cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Economies of scale and governance of library systems: evidence from West Virginia

Public libraries are a billion dollar industry in the United States. We explore the institutional determinants of public library technical efficiency using data from West Virginia. We first document considerable cross-district variation in library efficiency. While the average library district in our sample is between 81 and 90% efficient depending upon the year and measure, there are many district-years that are under 50%. We then explain our technical efficiency measures as a function of institutional variables reflecting the type of district and sources of funding. We find consistent evidence that urban libraries are more inefficient, perhaps because they are too small to achieve sufficient economies-of-scale in production of library services. In addition, we find revenue from local sources is associated with reduced efficiency, contrary to what would be predicted by local public goods producer theory.
Energetic-particle-modified global Alfven eigenmodes

Fully self-consistent hybrid MHD/particle simulations reveal strong energetic particle modifications to sub-cyclotron global Alfven eigenmodes (GAEs) in low-aspect ratio, NSTX-like conditions. Key parameters defining the fast ion distribution function—the normalized injection velocity v0/vA and central pitch—are varied in order to study their influence on the characteristics of the excited modes. It is found that the frequency of the most unstable mode changes significantly and continuously with beam parameters, in accordance with the Doppler-shifted cyclotron resonances which drive the modes, and depending most substantially on v0/vA. This unexpected result is present for both counter-propagating GAEs, which are routinely excited in NSTX, and high frequency co-GAEs, which have not been previously studied. Large changes in frequency without clear corresponding changes in the mode structure are signatures of an energetic particle mode, referred to here as an energetic-particle-modified GAE. Additional simulations conducted for a fixed MHD equilibrium demonstrate that the GAE frequency shift cannot be explained by the equilibrium changes due to energetic particle effects.Fully self-consistent hybrid MHD/particle simulations reveal strong energetic particle modifications to sub-cyclotron global Alfven eigenmodes (GAEs) in low-aspect ratio, NSTX-like conditions. Key parameters defining the fast ion distribution function—the normalized injection velocity v0/vA and central pitch—are varied in order to study their influence on the characteristics of the excited modes. It is found that the frequency of the most unstable mode changes significantly and continuously with beam parameters, in accordance with the Doppler-shifted cyclotron resonances which drive the modes, and depending most substantially on v0/vA. This unexpected result is present for both counter-propagating GAEs, which are routinely excited in NSTX, and high frequency co-GAEs, which have not been previously studied. Large changes in frequency without clear corresponding changes in the mode structure are signatures of an energetic particle mode, referred to here as an energetic-particle-modified GAE. Additional si...
SmartQ: A Question and Answer System for Supplying High-Quality and Trustworthy Answers

Question and Answer (QA SmartQ incorporates a lightweight spammer detection method to identify potential spammers. In order to reduce the loads of experts, we propose a strategy to recommend suggested answers from similar questions to each new question. Our trace-driven simulation on PeerSim demonstrates the effectiveness of SmartQ in providing good user experience. We then develop a real application of SmartQ and deploy it for use in a student group in Clemson University. The user feedback shows that SmartQ can provide high-quality answers for users in a community.
The fragile X chromosome

Publisher Summary The fragile X chromosome is associated with a common form of X-linked mental retardation in males and possibly females. The fragile X is so called because it has a fragile site at the distal end of the long arm. Fragile sites are morphological features of chromosomes defined as specific points liable to show some specific features. The chapter discusses tissue culture conditions. Some of the morphological appearances of the fragile X are illustrated in the chapter. In the illustration, the appearance is more distinctive in the unbanded preparations than in the G-banded ones. When G-banding methods that employ trypsin are used, the segment of chromosome distal to the fragile site becomes merely a fuzziness that is not as readily detected as the striking appearance of the fragile X on unbanded chromosomes. The autosomal fragile sites are considered to be without phenotypic effect. Homozygotes for the folate-sensitive autosomal fragile sites have not been identified yet, but it is speculated that such homozygosity can be deleterious. The chapter also discusses the karyotype–phenotype relationships.
Algorithms and Authenticity

As technology advances, artificially intelligent algorithms are becoming increasingly capable of human work. Across four experiments, I investigate people’s beliefs about the authenticity of algori...
DNA damage mediates changes in neuronal sensitivity induced by the inflammatory mediators, MCP-1 and LPS, and can be reversed by enhancing the DNA repair function of APE1

