cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Petrobactin Protects against Oxidative Stress and Enhances Sporulation Efficiency in Bacillus anthracis Sterne.

ABSTRACT Bacillus anthracis is a Gram-positive bacillus that under conditions of environmental stress, such as low nutrients, can convert from a vegetative bacillus to a highly durable spore that enables long-term survival. The sporulation process is regulated by a sequential cascade of dedicated transcription factors but requires key nutrients to complete, one of which is iron. Iron acquisition by the iron-scavenging siderophore petrobactin is required for vegetative growth of B. anthracis under iron-depleted conditions and in the host. However, the extent to which petrobactin is involved in spore formation is unknown. This work shows that efficient in vitro sporulation of B. anthracis requires petrobactin, that the petrobactin biosynthesis operon (asbA to -F) is induced prior to sporulation, and that the siderophore itself associates with spores. Petrobactin is also required for oxidative stress protection during late-stage growth and for wild-type levels of sporulation in sporulation medium. Sporulation in bovine blood was found to be petrobactin dependent. Collectively, the in vitro contributions of petrobactin to sporulation as well as growth imply that petrobactin may be required for B. anthracis transmission via the spore during natural infections, in addition to its key known functions during active anthrax infections. IMPORTANCEBacillus anthracis causes the disease anthrax, which is transmitted via its dormant, spore phase. However, conversion from bacillus to spore is a complex, energetically costly process that requires many nutrients, including iron. B. anthracis requires the siderophore petrobactin to scavenge iron from host environments. We show that, in the Sterne strain, petrobactin is required for efficient sporulation, even when ample iron is available. The petrobactin biosynthesis operon is expressed during sporulation, and petrobactin is biosynthesized during growth in high-iron sporulation medium, but instead of being exported, the petrobactin remains intracellular to protect against oxidative stress and improve sporulation. It is also required for full growth and sporulation in blood (bovine), an essential step for anthrax transmission between mammalian hosts.
Ripple oscillations in the left temporal neocortex are associated with impaired verbal episodic memory encoding.

Abstract Background We sought to determine if ripple oscillations (80–120 Hz), detected in intracranial electroencephalogram (iEEG) recordings of patients with epilepsy, correlate with an enhancement or disruption of verbal episodic memory encoding. Methods We defined ripple and spike events in depth iEEG recordings during list learning in 107 patients with focal epilepsy. We used logistic regression models (LRMs) to investigate the relationship between the occurrence of ripple and spike events during word presentation and the odds of successful word recall following a distractor epoch and included the seizure onset zone (SOZ) as a covariate in the LRMs. Results We detected events during 58,312 word presentation trials from 7630 unique electrode sites. The probability of ripple on spike (RonS) events was increased in the SOZ (p Conclusion Ripples and spikes generated in the left temporal neocortex are associated with impaired verbal episodic memory encoding. Although physiological and pathological ripple oscillations were not distinguished during cognitive tasks, our results show an association of undifferentiated ripples with impaired encoding. The effect was sometimes specific to regions outside the SOZ, suggesting that widespread effects of epilepsy outside the SOZ may contribute to cognitive impairment.
Motivational Theory of Human Robot Teamwork

This paper presents a theory that allows us to better understand motivation in human robot teamwork Teamwork with robots often involves both physical and mental activities This implies that motivation might be particularly important to the success of human robot teams Unfortunately there is much we do not know with regards to the role of motivation in effective teamwork with robots In this paper we propose the Motivational Theory of Human Robot Teamwork to better understand teamwork in human robot teams In doing so we leverage the research on robot personality
The Run on Repo and the Fed's Response

Abstract The Financial Crisis began and accelerated in short-term money markets. One such market is the multi-trillion dollar sale-and-repurchase (“repo”) market, where prices show strong reactions during the crisis. The academic literature and policy community remain unsettled about the role of repo runs, because detailed data on repo quantities is not available. We provide quantity evidence of the run on repo through an examination of the collateral brought to emergency liquidity facilities of the Federal Reserve. We show that the magnitude of repo discounts (“haircuts”) on specific collateral is related to the likelihood of that collateral being brought to Fed facilities.
Towards A Semantic Perceptual Image Metric

We present a full reference, perceptual image metric based on VGG-16, an artificial neural network trained on object classification. We fit the metric to a new database based on 140k unique images annotated with ground truth by human raters who received minimal instruction. The resulting metric shows competitive performance on TID 2013, a database widely used to assess image quality assessments methods. More interestingly, it shows strong responses to objects potentially carrying semantic relevance such as faces and text, which we demonstrate using a visualization technique and ablation experiments. In effect, the metric appears to model a higher influence of semantic context on judgments, which we observe particularly in untrained raters. As the vast majority of users of image processing systems are unfamiliar with Image Quality Assessment (IQA) tasks, these findings may have significant impact on real-world applications of perceptual metrics.
TREM-1; Is It a Pivotal Target for Cardiovascular Diseases?

