cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Microsatellite Loci Reveal Genetic Diversity of Asian Callery Pear (Pyrus calleryana) in the Species Native Range and in the North American Cultivars.

Pyrus calleryana Decne. (Callery pear) includes cultivars that in the United States are popular ornamentals in commercial and residential landscapes. Last few decades, this species has increasingly naturalized across portions of the eastern and southern US. However, the mechanisms behind this plant’s spread are not well understood. The genetic relationship of present-day P.calleryana trees with their Asian P. calleryana forebears (native trees from China, Japan, and Korea) and the original specimens of US cultivars are unknown. We developed and used 18 microsatellite markers to analyze 147 Pyrus source samples and to articulate the status of genetic diversity within Asian P. calleryana and US cultivars. We hypothesized that Asian P. calleryana specimens and US cultivars would be genetically diverse and would show genetic relatedness. Our data revealed high genetic diversity, high gene flow, and presence of population structure in P. calleryana, potentially relating to the highly invasive capability of this species. Strong evidence for genetic relatedness between Asian P. calleryana specimens and US cultivars was also demonstrated. Our data suggest the source for P. calleryana that have become naturalized in US was China. These results will help understand the genetic complexity of invasive P. calleryana when developing management for escaped populations: In follow-up studies, we use the gSSRs developed here to analyze P. calleryana escape populations from across US.
Ambient air pollution and academic achievements among US children: a panel study

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Ambient air pollution is an important environmental exposure, and children are especially vulnerable to its neurotoxic effects. Prior studies have associated early childhood exp...
DRUG USE BY ATHLETES

Drugs are taken by athletes in the belief that chemicals can increase strength and endurance, combat fatigue, allay anxiety, improve concentration, and promote a competitive attitude. In fact, there is little objective evidence that drugs can significantly improve performance in the well-trained athlete. Studies in athletes and in laboratory animals suggest that amphetamine may produce slight improvement in certain types of athletic performance. There is less scientific evidence that anabolic steroids increase strength. Stimulant drugs, such as amphetamine, and anabolic steroids, however, may increase aggressiveness during competition and in training. Psychological effects may thus outweigh actual physical effects. Many of the drugs used by athletes can produce serious toxic effects.
Galactose consumption, metabolism, and follicle-stimulating hormone concentrations in women of late reproductive age * †

Objective To test the hypothesis that high galactose consumption and low activity of galactose-1-phosphate uridyl transferase (transferase) is associated with early ovarian senescence among nongalactosemic women. Design Cross-sectional study. Data collection consisted of a self-administered questionnaire with sections on diet (food frequency data to measure galactose consumption), reproductive, and medical histories. One blood sample was collected to measure FSH and transferase activity; FSH was used as a measure of ovarian senescence. Among women who were having menstrual periods at least every 8weeks, the blood sample was drawn in the early follicular phase (days 2 to 4) of a menstrual cycle. Participants Two hundred ninety-five women volunteers ages 38 to 49years who had not had a hysterectomy or oophorectomy were recruited through posters and advertisements. Main Outcome Measure Serum FSH concentrations. Results Controlling for age, smoking, and body mass, transferase activity and FSH were unrelated. However, FSH levels were 29% higher (95% confidence intervals, 9% to 52%) among women who reported consuming ≥6g galactose/d. Conclusion These data do not support the hypothesis that low transferase activity represents a genetic predisposition for early ovarian senescence, as measured by FSH levels in women ages 38 to 49years. However, the hypothesized positive association between galactose consumption and FSH was supported.
The ISABELLE Control System - Design Concepts

Abstract ISABELLE is a Department of Energy funded proton accelerator/storage ring being built at Brookhaven National Laboratory (Upton, Long Island, New York). It is large (3.8 km circumference) and complicated (~ 30 000 monitor and control variables). It is based on superconducting technology. Following the example of previous accelerators, ISABELLE will be operated from a single control center. The control system will be distributed and will incorporate a local computer network. An overview of the conceptual design of the ISABELLE control system will be presented.
Civil War, Ceasefire, Constitution: Some Preliminary Notes

