cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Proceedings of the 1st ACM workshop on Hardcopy document processing

I would like to welcome the attendees of the Hardcopy Document Processing (HDP) Workshop and thank them for their interest in this subject. The stated purpose of the CIKM 2004 Conference "is to identify challenging problems facing the development of future knowledge and information systems." A major (and growing) challenge for industry and government is need to access and process the content of hardcopy documents. The focus of the workshop is to present current research and development in addressing this challenge. During the 1990s, CEOs realized that their companies' intellectual assets represented the majority of corporate wealth. The discipline of knowledge management was born to leverage these resources. Intellectual assets are primarily contained in hardcopy document collections. Many of these collections were scanned, indexed, OCRed and placed upon corporate intranets to be employed to gain competitive advantage. Businesses, particularly highly regulated industries such as pharmaceutical, environmental, and transportation, generate hardcopy records that must be retrievable to demonstrate compliance. Accurate document retrieval requires sufficient indexing. Unfortunately, sufficient indexing requires a priori knowledge of future, unknown requirements. Many applications need to retrieve and process hardcopy documents on an on-going basis. In many cases, documents must be exploited in near-real time for their content to be actionable. Further, documents of interest tend to be very noisy and often contain multiple handwritten annotations or other marks. Currently, the only viable solution is to be able to retrieve and process the content of OCRed documents. In virtually all situations, the cost, in either time or capital, of correcting OCR is prohibitive, and therefore either OCR accuracy must be improved, the ability to process noisy OCR must be improved, or new, innovative techniques must be developed to process text in the image domain. The ability to process hardcopy documents is a challenge of international importance and an appropriate workshop topic for this CIKM Conference. The focus of the Hardcopy Document Processing Workshop is to bring together the text processing and information retrieval research communities along with the users who face the challenge of processing information from hardcopy documents. The purpose will be to gain a better understanding of the current state-of-the-art and needs of the user community by exchanging of ideas. The target audience will be a mixture of academia and researchers from the user communities.
Modeling for environmental impacts using experimental data

Existing methods that assess the environmental impact often mandate an in depth understanding of the process or product mechanics. To overcome the complexity, the approach presented in this paper extracts the environmental impacts of a bench-top apparatus using Data Dependent Systems (DDS) methodology. The focus is on experimental evaluation of the environmental impacts of a bench-top heat exchanger system which simulates an industrial drying process. Collected measurements are used to develop DDS models from which an environmental profile is established for the heat exchanger. Results from the heat exchanger study provide insight into how the environmental impact of the industrial drying process may be reduced. Statistical design of experiments determines the significance of design variables. The process is quantified using characteristic roots of the DDS models providing natural frequencies and damping ratios, and these are subsequently associated with the environmental performance. Typical examples of DDS models are presented and their association with the environmental impact is demonstrated.
Host-Mediated Assay

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by Ann D. Mitchell (now deceased), volume 2, pp 92–94, © 1998, Elsevier Inc.
eThemes: An Internet Instructional Resource

This paper describes a major initiative to support teachers in integrating Internet resources into the instructional process while shifting their instruction to a more constructivist approach. This paper also presents the background of this initiative and results of a study to determine teacher perceptions of this initiative. Referred to as eThemes, this service accepts requests from teachers, finds Web sites that meet the requirements specified in the requests, and creates an archive of quality Internet resources for easy access and searching. It minimizes teachers' resource-seeking time and maximizes their resource-using time in their instruction to enhance teaching practice and student performance.
Lin Shu: Traducir para el Emperador

Este articulo describe la labor de un traductor con objeto de explorar las cuestiones teoricas que plantean las funciones sociales y politicas de la traduccion. Los traductores chinos de finales del siglo diecinueve, como Lin Shu, fueron importantes introductores de formas e ideas occidentales. No obstante, las intenciones de Lin eran combatir el imperialismo occidental y fortalecer el debilitado imperio, por lo que sus estrategias discursivas pretendian adecuar los textos occidentales a la cultura imperial. Con su obra se demuestra, sin embargo, que la domesticacion no pudo borrar lo extranjero de los materiales que decidieron traducir. Lin Shu y otros traductores introdujeron tendencias culturales que cambiaron decisivamente la cultura china y que finalmente contribuyeron a la caida del emperador.
Less is More: Building Selective Anomaly Ensembles