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are as menacing as ever and still continue to kill adults worldwide, notwithstanding tremendous efforts to decrease their consequent mortality and morbidity. Lately, a growing body of research indicated that inflammation plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis and complications of CVDs. A receptor of the immunoglobulin superfamily, triggering receptors expressed on myeloid cells-1 (TREM-1) was shown to induce and amplify the inflammation in both acute and chronic disease’ pathogenesis and progression, which hence makes it one of the most important complication factors of CVDs. Thus, studies endeavored to investigate the role played by TREM-1 in CVDs with respect to their etiologies, complications, and possible therapeutics. We examined here, for the first time, the most relevant studies regarding TREM-1 involvement in CVDs. We critically analyzed and summarized our findings and made some suggestions for furtherance of the investigations with the aim to utilize TREM-1 and its pathways for diagnostic, management, and prognosis of CVDs. Overall, TREM-1 was found to be involved in the pathogenesis of acute and chronic cardiovascular conditions, such as acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and atherosclerosis. Although most therapeutic approaches are yet to be elucidated, our present research outcome displays a promising future to utilizing the TREM-1 pathway as a potential target for understanding and managing CVDs.
Transfers, Taxes, and the NAIRU

Just as war is too important to be left to the generals, the impact of taxes and transfers on the aggregate unemployment rate is too important to be left to the macroeconomists. I therefore subject the issue of how tax and transfer policy affects unemployment and aggregate supply to a detailed, microeconomic examination of the effects of individual tax and transfer program structures. This inductive approach is, I believe, likely to provide a far better guide to discovering how changes in these policies have worked through the economy than would a macroeconomic approach that ignored the programs’ complexities.
Cocktails, but no Party: Multipath-Enabled Private Audio

We describe a private audio messaging system that uses echoes to unscramble messages at a few predetermined locations in a room. The system works by splitting the audio into short chunks and emitting them from different loudspeakers. The chunks are filtered so that as they echo around the room, they sum to noise everywhere except at a few chosen focusing spots where they exactly reproduce the intended messages. Unlike in the case of standard personal audio zones, the proposed method renders sound outside the focusing spots unintelligible. Our method essentially depends on echoes: the room acts as a mixing system such that at given points we get the desired output. Finally, we only require a modest number of loudspeakers and only a few impulse response measurements at points where the messages should be delivered. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method via objective quantitative metrics as well as informal listening experiments in a real room.
Smoothed Online Optimization for Regression and Control

We consider Online Convex Optimization (OCO) in the setting where the costs are $m$-strongly convex and the online learner pays a switching cost for changing decisions between rounds. We show that the recently proposed Online Balanced Descent (OBD) algorithm is constant competitive in this setting, with competitive ratio $3 + O(1/m)$, irrespective of the ambient dimension. Additionally, we show that when the sequence of cost functions is $\epsilon$-smooth, OBD has near-optimal dynamic regret and maintains strong per-round accuracy. We demonstrate the generality of our approach by showing that the OBD framework can be used to construct competitive algorithms for a variety of online problems across learning and control, including online variants of ridge regression, logistic regression, maximum likelihood estimation, and LQR control.
Weighing intellectual property: Can we balance the social costs and benefits of patenting?:

The scale is the most famous emblem of the law, including intellectual property (IP). Because IP rights impose social costs on the public by limiting access to protected work, the law can be justified only to the extent that, on balance, it encourages enough creation and dissemination of new works to offset those costs. The scale is thus a potent rhetorical trope of fairness and objectivity, but also an instrument the law thinks with - one that is constantly invoked to justify or to question the extent of available IP protection. The balancing act that underlies the legitimacy of IP is, however, literally impossible to perform. Because we are unable to measure the benefits that IP has for inventors or the costs it has for the public, the scale has nothing to weigh. It conveys a clear sense that IP law can be balanced, but in fact propagates only a visible simulacrum of balance - one that is as empty as it is powerful.
Polymer size affects biodistribution and placental accumulation of the drug delivery biopolymer elastin-like polypeptide in a rodent pregnancy model.

Abstract Introduction Fusion of therapeutic agents to Elastin-like Polypeptide (ELP) is a novel drug delivery strategy for prevention of placental drug transfer. Previous studies have used a 60 kDa ELP tag for this purpose. However, placental transfer of ELP may be size dependent. The goal of this study was to measure the effects of ELP polymer size on pharmacokinetics, biodistribution, and placental transfer of ELP. Methods Three ELPs ranging from 25 to 86 kDa (4.1–6.8 nm hydrodynamic radius) were fluorescently labeled and administered by i.v. bolus to pregnant Sprague Dawley rats on gestational day 14. Plasma levels were monitored for 4 h, organ levels and placental transfer determined by ex vivo fluorescence imaging, and placental localization determined by confocal microscopy. Results Increasing ELP size resulted in slower plasma clearance and increased deposition in all major maternal organs, except in the kidneys where an opposite effect was observed. Placental levels increased with an increase in size, while in the pups, little to no ELP was detected. Discussion Pharmacokinetics and biodistribution of ELPs during pregnancy are size dependent, but all ELPs tested were too large to traverse the placental barrier. These studies verify that ELP fusion is a powerful method of modulating half-life and preventing placental transfer of cargo molecules. The tunable nature of the ELP sequence makes it ideal for drug delivery applications during pregnancy, where it can be used to target drugs to the mother while preventing fetal drug exposure.
Design and Simulation of a Relativistic Inverted Magnetron