Although inflammation-induced peripheral sensitization oftentimes resolves as an injury heals, this sensitization can be pathologically maintained and contribute to chronic inflammatory pain. Numerous inflammatory mediators increase the production of reactive oxygen (ROS) and nitrogen species (RNS) during inflammation and in animal models of chronic neuropathic pain. Our previous studies demonstrate that ROS/RNS and subsequent DNA damage mediate changes in neuronal sensitivity induced by anticancer drugs and by ionizing radiation in sensory neurons, thus we investigated whether inflammation and inflammatory mediators also could cause DNA damage in sensory neurons and whether that DNA damage alters neuronal sensitivity. DNA damage was assessed by pH2A.X expression and the release of the neuropeptide, calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), was measured as an index of neuronal sensitivity. Peripheral inflammation or exposure of cultured sensory neurons to the inflammatory mediators, LPS and MCP-1, elicited DNA damage. Moreover, exposure of sensory neuronal cultures to LPS or MCP-1 resulted in changes in the stimulated release of CGRP, without altering resting release or CGRP content. Genetically enhancing the expression of the DNA repair enzyme, apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease (APE1) or treatment with a small-molecule modulator of APE1 DNA repair activity, both which enhance DNA repair, attenuated DNA damage and the changes in neuronal sensitivity elicited by LPS or MCP-1. In conclusion, our studies demonstrate that inflammation or exposure to inflammatory mediators elicits DNA damage in sensory neurons. By enhancing DNA repair, we demonstrate that this DNA damage mediates the alteration of neuronal function induced by inflammatory mediators in peptidergic sensory neurons.
Investigating the effect of an adaptive learning intervention on students’ learning

Educators agree on the benefits of adaptive learning, but evidence-based research remains limited as the field of adaptive learning is still evolving within higher education. In this study, we investigated the impact of an adaptive learning intervention to provide remedial instruction in biology, chemistry, math, and information literacy to first-year students (n = 128) entering a pharmacy professional degree program. Using a mixed methods design, we examined students’ learning in each of the four content areas, their experience using the adaptive system, and student characteristics as related to their choice of participating in the intervention. The findings showed the adaptive learning intervention helped address the knowledge gap for chemistry, but the same effect was not observed for the other three content areas. Math anxiety was the only student characteristic that showed a significant relationship with students’ participation. While the students reported an overall positive experience, the results also revealed time factor and several design flaws that could have contributed to the lack of more student success. The findings highlight the importance of design in adaptive learning.
The influence of other comprehensive income on discretionary expenditures

Other Comprehensive Income items (OCI) increase and decrease book value and therefore indicate more or less firm value. It follows that OCI items, albeit transitory, may contribute to a wealth effect that influences expenditure decisions. In support, our regression results indicate an association between current year OCI and future discretionary financing, investing, and operating expenditures. However we also find that OCI influenced expenditures are not associated with future profitability suggesting such expenditures are not value creating. In further tests, we find that future discretionary expenditures are associated with both positive OCI and negative OCI for higher leveraged firms but only associated with positive OCI for lower leveraged firms. These results suggest that, for highly leveraged firms, positive OCI loosens debt constraints on future expenditures while negative OCI tightens debt constraints on future expenditures. For firms without debt constraints the results are suggestive of possible wealth transfers from debtholders to shareholders. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Kmerind: A Flexible Parallel Library for K-mer Indexing of Biological Sequences on Distributed Memory Systems

Counting and indexing fixed length substrings, or $k$k-mers, in biological sequences is a key step in many bioinformatics tasks including genome alignment and mapping, genome assembly, and error correction. While advances in next generation sequencing technologies have dramatically reduced the cost and improved latency and throughput, few bioinformatics tools can efficiently process the datasets at the current generation rate of 1.8 terabases per 3-day experiment from a single sequencer. We present Kmerind, a high performance parallel $k$k-mer indexing library for distributed memory environments. The Kmerind library provides a set of simple and consistent APIs with sequential semantics and parallel implementations that are designed to be flexible and extensible. Kmerind's $k$k-mer counter performs similarly or better than the best existing $k$k-mer counting tools even on shared memory systems. In a distributed memory environment, Kmerind counts $k$k-mers in a 120 GB sequence read dataset in less than 13 seconds on 1024 Xeon CPU cores, and fully indexes their positions in approximately 17 seconds. Querying for 1 percent of the $k$k-mers in these indices can be completed in 0.23 seconds and 28 seconds, respectively. Kmerind is the first $k$k-mer indexing library for distributed memory environments, and the first extensible library for general $k$k-mer indexing and counting. Kmerind is available at https://github.com/ParBLiSS/kmerind.
The effect of recipient contribution requirements on support for social programs

Abstract A large literature examines the use of recipient contribution requirements in social programs to target people who most need and value aid. Yet little is known about public support for such requirements. In a field experiment with a nationally representative sample, we examine the effect of recipient contributions on charitable donations to a food aid program. The response to recipient monetary contributions is non-monotonic: donations increase when recipients make small monetary contributions and return to baseline under large recipient contributions. Recipient time contribution requirements also increase program support. Results from additional treatments suggest that individuals use contribution requirements to increase both allocative efficiency (screening recipients who most value the good) and targeting efficiency (screening recipients most in need). Our work informs the design of social programs, which must respond to the preferences of voters and donors who provide political and financial support.
A parametric interpretation of Bayesian Nonparametric Inference from Gene Genealogies: Linking ecological, population genetics and evolutionary processes.

