cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Political Bargaining in a Changing World

This paper studies negotiations between two parties whose political power changes over time. The model has a unique subgame perfect equilibrium, which becomes very tractable when parties can make offers frequently. This tractability facilitates studying how changes in political power affect implemented policies. An extension of the model analyses how elections influence inter-party negotiations when implemented policies affect the partiesâ€™ political power. Long periods of gridlock may arise when the time left until the election is short and parties have similar levels of political power.
Robust, Chiral, and Porous BINAP-Based Metal–Organic Frameworks for Highly Enantioselective Cyclization Reactions

We report here the design of BINAP-based metal–organic frameworks and their postsynthetic metalation with Rh complexes to afford highly active and enantioselective single-site solid catalysts for the asymmetric cyclization reactions of 1,6-enynes. Robust, chiral, and porous Zr-MOFs of UiO topology, BINAP-MOF (I) or BINAP-dMOF (II), were prepared using purely BINAP-derived dicarboxylate linkers or by mixing BINAP-derived linkers with unfunctionalized dicarboxylate linkers, respectively. Upon metalation with Rh(nbd)2BF4 and [Rh(nbd)Cl]2/AgSbF6, the MOF precatalysts I·Rh(BF4) and I·Rh(SbF6) efficiently catalyzed highly enantioselective (up to 99% ee) reductive cyclization and Alder-ene cycloisomerization of 1,6-enynes, respectively. I·Rh catalysts afforded cyclization products at comparable enantiomeric excesses (ee’s) and 4–7 times higher catalytic activity than the homogeneous controls, likely a result of catalytic site isolation in the MOF which prevents bimolecular catalyst deactivation pathways. However...
Marshal Ogarkov on the Modern Theater Operation

Abstract : A review of Marshal N. V. Ogarkov's writings from 1977 to 1985 reveals that Ogarkov has long been the prophet of what General William Odom has dubbed the third revolution in Soviet military affairs. Ogarkov's recurrent message encapsulates the changes in Soviet doctrine and capabilities that constitute the new revolution: the diminishing military utility of nuclear weapons and new combat characteristics of conventional means require that the forms and methods of combat action be adapted accordingly. Like Ogarkov, most prominent Soviet military figures have concluded that nonnuclear weapons outfitted wth emerging technologies will furnish conventional solutions to nuclear problems in a future war. But Ogarkov's 1985 theater operation may well be the first official acknowledgement of the new, all-conventional dimension in Soviet strategy for a war on the European continent.
Patterns of Trade and Growth across Cones

This paper examines the implications of the Heckscher-Ohlin (HO) Model for the patterns of production and trade that will emerge as a country grows. It focuses primarily on world equilibria that include two or more cones of diversification. Starting with the textbook model of two factors and two goods, growth paths for production and trade are derived in terms of a country's capital-labor ratio relative to that of the world. With additional goods and countries, multiple cones create a ladder of comparative advantage that a country will climb as it accumulates capital relative to the world. With additional factors as well, more complicated patterns can emerge. In a three-factor model based on Krueger (1977), a country with fixed land, growing labor, and faster growing capital can first work its way down the ladder of comparative advantage before climbing back up. Using a graphical representation due to Leamer (1987) of a more general three-factor model, cones of diversification with large numbers of goods take the form of polygons that a growing country may pass through, then cross between. In all cases, the lesson of the HO Model is that growth causes repeated and extreme changes in patterns of specialization and trade over time.
Dynamic electrochemistry of iron−sulfur proteins

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the contribution that can be made by dynamic electrochemical methods toward the often-difficult task of defining reactions of Fe–S clusters in a protein molecule. Despite the relatively modest amount of material published to date, these reports show that such an approach, when combined with appropriate spectroscopic techniques, can yield valuable insight. The adsorbed film studies of Dimorphognathus africanus Fd III described in the chapter illustrate a new strategy for studying proteins with very reactive Fe–S clusters. The approach combines high sensitivity, accuracy, and the ability to study reactions under strict conditions of applied potential. Equilibrium and kinetic data may be derived with trace amounts of protein, and verified by the preparation of appropriate spectroscopic samples. From the results of spectroscopic studies on the products of parallel transformations carried out in solution, it is demonstrated in the chapter that the voltammetric interrogation of Fe–S proteins in an adsorbed film can provide an acceptably valid reflection of the chemistry of free molecules. A useful trailblazing capability is thus provided to give guidance and to complement the techniques aimed at detailed structural characterization.
Progress towards an atlas of designer zeolites

Our online Atlas of prospective zeolite structures presents the zeolite community with a powerful resource. It provides the ability to search a vast collection of structures, view the structures and use tools to analyze them. We foresee increasingly important uses for the database in areas of materials design and structure solution. This paper will promote the website by discussing its contents and uses.
Materials science: Magnetic alloys break the rules.