A high power inverted relativistic magnetron was designed and simulated using the massively parallel electromagnetic particle-in-cell code ICEPIC in conjunction with single particle smooth bore relativistic analysis. This Inverted Magnetron also known as the Inverted Magnetron Oscillator (IMO) has two design variations, the IMO-1 and the IMO-2. Both IMO models are designed to operate in L-band at very low magnetic fields (B 01 electromagnetic mode is excited. ICEPIC simulations predict that the above features combined with the IMO’s stable, robust and reliable performance in the desired π mode over a large voltage range yield a class of high power microwave source notable for absence of downstream current loss as well as low confinement field performance. The IMO achieves high RF power output for input voltages ranging from 250 kV – 450 kV, a range that may be considered low voltage for an L-band relativistic magnetron 1. Moreover this performance occurs for axial magnetic field values in the range of 0.06–0.09 T. These performance parameters place a smaller operational burden on any system that would employ an IMO as its radiation source.
Formation of dark energy stars

Dark energy stars are finite size astrophysical objects with an interior equation of state typical of dark energy. Examples are self-gravitating false vacuum bubbles, vacuum nonsingular black holes, and gravastars. We present a time-dependent solution of Einstein's field equations that describes the collapse of a spherical system from an initial state of positive pressure to a final state with a dark energy core. Our solution has no singularities, no event horizons, and does not violate the weak or null energy conditions.
On Anger, Silence, and Epistemic Injustice

If anger is the emotion of injustice, and if most injustices have prominent epistemic dimensions, then where is the anger in epistemic injustice? Despite the question my task is not to account for the lack of attention to anger in epistemic injustice discussions. Instead, I argue that a particular texture of transformative anger – a knowing resistant anger – offers marginalized knowers a powerful resource for countering epistemic injustice. I begin by making visible the anger that saturates the silences that epistemic injustices repeatedly manufacture and explain the obvious: silencing practices produce angry experiences. I focus on tone policing and tone vigilance to illustrate the relationship between silencing and angry knowledge management. Next, I use Maria Lugones's pluralist account of anger to bring out the epistemic dimensions of knowing resistant anger in a way that also calls attention to their histories and felt textures. The final section draws on feminist scholarship about the transformative power of angry knowledge to suggest how it might serve as a resource for resisting epistemic injustice.
A mathematical foundation for stochastic opinion dynamics

This paper presents a stochastic opinion dynamics model where (a) the opinion of each agent in a network is modeled as a probability distribution as against a point object, (b) consensus is defined as the stability region of the ensuing set of stochastic difference equations, and (c) compromise solutions can be derived between agents who don’t have a consensus. The model is well suited for tracking opinion dynamics over large online systems such as Twitter and Yelp where opinion need to be extracted from the user-generated text data. Theoretical conditions for the existence of consensus and the impact that stubborn agents have on opinion dynamics are also presented.
A Tale of Two Tracks.

We provide a simple framework that helps explore the need for contingent (teaching) jobs in academia alongside the usual tenured-professorship positions. It also explains the coexistence of these t...
From C to interaction trees: specifying, verifying, and testing a networked server

We present the first formal verification of a networked server implemented in C. Interaction trees, a general structure for representing reactive computations, are used to tie together disparate verification and testing tools (Coq, VST, and QuickChick) and to axiomatize the behavior of the operating system on which the server runs (CertiKOS). The main theorem connects a specification of acceptable server behaviors, written in a straightforward “one client at a time” style, with the CompCert semantics of the C program. The variability introduced by low-level buffering of messages and interleaving of multiple TCP connections is captured using network refinement, a variant of observational refinement.
Competition among Nasal Bacteria Suggests a Role for Siderophore-Mediated Interactions in Shaping the Human Nasal Microbiota.