Michel Rosenfeld, in The Identity of the Constitutional Subject, observes that historically, the transition from authoritarian rule to constitutional democracy has involved violent breaks with the past. But violence poses a special challenge to the very idea of constitutional government, because above all, the basic mission of a constitution is to channel political conflict and disagreements that would otherwise spill into the streets and be settled through force or fraud, into institutions that operate peacefully according to the rule of law and reach decisions that members of a political community accept as authoritative. We should not be surprised that the link between violence and moments of constitutional design has been rendered largely invisible to contemporary constitutional theory. Yet in a large number of cases, constitutions have marked the end of civil wars between domestic actors. The question I want to pose is how should the presence of civil war reorient contemporary debates about constitutional design?
Poly (N-Acyl Ethyleneimines) with Polarizable Aromatic Side Chain Substituents and Their Complexes: Synthesis, Structure and Electronic Properties

Our objectives in this work were to produce electrically interesting polymers with the following characteristics: 1. At some stage they should be formable, either through heat or solution; 2. The polymers should be regular and therefore crystallizable; 3. When crystallized, the π electrons of the electrically active portion of the molecule should overlap; 4. The active part should be a reasonably strong donor or acceptor, so it can be doped or complexed; and 5. The polymerization chemistry should be such that polymers can be made easily.
Rewriting and Rereading the Fasti: Augustus, Ovid and Recent Classical Scholarship

May I begin by thanking you sincerely for inviting me to give this Todd Memorial Lecture? I am sensible of the honour, not only in memory of the pioneer Australian Latinist whose name it bears, but in view of the roll-call of Classical scholars who have spoken before me. I am particularly conscious of my own debt to two predecessors here, the unforgettable Sir Ronald Syme and my former teacher Gordon Williams, who from their different viewpoints have had a considerable influence on present day approaches to Augustan—and some would say un-Augustan—poetry.I shall be talking today about two kinds of fasti or calendar, the public, inscribed, fasti of Augustan Rome, and the poetic Fasti of Ovid, the last great poet of the age of Augustus. But I should first introduce both calendar and calendar poem, before moving on to discuss the interpretative battle which has recently developed over Ovid's complex but fascinating work.
The bias in measuring disparity in outcomes via a dummy variable: A note

Disparity in an outcome between two groups is often measured via the coefficient of a dummy variable in a regression that pools both groups. The dummy is interpreted as the disparity. A casual search of the literature in economics and other social sciences reviews far too many examples of this method to catalog. Unfortunately, if the impact of one (or more) of the control variables differs between the two groups, the measured disparity (i.e., the coefficient on the group dummy) will be biased. We illustrate and derive this bias. Given the bias, we believe that one is better running separate regressions for each group and then implementing decomposition methods or predicting adjusted gaps in outcome (i.e., predicting the but-for world that would exist if the two groups had identical characteristics).
Pincer-Search: A New Algorithm for Discovering the Maximum Frequent Set

Discovering frequent itemsets is a key problem in important data mining applications, such as the discovery of association rules, strong rules, episodes, and minimal keys. Typical algorithms for solving this problem operate in a bottom-up breadth-first search direction. The computation starts from frequent 1-itemsets (minimal length frequent itemsets) and continues until all maximal (length) frequent itemsets are found. During the execution, every frequent itemset is explicitly considered. Such algorithms perform reasonably well when all maximal frequent itemsets are short. However, performance drastically decreases when some of the maximal frequent itemsets are relatively long. We present a new algorithm which combines both the bottom-up and top-down directions. The main search direction is still bottom-up but a restricted search is conducted in the top-down direction. This search is used only for maintaining and updating a new data structure we designed, the maximum frequent candidate set. It is used to prune candidates in the bottom-up search. As a very important characteristic of the algorithm, it is not necessary to explicitly examine every frequent itemset. Therefore it performs well even when some maximal frequent itemsets are long. As its output, the algorithm produces the maximum frequent set, i.e., the set containing all maximal frequent itemsets, which therefore specifies immediately all frequent itemsets. We evaluate the performance of the algorithm using a well-known benchmark database. The improvements can be up to several orders of magnitude, compared to the best current algorithms.
Can Health Insurance Competition Work? Evidence from Medicare Advantage

We estimate the economic surplus created by the Medicare Advantage program under its reformed competitive bidding rules. We use data on the universe of Medicare beneficiaries and develop a model of...
Evolutionary Implications of Phenotypic Plasticity in Plants

