonic oscillator. The corresponding Green function (propagator) is derived with the help of the generalized Fourier transform and a relation with representations of the Heisenberg‐Weyl group N (3) in a certain special case first, and then is extended to the general case. A three parameter extension of the classical Fourier integral is discussed as a by-product. Motion of a particle with a spin in uniform perpendicular magnetic and electric fields is considered as an application; a transition amplitude between Landau levels is evaluated in terms of Charlier polynomials. In addition, we also solve an initial value problem to a similar diffusion-type equation.
Smoking Restrictions as a Self-Control Mechanism

Using data from Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplements spanning 1992–2002, this study shows that smokers who plan to quit smoking are more supportive of regulations than are other smokers. Failed quitters who plan to try again are more supportive of restrictions than are smokers planning to quit for the first time. These findings indicate that many smokers support regulatory restrictions to reduce their costs of quitting by exploiting the discipline offered by regulatory control. From 1992 to 2002, support for smoking restrictions in public areas rose dramatically among both nonsmokers and smokers.
An Integrated Experimental and Computational System for the Thermal Characterization of Complex Three-Dimensional Submicron Electronic Devices

This work presents the creation of a coupled analysis engine and experimental system capable of fully characterizing the thermal behavior of complex, 3D, active, submicron, electronic devices. First, the surface temperature field of an activated device is non-invasively measured with submicron spatial resolution. Next, the thermal conductivity of each thin-film layer composing the device is measured and a numerical model is built using these values. The measured temperature distribution map is then used as input for an ultra-fast inverse computational solution to fully characterize the thermal behavior of the complex 3D device. By bringing together measurement and computation, it becomes possible for the first time to non-invasively extract the 3D thermal behavior of nanoscale embedded features that cannot otherwise be accessed. The power of the method was demonstrated by verifying that it can extract details of interest of a representative MOSFET device.
Characterization of Sputtered Tungsten Silicide as a Micromechanical Material

Refractory metal silicides, such as tungsten silicide (WSi x ), have been used for integrated circuit interconnect and self-aligned MESFET gates because of their low resistivity and thermal and chemical stability. These same characteristics make refractory metal silicides interesting materials for prospective use in micromechanical structures. However, little information on residual stresses, elastic moduli, or other micromechanical properties has been available for refractory metal silicide films. This paper presents morphology and stress characteristics of sputter-deposited tungsten silicide films, including orientation-dependent variations, as functions of deposition parameters. The biaxial elastic modulus and thermal coefficient of expansion are found for our sputtered films. Stress-measurement methods and annealing are discussed. Released diaphragms of different sizes and shapes, having controlled residual stress, have been fabricated.
A program integration algorithm that accommodates semantics-preserving transformations

Given a program Base and two variants, A and B, each created by modifying separate copies of Base, the goal of program integration is to determine whether the modifications interfere, and if they do not, to create an integrated program that includes both sets of changes as well as the portions of Base preserved in both variants. Text-based integration techniques, such as the one used by the Unix diff3 utility, are obviously unsatisfactory because one has no guarantees about how the execution behavior of the integrated program relates to the behaviors of Base, A, and B. The first program-integration algorithm to provide such guarantees was developed by Horwitz et al.[13]. However, a limitation of that algorithm is that it incorporates no notion of semantics-preserving transformations. This limitation causes the algorithm to be overly conservative in its definition of interference. For example, if one variant changes the way a computation is performed (without changing the values computed) while the other variant adds code that uses the result of the computation, the algorithm would classify those changes as interfering. This paper describes a new integration algorithm that is able to accommodate semantics-preserving transformations.
Measurement of swine aortic resistivity

The authors measured impedance of swine aorta from 10 Hz to 500 kHz. The resistivity is 184 /spl Omega//spl middot/cm at low frequencies, it starts to decrease above 10 kHz and becomes 149 /spl Omega//spl middot/cm at 500 kHz.
Status of the Sandia EBIS program