Ensemble learning for anomaly detection has been barely studied, due to difficulty in acquiring ground truth and the lack of inherent objective functions. In contrast, ensemble approaches for classification and clustering have been studied and effectively used for long. Our work taps into this gap and builds a new ensemble approach for anomaly detection, with application to event detection in temporal graphs as well as outlier detection in no-graph settings. It handles and combines multiple heterogeneous detectors to yield improved and robust performance. Importantly, trusting results from all the constituent detectors may deteriorate the overall performance of the ensemble, as some detectors could provide inaccurate results depending on the type of data in hand and the underlying assumptions of a detector. This suggests that combining the detectors selectively is key to building effective anomaly ensembles—hence “less is more”. In this paper we propose a novel ensemble approach called SELECT for anomaly detection, which automatically and systematically selects the results from constituent detectors to combine in a fully unsupervised fashion. We apply our method to event detection in temporal graphs and outlier detection in multi-dimensional point data (no-graph), where SELECT successfully utilizes five base detectors and seven consensus methods under a unified ensemble framework. We provide extensive quantitative evaluation of our approach for event detection on five real-world datasets (four with ground truth events), including Enron email communications, RealityMining SMS and phone call records, New York Times news corpus, and World Cup 2014 Twitter news feed. We also provide results for outlier detection on seven real-world multi-dimensional point datasets from UCI Machine Learning Repository. Thanks to its selection mechanism, SELECT yields superior performance compared to the individual detectors alone, the full ensemble (naively combining all results), an existing diversity-based ensemble, and an existing weighted ensemble approach.
Impacts of Large-scale Surface Modifications on Meteorological Conditions and Energy Use: A 10-Region Modeling Study

Q) E IMPACTS OF LARGE-SCALE SURFACE MODIFICATIONS ON METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS AND ENERGY USE: A IO-REGION MODELING STUDY U C .t: a.i E ..:.c IQ c cu Haider Taha, Steven Konopacki, and Sasa Gabersek Heat Island Project Environmental Energy Technologies Division FINDINGS a.... LL. .Q cu ;Z Several field-monitoring studies have shown that using high-albedo materials on and increasing vegetative fraction around buildings can save a significant amount of cooling energy use. Also, meteorological and photochemical modeling studies suggest that large-scale increases in albedo (e.g., of buildings and paved surfaces) and vegetative fraction can have beneficial impacts on urban climates and air qUality. These ear- lier studies pOinted to the need for a multi-regional assessment of the meteorological and energy-use im- pacts of surface modifications. They also pointed to the need for assessing these impacts on a year-round basis, e.g., quantifying potential penalties in heating energy use in winter in addition to savings in cooling energy use in summer. The study described in this paper is a first step in that direction. This paper summarizes results from a mesoscale modeling study to quantify the possible meteorologic~ and energy-use impacts of large-scale increases in surface albedo and vegetative fraction. Ten regions in the U.S. were characterized and simulated in base- and modified-surface conditions. TIme- and space- dependent meteorological variables were simulated for each region in four 3-day episodes to represent a range of seasonal variations. The base-case mesoscale simulations suggest heat islands of I-2°C in most urban areas analyzed in this study. The simulations also suggest that large-scale increases in surface albedo and vegetative fraction can almost offset the urban heat island intensity in most of these areas. The energy implication of a I-2°C re- duction in space-averaged air temperatures (around 2 pm local time) is a decrease of up to 10% in peak electricity demand. In terms of annual costs of energy use, the simulations suggest net savings in the order of $10-35 per 100 m of roof area depending on building type and region. Areas like Los Angeles, Hous- ton, Miami, and Phoenix seem to benefit most from the large-scale surface modifications described in this paper, whereas regions like Philadelphia seem to benefit the least.
Individual vs. Collective Quotas in Fisheries Management: Efficiency and Distributional Impacts

This paper considers four alternative policies for controlling harvest within a fishery: (1) individual limits without a permit market, (2) individual limits with a permit market, (3) a collective limit with individual decisions, and (4) a collective limit with collective decisions. We focus on three issues: risk pooling, moral hazard, and the role of permit trading. We find that, as long as the penalty rates are set appropriately, all four policies can yield the first best. Thus, with a welfare-maximizing regulator who sets policy parameters optimally, there is no efficiency basis for preferring one over the other. In particular, allowing permit trading and risk pooling does not increase efficiency. However, the four policies differ in terms of their impact on the expected profit of harvesters. Thus, there is a distributional basis for distinguishing among the four policies. We find that in the absence of permit trading and moral hazard, the collective limit with collective decisions yields higher expected profits than the individual limits. However, the moral hazard problem that arises under the collective limit with individual decisions makes harvesters worse off in terms of distributional impact. Finally, although the permit market provides an opportunity for risk spreading for harvesters, the potential moral hazard problem leads to a detrimental distributional impact on harvesters under permit trading. Thus, contrary to standard results, here allowing permits to be traded has no efficiency impact and makes harvesters worse off.
Algebraic curves uniformized by congruence subgroups of triangle groups