A family of alloys has been discovered that undergoes unexpected changes of shape when magnetized. This strange behaviour might help in unravelling the mystery of a phenomenon called magnetic hysteresis. See Letter p.340
Lock-free dynamically resizable arrays

We present a first lock-free design and implementation of a dynamically resizable array (vector). The most extensively used container in the C++ Standard Template Library (STL) is vector, offering a combination of dynamic memory management and constant-time random access. Our approach is based on a single 32-bit word atomic compare-and-swap (CAS) instruction. It provides a linearizable and highly parallelizable STL-like interface, lock-free memory allocation and management, and fast execution. Our current implementation is designed to be most efficient on multi-core architectures. Experiments on a dual-core Intel processor with shared L2 cache indicate that our lock-free vector outperforms its lock-based STL counterpart and the latest concurrent vector implementation provided by Intel by a large factor. The performance evaluation on a quad dual-core AMD system with non-shared L2 cache demonstrated timing results comparable to the best available lock-based techniques. The presented design implements the most common STL vector's interfaces, namely random access read and write, tail insertion and deletion, pre-allocation of memory, and query of the container's size. Using the current implementation, a user has to avoid one particular ABA problem.
Impacts of center-based telecommuting on travel and emissions: Analysis of the Puget Sound Demonstration Project

Center-based telecommuting has many hypothesized benefits. To determine its value as a transportation demand management strategy, however, its travel-related benefits must be established quantitatively. This research provides the first analysis of the impacts of center-based telecommuting on individual travel behavior and emissions, using travel diary data from the Puget Sound Telecommuting Demonstration Project. An analysis of personal vehicle usage for this small sample of workers showed that the number of vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) was reduced significantly as a result of center-based telecommuting (from 63.25 miles per person-day on non-telecommuting days to 29.31 miles on telecommuting days). The reductions in weekday VMT comprise significant reductions in commute-related VMT with insignificant changes in non-commute-related VMT. The number of personal vehicle trips did not change significantly. In essence, center-based telecommuters behave as conventional commuters in terms of their number of trips, but are more similar to home-based telecommuters in terms of VMT reductions. The significant reduction in VMT translates into a 49% decrease in oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions and a 53% decrease in particulate matter (PM) emissions comparing telecommuting days to non-telecommuting days for the small sample. Because the number of daily trips was not impacted by telecommuting, the levels of emissions associated with the cold start process, total organic gases (TOG) and carbon monoxide (CO), were essentially unaffected. Of course, region-wide impacts will be much smaller when the proportion of telecommuters in the workforce and the frequency of telecommuting is considered.
Revisiting the concept of a competitive “cash advantage”

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to profile how ample cash holdings can serve as a competitive advantage by first mitigating the risk of becoming a forced seller during times of distress, and then positioning a firm to take strategic advantage of forced selling and other forms of distress-generated opportunities. Design/methodology/approach – The author reviews the changing role of cash over time in corporate strategy, and how inadequate cash has caused or contributed to corporate failures. Findings – The findings of this paper, which are supported by historical and contemporary examples, are that ample cash reserves can be a powerful source of comparative advantage. Practical implications – This article supports earlier work published in Strategy & Leadership that shows how Graham-and-Dodd-based analysis is a viable avenue of academic research and a viable method with which to assess and formulate corporate strategic initiatives such as mergers and acquisitions, share buy-backs, risk management and...
Foreign corporations and the culture of transparency: Evidence from Russian Administrative data.

Abstract Firms from developed countries carry a culture of transparency in business transactions that is opposite to the culture of hiding and insider dealing in developing and transition economies. We employ Russian administrative data on reported earnings and market values of cars to measure wage misreporting for individual employees of domestic firms in Moscow. We show that closer ties to multinationals lead to improved transparency of wage reporting in private Russian companies. Employees located closest to movers from multinationals in the job quality space experience the largest gains in transparency. We find a robust correlation between wage misreporting and accounting fraud.
Policy Choices in the Newly-Industrializing Countries

This paper compares the policies and economic performance of newly-industrializing countries (NICs) in the Far East and Latin America in the 1963-88 period. The two groups of countries include Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan; and Agentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Information is provided on indicators of economic growth as well as on domestic savings ratios, the efficiency of investment, and export performance. The experience of the Far Eastern and Latin American NICs provides important lessons to other developing countries. It indicates the superiority of outward-oriented policies that provide similar incentives to exports and to import substitution. It also shows that the continuation of outward-orientation policies permits overcoming the effects of external shocks while reliance on external borrowing reinforces the adverse effects of these shocks.
Determinants of Airy Operators and Applications to Random Matrices