ABSTRACT Resources available in the human nasal cavity are limited. Therefore, to successfully colonize the nasal cavity, bacteria must compete for scarce nutrients. Competition may occur directly through interference (e.g., antibiotics) or indirectly by nutrient sequestration. To investigate the nature of nasal bacterial competition, we performed coculture inhibition assays between nasal Actinobacteria and Staphylococcus spp. We found that isolates of coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) were sensitive to growth inhibition by Actinobacteria but that Staphylococcus aureus isolates were resistant to inhibition. Among Actinobacteria, we observed that Corynebacterium spp. were variable in their ability to inhibit CoNS. We sequenced the genomes of 10 Corynebacterium species isolates, including 3 Corynebacterium propinquum isolates that strongly inhibited CoNS and 7 other Corynebacterium species isolates that only weakly inhibited CoNS. Using a comparative genomics approach, we found that the C. propinquum genomes were enriched in genes for iron acquisition and harbored a biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC) for siderophore production, absent in the noninhibitory Corynebacterium species genomes. Using a chrome azurol S assay, we confirmed that C. propinquum produced siderophores. We demonstrated that iron supplementation rescued CoNS from inhibition by C. propinquum, suggesting that inhibition was due to iron restriction through siderophore production. Through comparative metabolomics and molecular networking, we identified the siderophore produced by C. propinquum as dehydroxynocardamine. Finally, we confirmed that the dehydroxynocardamine BGC is expressed in vivo by analyzing human nasal metatranscriptomes from the NIH Human Microbiome Project. Together, our results suggest that bacteria produce siderophores to compete for limited available iron in the nasal cavity and improve their fitness. IMPORTANCE Within the nasal cavity, interference competition through antimicrobial production is prevalent. For instance, nasal Staphylococcus species strains can inhibit the growth of other bacteria through the production of nonribosomal peptides and ribosomally synthesized and posttranslationally modified peptides. In contrast, bacteria engaging in exploitation competition modify the external environment to prevent competitors from growing, usually by hindering access to or depleting essential nutrients. As the nasal cavity is a nutrient-limited environment, we hypothesized that exploitation competition occurs in this system. We determined that Corynebacterium propinquum produces an iron-chelating siderophore, and this iron-sequestering molecule correlates with the ability to inhibit the growth of coagulase-negative staphylococci. Furthermore, we found that the genes required for siderophore production are expressed in vivo. Thus, although siderophore production by bacteria is often considered a virulence trait, our work indicates that bacteria may produce siderophores to compete for limited iron in the human nasal cavity.
Automorphism groups of nilpotent Lie algebras associated to certain graphs

We consider a family of 2-step nilpotent Lie algebras associated to uniform complete graphs on odd number of vertices. We prove that the symmetry group of such a graph is the holomorph of the addit...
What's the value of a TBTF guaranty? Evidence from the G-SII designation for insurance companies

Abstract We document average abnormal stock returns of 14% for international insurance firms designated as Global Systemically Important Insurers (G-SII). These gains are associated with a fall in average default probability of 15.6%, and statistically weak and economically marginal increases in expected asset risk. Over the same event window, identical measures for other large insurance firms show no significant changes in equity returns or implied asset risk, but an increase in default probability of 27%. These results suggest that G-SII investors still perceive a net gain from TBTF protection, despite new compliance requirements and costs. Our evidence also suggests that these gains are driven primarily from reductions in default probability, as results are consistent with investor expectations that the new regulatory regime will limit moral hazard effects from the guaranty.
Organizational complexity and innovation portfolio decisions: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment

Abstract We examine how a firm's organizational complexity affects innovation portfolio decisions in response to a shock to innovation incentives. Using the 2013 medical device sales tax as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that firms with a complex organization structure, as proxied by organization size and multi-division structure, generate fewer radical innovations (introduction of new products) but more incremental innovations (improvements on existing products) after the tax. Multidivision firms also shift capital investment to their corporate divisions that are not affected by the tax, thereby decreasing their innovation output. Collectively, these responses cause a significant decline in the radical innovation output of the industry in aggregate. We contribute to the literature by advancing the understanding of how organization structure influences managers' innovation portfolio decisions in response to economic shocks.
Local entropies across the Mott transition in an exactly solvable model

We study entanglement in the Hatsugai-Kohmoto model, which exhibits a continuous interaction-driven Mott transition. By virtue of the all-to-all nature of its center-of-mass conserving interactions, the model lacks dynamical spectral weight transfer, which is the key to intractability of the Hubbard model for $d>1$. In order to maintain a non-trivial Mott-like electron propagator, SU(2) symmetry is preserved in the Hamiltonian, leading to a ground state that is mixed on both sides of the phase transition. Because of this mixture, even the metal in this model is unentangled between any pair of sites, unlike free fermions whose ground state carries a filling-dependent site-site entanglement. We focus on the scaling behavior of the one- and two-site entropies $s_1$ and $s_2$, as well as the entropy density $s$, of the ground state near the Mott transition. At low temperatures in the two-dimensional Hubbard model, it was observed numerically (Walsh et al., 2018, arXiv:1807.10409) that $s_1$ and $s$ increase continuously into the metal, across a first-order Mott transition. In the Hatsugai-Kohmoto model, $s_1$ acquires the constant value $\ln4$ even at the Mott transition. The ground state's non-trivial entanglement structure is manifest in $s_2$ and $s$ which decrease into the metal, and thereby act as sharp signals of the Mott transition in any dimension. Specifically, we find that in one dimension, $s_2$ and $s$ exhibit kinks at the transition while in $d=2$, only $s$ exhibits a kink.
A Holistic Ranking Scheme for Apps