We construct certain subgroups of hyperbolic triangle groups which we call \congruence" subgroups. These groups include the classical congruence subgroups of SL2(Z), Hecke triangle groups, and 19 families of arithmetic triangle groups associated to Shimura curves. We determine the eld of moduli of the curves associated to these groups and thereby realize the groups PSL2(Fq) and PGL2(Fq) regularly as Galois groups.
A modification of the Halpern-Pearl definition of causality

The original Halpern-Pearl definition of causality [Halpern and Pearl, 2001] was updated in the journal version of the paper [Halpern and Pearl, 2005] to deal with some problems pointed out by Hopkins and Pearl [2003]. Here the definition is modified yet again, in a way that (a) leads to a simpler definition, (b) handles the problems pointed out by Hopkins and Pearl, and many others, (c) gives reasonable answers (that agree with those of the original and updated definition) in the standard problematic examples of causality, and (d) has lower complexity than either the original or updated definitions.
Successful treatment of neonatal severe hyperparathyroidism with cinacalcet in two patients

Neonatal severe hyperparathyroidism (NSHPT) is a rare disorder caused by inactivating calcium-sensing receptor (CASR) mutations that result in life-threatening hypercalcemia and metabolic bone disease. Until recently, therapy has been surgical parathyroidectomy. Three previous case reports have shown successful medical management of NSHPT with cinacalcet. Here we present the detailed description of two unrelated patients with NSHPT due to heterozygous R185Q CASR mutations. Patient 1 was diagnosed at 11 months of age and had developmental delays, dysphagia, bell-shaped chest, and periosteal bone reactions. Patient 2 was diagnosed at 1 month of age and had failure to thrive, osteopenia, and multiple rib fractures. Cinacalcet was initiated at 13 months of age in patient 1, and at 4 months of age in patient 2. We have successfully normalized their parathyroid hormone and alkaline phosphatase levels. Despite the continuance of mild hypercalcemia (11–12 mg/dl), both patients showed no hypercalcemic symptoms. Importantly, patient 1 had improved neurodevelopment and patient 2 never experienced any developmental delays after starting cinacalcet. Neither experienced fractures after starting cinacalcet. Both have been successfully managed long-term without any significant adverse events. These cases expand the current literature of cinacalcet use in NSHPT to five successful reported cases. We propose that cinacalcet may be considered as an option for treating the severe hypercalcemia and metabolic bone disease found in infants and children with inactivating CASR disorders. Learning points NSHPT due to mutations in the CASR gene occurs with hypercalcemia and metabolic bone disease, but not always with severe critical illness in infancy. NSHPT should be considered in the differential diagnosis for a newborn with a bell-shaped chest, osteopenia, and periosteal reactions. Neurodevelopmental consequences may occur in children with hypercalcemia and may improve during treatment. Calcimimetics can be used to successfully treat the pathophysiology of NSHPT directly to control serum calcium levels.
How Can Competition Policy and Competition-Policy Economics Contribute to Solving the Healthcare Crisis?

Public policy makers around the world are concerned with the cost and quality of healthcare. I argue that competition-policy economics can make valuable contributions to solving the healthcare crisis by addressing four fundamental questions:Why don't insurance companies offer policies that generate greater consumer incentives to seek low-cost providers and generate increased price competition?How can consumers be provided with information that will induce stronger quality competition?What organizational structures promote the most efficient coordination among complementary care providers and between insurers and care providers?How do structure and conduct in markets for healthcare insurance and healthcare services affect the incentives to create and adopt new healthcare goods and services?Preliminary lines of research to address these questions are identified and discussed.
Meta-Analyses of the Effects of Tier 2 Type Reading Interventions in Grades K-3

This meta-analysis extends previous work on extensive Tier 3 type reading interventions (Wanzek & Vaughn, 2007; Wanzek et al., 2013) to Tier 2 type interventions by examining a non-overlapping set of studies addressing the effects of less extensive reading interventions for students with or at risk for reading difficulties in Grades K-3. We examined the overall effects of these interventions on students' foundational skills, language, and comprehension as well as the intervention features that may be associated with improved outcomes. We conducted four meta-analyses on 72 studies to examine effects on (1) standardized foundational skill measures (mean ES = 0.54), (2) not-standardized foundational skill measures (mean ES = 0.62), (3) standardized language/comprehension measures (mean ES = 0.36), and (4) not-standardized language/comprehension measures (mean ES = 1.02). There were no differences in effects related to intervention type, instructional group size, grade level, intervention implementer, or the number of intervention hours.
The Application of Kiuttu’s Formulation to Study Coaxial Flux Compression Generators