The purpose of this paper is to describe asymptotic formulas for determinants of certain operators that are analogues of Wiener–Hopf operators. The determinant formulas yield information about the distribution functions for certain random variables that arise in random matrix theory when one rescales at “the edge of the spectrum.”
Memory Scalability in Constraint-Based Multimedia Style Sheet Systems

Multimedia style sheet systems uniformly use a constraint-based model of layout. Constraints provide a uniform mechanism for all aspects of style managementand layout and are better-suited to non-textual media than flow models. We have developed a prototype style sheet system, Proteus, and have used it with a variety of document types, including program source code. This work has exposed a critical performance problem in constraint-based style sheet runtime systems: memory usage. Existing constraint systems treat cached attribute values and constraints as first-class objects, each with its own storage. Program syntax trees are very large and the constraint data for a medium-sized source file can easily consume tens of megabytes of main memory. This scalability problem would be exposed by any document of any type containing thousands of objects. We present here a new constraint-based runtime system that is substantially faster and dramatically more space-efficient than its predecessor, which had first-class constraint objects. The improved performance is the result of exploiting important common cases and a sophisticated constraint representation that allows considerable sharing of information between individual constraints.
The Structure and Enumeration of Link Projections

We define a decomposition of link projections whose pieces we call atoroidal graphs. We describe a surgery operation on these graphs and show that all atoroidal graphs can be generated by performing surgery repeatedly on a family of well known link projections. This gives a method of enumerating atoroidal graphs and hence link projections by recomposing the pieces of the decomposition.
Observations on pathologic fetal bradycardia.

Abstract Since 1893 when Von Winckel 1 drew attention to the association of fetal bradycardia with poor fetal outcome, slowing of the fetal heart rate to less than 100 beats per minute between contractions has been considered the chief criterion of fetal distress. 2 Application of this dictum to clinical obstetrics has produced a number of seeming inconsistencies, for bradycardia of this magnitude has been frequently noted both in the antepartum period and during labor, yet the infant has been in good condition at birth. In preliminary reports of the electronic evaluation of the fetal heart rate by continuous recording, 3, 4 an attempt was made to differentiate "physiologic" and "pathologic" bradycardia by their respective "V" and "U" shaped patterns. The "pathologic" fetal bradycardia which was discussed in detail in these earlier studies was shown to be due to umbilical cord compression. 4 In this report a different type of "pathologic" fetal bradycardia will be described which is thought to be due primarily to acute fetal hypoxia. A hypothesis will be advanced which may explain the underlying mechanism. However, the need to measure continuously and quantitatively the many factors which may influence the fetal heart rate precludes definite conclusions at this time.
Independence with lower and upper probabilities

It is shown that the ability of the interval probability representation to capture epistemological independence is severely limited. Two events are epistemologically independent if knowledge of the first event does not alter belief (i.e., probability bounds) about the second. However, iudependence in this form can only exist in a 2-monotone probability function in degenerate cases -- i.e., if the prior bounds are either point probabilities or entirely vacuous. Additional limitations are characterized for other classes of lower probabilities as well. It is argued that these phenomena are a matter of interpretation. They appear to be limitations when one interprets probability bounds as a measure of epistemological indeterminacy (i.e., uncertainty arising from a lack of knowledge), but are exactly as one would expect when probability intervals are interpreted as representations of ontological indeterminacy (indeterminacy introduced by structural approximations).
Interest Rate Caps Smile Too! But Can the LIBOR Market Models Capture It?

Using more than two years of daily interest rate cap price data, this paper provides a systematic documentation of a volatility smile in cap prices. We find that Black (1976) implied volatilities exhibit an asymmetric smile (sometimes called a sneer) with a stronger skew for in-the-money caps than out-of-the-money caps. The volatility smile is time varying and is more pronounced after September 11, 2001. We also study the ability of generalized LIBOR market models to capture this smile. We show that the best performing model has constant elasticity of variance combined with uncorrelated stochastic volatility or upward jumps. However, this model still has a bias for short- and medium-term caps. In addition, it appears that large negative jumps are needed after September 11, 2001. We conclude that the existing class of LIBOR market models can not fully capture the volatility smile
The Idea of Antipoverty Policy