Since 1983 Sandia National Laboratories has been developing two electron beam ion sources (EBISs), principally for experiments in atomic physics. One, a relatively low-performance device with a warm bore air-core solenoid, has been used for machine development and preliminary experiments using ions up to Xe+38. This machine has completed its program and is now decommissioned. The other EBIS is a state-of-the-art device with a superconducting magnet. It has the capability of producing ions up to U+82. This machine is in its final stages of construction and should be producing ions in mid-1989. >
DESIGN OF AN INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL FACTORY USING CELL FORMATION METHODOLOGIES

This paper describes an interactive virtual environment for modeling and designing factories and shop floors. The factory building tool is developed as an open architecture in which various modules can be utilized to quickly implement factory design algorithms ranging from plant layout to factory flow analysis. Software modules and utilities have been implemented to allow easy set-up of the visual interface. In this paper, this virtual factory is used to implement cellular manufacturing (CM) system. CM has traditionally been a very complicated system to implement in practice. However successful implementation of the system has improved productivity immersely. Several issues involved in implementing CM within our virtual factory machine modeling and interface designs for defining the cells, are discussed. The mathematical clustering algorithm called Modified Boolean Method was implemented to automatically generate complex virtual environments. The virtual factory makes the process of CM-based factory design a very easy and intuitive process. Though the cell formation problem is NP-complete in 2D space, issues related to human factors and ergonomics can be better perceived in a 3D virtual environment. It also leads to further optimization with respect to maintainability and performance, and thus help get better solutions, which are not visible unless the factory is built. Our virtual factory interface also allows easy reassignment of machines and parts, subcontracting of bottleneck parts and rearranging of machines within the same design environment, making this a productive industrial tool. 3D virtual factory can also be automatically generated from the Part Machine interface called the Virtual Matrix Interface.
Simulation studies of main linac steering in the Next Linear Collider

In order to achieve the design luminosity of the Next Linear Collider, the main linac must accelerate trains of bunches from 10 GeV to 500 GeV while preserving vertical normalized emittances on the order of 0.05 mm.mrad. We describe a set of simulation studies, performed using the program LIAR, comparing several algorithms for steering the main linac; the algorithms are compared on the basis of emittance preservation, convergence speed, and sensitivity to BNS phase profile. The effects of an ATL mechanism during the steering procedure are also studied.
Automated Variance Reduction Applied to Nuclear Well-Logging Problems

The Monte Carlo method enables detailed, explicit geometric, energy and angular representations, and hence is considered to be the most accurate method available for solving complex radiation transport problems. Because of its associated accuracy, the Monte Carlo method is widely used in the petroleum exploration industry to design, benchmark, and simulate nuclear well-logging tools. Nuclear well-logging tools, which contain neutron and/or gamma sources and two or more detectors, are placed in boreholes that contain water (and possibly other fluids) and that are typically surrounded by a formation (e.g., limestone, sandstone, calcites, or a combination). The response of the detectors to radiation returning from the surrounding formation is used to infer information about the material porosity, density, composition, and associated characteristics. Accurate computer simulation is a key aspect of this exploratory technique. However, because this technique involves calculating highly precise responses (at two or more detectors) based on radiation that has interacted with the surrounding formation, the transport simulations are computationally intensive, requiring significant use of variance reduction techniques, parallel computing, or both. Because of the challenging nature of these problems, nuclear well-logging problems have frequently been used to evaluate the effectiveness of variance reduction techniques (e.g., Refs. 1-4). The primarymore » focus of these works has been on improving the computational efficiency associated with calculating the response at the most challenging detector location, which is typically the detector furthest from the source. Although the objective of nuclear well-logging simulations is to calculate the response at multiple detector locations, until recently none of the numerous variance reduction methods/techniques has been well-suited to simultaneous optimization of multiple detector (tally) regions. Therefore, a separate calculation is typically performed for each desired detector response. This paper summarizes recent work to apply and evaluate the effectiveness of deterministic-adjoint-based variance reduction methods, including a recently developed method for simultaneous optimization of multiple detectors, for two simple nuclear well-logging tool problems that have been widely used in the variance reduction literature. The computational effectiveness of the method for simultaneous optimization is also compared to the use of multiple, individually optimized simulations for these simple well-logging problems.« less
A millennial overview of transition metal chemistry