App stores or application distribution platforms allow users to present their sentiments about apps in the forms of ratings and reviews. However, selecting the “best one” from available apps that offer similar functionality is difficult task - especially, if the selection process only uses the average star rating of the apps. To address this challenge, we have introduced a trust-based selection and ranking system of similar apps by combining the programmatic view (“internal view”) and the sentiments based on users reviews (“external view”). The rankings based on the average star ratings are compared with the rankings generated by our approach. We empirically evaluate our approach by using the publically available apps from the Google Play Store. For this study, we have chosen a dataset of 250 apps with total 114,480 reviews from top 5 different categories - of which we focused our experiments on 90 apps that have at least 1000 reviews. Our experiments indicate that proposed holistic ranking that encompasses both the internal and external views is a better alternative than any ranking that focuses only on the internal or external view.
On balance

In the course of legal reasoning--whether for purposes of deciding an issue, justifying a decision, predicting how an issue will be decided, or arguing for how it should be decided--one often is required to reach (and assert) conclusions based on a balance of reasons that is not straightforwardly reducible to the application of rules. Recent AI and Law work has modeled reason-balancing, both within and across cases, with set-theoretic and rule- or value-ordering approaches. This article explores a way to model balancing in quantitative terms that may yield new questions, insights, and tools.
Personal Profile Information as Cues of Credibility in Online Travel Reviews.

Given the importance of travellers’ reviews as a source of travel-related information, source credibility is becoming an increasingly crucial issue in terms of research and application. This study examines the role of self-disclosed personal profile information (PPI) as cues of source credibility in the context of travellers’ use of online reviews for trip planning purposes. The results show that the perceived congruence between PPI, i.e., reviewer location and travel interest, and the textual content of the review influences subjects’ judgements of the reviewer’s credibility. The findings suggest that the availability of the reviewer’s self-disclosed PPI serves as credibility cues for travellers’ assessments of travel reviewers. The implications of the study, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.
HSP60/10 chaperonin systems are inhibited by a variety of approved drugs, natural products, and known bioactive molecules.

Abstract All living organisms contain a unique class of molecular chaperones called 60 kDa heat shock proteins (HSP60 – also known as GroEL in bacteria). While some organisms contain more than one HSP60 or GroEL isoform, at least one isoform has always proven to be essential. Because of this, we have been investigating targeting HSP60 and GroEL chaperonin systems as an antibiotic strategy. Our initial studies focused on applying this antibiotic strategy for treating African sleeping sickness (caused by Trypanosoma brucei parasites) and drug-resistant bacterial infections (in particular Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus – MRSA). Intriguingly, during our studies we found that three known antibiotics – suramin, closantel, and rafoxanide – were potent inhibitors of bacterial GroEL and human HSP60 chaperonin systems. These findings prompted us to explore what other approved drugs, natural products, and known bioactive molecules might also inhibit HSP60 and GroEL chaperonin systems. Initial high-throughput screening of 3680 approved drugs, natural products, and known bioactives identified 161 hit inhibitors of the Escherichia coli GroEL chaperonin system (4.3% hit rate). From a purchased subset of 60 hits, 29 compounds (48%) re-confirmed as selective GroEL inhibitors in our assays, all of which were nearly equipotent against human HSP60. These findings illuminate the notion that targeting chaperonin systems might be a more common occurrence than we previously appreciated. Future studies are needed to determine if the in vivo modes of action of these approved drugs, natural products, and known bioactive molecules are related to GroEL and HSP60 inhibition.
Auditor benchmarking of client disclosures

We examine auditors’ disclosure benchmarking, which we define as auditors’ acquisition of nonclient financial statement information for the purpose of evaluating a client’s financial statement information. Employing a novel dataset that captures auditors’ access of nonclient annual and quarterly SEC filings on EDGAR, we predict and find that auditors engage in disclosure benchmarking when auditing clients are faced with higher levels of authoritative guidance, financial-reporting uncertainty, and litigation risk. Lastly, we predict that auditors incorporate the information they obtain into their audit. Consistent with our prediction, disclosure benchmarking is positively associated with a client’s financial statement disaggregation, and client footnotes exhibit greater comparability to targeted nonclients’ footnotes after disclosure benchmarking. Overall, this study offers an empirical look into the “black box” of the audit process.
LONG-WAVELENGTH END-EFFECT UNDULATOR RADIATION (TRANSITION UNDULATOR RADIATION)

As first pointed out by K.-J. Kim (KIM K.-J.,Phys. Rev. Lett.,76 (1996) 1244) undulator radiation contains a broad-band component in the long-wavelength region. This radiation is due to the change in longitudinal velocity of an electron upon entering and leaving an undulator. The radiation pattern is a hollow cone, peaked in the forward direction, with an opening angle of approximately 1γ, with a spectrum covering a wide range, including the infra-red and the visible. The radiation is radially polarized, analogous to transition radiation, and exhibits interference effects between the entrance and exit ends of the undulator, similar to the interference effects observed for transition radiation from a thin slab of material. A straightforward application of formulas from Jackson (JACKSON J. D.,Classical Electrodynamics, 2nd edition (J.Wiley & Sons, N.Y.) 1975) results in a closed-form exact expression for the low-frequency limit of this novel radiation effect, Transition Undulator Radiation or TUR.
Geodetic evidence that Mercury has a solid inner core.