Abstract How did we come to think that eliminating poverty is a legitimate goal for public policy? What policies emerged in the hope of attaining that goal? The last 200 years have witnessed a dramatic change in thinking about poverty. Mainstream economic thinking in the eighteenth century held that poverty was necessary and even desirable for a country's economic success. Today, poverty is more often viewed as a constraint on that success. In short, poverty switched from being seen as a social good to a social bad. This change in thinking, and the accompanying progress in knowledge, has greatly influenced public action, with heightened emphasis on the role of antipoverty policy in sustainable promotion from poverty, as well as protection. Development strategies today typically strive for a virtuous cycle of growth with equity and a range of policy interventions have emerged to help ensure that outcome. An expanding body of knowledge has taught us about how effective those interventions are in specific settings, although many knowledge gaps remain.
Universal Facility Location

In the Universal Facility Location problem we are given a set of demand points and a set of facilities. The goal is to assign the demands to facilities in such a way that the sum of service and facility costs is minimized. The service cost is proportional to the distance each unit of demand has to travel to its assigned facility, whereas the facility cost of each facility i depends on the amount of demand assigned to that facility and is given by a cost function f i (·). We present a (7.88 + e)-approximation algorithm for the Universal Facility Location problem based on local search, under the assumption that the cost functions f i are nondecreasing. The algorithm chooses local improvement steps by solving a knapsack-like subproblem using dynamic programming. This is the first constant-factor approximation algorithm for this problem. Our algorithm also slightly improves the best known approximation ratio for the capacitated facility location problem with non-uniform hard capacities.
A METHOD FOR COMPARISON OF THE EFFICIENCY OF COUNTRIES WITH DISTINCT TECHNOLOGIES

We divide countries into two technology categories: developed and developing. Agricultural efficiency within each technology category was calculated. Cross-category efficiency measures were developed and combined with own-category measures to develop a technical difference index. Results indicate convergence of efficiency within both categories but divergence of efficiency between the two categories.
Collision-induced absorption in gases

1. Introduction 2. Recapitulation 3. Experimental results 4. Induced dipoles 5. Theory: monatomic gas mixtures 6. Theory: molecular gases 7. Related Topics References Index.
A generalization of the noisy-or model

The Noisy-Or model is convenient for describing a class of uncertain relationships in Bayesian networks [Pearl 1988]. Pearl describes the Noisy-Or model for Boolean variables. Here we generalize the model to nary input and output variables and to arbitrary functions other than the Boolean OR function. This generalization is a useful modeling aid for construction of Bayesian networks. We illustrate with some examples including digital circuit diagnosis and network reliability analysis.
Suboptimal design of a class of nonlinear controllers

A systematic design procedure is presented for suboptimal nonlinear controller synthesis. Such a control yields faster response characteristics than are normally possible with a linear controller. The technique is geared to single-input linear systems where excursions of one state variable are of more importance than others. Design steps are formulated in terms of readily applicable algebraic equations. The proposed method is applied to several design examples and the advantages are shown by comparison with the results obtained from existing techniques.
CURRENT AND FUTURE LIGHT DUTY DIESEL ENGINES AND THEIR FUELS

Fuel economy improvements have been responsible for the increased interest in diesel engines for light duty vehicles. However, improvements in gasoline engine fuel economy, more stringent emission requirements and reductions in fuel quality pose technical challenges to the diesel engine. Reductions in fuel quality increase emissions, noise and cold starting difficulty. Electronic controls, combustion chamber modifications, and particulate traps, which are not yet feasible, can reduce emissions. Improvements in fuel economy can result from reductions in friction, the use of direct injection and reductions in heat loss to approach adiabatic operation, but with increased costs. Future non-petroleum fuels could differ from diesel fuel and affect combustion performance. Since the cetane number may not predict combustion performance of future fuels, a new concept for evaluating diesel fuels is suggested. A direct injection, ignition assisted engine, if successfully developed, could operate on a variety of fuels with high overall energy utilization efficiency.
Indirect dark matter signatures in the cosmic dark ages. II. Ionization, heating, and photon production from arbitrary energy injections

Any injection of electromagnetically interacting particles during the cosmic dark ages will lead to increased ionization, heating, production of Lyman-$\ensuremath{\alpha}$ photons and distortions to the energy spectrum of the cosmic microwave background, with potentially observable consequences. In this paper we describe numerical results for the low-energy electrons and photons produced by the cooling of particles injected at energies from keV to multi-TeV scales, at arbitrary injection redshifts (but focusing on the post-recombination epoch). We use these data, combined with existing calculations modeling the cooling of these low-energy particles, to estimate the resulting contributions to ionization, excitation and heating of the gas, and production of low-energy photons below the threshold for excitation and ionization. We compute corrected deposition-efficiency curves for annihilating dark matter, and demonstrate how to compute equivalent curves for arbitrary energy-injection histories. These calculations provide the necessary inputs for the limits on dark matter annihilation presented in the accompanying paper I, but also have potential applications in the context of dark matter decay or deexcitation, decay of other metastable species, or similar energy injections from new physics. We make our full results publicly available at http://nebel.rc.fas.harvard.edu/epsilon, to facilitate further independent studies. In particular, we provide the full low-energy electron and photon spectra, to allow matching onto more detailed codes that describe the cooling of such particles at low energies.
Stochastic Prediction of Execution Time for Dynamic Bulk Synchronous Computations