The present state of transition metal chemistry (restricted largely to the d-block elements) is surveyed with an eye to the history of the subject. With the coordination chemistry of Alfred Werner as a base of reference, there are (evolutionary) developments that may be considered as evolving naturally therefrom and (revolutionary) developments that seem not to have been adumbrated by the Wernerian concepts.
Influencing a Flock via Ad Hoc Teamwork

Flocking is an emergent behavior in which each individual agent follows a simple behavior rule that leads to a group behavior that appears cohesive and coordinated. In our work, we consider how to influence a flock using a set of ad hoc agents. Ad hoc agents are added to the flock and are able to influence the flock to adopt a desired behavior by acting as part of the flock. Specifically, we first examine how the ad hoc agents can behave to quickly orient a flock towards a target heading when given knowledge of, but no direct control over, the behavior of the flock. Then we consider how the ad hoc agents can behave to herd the flock through turns quickly but with minimal agents being separated from the flock as a result of these turns. We introduce an algorithm which the ad hoc agents can use to influence the flock. We also present detailed experimental results for our algorithm, concluding that in this setting, short-term lookahead planning improves significantly upon baseline methods and can be used to herd a flock through turns quickly while maintaining the composition of the flock.
The magnesium complexes of 1,2-dimethylenecycloalkanes : a new method for a one-step spiroannelation

Abstract Reactions of new dienemagnesium reagents prepared from highly reactive magnesium and 1,2-diemthylenecycloalkanes with 1,n-dibromoalkanes and bromoalkylnitriles provide a one-step method for the synthesis of commonly encountered spirocyclic systems.
The Flared Disc Project: RXTE and ASCA observations of X 1822−371

We present archival Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) and simultaneous Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA) data of the eclipsing low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) X 1822−371. Our spectral analysis shows that a variety of simple models can fit the spectra relatively well. Of these models, we explore two in detail through phase-resolved fits. These two models represent the case of a very optically thick and a very optically thin corona. While systematic residuals remain at high energies, the overall spectral shape is well approximated. The same two basic models are fitted to the X-ray light curve, which shows sinusoidal modulations interpreted as absorption by an opaque disc rim of varying height. The geometry we infer from these fits is consistent with previous studies: the disc rim reaches out to the tidal truncation radius, while the radius of the corona (approximated as spherical) is very close to the circularization radius. Timing analysis of the RXTE data shows a time-lag from hard to soft consistent with the coronal size inferred from the fits. Neither the spectra nor the light curve fits allow us to rule out either model, leaving a key ingredient of the X 1822−371 puzzle unsolved. Furthermore, while previous studies were consistent with the central object being a 1.4 M⊙ neutron star, which has been adopted as the best guess scenario for this system, our light curve fits show that a white dwarf or black hole primary can work just as well. Based on previously published estimates of the orbital evolution of X 1822−371, however, we suggest that this system contains either a neutron star or a low mass (≲2.5 M⊙) black hole and is in a transitional state of duration shortward of 107 yr.
Probability distributions for offshore wind speeds

Abstract In planning offshore wind farms, short-term wind speeds play a central role in estimating various engineering parameters, such as power output, extreme wind load, and fatigue load. Lacking wind speed time series of sufficient length, the probability distribution of wind speed serves as the primary substitute for data when estimating design parameters. It is common practice to model short-term wind speeds with the Weibull distribution. Using 10-min wind speed time series at 178 ocean buoy stations ranging from 1 month to 20 years in duration, we show that the widely-accepted Weibull distribution provides a poor fit to the distribution of wind speeds when compared with more complicated models. We compare distributions in terms of three different metrics: probability plot R2, estimates of average turbine power output, and estimates of extreme wind speed. While the Weibull model generally gives larger R2 than any other 2-parameter distribution, the bimodal Weibull, Kappa, and Wakeby models all show R2 values significantly closer to 1 than the other distributions considered (including the Weibull), with the bimodal Weibull giving the best fits. The Kappa and Wakeby distributions fit the upper tail (higher wind speeds) of a sample better than the bimodal Weibull, but may drastically over-estimate the frequency of lower wind speeds. Because the average turbine power is controlled by high wind speeds, the Kappa and Wakeby estimate average turbine power output very well, with the Kappa giving the least bias and mean square error out of all the distributions. The 2-parameter Lognormal distribution performs best for estimating extreme wind speeds, but still gives estimates with significant error. The fact that different distributions excel under different applications motivates further research on model selection based upon the engineering parameter of interest.
Bond Immunization for Affine Term Structures