This chapter considers the nature, role, and evolutionary implications of phenotypic plasticity as an adaptive property in plants. Plasticity is here defined as variation in phenotypic expression of a genotype that occurs in response to particular environmental conditions and which enhances the capacity of the individual to survive and reproduce under those conditions. A distinction is made [following Dobzhansky (1969) and Harper (1982)] between adaptive, defined as conferring a benefit on the organism with regard to its present relationship with its environment, and adapted, which describes a character that is thought to be the product of natural selection over previous generations—i.e., which was adaptive in the past and was therefore fixed by natural selection. “Adapted” refers to the causal origin of the character in evolutionary history; “adaptive” says nothing about the origin of the trait, but merely describes its present value in a given environment.
Direct measurement of asperity contact growth in quartz at hydrothermal conditions

Earthquake recurrence requires interseismic fault restrengthening which results from solid-state deformation in room temperature friction and indentation experiments. In contrast, exhumed fault zones show solution-transport processes such as pressure solution, and contact overgrowths influence fault zone properties. In the absence of fluid flow, overgrowths are driven by gradients in surface curvature where material is dissolved, diffuses, and precipitates at the contact without convergence normal to the contact. To determine the rate of overgrowth for quartz, we conducted single-contact experiments in an externally heated pressure vessel. Convergence was continuously monitored using reflected light interferometry through a long-working-distance microscope. Contact normal force was constant with an initial effective normal stress of 1.7 MPa, temperature was between 350 and 530°C, and water pressure was constant at 150 MPa. Two control experiments were conducted: one dry at 425°C and one bimaterial (sapphire) at 425°C and 150 MPa water pressure. No contact growth or convergence was observed in the controls. For wet single-phase contacts, growth was initially rapid and then decreased with time. No convergence was observed. Fluid inclusions indicate that the contact is not uniformly wetted. The contact is bounded by small regions of high aperture, reflecting local free-face dissolution as the source for the overgrowth. The apparent activation energy is ~125 kJ/mol. Extrapolation predicts rates of contact area increase orders of magnitude faster than in dry, room temperature and hydrothermal friction experiments, suggesting that natural strength recovery near the base of the seismogenic zone could be dominated by contact overgrowth.
Property rights and institutional change during Australia's gold rush

Abstract Major mineral discoveries were made in California (1848), Australia (1851), and Nevada (1859). Different reactions by the U.S. federal government and Victoria's colonial government to the unexpected discoveries present an opportunity to complement previous studies of de novo contracting in the American West with the Victoria government's use of administrative regulations to govern mining. The analysis focuses on the rapid institutional change in Victoria, where the government delegated its rule-making authority to elected mining courts in 1855. Comparison with studies of institutional change in the American West indicates that the evolution of institutions in Victoria generally followed American patterns, yet also accommodated significant differences.
Implications of the GATT Agreement for Iowa

What is the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)? The GATT may be best described as an ongoing process through which trade distortions among countries are defined and targeted for reduction. There have been seven previous GATT agreements over the years. The most recent GATT agreement represents the eighth round of trade negotiations and is often called the Uruguay Round in reference to Punta del Este, Uruguay, where the agenda was set in 1986. The Uruguay Round of trade negotiations was the first to focus directly on trade distortions in agriculture. Agricultural trade distortions were chosen primarily because of increasing budgetary constraints for agricultural programs around the world. An agreement from the Uruguay Round was finally reached in December 1993, after seven years of negotiations that involved 117 nations. Even though an agreement was reached, the U.S. Congress still has to approve the agreement for it to become U.S. law. With the agreement slated to take effect on July 1, 1995, the lawmakers will have to move rather quickly to pass implementing legislation if the GATT agreement is to be approved in its present form. It does not appear that GATT implementing legislation will be passed this fall. If GATT is not approved by Congress in the spring of 195, many of the agreements will have to be renegotiated.
Fast Semidifferential-based Submodular Function Optimization