A class of flux compression generators (FCGs) is based on the compression of the cross-sectional area of a coaxial geometry where the current flows along the outer conductor and returns through the inner conductor. This compression causes an increase in current since magnetic flux must be conserved. Kiuttu’s inductive electric-field formulation is a powerful tool for the conceptual design of coaxial FCGs. The usefulness of this formulation is demonstrated in this paper for a simplified geometry using a finite-element partial differential equation solver (FlexPDE) for calculation of the inductive electric field. A time-varying applied current or a moving surface creates the nonconservative electric field. Losses due to diffusion of magnetic flux into conducting surfaces can also be accounted for and modeled in this setting. This analytical–computational approach serves as an important step in validating the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) portion of the complex multiphysics parallel Lawrence Livermore code, Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE3D). The nonintuitive boundary conditions involved in solving the otherwise straightforward partial differential equations are described in detail and illustrated in a simple model. The physical parameters used in the simulations are not based on a specific design.
The dialectics of differentiation: Marx's mathematical manuscripts and their relation to his economics

The notion that Marx neither understood nor advocated the use of mathematics is a persistent one. His interest in both commercial and abstract mathematics spanned more than two decades, however, an...
Transcatheter melody valve placement in large diameter bioprostheses and conduits: What is the optimal "Landing zone"?

Objectives This study sought to elucidate the optimal bioprosthetic valve (BPV) size prior to Melody valve implantation. Background: BPVs provide an ideal “landing zone” for future Melody valve insertion. To guide surgical choice of BPV size, it is important to understand which BPV size can serve consistently as substrates for Melody valve placements. Methods A database of all patients who underwent Melody implantation at UCLA or Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles from 2010 to 2014 was analyzed retrospectively. Patients with an existing BPV were stratified into those with a valve diameter of ≥27 mm or <27 mm. Results One hundred and sixty patients underwent catheterization with the intention to implant a Melody valve. Melody valve implantation was performed in the pulmonary position in 52 patients with prior BPVs. The immediate procedural success rate was 100%. Immediately post-Melody, the right ventricular to pulmonary artery gradient was significantly higher in the <27 mm group compared to the ≥27 mm group (14.3 ± 3 vs. 8.6 ± 6.8, P = 0.006). There was a significantly shorter time from prior valve replacement to Melody implantation in the <27 mm group. There was one patient in whom transcatheter pulmonary valve implantation was aborted due to inadequate landing zone in the <27 mm group, and no patients in the ≥27 mm group (P = NS). Conclusions The results of this study indicate that 27 and 29 mm BPV provide a superior landing zone for Melody valve implantation with excellent immediate and intermediate term hemodynamic results when compared to smaller BPVs less than 27 mm. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Financial Intermediation and Credit Policy in Business Cycle Analysis

Abstract We develop a canonical framework to think about credit market frictions and aggregate economic activity in the context of the current crisis. We use the framework to address two issues in particular: first, how disruptions in financial intermediation can induce a crisis that affects real activity; and second, how various credit market interventions by the central bank and the Treasury of the type we have seen recently, might work to mitigate the crisis. We make use of earlier literature to develop our framework and characterize how very recent literature is incorporating insights from the crisis.
Analysis of recursive probabilistic models

In this talk we will discuss recent work on the modeling and analysis of systems that involve recursion and probability. Both, recursion and probability, are fundamental constructs that arise in a wide variety of settings in computer science and other disciplines.
An uninstantiable random-oracle-model scheme for a hybrid-encryption problem

We present a simple, natural random-oracle (RO) model scheme, for a practical goal, that is uninstantiable, meaning is proven in the RO model to meet its goal yet admits no standard-model instantiation that meets this goal. The goal in question is IND-CCA-preserving asymmetric encryption which formally captures security of the most common practical usage of asymmetric encryption, namely to transport a symmetric key in such a way that symmetric encryption under the latter remains secure. The scheme is an ElGamal variant, called Hash ElGamal, that resembles numerous existing RO-model schemes, and on the surface shows no evidence of its anomalous properties. These results extend our understanding of the gap between the standard and RO models, and bring concerns raised by previous work closer to practice by indicating that the problem of RO-model schemes admitting no secure instantiation can arise in domains where RO schemes are commonly designed.
Data deprivation : another deprivation to end

The Millennium Development Goal of halving the incidence of extreme poverty from its 1990 level will be achieved in 2015, and the international development community is now moving to a new goal of “ending extreme poverty.” However, the data needed to monitor progress remain severely limited. During the 10 year period between 2002 and 2011, as many as 57 countries have zero or only one poverty estimate. This paper refers to such lack of poverty data as “data deprivation,” because the poor are often socially marginalized and voiceless, and the collection of objective and quantitative data is crucial in locating them and formulating policy to help them exit extreme deprivation. This paper studies the extent of data deprivation and proposes targets for ending data deprivation by 2030—the year by when the international community aims to end extreme poverty. According to the analysis in this paper, this target is ambitious but possible, and achieving it is necessary to be able to declare the end of extreme poverty with confidence.
Termination of polynomial programs