This paper generalizes a number of important immunization theorems. We show that the Fisher and Weil immunization, Bierwag and Khang minimax, Redington multiple liability, and Bierwag, Kaufman, and Toevs coverage theorems can be generalized to the class of affine term structures. This class of term structures contains many models that are commonly used in the finance literature.
Flow Structure in the Near-Wall Region of a Submerged Impinging Jet

An experimental investigation was performed to study the flow structure of a submerged water jet impinging normally on a smooth and flat surface using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The jet issued from a 112 diameter, D, long pipe which ensured fully-developed turbulent flow conditions at the outlet. A semi-confined setting provided properly characterized flow boundary conditions. The Reynolds number based on jet mean exit velocity was Re = 16,000. The pipe-to-plate separation was varied between 1 and 8 pipe diameters. The current study focused on characterizing the flow structure close to the pipe outlet in the impingement and wall-jet regions. Statistically averaged mean and RMS velocities are reported for a 6D wide and 1D high, near-plate, rectangular region. A total of 155 × 24 or 3720 vectors were obtained, each representing the spatial average over a 0.0394D × 0.0394D area.Copyright © 2009 by ASME
Large diffuse halos in time-dependent space-charge potentials with colored noise

We explore the potential impact of colored noise on space-charge-induced halo formation. By coupling particle orbits to parametric resonance, colored noise due to space-charge fluctuations and/or imperfections in the beamline can eject particles to much larger amplitudes than would be inferred from parametric resonance alone.
A TSC investigation of polymer–polymer contact charging

The transfer of charge across the interface between two materials brought into contact was studied by measuring the small currents produced when layered films composed of two dissimilar films were first heated and then held under isothermal conditions. It was found that, given a fixed electrode orientation, the polarity of the current generally reversed when the relative position of the films were reversed. The sense of the current was in agreement with that expected from the polymer work functions.
Fiscal Interactions and the Case for Carbon Taxes Over Grandfathered Carbon Permits

This paper provides simple formulas for adjusting the costs of carbon taxes and tradable carbon permits to account for interactions with pre-existing tax distortions in the labour market. Both policies reduce labour supply as they increase product prices and reduce real household wages; the resulting efficiency losses in the labour market can be substantial relative to partial equilibrium abatement costs. However, much of this added cost can be offset, and perhaps more than offset when additional distortions from the tax system are considered, if revenues from carbon taxes or auctioned permits are used to reduce distortionary taxes. Consequently, there can be a strong case on efficiency grounds for using carbon taxes or auctioned permits over grandfathered carbon permits. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.
Are the behavioral immune system and pathogen disgust identical

Pathogen disgust evolved as a psychological adaptation in response to the recurring selective pressures posed by disease-causing organisms. Recently, social psychologists taking an evolutionary perspective have posited the existence of a behavioral immune system, which purportedly evolved for the same reason. However, researchers using the concept of the behavioral immune system curiously claim it is not identical to pathogen disgust. Here, we argue that despite different names, pathogen disgust and the behavioral immune system are indeed functionally and computationally the same. We provide two reasons why they are treated as distinct, or at least nonidentical, systems. The first relates to how emotions are defined in different academic disciplines. The second relates to common intuitions regarding the distinction between emotion and cognition. We suggest that if researchers focus on the level of information processing and develop computational models of the adaptation in question—pathogen avoidance or otherwise—problems introduced by historical definitions and folk intuitions are more likely to disappear.
Supply Function Equilibrium in a Constrained Transmission System

This paper characterizes a supply function equilibrium in an auction market constrained by limited capacities of links in a transportation network and limited input/output capacities of participants. The formulation is adapted to a wholesale spot market for electricity managed by the operator of the transmission system. The results are derived using the calculus of variations to obtain the Euler conditions and the transversality conditions that characterize a Nash equilibrium in an auction in which bids are as supply functions, and quantities and payments are based either on nodal prices or pay-as-bid.
Tariffication of a Distorted Economy: A CGE Analysis