We present a practical and powerful new framework for both unconstrained and constrained submodular function optimization based on discrete semidifferentials (sub- and super-differentials). The resulting algorithms, which repeatedly compute and then efficiently optimize submodular semigradients, offer new and generalize many old methods for submodular optimization. Our approach, moreover, takes steps towards providing a unifying paradigm applicable to both submodular minimization and maximization, problems that historically have been treated quite distinctly. The practicality of our algorithms is important since interest in submodularity, owing to its natural and wide applicability, has recently been in ascendance within machine learning. We analyze theoretical properties of our algorithms for minimization and maximization, and show that many state-of-the-art maximization algorithms are special cases. Lastly, we complement our theoretical analyses with supporting empirical experiments.
A Model of Real Estate Sales as a Career Choice

This article develops a model of the probability that individuals choose careers in real estate sales. The model is estimated using Census data. Females are found to be significantly more likely than males to enter the field. For males, the probability of entering the field grows with schooling up through four years of college, and declines thereafter. For females, the probability falls with increased schooling beyond high school. Real estate sales is a career that is more appealing to both males and females with more labor market experience. For females, the probability of choosing a real estate career rises at a decreasing rate with experience. For males, the probability grows at an increasing rate. Both females and males are very responsive in their career choice decisions to changes in real earnings. The supply price elasticity, evaluated at the mean, is estimated to be +3.18 for males and +2.76 for females.
Using tree-decomposable structures to approximate belief networks

Tree structures have been shown to provide an efficient framework for propagating beliefs [Pearl, 1986]. This paper studies the problem of finding an optimal approximating tree. The star-decomposition scheme for sets of three binary variables [Lazarsfeld, 1966; Pearl, 1986] is shown to enhance the class of probability distributions that can support tree structures; such structures are called tree-decomposable structures. The logarithm scoring rule is found to be an appropriate optimality criterion to evaluate different tree-decomposable structures. Characteristics of such structures closest to the actual belief network are identified using the logarithm rule, and greedy and exact techniques are developed to find the optimal approximation.
Explicit Coleman Integration for Hyperelliptic Curves

Coleman’s theory of p-adic integration figures prominently in several number-theoretic applications, such as finding torsion and rational points on curves, and computing p-adic regulators in K-theory (including p-adic heights on elliptic curves). We describe an algorithm for computing Coleman integrals on hyperelliptic curves, and its implementation in Sage.
A course on controllers

Over the last four years, we have developed a series of lectures, labs and project assignments aimed at introducing enough technology so that students from a mix of disciplines can design and build innovative interface devices.
Export or merge? Proximity vs. concentration in product space

This paper proposes a proximity-concentration tradeoff in product space as a determinant of horizontal foreign direct investment (FDI). Firms that enter a foreign market by exporting are able to capture consumer surplus by introducing a differentiated product with characteristics that the incumbent cannot match. In relatively globalized product space, in contrast, consumers perceive an entrant’s difference to existing products as less pronounced so a consumer’s virtual distance costs in product space are lower and a merger with an incumbent (horizontal FDI) offers pricing power that allows the entrant to extract consumer rent. Lower physical trade costs of shipping make Bertrand price competition fiercer in differentiated product space and can provide an additional incentive for a merger. A basic product space model with a linear Hotelling setup can therefore explain why FDI has become more frequent in recent periods in the presence of falling trade costs. Cross-border merger and acquisitions data support...
Formal Characterizations of Active Databases: Part II

This paper presents a formal framework for specifying active database systems. Declarative characterization of active databases allows additional flexibility in defining an implementation-independent semantics of the active rules. The results extend the active database description language introduced in [5]|with additional semantic dimensions. We demonstrate through examples how we can encode the active rules and their operational behavior from different existing systems.
Fusion of infrared and range data: multi-modal face images

Infrared and range imagery are intriguing sensing modalities for face recognition systems. They may offer better performance than other modalities due to their robustness to environmental effects and deliberate attempts to obscure identity. Furthermore, a combination of these modalities may offer additional discrimination power. Toward this end, we present a semi-automatic system that captures range and infrared data of a human subject’s face, registers and integrates multiple 3D views into one model, and applies the infrared measurements as a registered texture map.
Endogenous Tax Evasion and Reserve Requirements: A Comparative Study in the Context of European Economies