We consider the problem of execution time prediction for non-deterministic multi-phase bulk synchronous computations in multiprocessors. We characterize the computations in two stochastic workload evolution models: additive and multiplicative. The additive model reflects the commutations in which the workload changes between phases are independent of processes' present workload. The multiplicative model becomes relevant when the workload change in a process is proportional to its load base. We take advantage of their salient features and show that conventional approaches based on central limit theorem in statistics are viable to predict the execution time for long run computations. By an elegant coordination of results from order statistics and convergence rates in the central limit theorem, we derive tighter bounds on execution time of short run computations, under some mild assumptions on their workload change distributions. Accuracy of the predictions is analyzed rigorously and verified by simulations.
(Shifted) Macdonald Polynomials: q-Integral Representation and Combinatorial Formula

We extend some results about shifted Schur functions to the general context of shifted Macdonald polynomials. We strengthen some theorems of F. Knop and S. Sahi and give two explicit formulas for these polynomials: a q-integral representation and a combinatorial formula. Our main tool is a q-integral representation for ordinary Macdonald polynomial. We also discuss duality for shifted Macdonald polynomials and Jack degeneration of these polynomials.
Iridium-Catalyzed Silylation of Aryl C–H Bonds

A method for the iridium-catalyzed silylation of aryl C–H bonds is described. The reaction of HSiMe(OSiMe3)2 with arenes and heteroarenes catalyzed by the combination of [Ir(cod)(OMe)]2 and 2,4,7-trimethylphenanthroline occurs with the aromatic compound as the limiting reagent and with high levels of sterically derived regioselectivity. This new catalytic system occurs with a much higher tolerance for functional groups than the previously reported rhodium-catalyzed silylation of aryl C–H bonds and occurs with a wide range of heteroarenes. The silylarene products are suitable for further transformations, such as oxidation, halogenation, and cross-coupling. Late-stage functionalization of complex pharmaceutical compounds was demonstrated.
Optimal operation and services scheduling for an electric vehicle battery swapping station

For a successful rollout of electric vehicles (EVs), it is required to establish an adequate charging infrastructure. The adequate access to such infrastructure would help to mitigate concerns associated with limited EV range and long charging times. Battery swapping stations are poised as effective means of eliminating the long waiting times associated with charging the EV batteries. These stations are mediators between the power system and their customers. In order to successfully deploy this type of stations, a business and operating model is required, that will allow it to generate profits while offering a fast and reliable alternative to charging batteries. This paper proposes an optimization framework for the operating model of battery swapping stations. The proposed model considers the day-ahead scheduling process. Battery demand uncertainty is modeled using inventory robust optimization, while multi-band robust optimization is employed to model electricity price uncertainty. The results show the viability of the proposed model as a business case, as well as the effectiveness of the model to provide the required service.
Financial contagion and asset liquidation strategies

This paper provides a framework for modeling the financial system with multiple illiquid assets during a crisis. This work generalizes the paper by Amini etal. (2016) by allowing for differing liquidation strategies. The main result is a proof of sufficient conditions for the existence of an equilibrium liquidation strategy with corresponding unique clearing payments and liquidation prices. An algorithm for computing the maximal clearing payments and prices is provided.
A wavelet approach to adjoint state sensitivity computation for steady state differential equations

[1] The computation of the sensitivity matrix is the most time-consuming part of any parameter estimation algorithm that requires sensitivity coefficients. An efficient wavelet approach to adjoint sensitivity analysis is proposed to reduce the computational cost of obtaining sensitivity coefficients. The method exploits a wavelet reduction of the data space to reduce the size of the linear system encountered in steady state adjoint equations. In this regard, wavelet transform is used as a data compression tool. Numerical examples applied to spatial data are used to verify and show the effectiveness of the method.
Whither Hadron Supersymmetry

A dynamically broken hadron supersymmetry appears to exist as a consequence of QCD. The reasons for the supersymmetry appear most transparently in the framework of the constituent quark model with a diquark approximation to two quarks. Applications of the supersymmetry have led to relations between meson and baryon masses and to predictions that certain kinds of exotic hadrons should not be observed. I summarize the successful applications and discuss possible future directions for this research.
Laser - material interactions ; fundamentals and applications