This paper examines the consequences of the tariffication of a quota when there are several potential distortions present in a country, including domestic monopoly and wage rigidities. It is generally presumed that tariffs are superior to quotas because of their transparency and revenue-raising attributes. However, in the presence of multiple distortions, liberalization of a single policy instrument may result in net welfare losses. The findings suggest that, in a general equilibrium context, such a liberalization policy will have ambiguous effects upon aggregate domestic welfare in the country undertaking the tariffication.
Looking for Distributed Star Formation in L1630: A Near-Infrared (J, H, K) Survey

We have carried out a simultaneous, multiband (J, H, K) survey over an area of 1320 arcmin2 in the L1630 region, concentrating on the region away from the dense molecular cores with modest visual extinctions (≤10 mag). Previous studies by Lada and coworkers showed that star formation in L1630 occurs mainly in four localized clusters, which in turn are associated with the four most massive molecular cores. The goal of this study is to look for a distributed population of pre-main-sequence stars in the outlying areas outside the known star-forming cores. More than 60% of the pre-main-sequence stars in the active star-forming regions of NGC 2024 and NGC 2023 show a near-infrared excess in the color-color diagram. In the outlying areas of L1630, excluding the known star-forming regions, we found that among 510 infrared sources with the near-infrared colors (J-H and H-K) determined and photometric uncertainty at K better than 0.10 mag, the fraction of the sources with a near-infrared excess is 3%-8%; the surface density of the sources with a near-infrared excess is less than one-seventh of that found in the distributed population in L1641, and 1/20 of that in the young cluster NGC 2023. This extremely low fraction and low surface density of sources with a near-infrared excess strongly indicates that recent star formation activity has been very low in the outlying region of L1630. The sources without a near-infrared excess could be either background/foreground field stars or associated with the cloud, but formed a long time ago (more than 2 Myr). Our results are consistent with McKee's model of photoionization-regulated star formation.
Welfare transitions in the 1990s: The economy, welfare policy, and the EITC

The rapid decline in the welfare caseload remains a subject of keen interest to both policymakers and researchers. In this paper, I use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation spanning the period from 1986 to 1999 to analyze how the economy, welfare reform, the earned income tax credit (EITC), and other factors influence welfare entries and exits, which in turn affect the caseload. I find that the decline in the welfare caseload resulted from both increases in exits and decreases in entries. Entries were most significantly affected by the economy, the decline in the real value of welfare benefits, and the expansion of the EITC. Exits were most significantly affected by the economy and federal welfare reform. Federal reform had its greatest effects on longer-term spells of the type generally experienced by more disadvantaged recipients. Some out-of-sample predictions help explain the otherwise puzzling observation that, despite substantial increases in the unemployment rate since 2000, caseloads have remained roughly constant. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management
Asymmetric routes to azasugars from chiral bicyclic lactams. Synthesis of 1,4-dideoxy-1,4-imino-D-lyxitol; L-deoxymannojirimycin; rhammo-1-deoxynojirimycin and 1-deoxy-6-epicastanospermine

Abstract By employing the appropriate chiral bicyclic lactams, the asymmetric total synthesis of four enantiopure azasugars mentioned in the title were successfully achieved. A series of diastereoselective oxidations ( OsO 4 NMO ) followed by diastereoselective reductions (BH3, 9-BBN) gave good yields of the trisubstituted (16) and tetrasubstituted (2,3,4) pyrrolidine and piperidines respectively.
The Sign-Rank of AC$^0$