Geodetic analysis of radio tracking measurements of the MESSENGER spacecraft while in orbit about Mercury has yielded new estimates for the planet's gravity field, tidal Love number, and pole coordinates. The derived right ascension (α = 281.0082° ± 0.0009°; all uncertainties are 3 standard deviations) and declination (δ =61.4164° ± 0.0003°) of the spin pole place Mercury in the Cassini state. Confirmation of the equilibrium state with an estimated mean (whole-planet) obliquity ϵ of 1.968 ± 0.027 arcmin enables the confident determination of the planet's normalized polar moment of inertia (0.333 ± 0.005), which indicates a high degree of internal differentiation. Internal structure models generated by a Markov-Chain Monte Carlo process and consistent with the geodetic constraints possess a solid inner core with a radius (ric ) between 0.3 and 0.7 that of the outer core (roc ).
Polymeric perfluorocarbon nanoemulsions are ultrasound-activated wireless drug infusion catheters

Abstract Catheter-based intra-arterial drug therapies have proven effective for a range of oncologic, neurologic, and cardiovascular applications. However, these procedures are limited by their invasiveness and relatively broad drug spatial distribution. The ideal technique for local pharmacotherapy would be noninvasive and would flexibly deliver a given drug to any region of the body with high spatial and temporal precision. Combining polymeric perfluorocarbon nanoemulsions with existent clinical focused ultrasound systems could in principle meet these needs, but it has not been clear whether these nanoparticles could provide the necessary drug loading, stability, and generalizability across a range of drugs, beyond a few niche applications. Here, we develop polymeric perfluorocarbon nanoemulsions into a generalized platform for ultrasound-targeted delivery of hydrophobic drugs with high potential for clinical translation. We demonstrate that a wide variety of drugs may be effectively uncaged with ultrasound using these nanoparticles, with drug loading increasing with hydrophobicity. We also set the stage for clinical translation by delineating production protocols that are scalable and yield sterile, stable, and optimized ultrasound-activated drug-loaded nanoemulsions. Finally, we exhibit a new potential application of these nanoemulsions for local control of vascular tone. This work establishes the power of polymeric perfluorocarbon nanoemulsions as a clinically-translatable platform for efficacious, noninvasive, and localized ultrasonic drug uncaging for myriad targets in the brain and body.
Trainable Time Warping: Aligning Time-series in the Continuous-time Domain

DTW calculates the similarity or alignment between two signals, subject to temporal warping. However, its computational complexity grows exponentially with the number of time-series. Although there have been algorithms developed that are linear in the number of time-series, they are generally quadratic in time-series length. The exception is generalized time warping (GTW), which has linear computational cost. Yet, it can only identify simple time warping functions. There is a need for a new fast, high-quality multisequence alignment algorithm. We introduce trainable time warping (TTW), whose complexity is linear in both the number and the length of time-series. TTW performs alignment in the continuoustime domain using a sinc convolutional kernel and a gradient-based optimization technique. We compare TTW and GTW on S5 UCR datasets in time-series averaging and classification. TTW outperforms GTW on 67.1% of the datasets for the averaging tasks, and 61.2% of the datasets for the classification tasks.
Does individualism promote gender equality

Abstract We argue that individualism promotes gender equality. Individualist values of autonomy and self-determination transcend gender identities and serve to legitimize women’s goals and choices. In contrast, collectivist values may subordinate women’s personal goals to their social obligations, generating greater acceptance of gender inequality. Using individual level data from World Values Surveys, we find that individualism is significantly associated with support for gender equal attitudes regarding employment, income, education, and political leadership. Individualism is also associated with greater levels of female employment and educational attainment, and lower levels of fertility. These results are robust to controlling for income, education, religion, historical plough use, gendered language, and country-time fixed effects. Our within country analysis allows us to isolate the impact of individualism from other confounding effects. Using historical rainfall variation as an instrument for individualism, we find that the exogenous portion of individualism reduces support for patriarchal attitudes and fertility, and it increases female employment and educational attainment. These effects are economically large. We address concerns over instrumental validity by controlling for a variety of factors, including historical plough use, religious affiliation, religiosity, social trust, average rainfall levels, distance from the equator, cool-water conditions, agricultural suitability, historical political and economic development, and the presence of large animals. This paper contributes to a mounting body of evidence suggesting a key role for highly persistent cultural norms and values in determining gender inequality, the gender division of labor, and economic and social outcomes for women.
The Origin and Evolution of Release Factors: Implications for Translation Termination, Ribosome Rescue and Quality Control Pathways