Given that data indicates several countries with same, or nearly same, degree of tax evasion but widely different levels of reserve requirements, this paper analyzes the relationship between the ``optimal" degree of tax evasion and mandatory cash reserve requirements required to be held by banks using a simple overlapping generations framework. Proceeding on the initial premises that the above observation may be a fallout of the possibilities of multiple levels of tax evasion given the reserve requirements and other policy variables, or that the optimal degree of tax evasion may be completely unaffected by the movements in reserve requirements, we find the latter to be true. The model also suggests the following: (i) An economy with a less corrupt structure will have a higher steady-state of value of reported income; (ii) Increases in the penalty rates of evading taxes would induce consumers to report greater fraction of their income, while increases in the income-tax rates would cause them to evade greater fraction of their income, and ; (iii) The model does not vindicate the popular belief in the literature that, countries with lower percentage of reported income tend to have higher reserve requirements
Creating a testbed for the evaluation of automatically generated back-of-the-book indexes

The automatic generation of back-of-the book indexes seems to be out of sight of the Information Retrieval and Natural Language Processing communities, although the increasingly large number of books available in electronic format, as well as recent advances in keyphrase extraction, should motivate an increased interest in this topic. In this paper, we describe the background relevant to the process of creating back-of-the-book indexes, namely (1) a short overview of the origin and structure of back-of-the-book indexes, and (2) the correspondence that can be established between techniques for automatic index construction and keyphrase extraction. Since the development of any automatic system requires in the first place an evaluation testbed, we describe our work in building a gold standard collection of books and indexes, and we present several metrics that can be used for the evaluation of automatically generated indexes against the gold standard. Finally, we investigate the properties of the gold standard index, such as index size, length of index entries, and upper bounds on coverage as indicated by the presence of index entries in the document.
Who Benefits when the Government Pays More? Pass-Through in the Medicare Advantage Program

Abstract Governments contract with private firms to provide a wide range of services. While a large body of previous work has estimated the effects of that contracting, surprisingly little has investigated how those effects vary with the generosity of the contract. In this paper we examine this issue in the Medicare Advantage (MA) program, through which the federal government contracts with private insurers to coordinate and finance health care for 17 million Medicare recipients. To do this, we exploit a substantial policy-induced increase in MA reimbursement in metropolitan areas with a population of 250,000 or more relative to MSAs below this threshold. Our results demonstrate that the additional reimbursement leads more private firms to enter this market and to an increase in the share of Medicare recipients enrolled in MA plans. Our findings also reveal that about one-eighth of the additional reimbursement is passed through to consumers in the form of better coverage. A somewhat larger share accrues to private insurers in the form of higher profits and we find suggestive evidence of a large impact on advertising expenditures. Our results have implications for a key feature of the Affordable Care Act that will reduce reimbursement to MA plans by $156 billion from 2013 to 2022.
A flexible algorithm for sensor network partitioning and self-partitioning problems

Motivated by the need for agent classification in sensor networking and autonomous vehicle control applications, we propose a flexible and distributed stochastic automaton-based network partitioning algorithm that is capable of finding the optimal k-way partition with respect to a broad range of cost functions, and given various constraints, in directed and weighted graphs. Specifically, we motivate the need for new algorithms for network partitioning and distributed (or self-) partitioning. We then review our stochastic automaton-based partitioning algorithm, and extend its use for network partitioning and self-partitioning problems. Finally, the application of the algorithm to mobile/sensor classification in ad hoc networks is pursued in detail, and other applications are briefly introduced.
Total energy investment in nuclear power plants

Studies have shown that the total energy required to construct a 1000-MW(e) nuclear power plant is about 4.1 × 109 kWh for light-water reactors. This is equivalent to ∼ 1.9% of the total energy pro...
The A-polynomial from the noncommutative viewpoint

The paper introduces a noncommutative generalization of the A-polynomial of a knot. This is done using the Kauffman bracket skein module of the knot complement, and is based on the relationship between skein modules and character varieties. The construction is possible because the Kauffman bracket skein algebra of the cylinder over the torus is a subalgebra of the noncommutative torus. The generalized version of the A-polynomial, called the noncommutative A-ideal, consists of a finitely generated ideal of polynomials in the quantum plane. Some properties of the noncommutative A-ideal and its relationships with the A-polynomial and the Jones polynomial are discussed. The paper concludes with the description of the examples of the unknot, and the right- and left-handed trefoil knots.
Long-term Impacts of Global Food Crisis on Production Decisions: Evidence from Farm Investments in Indonesia