Abstract Using a nonparametric Bayesian approach Palacios and Minin (2013) dramatically improved the accuracy, precision of Bayesian inference of population size trajectories from gene genealogies. These authors proposed an extension of a Gaussian Process (GP) nonparametric inferential method for the intensity function of non-homogeneous Poisson processes. They found that not only the statistical properties of the estimators were improved with their method, but also, that key aspects of the demographic histories were recovered. The authors’ work represents the first Bayesian nonparametric solution to this inferential problem because they specify a convenient prior belief without a particular functional form on the population trajectory. Their approach works so well and provides such a profound understanding of the biological process, that the question arises as to how truly “biology-free” their approach really is. Using well-known concepts of stochastic population dynamics, here I demonstrate that in fact, Palacios and Minin’s GP model can be cast as a parametric population growth model with density dependence and environmental stochasticity. Making this link between population genetics and stochastic population dynamics modeling provides novel insights into eliciting biologically meaningful priors for the trajectory of the effective population size. The results presented here also bring novel understanding of GP as models for the evolution of a trait. Thus, the ecological principles foundation of Palacios and Minin (2013)’s prior adds to the conceptual and scientific value of these authors’ inferential approach. I conclude this note by listing a series of insights brought about by this connection with Ecology.
Optimism and Pain Interference in Aging Women.

BACKGROUND Pain interferes with people's daily lives and often limits the extent to which they can pursue goals and engage in activities that promote well-being. However, people vary in how much interference they experience at a given level of pain. PURPOSE The present study tested how optimism affects and is affected by pain interference and goal-directed activity among older women. METHODS Every 3 months for 2 years, community-dwelling middle- and older-age women (N = 199) completed online daily diaries at home for a 7 day period, in which they reported their daily pain, pain interference, and goal-directed activity. Optimism was measured at the start and end of the study. Multilevel models tested the between- and within-person relationships among pain, optimism, and pain interference or goal-directed activity. Linear regression predicted change in optimism over 2 years from pain interference and goal-directed activity. RESULTS Pain best predicted pain interference and optimism best predicted goal-directed activity. There were subtle interactions between optimism and pain-predicting interference and goal-directed activity. Accumulated goal-directed activity and pain interference across the study predicted longitudinal changes in optimism, with higher activity and lower pain interference predicting increased optimism over 2 years. CONCLUSIONS Optimism may play a protective role in disruptions caused by pain on a day-to-day basis, leading to increased goal-directed activity and possibly decreased pain interference. In turn, less interference and more goal-directed activity feed forward into increased optimism, resulting in a virtuous cycle that enhances optimism and well-being among older women.
Fuzzy logic approach to predictive risk analysis in distribution outage management

Weather impacts are one of the main causes of distribution outages. To devise strategies to mitigate weather impacts, a fuzzy logic system for decision making is introduced. It allows utility operators to achieve more precise outage predictions and optimize real time operation and maintenance scheduling. A novel approach for weather-driven risk framework is applied to process the data and produce risk maps for better decision making. The use of weather data in reducing FL time, an important performance improvement in outage management, is also presented.
The Production Frontier: Modeling Production in Computerized Business Simulations

This paper presents a system of equations that can be used for modeling the production function in computerized business simulations. A review of a sample of contemporary business games demonstrates that most designers have production algorithms that are incomplete or inconsistent with the theory of production. The production system presented in the paper uses a continuous multiplicative functional form which is flexible and allows the designer to specify and control for: diminishing returns, points of inflection, output elasticities, and returns to scale. The complete production system consists of fifteen equations in which the first nine define the production frontier (i.e., outside boundary) and six optional functions allow the designer to incorporate input inefficiencies and/or improvements into the model. A numerical example demonstrates use of the frontier.
Kirigami enhances film adhesion.