The evolution of release factors catalyzing the hydrolysis of the final peptidyl-tRNA bond and the release of the polypeptide from the ribosome has been a longstanding paradox. While the components of the translation apparatus are generally well-conserved across extant life, structurally unrelated release factor peptidyl hydrolases (RF-PHs) emerged in the stems of the bacterial and archaeo-eukaryotic lineages. We analyze the diversification of RF-PH domains within the broader evolutionary framework of the translation apparatus. Thus, we reconstruct the possible state of translation termination in the Last Universal Common Ancestor with possible tRNA-like terminators. Further, evolutionary trajectories of the several auxiliary release factors in ribosome quality control (RQC) and rescue pathways point to multiple independent solutions to this problem and frequent transfers between superkingdoms including the recently characterized ArfT, which is more widely distributed across life than previously appreciated. The eukaryotic RQC system was pieced together from components with disparate provenance, which include the long-sought-after Vms1/ANKZF1 RF-PH of bacterial origin. We also uncover an under-appreciated evolutionary driver of innovation in rescue pathways: effectors deployed in biological conflicts that target the ribosome. At least three rescue pathways (centered on the prfH/RFH, baeRF-1, and C12orf65 RF-PH domains), were likely innovated in response to such conflicts.
Computational Bounds for Photonic Design

Physical design problems, such as photonic inverse design, are typically solved using local optimization methods. These methods often produce what appear to be good or very good designs when compar...
Deep modeling of growth trajectories for longitudinal prediction of missing infant cortical surfaces

Charting cortical growth trajectories is of paramount importance for understanding brain development. However, such analysis necessitates the collection of longitudinal data, which can be challenging due to subject dropouts and failed scans. In this paper, we will introduce a method for longitudinal prediction of cortical surfaces using a spatial graph convolutional neural network (GCNN), which extends conventional CNNs from Euclidean to curved manifolds. The proposed method is designed to model the cortical growth trajectories and jointly predict inner and outer cortical surfaces at multiple time points. Adopting a binary flag in loss calculation to deal with missing data, we fully utilize all available cortical surfaces for training our deep learning model, without requiring a complete collection of longitudinal data. Predicting the surfaces directly allows cortical attributes such as cortical thickness, curvature, and convexity to be computed for subsequent analysis. We will demonstrate with experimental results that our method is capable of capturing the nonlinearity of spatiotemporal cortical growth patterns and can predict cortical surfaces with improved accuracy.
Cabotage Sabotage? The Curious Case of the Jones Act

Abstract This paper examines the economic implications of the Jones Act, which restricts domestic waterborne shipments to American vessels. Since the passage of this cabotage law a century ago, a plausibly exogenous rise in foreign competition has contributed to the closure of most American shipyards and to a decline in American-built ships. Thus, the Jones Act requirements have become more onerous over time. The results show that domestic shipments are less likely to be transported via water than imports of the same good into the same state. Exploiting the decline in Jones-Act-eligible vessels over time, additional results show that this cabotage law has disproportionately decreased domestic water trade especially in coastal states. These findings support common, but to date unverified, claims that the Jones Act impedes domestic trade.
Inverse elastic surface scattering with far-field data

A rigorous mathematical model and an efficient computational method are proposed to solving the inverse elastic surface scattering problem which arises from the near-field imaging of periodic structures. We demonstrate how an enhanced resolution can be achieved by using more easily measurable far-field data. The surface is assumed to be a small and smooth perturbation of an elastically rigid plane. By placing a rectangular slab of a homogeneous and isotropic elastic medium with larger mass density above the surface, more propagating wave modes can be utilized from the far-field data which contributes to the reconstruction resolution. Requiring only a single illumination, the method begins with the far-to-near (FtN) field data conversion and utilizes the transformed field expansion to derive an analytic solution for the direct problem, which leads to an explicit inversion formula for the inverse problem. Moreover, a nonlinear correction scheme is developed to improve the accuracy of the reconstruction. Results show that the proposed method is capable of stably reconstructing surfaces with resolution controlled by the slab's density.
Recent Advances in Cyclopropene Chemistry

In this review, a brief outline of synthetic methods toward cyclopropenes is provided. Main emphasis is placed on transformations of cyclopropenes proceeding with preservation of the ring, with a spotlight on recent developments in this area.
MOLECULAR APPROACH TO THE ETIOLOGY OF HUMAN CANCER