Did the rise in food prices have a long-term impact on agricultural production? Using household-level panel data from seven provinces of Indonesia, this paper finds that the price shock created a forward-looking incentive to invest, which can dynamically enhance productivity in agriculture. It also finds that the impact of the price shock on investment behavior differs by initial wealth. In response to price increases, wealthy farmers invested more in productive assets, while poor farmers increased their financial savings as well as consumption. Price spikes relax liquidity constraints, which increases investments among the richer while do so savings and consumptions among the poor, possibly leading to diverging income inequality in the long run.
Directed cyclic graphical representations of feedback models

The use of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to represent conditional independence relations among random variables has proved fruitful in a variety of ways. Recursive structural equation models are one kind of DAG model. However, non-recursive structural equation models of the kinds used to model economic processes are naturally represented by directeed cyclic graphs (DCG). For linear systems associated with DCGs with independent errors, a characterisation of conditional independence constraints is obtained, and it is shown that the result generalizes in a natural way to systems in which the error variables or noises are statistically dependent. For non-linear systems with independent errors a sufficient condition for conditional independence of variables in associated distributions is obtained.
Consumption Dynamics During Recessions

When will durable expenditures respond strongly to economic stimulus? We build from micro evidence and show that in a heterogeneous agent business cycle model with …xed costs of durable adjustment, responsiveness is substantially dampened during recessions. Our model estimates imply that during the Great Recession, durable expenditures were half as responsive to additional stimulus as during the boom in the 1990s. This procyclical responsiveness is driven by changes in the distribution of households’desired durable holdings over the cycle. We directly test our model by estimating this distribution empirically using PSID micro data and …nd that the distribution in the data moves cyclically as predicted. In addition to this micro evidence, we also provide support for our model’s procyclical responsiveness using aggregate time-series data, and we show this time-series evidence is inconsistent with simpler models featuring smooth adjustment costs.
Confidence Inference in Bayesian Networks

We present two sampling algorithms for probabilistic confidence inference in Bayesian networks. These two algorithms (we call them AIS-BN-µ and AIS-BN-σ algorithms) guarantee that estimates of posterior probabilities are with a given probability within a desired precision bound. Our algorithms are based on recent advances in sampling algorithms for (1) estimating the mean of bounded random variables and (2) adaptive importance sampling in Bayesian networks. In addition to a simple stopping rule for sampling that they provide, the AIS-BN-µ and AIS-BN-σ algorithms are capable of guiding the learning process in the AIS-BN algorithm. An empirical evaluation of the proposed algorithms shows excellent performance, even for very unlikely evidence.
Spontaneous giving under structural inequality: Intuition promotes cooperation in asymmetric social dilemmas

The present research investigates the role of intuitive mental processing on cooperation in experimental games involving structural inequality. Results from an experiment using conceptual priming to induce intuitive mental processing provide the first evidence that cooperation is promoted by intuition in an asymmetric context that distributes the gains from cooperation unequally among a group. Therefore, the results extend our understanding of the cognitive underpinnings of human cooperation by demonstrating the robustness of intuitive cooperation in games involving structural inequality regarding asymmetric gains from cooperation. Additionally, the results provide the first successful conceptual replication of the intuition-cooperation link using conceptual priming, therefore also contributing to the debate about the validity of previous research in other contexts. Taken together, the present research contributes to the literature on psychological and institutional mechanisms that promote cooperation.
Finite entropy actions of free groups, rigidity of stabilizers, and a Howe-Moore type phenomenon

We study a notion of entropy, called f-invariant entropy, introduced by Lewis Bowen for probability measure preserving actions of finitely generated free groups. In the degenerate case, the f-invariant entropy is -∞. In this paper, we investigate the qualitative consequences of an action having finite f-invariant entropy. We find three main properties of such actions. First, the stabilizers occurring in factors of such actions are highly restricted. Specifically, the stabilizer of almost every point must be either trivial or of finite index. Second, such actions are very chaotic in the sense that when the space is not essentially countable, every non-identity group element acts with infinite Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy. Finally, we show that such actions display behavior reminiscent of the Howe-Moore property. Specifically, if the action is ergodic, there exists an integer n such that for every non-trivial normal subgroup K, the number of K-ergodic components is at most n. Our results are based on a new formula for f-invariant entropy.
IMPLICATIONS OF THE HYPOHYDROUS HISTORY OF MARS