Structures of thin films bonded on substrates have been used in technologies as diverse as flexible electronics, soft robotics, bio-inspired adhesives, thermal-barrier coatings, medical bandages, wearable devices and living devices. The current paradigm for maintaining adhesion of films on substrates is to make the films thinner, and more compliant and adhesive, but these requirements can compromise the function or fabrication of film–substrate structures. For example, there are limits on how thin, compliant and adhesive epidermal electronic devices can be fabricated and still function reliably. Here we report a new paradigm that enhances adhesion of films on substrates via designing rational kirigami cuts in the films without changing the thickness, rigidity or adhesiveness of the films. We find that the effective enhancement of adhesion by kirigami is due to (i) the shear-lag effect of the film segments; (ii) partial debonding at the film segments’ edges; and (iii) compatibility of kirigami films with inhomogeneous deformation of substrates. While kirigami has been widely used to program thin sheets with desirable shapes and mechanical properties, fabricate electronics with enhanced stretchability and design the assembly of three-dimensional microstructures, this paper gives the first systematic study on kirigami enhancing film adhesion. We further demonstrate novel applications including a kirigami bandage, a kirigami heat pad and printed kirigami electronics.
Near-optimal pseudorandom generators for constant-depth read-once formulas

We give an explicit pseudorandom generator (PRG) for read-once AC0, i.e., constant-depth read-once formulas over the basis [EQUATION] with unbounded fan-in. The seed length of our PRG is O(log(n/e)). Previously, PRGs with near-optimal seed length were known only for the depth-2 case [22]. For a constant depth d > 2, the best prior PRG is a recent construction by Forbes and Kelley with seed length O(log2n + log n log(1/e)) for the more general model of constant-width read-once branching programs with arbitrary variable order [17]. Looking beyond read-once AC0, we also show that our PRG fools read-once AC0[⊕] with seed length O(t + log(n/e)), where t is the number of parity gates in the formula.Our construction follows Ajtai and Wigderson's approach of iterated pseudorandom restrictions [1]. We assume by recursion that we already have a PRG for depth-d AC0 formulas. To fool depth-(d + 1) AC0 formulas, we use the given PRG, combined with a small-bias distribution and almost k-wise independence, to sample a pseudorandom restriction. The analysis of Forbes and Kelley [17] shows that our restriction approximately preserves the expectation of the formula. The crux of our work is showing that after poly(log log n) independent applications of our pseudorandom restriction, the formula simplifies in the sense that every gate other than the output has only polylog n remaining children. Finally, as the last step, we use a recent PRG by Meka, Reingold, and Tal [32] to fool this simpler formula.
Retracing the Hawaiian silversword radiation despite phylogenetic, biogeographic, and paleogeographic uncertainty

The Hawaiian silversword alliance (Asteraceae) is an iconic adaptive radiation. However, like many island plant lineages, no fossils have been assigned to the clade. As a result, the clade's age and diversification rate are not known precisely, making it difficult to test biogeographic hypotheses about the radiation. In lieu of fossils, paleogeographically structured biogeographic processes may inform species divergence times; for example, an island must first exist for a clade to radiate upon it. We date the silversword clade and test biogeographic hypotheses about its radiation across the Hawaiian Archipelago by modeling interactions between species relationships, molecular evolution, biogeographic scenarios, divergence times, and island origination times using the Bayesian phylogenetic framework, RevBayes. The ancestor of living silverswords most likely colonized the modern Hawaiian Islands once from the mainland approximately 5.1 Ma, with the most recent common ancestor of extant silversword lineages first appearing approximately 3.5 Ma. Applying an event-based test of the progression rule of island biogeography, we found strong evidence that the dispersal process favors old-to-young directionality, but strong evidence for diversification continuing unabated into later phases of island ontogeny, particularly for Kaua'i. This work serves as a general example for how diversification studies benefit from incorporating biogeographic and paleogeographic components.
Prominent microglial activation in cortical white matter is selectively associated with cortical atrophy in primary progressive aphasia

AIMS Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a clinical syndrome characterized by selective language impairments associated with focal cortical atrophy favouring the language dominant hemisphere. PPA is associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and significant accumulation of activated microglia. Activated microglia can initiate an inflammatory cascade that may contribute to neurodegeneration, but their quantitative distribution in cortical white matter and their relationship with cortical atrophy remain unknown. We investigated white matter activated microglia and their association with grey matter atrophy in 10 PPA cases with either AD or FTLD-TDP pathology. METHODS Activated microglia were quantified with optical density measures of HLA-DR immunoreactivity in two regions with peak cortical atrophy, and one nonatrophied region within the language dominant hemisphere of each PPA case. Nonatrophied contralateral homologues of the language dominant regions were examined for hemispheric asymmetry. RESULTS Qualitatively, greater densities of activated microglia were observed in cortical white matter when compared to grey matter. Quantitative analyses revealed significantly greater densities of activated microglia in the white matter of atrophied regions compared to nonatrophied regions in the language dominant hemisphere (P < 0.05). Atrophied regions of the language dominant hemisphere also showed significantly more activated microglia compared to contralateral homologues (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS White matter activated microglia accumulate more in atrophied regions in the language dominant hemisphere of PPA. While microglial activation may constitute a response to neurodegenerative processes in white matter, the resultant inflammatory processes may also exacerbate disease progression and contribute to cortical atrophy.
Real-time corneal segmentation and 3D needle tracking in intrasurgical OCT