We present a technique to prove termination of multipath polynomial programs, an expressive class of loops that enables practical code abstraction and analysis. The technique is based on finite differences of expressions over transition systems. Although no complete method exists for determining termination for this class of loops, we show that our technique is useful in practice. We demonstrate that our prototype implementation for C source code readily scales to large software projects, proving termination for a high percentage of targeted loops.
The Cost of Environmental Degradation: Case Studies from the Middle East and North Africa

Environmental degradation is costly, to individuals, to societies, and to the environment. This book, edited by Lelia Croitoru and Maria Sarraf, makes these costs clear by examining a number of studies carried out over the past few years by the World Bank's Middle East and North Africa region. Even more important than estimating the monetary cost of environmental degradation (COED), however, are the clear guidance and policy implications derived from these findings. This volume presents a new approach to estimating the impacts of environmental degradation. In the past, when government officials asked researchers the simple question how large are the impacts of environmental degradation? The response was often an emphatic 'large!' a rather imprecise number. The strength of this work is that it actually quantifies in economic terms how large is 'large' and thereby gains the attention of decision makers and offers specific insights for improved policy making. Finally, this book demonstrates the benefits of doing a coordinated, regional COED analysis that builds on the country-level studies. This two-tiered approach produces important synergies, in terms of both the methodologies used and the lessons learned.
Temporal Uncertainty and Fuzzy-Timing High-Level Petri Nets

This paper discusses an approach to deal with temporal uncertainty and introduces fuzzy timing in a high-level Petri net model. The main features of the present model are the four fuzzy set theoretic functions of time called fuzzy timestamp, fuzzy enabling time, fuzzy occurrence time and fuzzy delay, all of which capture temporal uncertainty in a form not violating the axiom of measurement recently proposed by Dr. Petri. Fuzzy-timing nets are suitable for time-critical applications since fuzzy time functions can be computed very fast.
Graphical models and exponential families

We provide a classification of graphical models according to their representation as subfamilies of exponential families. Undirected graphical models with no hidden variables are linear exponential families (LEFs), directed acyclic graphical models and chain graphs with no hidden variables, including Bayesian networks with several families of local distributions, are curved exponential families (CEFs) and graphical models with hidden variables are stratified exponential families (SEFs). An SEF is a finite union of CEFs satisfying a frontier condition. In addition, we illustrate how one can automatically generate independence and non-independence constraints on the distributions over the observable variables implied by a Bayesian network with hidden variables. The relevance of these results for model selection is examined.
Optimal Chinese Agricultural Trade Patterns under the Laws of Comparative Advantage

The gradual liberalization of Chinese economic sectors and the associated growth in the income of Chinese consumers in recent years has created interest in how China will influence world agricultural markets should it decide to liberalize its food sector. Using Chinese agricultural and resources data and an adaptation of the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek international trade model, Hayes and Fuller project what Chinese trade, production, and consumption patters would be if China allowed the laws of comparative advantage to direct production and trade decisions. They show that today's Chinese agriculture is dramatically different from what would have evolved had it been open to trade and factor mobility. In particular, the use of capital is many times lower than it would otherwise be, and the use of labor is many times greater.
Plan Recognition in Stories and in Life

Abstract Plan recognition does not work the same way in stories and in “real life” (people tend to jump to conclusions more in stories). We present a theory of this, for the particular case of how objects in stories (or in life) influence plan recognition decisions. We provide a Bayesian network formalization of a simple first-order theory of plans, and show how a particular network parameter seems to govern the difference between “life-like” and “story-like” response. We then show why this parameter would be influenced (in the desired way) by a model of speaker (or author) topic selection which assumes that facts in stories are typically “relevant”.
ASTROENGINEERING, OR HOW TO SAVE THE EARTH IN ONLY ONE BILLION YEARS

Korycansky et al. (2001) have presented a scheme for altering planetary orbits in the solar system, in particular that of the Earth as a means to escape (for a period) the consequences of the secular brightening of the Sun over the next few billion years. In this paper I discuss that work, present background information, and attempt to understand consequences of the ideas involved.
Estimating Intensive and Extensive Tax Responsiveness: Do Older Workers Respond to Income Taxes?