The sign-rank of a matrix $A=[A_{ij}]$ with $\pm1$ entries is the least rank of a real matrix $B=[B_{ij}]$ with $A_{ij}B_{ij}>0$ for all $i,j$. We obtain the first exponential lower bound on the sign-rank of a function in $\mathsf{AC}^0$. Namely, let $f(x,y)=\bigwedge_{i=1,\dots,m}\bigvee_{j=1,\dots,m^2}(x_{ij}\wedge y_{ij})$. We show that the matrix $[f(x,y)]_{x,y}$ has sign-rank $\exp(\Omega(m))$. This in particular implies that $\Sigma_2^{cc}\not\subseteq\mathsf{UPP}^{cc}$, which solves a longstanding open problem in communication complexity posed by Babai, Frankl, and Simon [Proceedings of the 27th Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS), 1986, pp. 337-347]. Our result additionally implies a lower bound in learning theory. Specifically, let $\phi_1,\dots,\phi_r:\{0,1\}^n\to\mathbb{R}$ be functions such that every DNF formula $f:\{0,1\}^n\to\{-1,+1\}$ of polynomial size has the representation $f\equiv\mathrm{sgn}(a_1\phi_1+\dots+a_r\phi_r)$ for some reals $a_1,\dots,a_r$. We prove that then $r\geqslant\exp(\Omega(n^{1/3}))$, which essentially matches an upper bound of $\exp(\tilde{O}(n^{1/3}))$, due to Klivans and Servedio [J. Comput. System Sci., 68 (2004), pp. 303-318]. Finally, our work yields the first exponential lower bound on the size of threshold-of-majority circuits computing a function in $\mathsf{AC}^0$. This substantially generalizes and strengthens the results of Krause and Pudlak [Theoret. Comput. Sci., 174 (1997), pp. 137-156].
Introduction to the Public Choice Society at 50 years symposium

This introduction presents a brief background of the Public Choice Society, its 50th anniversary conference, and the purpose of this symposium. This symposium consists of 13 papers within four of the main pillars of public choice: Virginia political economy, Bloomington political economy, experimental economics, and social choice. These papers pay homage to the Society’s first 50 years while demonstrating the breadth and vibrancy of modern public choice scholarship.
Thyroid Hormone Early Adjustment in Pregnancy (The THERAPY) Trial

Background: Thyroid hormone requirement increases 20–40% during gestation. Women with treated hypothyroidism must increase their l-T4 in pregnancy to prevent maternal hypothyroidism, although how this should be accomplished is unclear. Methods: We prospectively enrolled 60 women with treated hypothyroidism seeking pregnancy. Once pregnant, women were randomized to increase l-T4 by either two tablets/wk (group A) or three tablets/wk (group B). Thyroid function was tested biweekly through midpregnancy and at 30 wk gestation. Levothyroxine was adjusted to maintain goal TSH concentrations. The primary objective was to assess efficacy in preventing maternal hypothyroidism and the safety of this intervention. Results: Forty-eight women completed the protocol. Increasing the l-T4 dose once pregnant (regardless of study arm) prevented TSH elevation over 5.0 mIU/liter throughout the first trimester and replicated physiological changes of pregnancy. The early l-T4 increase caused TSH suppression below 0.5 mIU/liter...
The 2009 Recovery Act: Directly Created and Saved Jobs Were Primarily in Government

Over one-half of the fiscal spending component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA; i.e., the Recovery Act) was allocated via grants, loans, and contracts. Businesses, nonprofits, and nonfederal government agencies that received this type of stimulus funding were required to report the number of jobs directly created and saved as a result of their funding. Created and saved jobs represent, precisely, the full-time equivalent of jobs funded by first- and second-tier recipients of and contractors on ARRA grants, loans, and contracts. In this article, the author categorizes these jobs into either the private sector (businesses and nonprofits) or the government sector. It is estimated that at the one-year mark following the start of the stimulus, 166,000 of the 682,000 jobs directly created/ saved were in the private sector. Examples of private sector stimulus jobs include social workers hired by nonprofit groups to assist families, mechanics to repair buses for public transportation, and con struction workers to repave highways. Examples of government stimulus jobs include public school teachers, civil servants employed at state agencies, and police officers. While fewer than one of four stimulus jobs were in the private sector, more than seven of nine jobs in the U.S. economy overall reside in the private sector. Thus, stimulus-funded jobs were heavily tilted toward government. (JEL E6, H7)
Optimal risk sharing under distorted probabilities

We study optimal risk sharing among n agents endowed with distortion risk measures. Our model includes market frictions that can either represent linear transaction costs or risk premia charged by a clearing house for the agents. Risk sharing under third-party constraints is also considered. We obtain an explicit formula for Pareto optimal allocations. In particular, we find that a stop-loss or deductible risk sharing is optimal in the case of two agents and several common distortion functions. This extends recent result of Jouini et al. (Adv Math Econ 9:49–72, 2006) to the problem with unbounded risks and market frictions.