Ophthalmic procedures demand precise surgical instrument control in depth, yet standard operating microscopes supply limited depth perception. Current commercial microscope-integrated optical coherence tomography partially meets this need with manually-positioned cross-sectional images that offer qualitative estimates of depth. In this work, we present methods for automatic quantitative depth measurement using real-time, two-surface corneal segmentation and needle tracking in OCT volumes. We then demonstrate these methods for guidance of ex vivo deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK) needle insertions. Surgeons using the output of these methods improved their ability to reach a target depth, and decreased their incidence of corneal perforations, both with statistical significance. We believe these methods could increase the success rate of DALK and thereby improve patient outcomes.
Vortex ferroelectric domains, large-loop weak ferromagnetic domains, and their decoupling in hexagonal (Lu, Sc)FeO3

The direct domain coupling of spontaneous ferroelectric polarization and net magnetic moment can result in giant magnetoelectric (ME) coupling, which is essential to achieve mutual control and practical applications of multiferroics. Recently, the possible bulk domain coupling, the mutual control of ferroelectricity (FE) and weak ferromagnetism (WFM) have been theoretically predicted in hexagonal LuFeO3. Here, we report the first successful growth of highly-cleavable Sc-stabilized hexagonal Lu0.6Sc0.4FeO3 (h-LSFO) single crystals, as well as the first visualization of their intrinsic cloverleaf pattern of vortex FE domains and large-loop WFM domains. The vortex FE domains are on the order of 0.1–1 μm in size. On the other hand, the loop WFM domains are ~100 μm in size, and there exists no interlocking of FE and WFM domain walls. These strongly manifest the decoupling between FE and WFM in h-LSFO. The domain decoupling can be explained as the consequence of the structure-mediated coupling between polarization and dominant in-plane antiferromagnetic spins according to the theoretical prediction, which reveals intriguing interplays between FE, WFM, and antiferromagnetic orders in h-LSFO. Our results also indicate that the magnetic topological charge tends to be identical to the structural topological charge. This could provide new insights into the induction of direct coupling between magnetism and ferroelectricity mediated by structural distortions, which will be useful for the future applications of multiferroics. Experiments reveal the decoupling between vortex ferroelectric domains and loop weak ferromagnetic domains in hexagonal Lu0.6Sc0.4FeO3. A team led by Sang-Wook Cheong from the Rutgers University in the USA grows cleavable Sc-stabilized hexagonal Lu0.6Sc0.4FeO3 (h-LSFO) single crystals and visualize cloverleaf patterns of vortex ferroelectric (FE) domains and large-loop weak ferromagnetic (WFM) domains. The WFM domains are much larger in size than FE domains. The distinct sizes and shapes demonstrate the decoupling between ferroelectricity and out-of-plane weak ferromagnetism, which is consistent with a former prediction on the absence of coupled magnetoelectric effects in h-LSFO. Furthermore, they indicate that the magnetic topological charge tends to be identical with the structural topological charge. The results provide insights into coupling between magnetism and ferroelectricity mediated through structural distortions, which might be useful for future applications.
Do bonuses affect teacher staffing and student achievement in high poverty schools? Evidence from an incentive for national board certified teachers in Washington State.

Abstract We study a teacher incentive policy in Washington State that awards a financial bonus to National Board certified teachers in high poverty schools. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the bonus policy increased the proportion of certified teachers in bonus-eligible schools by improving hiring, increasing certification rates of incumbent teachers, and reducing turnover. Depending on the method, we estimate that the proportion of NBCTs in treated schools increased by about four to eight percentage points over the first five years of eligibility. However, the improvement in certification rates corresponds to a change of about 0.2–0.3% of a standard deviation in teacher quality per year and we do not find evidence that the bonus resulted in detectible effects on student test achievement.
Local Properties in Colored Graphs, Distinct Distances, and Difference Sets

We study Extremal Combinatorics problems where local properties are used to derive global properties. That is, we consider a given configuration where every small piece of the configuration satisfies some restriction, and use this local property to derive global properties of the entire configuration. We study one such Ramsey problem of Erdős and Shelah, where the configurations are complete graphs with colored edges and every small induced subgraph contains many distinct colors. Our bounds for this Ramsey problem show that the known probabilistic construction is tight in various cases. We study one Discrete Geometry variant, also by Erdős, where we have a set of points in the plane such that every small subset spans many distinct distances. Finally, we consider an Additive Combinatorics problem, where we are given sets of real numbers such that every small subset has a large difference set. We derive new bounds for all of the above problems. Our proof technique is based on introducing a variant of additive energy, which is based on edge colors in graphs.
Beyond worst-case analysis