Studies the impact of income and payroll taxes on intensive and extensive labor supply decisions for workers ages 55-74 using the Health and Retirement Study.
The effects of monetary policy shocks on exchange rates: A structural vector error correction model approach

This paper investigates the effects of shocks to Japanese monetary policy on exchange rates and other macroeconomic variables, using structural vector error correction model methods with long-run restrictions. Long-run restrictions are attractive because they are more directly related to economic models than typical recursive short-run restrictions that some variables are not affected contemporaneously by shocks to other variables. In contrast with our earlier study of U.S. monetary policy with long-run restrictions in which the empirical results were more consistent with the standard exchange rate model than those with short-run restrictions, our results for Japanese monetary policy with long-run restrictions are less consistent with the model than those with short-run restrictions.
Power system state estimators: designed for reliability or accuracy?

It is the experience of this author that state estimation programs suffer mainly from the effort to preserve maximum accuracy in the presence of changing measurement availability and topology of the power system. The paper deals with the issue of how the loss of a single measurement or the loss of a single line can render a state estimator inoperable and asks why state estimators are built that way. A solution for this problem is offered through the use of load forecast measurements.
Higher order image pyramids

The scale invariant property of an ensemble of natural images is examined which motivates a new early visual representation termed the higher order pyramid. The representation is a non-linear generalization of the Laplacian pyramid and is tuned to the type of scale invariance exhibited by natural imagery as opposed to other scale invariant images such as 1/f correlated noise and the step edge. The transformation of an image to a higher order pyramid is simple to compute and straightforward to invert. Because the representation is invertible it is shown that the higher order pyramid can be truncated and quantized with little loss of visual quality. Images coded in this representation have much less redundancy than the raw image pixels and decorrelating transformations such as the Laplacian pyramid. This is demonstrated by showing statistical independence between pairs of coefficients. Because the representation is tuned to the ensemble redundancies the coefficients of the higher order pyramid are more efficient at capturing the variation within the ensemble which leads too improved matching results. This is demonstrated on two recognition tasks, face recognition with illumination changes and object recognition which viewpoint changes.
Changes in Interstellar Atomic Abundances from the Galactic Plane to the Halo

A few, specially selected interstellar absorption lines have been measured in the high resolution, far-ultraviolet spectra of some 200 O and B type stars observed by the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE). This study indicates that for lines of sight extending beyond about 500 pc from the galactic plane, the abundance of singly-ionized iron atoms increases relative to singly-ionized sulfur. However, the relative abundances of singly-ionized sulfur, silicon and aluminum do not seem to change appreciably. A likely explanation for the apparent increase of iron is the partial sputtering of material off the surfaces of dust grains by interstellar shocks. Another possibility might be that the ejecta from type I supernovae enrich the low density medium in the halo with iron.
Photosynthetic hydrogen and oxygen production by green algae

Photosynthesis research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is focused on hydrogen and oxygen production by green algae in the context of its potential as a renewable fuel and chemical feed stock. Beginning with its discovery by Gaffron and Rubin in 1942, motivated by curiosity-driven laboratory research, studies were initiated in the early 1970s that focused on photosynthetic hydrogen production from an applied perspective. From a scientific and technical point of view, current research is focused on optimizing net thermodynamic conversion efficiencies represented by the Gibbs Free Energy of molecular hydrogen. The key research questions of maximizing hydrogen and oxygen production by light-activated water splitting in green algae are: (1) removing the oxygen sensitivity of algal hydrogenases; (2) linearizing the light saturation curves of hotosynthesis throughout the entire range of terrestrial solar irradiance-including the role of bicarbonate and carbon dioxide in optimization of photosynthetic electron transpor;t and (3) constructing real-world bioreactors, including the generation of hydrogen and oxygen against workable back pressures of the photoproduced gases.
Verifying deadlock-freedom of communication fabrics

Avoiding message dependent deadlocks in communication fabrics is critical for modern microarchitectures. If discovered late in the design cycle, deadlocks lead to missed project deadlines and suboptimal design decisions. One approach to avoid this problem is to get high level of confidence on an early microarchitectural model. However, formal proofs of liveness even on abstract models are hard due to large number of queues and distributed control. In this work we address liveness verification of communication fabrics described in the form of high-level microarchitectural models which use a small set of well-defined primitives. We prove that under certain realistic restrictions, deadlock freedom can be reduced to unsatisfiability of a system of Boolean equations. Using this approach, we have automatically verified liveness of several non-trivial models (derived from industrial microarchitectures), where state-of-theart model checkers failed and pen and paper proofs were either tedious or unknown.
Factors that predispose youth to risk in Mexico and Chile