The interaction of light with matter leads to electronic excitation by the absorption of photons. A large fraction of the high excitation energy of the electrons is transformed into heat on a time scale of about one picosecond in many circumstances. With lasers, power flux densities or intensities exceeding a terawatt/cm2 are readily achieved and any material may be converted into a high temperature plasma. The material response has been investigated over a wide range of intensities and irradiation times. Applications include heat treatment and ablation of surfaces, cutting, drilling, and welding of a wide variety of materials, laser recording and printing, and laser surgery. Phase transitions induced by ultrashort femtosecond laser pulses enlarge our understanding of materials under extreme conditions of pressure and temperature.
Pattern recognition, inner products, and correlation filters

In this paper, we review correlation filters as an approach to pattern recognition with a special emphasis on the consequences of normalizing the correlation to achieve intensity invariance. Intensity invariance is effected using the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality to normalize the correlation integral. We discuss the implications of this criterion for the application of correlation filters to the pattern recognition problem. It is shown that normalized phase-only and synthetic discriminate functions do not provide the recognition/discrimination obtained with the classical matched filter.
Economic Downturn and Financing Innovative Startup Companies

This study examines how fluctuations in the amount of capital flowing into venture funds affect the financing of innovative startup companies and how economic downturns affect such financing. We argue that the nature of the economic downturn can cause differential effects on the investment pattern. We find that venture capital firms invest more in early-stage companies than in later-stage companies when the amount of capital flowing into the market increases. We also find that venture capital firms invest less in early-stage companies than in later-stage companies during an economic downturn associated with the real sector, and that they invest more in early-stage companies than in later-stage companies during an economic downturn associated with the financial sector. This study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by demonstrating how macroeconomic factors affect venture capital investment decisions. The study also delineates the implications of seeking market entry via venture capital financing by entrepreneurial companies. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Evolution of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field

Remote observations of magnetic field topologies in the solar corona and in situ observations of the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) in interplanetary space are used to examine the temporal evolution of the spatial distribution of open and closed field regions emanating from the Sun. The simple ``open`` configuration of inward and outward pointing sectors in the IMF is periodically disrupted by magnetically distinct coronal mass ejections (CMEs) which erupt from previously closed magnetic field regions in the corona into interplanetary space. At 1 AU, CMEs contain counterstreaming halo electrons which indicate their distinct magnetic topologies. This topology is generally thought to be: plasmoids that are completely disconnected from the Sun; magnetic ``bottles,`` still tied to the corona at both ends; or flux ropes which are only partially disconnected. Fully disconnected plasmoids would have no long term effect on the amount of open flux; however, both in situ observations of details of the halo electron distributions and remote coronagraph observations of radial fields following CMEs indicate that CMEs generally do retain at least partial attached to the Sun. Both the magnetic-bottle and flux rope geometries require some mitigating process to close off previously open fields in order tomore » avoid a flux catastrophe. In addition, the average amount of magnetic flux observed in interplanetary space varies over the solar cycle, also indicating that there must be ways in which new flux is opened and previously open flux is closed off. The most likely scenario for closing off open magnetic fields is for reconnection to occurs above helmet streamers, where oppositely directed field regions are juxtaposed in the corona. These events would serve to return closed field arches to the Sun and release open, U-shaped structures into the solar wind.« less
Capturing and using CO2 as feedstock with chemical looping and hydrothermal technologies

Summary Chemical looping technology for capturing and hydrothermal processes for conversion of carbon are discussed with focused and critical assessments. The fluidized and stationary reactor systems using solid, including biomass, and gaseous fuels are considered in chemical looping combustion, gasification, and reforming processes. Sustainability is emphasized generally in energy technology and in two chemical looping simulation case studies using coal and natural gas. Conversion of captured carbon to formic acid, methanol, and other chemicals is also discussed in circulating and stationary reactors in hydrothermal processes. This review provides analyses of the major chemical looping technologies for CO2 capture and hydrothermal processes for carbon conversion so that the appropriate clean energy technology can be selected for a particular process. Combined chemical looping and hydrothermal processes may be feasible and sustainable in carbon capture and conversion and may lead to clean energy technologies using coal, natural gas, and biomass. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Rerepresenting and restructuring domain theories: a constructive induction approach