In the worst-case analysis of algorithms, the overall performance of an algorithm is summarized by its worst performance on any input. This approach has countless success stories, but there are also important computational problems --- like linear programming, clustering, online caching, and neural network training --- where the worst-case analysis framework does not provide any helpful advice on how to solve the problem. This article covers a number of modeling methods for going beyond worst-case analysis and articulating which inputs are the most relevant.
Finite-State Classical Mechanics

Reversible lattice dynamics embody basic features of physics that govern the time evolution of classical information. They have finite resolution in space and time, don’t allow information to be erased, and easily accommodate other structural properties of microscopic physics, such as finite distinct state and locality of interaction. In an ideal quantum realization of a reversible lattice dynamics, finite classical rates of state-change at lattice sites determine average energies and momenta. This is very different than traditional continuous models of classical dynamics, where the number of distinct states is infinite, the rate of change between distinct states is infinite, and energies and momenta are not tied to rates of distinct state change. Here we discuss a family of classical mechanical models that have the informational and energetic realism of reversible lattice dynamics, while retaining the continuity and mathematical framework of classical mechanics. These models may help to clarify the informational foundations of mechanics.
Jupyter as Common Technology Platform for Interactive HPC Services

The Minnesota Supercomputing Institute has implemented Jupyterhub and the Jupyter notebook server as a general-purpose point-of-entry to interactive high performance computing services. This mode of operation runs counter to traditional job-oriented HPC operations, but offers significant advantages for ease-of-use, data exploration, prototyping, and workflow development. From the user perspective, these features bring the computing cluster nearer to parity with emerging cloud computing options. On the other hand, retreating from fully-scheduled, job-based resource allocation poses challenges for resource availability and utilization efficiency, and can involve tools and technologies outside the typical core competencies of a supercomputing center's operations staff. MSI has attempted to mitigate these challenges by adopting Jupyter as a common technology platform for interactive services, capable of providing command-line, graphical, and workflow-oriented access to HPC resources while still integrating with job scheduling systems and using existing compute resources. This paper will describe the mechanisms that MSI has put in place, advantages for research and instructional uses, and lessons learned.
Stochastic Coupon Probing in Social Networks

CMO Council reports that 71% of internet users in the U.S. were influenced by coupons and discounts when making their purchase decisions. It has also been shown that offering coupons to a small fraction of users may affect the purchase decisions of many other users in a social network. This motivates us to study stochastic coupon probing problem in social networks. Assume there is a social network and a set of coupons. We can offer coupons to some users adaptively and those users who accept the offer will act as seeds and influence their friends in the social network. There are two constraints which are called the inner and outer constraints, respectively. The set of coupons redeemed by users must satisfy inner constraints, and the set of all probed users must satisfy outer constraints. One seeks to develop a coupon probing policy that achieves the maximum influence while satisfying both inner and outer constraints. Our main result is a constant approximation policy for the stochastic coupon probing problem for any monotone submodular utility function.
Evaluation of Marshall Stability Design Principles: Applied to Cold In-Place Recycling:

The objective of this paper is to document limitations and robustness issues with Marshall stability (MS) testing for cold in-place recycling (CIR) mix designs. This paper focuses efforts on MS bec...
Discrimination Risks of Alzheimer's as Support for Social Insurance for Long-Term Care

This short reflection on an article by J. J. Arias, A. M. Tyler, B. J. Oster, and J. Karlawish (“The Proactive Patient: Long-term Care Insurance Discrimination Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarkers,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 46, no. 2 (2018): 485-498) makes clear why the private market for long-term care insurance, and its regulation, will perpetually fail to protect families against the risks to their security posed by a family member with Alzheimer’s. It describes why a comprehensive federal solution is the only feasible and wise option.
Overview and proposed reforms of the low-income housing tax credit program

•The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) cost US taxpayers $8.4 billion in 2017.•The LIHTC subsidizes up to 103% of non-land development cost of rent-restricted units.•States receive equal per-capita allocations regardless of whether housing is affordable.•Future allocations should be made refundable and targeted to markets with greatest need.
Continuous real-time monitoring of flexible pavement layer density and thickness using ground penetrating radar

Abstract Static or discrete time prediction of flexible pavement asphalt concrete (AC) layer density and thickness utilizing the ground penetrating radar (GPR) has proved to be relatively accurate compared to other in-situ methods. However, the accuracy during continuous monitoring of construction has not been validated by real construction projects. This study investigated the continuous estimation of AC layer density and thickness using GPR at a construction site in Macomb, Illinois. The first test compared AC layer density and thickness for pavement segments built in two consecutive days. The second test evaluated the construction quality of pavement segments built utilizing two types of material transfer vehicles (MTV). The GPRan software and the proposed truncation algorithm were used to calculate AC layer thickness continuously. The AC layer density and thickness estimation results were compared to core data using the ALL model. The GPR estimation values were found to be reliable. Errors of thickness results between continuous GPR data and core data from two tests are approximate 3% and 6%, respectively. The density of the new pavement segments was larger than the old ones while the thickness was almost the same. The average error between continuous density predictions and core density was 3%. The two MTVs performed similarly based on layer thickness and density results.
Mechanistic Analysis of Oxygen Vacancy Driven Conductive Filament Formation in Resistive Random Access Memory Metal/NiO/Metal Structures