About half of Latin America's youth are consideredat risk, meaning that they engage in or are at risk of engaging in risky behaviors that are detrimental to their own development and to the well-being of their societies. While child psychologists identify many factors that may cause some youth to engage in at-risk behaviors and others not to, only empirical evidence can identify the set that is relevant to a particular population. This paper uses youth surveys from Chile and Mexico to test which of a large set of potential factors are correlated with a range of risky behaviors among youth. These factors range from relationships with parents and institutions to household behaviors (abuse, discipline techniques) to social exclusion. The authors use stepwise regressions to sort out which variables best explain the observed variance in seven different risky behaviors. They find that higher socioeconomic status, a good relationship with parents and peers, strong connection with local governmental institutions and schools, urban residence, younger age, and spirituality emerge as key explanatory factors for all seven behaviors for boys and girls in both countries. This points to a wider range of policy entry points than currently used, including targeting parents and the relationship with schools.
Intelligent probabilistic inference

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the intelligent probabilistic inference. The analysis of practical probabilistic models on the computer demands a convenient representation for the available knowledge and an efficient algorithm to perform inference. The chapter focuses on arbitrary conditional probability distributions from a given probabilistic model. With given qualitative information about the dependence of the random variables in the model, for a specific conditional expression, quantitative information needed to determine the desired conditional probability distribution can be specified precisely. In this way, the conditional independence present in the model can be exploited to avoid having to construct or manipulate the full joint distribution. These results are extended to include maximal processing when the information available is incomplete and optimal decision making in an uncertain environment. One main application of this research is in the construction of a decision system, an automated tool to assist a decision maker. The influence diagrams processed by the algorithm can be constructed and interpreted by programs within the system. The ability to determine the information needed to answer a given question is critical in such an environment.
4 – Resource Allocation

This chapter discusses the issue of resource allocation to different species. Species persist to the extent that the benefits of their behaviors outweigh the costs. Survival and reproduction are increased by the investment of energy, in particular, behavior and associated biochemicals. Foraging and reproductive behaviors should provide the best return for the time and effort spent searching. Reproductive behavior should maximize the survival of offspring. Among insects, the selection of appropriate oviposition sites determines egg development and survival. Acquired resources are allocated to various pathways. Acquired resources are either assimilated or egested. Assimilated resources are either allocated to production or expended through respiration. Consumption and allocation of resources are influenced by insect size, maturity, food quality, and parasitism. Competition and defense against predators often involve considerable expenditure of resources. In many species, males engage in various forms of combat to decide which males mate successfully. Both the marking of territorial boundaries and the defense of the territory against intruders characterize territorial behavior. The efficiency of foraging, reproductive, competitive, and defensive behavior may be increased by use of visual, chemical, or acoustic signals that communicate information to the recipients. Insects can improve foraging and mating efficiency by orienting toward chemical cues produced by suitable resources or potential mates. Environmental changes will affect the efficiency of resource acquisition and allocation strategies.
Abelian-by-Central Galois groups of fields I: a formal description

Let $K$ be a field whose characteristic is prime to a fixed integer $n$ with $\mu_n \subset K$, and choose $\omega \in \mu_n$ a primitive $n$th root of unity. Denote the absolute Galois group of $K$ by $\operatorname{Gal}(K)$, and the mod-$n$ central-descending series of $\operatorname{Gal}(K)$ by $\operatorname{Gal}(K)^{(i)}$. Recall that Kummer theory, together with our choice of $\omega$, provides a functorial isomorphism between $\operatorname{Gal}(K)/\operatorname{Gal}(K)^{(2)}$ and $\operatorname{Hom}(K^\times,\mathbb{Z}/n)$. Analogously to Kummer theory, in this note we use the Merkurjev-Suslin theorem to construct a continuous, functorial and explicit embedding $\operatorname{Gal}(K)^{(2)}/\operatorname{Gal}(K)^{(3)} \hookrightarrow \operatorname{Fun}(K\smallsetminus\{0,1\},(\mathbb Z/n)^2)$, where $\operatorname{Fun}(K\smallsetminus\{0,1\},(\mathbb Z/n)^2)$ denotes the group of $(\mathbb Z/n)^2$-valued functions on $K\smallsetminus\{0,1\}$. We explicitly determine the functions associated to the image of commutators and $n$th powers of elements of $\operatorname{Gal}(K)$ under this embedding. We then apply this theory to prove some new results concerning relations between elements in abelian-by-central Galois groups.
A panoramic view of the social security and social protection provisioning in Lesotho