DNA-RNA hybridization was used to explore whether human neoplasias contain RNA molecules having sequence homologies to those of the RNA tumor viruses known to cause similar diseases in animals. The pattern of specific RNA's found in the human tumors showed a remarkable concordance with the predictions deducible from the animal systems. Thus, human breast cancer contains RNA homologous only to that of the murine mammary tumor virus. Human leukemias, sarcomas, and lymphomas (including Hodgkin's and Burkitt's lymphomas) all contain RNA with sequence homology to the murine leukemia virus and not to murine mammary tumor virus RNA. Finally, as in the case of the mouse, none of the human tumors examined contains RNA in sequence to that of the avian myeloblastosis virus. The RNA detected in all of the human neoplasias was demonstrated to be of high molecular weight (1 × 107 daltons) and encapsulated with a reverse transcriptase in particles having densities between 1-16 and 1.19 g/ml. Further, the RNA of these human tumor particles was related in sequence to the murine viruses that cause the corresponding neoplasias in mice. Thus, four features diagnostic for the murine oncogenic viruses are satisfied by the particles found in the human cancers. Finally, it was shown by “recycling” experiments that the DNA from human leukemic cells and from lymphomatous tissue contained particle-related sequences that could not be detected in normal DNA. This finding was further substantiated by studies with identical twins in which it was shown that the leukemic twin contained particle-related sequences that could not be detected in the leukocytes of his identical healthy sibling. These findings are inconsistent with hypotheses that require chromosomal transmission in the germ line of complete copies of the information required to produce malignancy and the associated virus particles.
One Pot Synthesis of 1-Chloro-2-Chlorocarboxy-4H-Quinolizin-4-One and Its Derivatives

Abstract Condensation of 2-pyridine acetic acid with thionyl chloride under reflux conditions generates the title compound in one step with >95% yield. Its reactivity toward alcohols and amines were investigated. All of the derivatives were characterized by NMR and MS analysis. One of its derivatives, 1-chloro-2-methoxycarboxy-4H-quinolizin-4-one, 5, was also characterized by X-ray diffraction studies.
Rapid, scalable assembly of stereochemically rich, mono- and bicyclic acyl sultams.

A one-pot, sequential protocol is reported that involves complementary ambiphile pairing (CAP) of a vinyl sulfonamide with a variety of unprotected amino acids via aza-Michael addition and subsequent intramolecular amidation. The method generates diverse, sp3-rich mono- and bicyclic acyl sultams in a highly scalable manner. Modular pairing of stereochemically rich building blocks allows quick access to all possible isomers. Extension to include one-pot, sequential 3-, 4-, and 5-multicomponent protocols is also discussed.
Chemo- and enantioselective epoxidation of enynes

Abstract High chemo- and enantioselectivity have been obtained for asymmetric epoxidation of conjugated enynes using a fructose-derived chiral ketone as catalyst and Oxone as oxidant.
Crystal Structure, Electronic Structure, and Temperature-Dependent Raman Spectra of Tl[Ag(CN)2]: Evidence for Ligand-Unsupported Argentophilic Interactions

The structure of thallium dicyanoargentate(I) has been determined crystallographically. The crystal structure shows an Ag−Ag distance of 3.11 A. This is the shortest Ag−Ag distance reported for any silver dicyanide salt whose crystal structure has been determined. Raman spectra of the compound show four νC-N peaks that are well-resolved in the 10−80 K temperature range. This result agrees well with group theory analysis. Extended Huckel calculations using relativistic wave functions have been carried out for two models which describe the interactions between the Ag(CN)2- ions within the crystal structure of Tl[Ag(CN)2]. The results of these calculations indicate the formation of potential wells at short Ag−Ag distances. The data in this study suggest the significance of ligand-unsupported silver−silver interactions (argentophilicity) in Tl[Ag(CN)2]. Tl−Ag interactions are determined to be insignificant in the compound. Tl[Ag(CN)2] crystallizes in the monoclinic space group P21/c (No. 14), with a = 7.798(1...
3D Cell Nuclear Morphology: Microscopy Imaging Dataset and Voxel-Based Morphometry Classification Results

Cell deformation is regulated by complex underlying biological mechanisms associated with spatial and temporal morphological changes in the nucleus that are related to cell differentiation, development, proliferation, and disease. Thus, quantitative analysis of changes in size and shape of nuclear structures in 3D microscopic images is important not only for investigating nuclear organization, but also for detecting and treating pathological conditions such as cancer. While many efforts have been made to develop cell and nuclear shape characteristics in 2D or pseudo-3D, several studies have suggested that 3D morphometric measures provide better results for nuclear shape description and discrimination. A few methods have been proposed to classify cell and nuclear morphological phenotypes in 3D, however, there is a lack of publicly available 3D data for the evaluation and comparison of such algorithms. This limitation becomes of great importance when the ability to evaluate different approaches on benchmark data is needed for better dissemination of the current state of the art methods for bioimage analysis. To address this problem, we present a dataset containing two different cell collections, including original 3D microscopic images of cell nuclei and nucleoli. In addition, we perform a baseline evaluation of a number of popular classification algorithms using 2D and 3D voxel-based morphometric measures. To account for batch effects, while enabling calculations of AU-ROC and AUPR performance metrics, we propose a specific cross-validation scheme that we compare with commonly used k-fold cross-validation. Original and derived imaging data are made publicly available on the project webpage: http://www.socr.umich.edu/projects/3d-cell-morphometry/data.html.