Theory revision integrates inductive learning and background knowledge by combining training examples with a coarse domain theory to produce a more accurate theory. There are two challenges that theory revision and other theory-guided systems face. First, a representation language appropriate for the initial theory may be inappropriate for an improved theory. While the original representation may concisely express the initial theory, a more accurate theory forced to use that same representation may be bulky, cumbersome, and difficult to reach. Second, a theory structure suitable for a coarse domain theory may be insufficient for a fine-tuned theory. Systems that produce only small, local changes to a theory have limited value for accomplishing complex structural alterations that may be required. Consequently, advanced theory-guided learning systems require flexible representation and flexible structure. An analysis of various theory revision systems and theory-guided learning systems reveals specific strengths and weaknesses in terms of these two desired properties. Designed to capture the underlying qualities of each system, a new system uses theory-guided constructive induction. Experiments in three domains show improvement over previous theory-guided systems. This leads to a study of the behavior, limitations, and potential of theory-guided constructive induction.
The first report of Lewis acid reagents in the intramolecular Rauhut–Currier reaction

Abstract The first report of Lewis acid use in intramolecular Rauhut–Currier reactions is described. Titanium Lewis acids lead to rapid Rauhut–Currier reactions in the case of two classic substrates. More importantly, titanium and tin Lewis acids were the only successful reagent for a more complex substrate, thereby illustrating the potential for Lewis acid reagents to facilitate challenging intramolecular Rauhut–Currier reactions that fail with traditional reagents.
Inferno: A cautious approach to uncertain inference

Abstract : Expert systems commonly employ some means of drawing inferences from domain and problem knowledge, where both the knowledge and its implications are less than certain. Methods used include subjective Bayesian reasoning, measures of belief and disbelief, and the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence. Analysis of systems based on these methods reveals important deficiencies in areas such as the reliability of deductions and the ability to detect inconsistencies in the knowledge from which deductions were made. A new system call INFERNO addresses some of these points. Its approach is probabilistic but makes no assumptions whatsoever about the joint probability distributions of pieces of knowledge, so the correctness of inferences can be guaranteed. INFERNO informs the user of inconsistencies that may be present in the information presented to it, and can make suggestions about changing the information to make it consistent. An example from a Bayesian system is reworked, and the conclusions reached by that system and INFERNO are compared.
Posttraumatic stress disorder and traumatic stress: from bench to bedside, from war to disaster

War is a tragic event and its mental health consequences can be profound. Recent studies indicate substantial rates of posttraumatic stress disorder and other behavioral alterations because of war exposure. Understanding the psychological, behavioral, and neurobiological mechanism of mental health and behavioral changes related to war exposure is critical to helping those in need of care. Substantial work to encourage bench to bedside to community knowledge and communication is a core component of addressing this world health need.
Convergence Rate Analysis of Primal-Dual Splitting Schemes

Primal-dual splitting schemes are a class of powerful algorithms that solve complicated monotone inclusions and convex optimization problems that are built from many simpler pieces. They decompose problems that are built from sums, linear compositions, and infimal convolutions of simple functions so that each simple term is processed individually via proximal mappings, gradient mappings, and multiplications by the linear maps. This leads to easily implementable and highly parallelizable or distributed algorithms, which often obtain nearly state-of-the-art performance. In this paper, we analyze a monotone inclusion problem that captures a large class of primal-dual splittings as a special case. We introduce a unifying scheme and use some abstract analysis of the algorithm to prove convergence rates of the proximal point algorithm, forward-backward splitting, Peaceman--Rachford splitting, and forward-backward-forward splitting applied to the model problem. Our ergodic convergence rates are deduced under var...
Leading empowered teams: An examination of the role of external team leaders and team coaches

Abstract We examine the influence of two sources of team leadership – formally assigned external team leaders and team coaches, along with organizational and team-based human resource (HR) supports – on team empowerment, processes, and performance. Using survey measures and temporally lagged objective performance indices from 70 service teams and applying structural equation modeling, the results indicate that coaches significantly influence team empowerment, and thereby team processes and performance whereas external team leaders do not. Findings also indicate that HR and organizational supports relate positively to team empowerment and that the effect of coaches on empowerment is beyond the effects of HR and organizational supports, team interdependence, and external team leaders. Directions for future research and application are discussed in terms of using team coaches in addition to traditional leaders for teams adopting new work arrangements.
Lithium transport through lithium-ion battery cathode coatings