Social security is one of the most important areas of social policy.As part of its social policy, the government of Lesotho has promulgated various pieces of legislation and introduced an assortment of public assistance programmes for the benefit of the people of the country. There are also various informal social security measures which are the result of coordinated activities by individuals and groupings in Lesotho. These initiatives together provide a broad spectrum of social security provisioning for the people of Lesotho. This article sets out to discuss the said social security provisioning measures and appraises the efficacy of their interventions.Lesotho is a constitutional state.The Constitution of Lesotho came into force on 2April 1993. It provides for a Bill of Rights as well as principles of state policy. There is, however, no express provision in the Constitution for a right to social security. This is regrettable. Thus, the intersection between constitutional law and social security within the context of Lesotho can be achieved only through the interpretation of the fundamental rights as well as the principles of state policy provided in the Constitution. While the provisions relating to fundamental rights help to establish entitlements to social security, the principles of state policy play an important role in giving direction to service delivery.Understanding the link between the various governmental and social initiatives is crucial if interventions are to be designed which will enhance the provision of social security for the benefit of the people of Lesotho.
Polygonal approximation of point sets

Our domain of interest is polygonal (and polyhedral) approximation of point sets. Neither the order of data points nor the number of needed line segments (surface patches) are known. In particular, point sets can be obtained by laser range scanner mounted on a moving robot or given as edge pixels/voxels in digital images. Polygonal approximation of edge pixels can also be interpreted as grouping of edge pixels to parts of object contours. The presented approach is described in the statistical framework of Expectation Maximization (EM) and in cognitively motivated geometric framework. We use local support estimation motivated by human visual perception to evaluate support in data points of EM components after each EM step. Consequently, we are able to recognize a locally optimal solution that is not globally optimal, and modify the number of model components and their parameters. We will show experimentally that the proposed approach has much stronger global convergence properties than the EM approach. In particular, the proposed approach is able to converge to a globally optimal solution independent of the initial number of model components and their initial parameters.
Option listing and stock returns

Abstract This article examines the effect of option introductions on the underlying stocks. In addition to the price increase and volatility decrease that take place when new options are listed, we obtain and explain the following new empirical results: (i) an increase in the value of the market around the listing dates of new options, (ii) an increase in the value of an industry index which excludes the optioned stocks, (iii) the dissipation of the price and volatility effects in recent periods and (iv) the existence of an announcement effect in one subperiod of our sample and its dissipation in recent periods.
Career Technical Education and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence From California Community Colleges

Career technical education (CTE) programs at community colleges are increasingly seen as an attractive alternative to four-year colleges, yet little systematic evidence exists on the returns to specific certificates and degrees. We estimate returns to CTE programs using administrative data from the California Community College system linked to earnings records. We employ estimation approaches, including individual fixed effects and individual-specific trends, and find average returns to CTE certificate and degrees that range from 14 to 45 percent. The largest returns are for programs in the healthcare sector; estimated returns in non-health related programs range from 15 to 23 percent. [End Page 986] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
SU(1, 1) random polynomials

We study statistical properties of zeros of random polynomials and random analytic functions associated with the pseudoeuclidean group of symmetries SU(1, 1), by utilizing both analytical and numerical techniques. We first show that zeros of the SU(1, 1) random polynomial of degree N are concentrated in a narrow annulus of the order of N−1 around the unit circle on the complex plane, and we find an explicit formula for the scaled density of the zeros distribution along the radius in the limit N→∞. Our results are supported through various numerical simulations. We then extend results of Hannay(1) and Bleher et al.(2) to derive different formulae for correlations between zeros of the SU(1, 1) random analytic functions, by applying the generalized Kac–Rice formula. We express the correlation functions in terms of some Gaussian integrals, which can be evaluated combinatorially as a finite sum over Feynman diagrams or as a supersymmetric integral. Due to the SU(1, 1) symmetry, the correlation functions depend only on the hyperbolic distances between the points on the unit disk, and we obtain an explicit formula for the two point correlation function. It displays quadratic repulsion at small distances and fast decay of correlations at infinity. In an appendix to the paper we evaluate correlations between the outer zeros |zj|>1 of the SU(1, 1) random polynomial, and we prove that the inner and outer zeros are independent in the limit when the degree of the polynomial goes to infinity.
Spatial variability of sea level rise due to water impoundment behind dams

[1] Dams have impounded ∼10,800 km3 of water since 1900, reducing global sea level by ∼30.0 mm and decreasing the rate of sea level rise. The load from impounded water depresses the earth's surface near dams and elevates the geoid, which locally increases relative sea level (RSL). We computed patterns of dam-induced RSL change globally, and estimated that tide gauges, which are often close to dams, recorded only ∼60% of the global average sea level drop due to reservoir building. Thus, RSL in the globally averaged ocean rose ∼0.2 mm/yr more slowly than has been recorded by tide gauges, or ∼10% slower than the measured rise rate of 1.5–2.0 mm/yr. Relative proximity to dams caused RSL to rise fastest in northeastern North America and slowest in the Pacific. This dam-induced spatial variability may mask the sea level “fingerprint” of melting sources, especially northern (Greenland) sources of glacial unloading.