Electrically switchable resistive random access memories have drawn much interest as nonvolatile memory device candidates1, also based on metal-insulator-metal (MIM) structure concepts (Fig. 1). However, atomic-level mechanisms that lead to conductive filament (CF) formation in MIMs are often lacking, such as for the system with NiO as the oxide layer, which was found promising as a switching layer.2-4 In this work5, using density functional theory (DFT) with Hubbard-type on-site Coulomb correction, we analyzed the intrinsic propensity towards CF formation in NiO upon introduction of oxygen vacancies (Vo), including interfacial effects of Ag and Pt electrodes. For stoichiometric MIM models, contributions from metal-induced gap states to the electronic density of states (DOS) were identified, accommodating $\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{O}}$ states, and showing that the interface region is reduced more easily than the bulk-like region. Moreover, a tendency towards $\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{O}}$ clustering was demonstrated, important for CF formation. Indeed, by introducing ordered $\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{O}}$ into the oxide layer for both models, several extended defect states within the forbidden gap have resulted, which lead to defect-assisted transport. The spatial distribution and number of $\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{O}}$ in the filament influenced these, where the degree of reduction of Ni changes based on the immediate surroundings. Projected electronic DOS for individual Ni atoms in regions near and away from $\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{O}}$ indicated that those close to $\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{O}}$ contribute most to the conductivity. Furthermore, charge analyses showed that Ni atoms undergo significant reduction, generating a locally conductive region in the oxide that consists of metallic/near-metallic Ni (Ni°), formed through local reduction.
Unsupervised Sentence Compression using Denoising Auto-Encoders

In sentence compression, the task of shortening sentences while retaining the original meaning, models tend to be trained on large corpora containing pairs of verbose and compressed sentences. To remove the need for paired corpora, we emulate a summarization task and add noise to extend sentences and train a denoising auto-encoder to recover the original, constructing an end-to-end training regime without the need for any examples of compressed sentences. We conduct a human evaluation of our model on a standard text summarization dataset and show that it performs comparably to a supervised baseline based on grammatical correctness and retention of meaning. Despite being exposed to no target data, our unsupervised models learn to generate imperfect but reasonably readable sentence summaries. Although we underperform supervised models based on ROUGE scores, our models are competitive with a supervised baseline based on human evaluation for grammatical correctness and retention of meaning.
The Importance of Using Multiple Data Sources in Policy Assessments: Lessons From Two Conditional Cash Transfer Programs in New York City.

Background:The high costs of implementing surveys are increasingly leading research teams to either cut back on surveys or to rely on administrative records. Yet no policy should be based on a sing...
Drought in the city: The economic impact of water scarcity in Latin American metropolitan areas

Abstract While the harmful impact of droughts is well-documented in rural areas, how droughts affect cities’ economies remains an open question. Using monthly labour force surveys from 78 cities in Latin America, we demonstrate that large sustained dry events decrease the probability of being employed, hourly wages, hours worked, and labour incomes. Informal workers are impacted the most. We highlight that the impact of droughts is larger than the impact of wet events, like those that cause floods. Health and power outages are two pathways explaining our results. Climate change will increase the occurrence of droughts, making our findings particularly relevant.
Dynamic Alpha: A Spectral Decomposition of Investment Performance Across Time Horizons

The value added by an active investor is traditionally measured using alpha, tracking error, and the information ratio. However, these measures do not characterize the dynamic component of investor...
A Topological Regularizer for Classifiers via Persistent Homology

Regularization plays a crucial role in supervised learning. Most existing methods enforce a global regularization in a structure agnostic manner. In this paper, we initiate a new direction and propose to enforce the structural simplicity of the classification boundary by regularizing over its topological complexity. In particular, our measurement of topological complexity incorporates the importance of topological features (e.g., connected components, handles, and so on) in a meaningful manner, and provides a direct control over spurious topological structures. We incorporate the new measurement as a topological penalty in training classifiers. We also propose an efficient algorithm to compute the gradient of such penalty. Our method provides a novel way to topologically simplify the global structure of the model, without having to sacrifice too much of the flexibility of the model. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our new topological regularizer on a range of synthetic and real-world datasets.
Range, routing and kinetics of rod signaling in primate retina