The surface coating of cathodes using insulator films has proven to be a promising method for high-voltage cathode stabilization in Li-ion batteries, but there is still substantial uncertainty about how these films function. More specifically, there is limited knowledge of lithium solubility and transport through the films, which is important for coating design and development. This study uses first-principles calculations based on density functional theory to examine the diffusivity of interstitial lithium in the crystals of α-AlF3, α-Al2O3, m-ZrO2, c-MgO, and α-quartz SiO2, which provide benchmark cases for further understanding of insulator coatings in general. In addition, we propose an ohmic electrolyte model to predict resistivities and overpotential contributions under battery operating conditions. For the crystalline materials considered we predict that Li+ diffuses quite slowly, with a migration barrier larger than 0.9 eV in all crystalline materials except α-quartz SiO2, which is predicted to have a migration barrier of 0.276 eV along 〈001〉. These results suggest that the stable crystalline forms of these insulator materials, except for oriented α-quartz SiO2, are not practical for conformal cathode coatings. Amorphous Al2O3 and AlF3 have higher Li+ diffusivities than their crystalline counterparts. Our predicted amorphous Al2O3 resistivity (1789 MΩ m) is close to the top of the range of the fitted resistivities extracted from previous experiments on nominal Al2O3 coatings (7.8 to 913 MΩ m) while our predicted amorphous AlF3 resistivity (114 MΩ m) is very close to the middle of the range. These comparisons support our framework for modeling and understanding the impact on overpotential of conformal coatings in terms of their fundamental thermodynamic and kinetic properties, and support that these materials can provide practical conformal coatings in their amorphous form.
Abstraction Super-Structuring Normal Forms: Towards a Theory of Structural Induction

Induction is the process by which we obtain predictive laws or theories or models of the world. We consider the structural aspect of induction. We answer the question as to whether we can find a finite and minimalistic set of operations on structural elements in terms of which any theory can be expressed. We identify abstraction (grouping similar entities) and super-structuring (combining topologically e.g., spatio-temporally close entities) as the essential structural operations in the induction process. We show that only two more structural operations, namely, reverse abstraction and reverse super-structuring (the duals of abstraction and super-structuring respectively) suffice in order to exploit the full power of Turing-equivalent generative grammars in induction. We explore the implications of this theorem with respect to the nature of hidden variables, radical positivism and the 2-century old claim of David Hume about the principles of connexion among ideas.
Equivalence of Maxwell’s Source-free Equations to the Time-dependent Schrödinger Equation for a Solitary Particle with Two polarizations and Hamiltonian |CP|

It was pointed out in a previous paper that although neither the Klein-Gordon equation nor the Dirac Hamiltonian produces sound solitary free-particle relativistic quantum mechanics, the natural square-root relativistic Hamiltonian for a nonzero-mass free particle does achieve this. Failures of the Klein-Gordon and Dirac theories are reviewed: the solitary Dirac free particle has, inter alia, an invariant speed well in excess of c and staggering spontaneous Compton acceleration, but no pathologies whatsoever arise from the square-root relativistic Hamiltonian. Dirac’s key misapprehension of the underlying four-vector character of the time-dependent, configuration-representation Schrodinger equation for a solitary particle is laid bare, as is the invalidity of the standard “proof” that the nonrelativistic limit of the Dirac equation is the Pauli equation. Lorentz boosts from the particle rest frame point uniquely to the square-root Hamiltonian, but these don’t exist for a massless particle. Instead, Maxwell’s equations are dissected in spatial Fourier transform to separate nondynamical longitudinal from dynamical transverse field degrees of freedom. Upon their decoupling in the absence of sources, the transverse field components are seen to obey two identical time-dependent Schrodinger equations (owing to two linear polarizations), which have the massless free-particle diagonalized square-root Hamiltonian. Those fields are readily modified to conform to the attributes of solitary-photon wave functions. The wave functions’ relations to the potentials in radiation gauge are also worked out. The exercise is then repeated without the considerable benefit of the spatial Fourier transform.
Defects, Decay, And Dissipated States

Vacuum selection is one of the most important issues in string/M theory. The standard cartoon of string vacua (see figure 1) showing all the ten dimensional perturbative string asymptopia together with the eleven-dimensional limit, refers to solutions with a large number of supersymmetries, and flat directions (moduli) in the effective action.
Robust Gaussian graphical modeling with the Trimmed Graphical Lasso

Gaussian Graphical Models (GGMs) are popular tools for studying network structures. However, many modern applications such as gene network discovery and social interactions analysis often involve high-dimensional noisy data with outliers or heavier tails than the Gaussian distribution. In this paper, we propose the Trimmed Graphical Lasso for robust estimation of sparse GGMs. Our method guards against outliers by an implicit trimming mechanism akin to the popular Least Trimmed Squares method used for linear regression. We provide a rigorous statistical analysis of our estimator in the high-dimensional setting. In contrast, existing approaches for robust sparse GGMs estimation lack statistical guarantees. Our theoretical results are complemented by experiments on simulated and real gene expression data which further demonstrate the value of our approach.