Stimulus- or context-dependent routing of neural signals through parallel pathways can permit flexible processing of diverse inputs. For example, work in mouse shows that rod photoreceptor signals are routed through several retinal pathways, each specialized for different light levels. This light-level-dependent routing of rod signals has been invoked to explain several human perceptual results, but it has not been tested in primate retina. Here, we show, surprisingly, that rod signals traverse the primate retina almost exclusively through a single pathway - the dedicated rod bipolar pathway. Identical experiments in mouse and primate reveal substantial differences in how rod signals traverse the retina. These results require reevaluating human perceptual results in terms of flexible computation within this single pathway. This includes a prominent speeding of rod signals with light level - which we show is inherited directly from the rod photoreceptors themselves rather than from different pathways with distinct kinetics.
The effect of the stress hormone cortisol on the metatranscriptome of the oral microbiome

Imbalances of the microbiome, also referred to as microbial dysbiosis, could lead to a series of different diseases. One factor that has been shown to lead to dysbiosis of the microbiome is exposure to psychological stressors. Throughout evolution microorganisms of the human microbiome have developed systems for sensing host-associated signals such as hormones associated with those stressors, enabling them to recognize essential changes in their environment, thus changing their expression gene profile to fit the needs of the new environment. The most widely accepted theory explaining the ability of hormones to affect the outcome of an infection involves the suppression of the immune system. Commensal microbiota is involved in stressor-induced immunomodulation, but other biological effects are not yet known. Here we present the impact that cortisol had on the community-wide transcriptome of the oral community. We used a metatranscriptomic approach to obtain first insights into the metabolic changes induced by this stress hormone as well as which members of the oral microbiome respond to the presence of cortisol in the environment. Our findings show that the stress hormone cortisol directly induces shifts in the gene expression profiles of the oral microbiome that reproduce results found in the profiles of expression of periodontal disease and its progression.
Genetic disease risks can be misestimated across global populations

Accurate assessment of health disparities requires unbiased knowledge of genetic risks in different populations. Unfortunately, most genome-wide association studies use genotyping arrays and European samples. Here, we integrate whole genome sequence data from global populations, results from thousands of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and extensive computer simulations to identify how genetic disease risks can be misestimated. In contrast to null expectations, we find that risk allele frequencies at known disease loci are significantly different for African populations compared to other continents. Strikingly, ancestral risk alleles are found at 9.51% higher frequency in Africa, and derived risk alleles are found at 5.40% lower frequency in Africa. By simulating GWAS with different study populations, we find that non-African cohorts yield disease associations that have biased allele frequencies and that African cohorts yield disease associations that are relatively free of bias. We also find empirical evidence that genotyping arrays and SNP ascertainment bias contribute to continental differences in risk allele frequencies. Because of these causes, polygenic risk scores can be grossly misestimated for individuals of African descent. Importantly, continental differences in risk allele frequencies are only moderately reduced if GWAS use whole genome sequences and hundreds of thousands of cases and controls. Finally, comparisons between uncorrected and corrected genetic risk scores reveal the benefits of considering whether risk alleles are ancestral or derived. Our results imply that caution must be taken when extrapolating GWAS results from one population to predict disease risks in another population.
Entrepreneurial ecosystem narratives and the micro-foundations of regional entrepreneurship:

Entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), the set of forces that generate and sustain regional entrepreneurial activity, are a growing focus of scholars and practitioners. Studies are beginning to draw att...
The diamine cation is not a chemical example where density functional theory fails.

Author(s): Ali, Zulfikhar A; Aquino, Fredy W; Wong, Bryan M | Abstract: In a recent communication, Weber and co-workers presented a surprising study on charge-localization effects in the N,N'-dimethylpiperazine (DMP+) diamine cation to provide a stringent test of density functional theory (DFT) methods. Within their study, the authors examined various DFT methods and concluded that "all DFT functionals commonly used today, including hybrid functionals with exact exchange, fail to predict a stable charge-localized state." This surprising conclusion is based on the authors' use of a self-interaction correction (namely, complex-valued Perdew-Zunger Self-Interaction Correction (PZ-SIC)) to DFT, which appears to give excellent agreement with experiment and other wavefunction-based benchmarks. Since the publication of this recent communication, the same DMP+ molecule has been cited in numerous subsequent studies as a prototypical example of the importance of self-interaction corrections for accurately calculating other chemical systems. In this correspondence, we have carried out new high-level CCSD(T) analyses on the DMP+ cation to show that DFT actually performs quite well for this system (in contrast to their conclusion that all DFT functionals fail), whereas the PZ-SIC approach used by Weber et al. is the outlier that is inconsistent with the high-level CCSD(T) (coupled-cluster with single and double excitations and perturbative triples) calculations. Our new findings and analysis for this system are briefly discussed in this correspondence.