We have shown that clays, carbonates, α-Fe 2 O 3 , and Fe 3 O 4 . impart an alkaline state to aqueous solutions that govern the rate of decomposition of H 2 O 2 . In the presence of these materials singly, the production of 14 CO 2 from the oxidative decarboxylation process catalyzed by γ-Fe 2 O 3 is strongly inhibited. Because the results of the Viking Labeled Release Experiment were simulated exactly by the γ-Fe 2 O 3 /H 2 O 2 system, we conclude that these materials (clays, etc.) are not in such an abundance as to quench the peroxidase activity demonstrated on Mars. Because these materials are generally formed in an aqueous environment, we conclude that Mars has had a very long hypohydrous history.
Discovery of the acoustic Faraday effect in superfluid 3He-B

Acoustic waves provide a powerful tool for studying the structure of matter. For example, the speed, attenuation and dispersion of acoustic waves can give useful information on molecular forces and the microscopic mechanisms of absorption and scattering of acoustic energy. In solids, both compression and shear waves occur—longitudinal and transverse sound, respectively. But normal liquids do not support shear forces and consequently transverse waves do not propagate in liquids, with one notable exception. In 1957 Landau predicted1 that the quantum-liquid phase of helium-3 might support transverse sound waves at sufficiently low temperatures, the restoring forces for shear waves being supplied by the collective quantum behaviour of the particles in the fluid. Such shear waves will involve displacements of the fluid transverse to the direction of propagation, and so define a polarization direction similar to that of electromagnetic waves. Here we confirm experimentally the existence of transverse sound waves in superfluid 3He-B by observing the rotation of the polarization of these waves in the presence of a magnetic field. This phenomenon is the acoustic analogue of the magneto-optic Faraday effect, whereby the polarization direction of an electromagnetic wave is rotated by a magnetic field applied along the propagation direction.
Noncommutative complex analysis and Bargmann-Segal multipliers

We state several equivalent noncommutative versions of the Cauchy-Riemann equations and characterize the unbounded operators on L^2(R) which satisfy them. These operators arise from the creation operator via a functional calculus involving a class of entire functions, identified by Newman and Shapiro [D. J. Newman and H. S. Shapiro, Fischer spaces of entire functions, in Entire Functions and Related Parts of Analysis (J. Koorevaar, ed.), AMS Proc. Symp. Pure Math. XI (1968), 360-369], which act as unbounded multiplication operators on Bargmann-Segal space.
Partially quenched QCD with a chemical potential

Using a chiral random matrix theory we can now derive the low energy partition functions and Dirac eigenvalue correlations of QCD with different chemical potentials for the dynamical and valence quarks. The results can also be extended to complex (and purely imaginary) chemical potential. We also discuss possible applications such as fit ting to low energy constants and understanding the phase diagrams of the full and partially quenched theories.
Sources of Superlinearity in Davenport-Schinzel Sequences

A {em generalized} Davenport-Schinzel sequence is one over a finite alphabet that contains no subsequences isomorphic to a fixed {em forbidden subsequence}. One of the fundamental problems in this area is bounding (asymptotically) the maximum length of such sequences. Following Klazar, let $Ex(sigma,n)$ be the maximum length of a sequence over an alphabet of size $n$ avoiding subsequences isomorphic to $sigma$. It has been proved that for every $sigma$, $Ex(sigma,n)$ is either linear or very close to linear; in particular it is $O(n2^{alpha(n)^{O(1)}})$, where $alpha$ is the inverse-Ackermann function and $O(1)$ depends on $sigma$. However, very little is known about the properties of $sigma$ that induce superlinearity of $Ex(sigma,n)$. In this paper we exhibit an infinite family of independent superlinear forbidden subsequences. To be specific, we show that there are 17 {em prototypical} superlinear forbidden subsequences, some of which can be made arbitrarily long through a simple padding operation. Perhaps the most novel part of our constructions is a new succinct code for representing superlinear forbidden subsequences.
Privacy preserving protocols for eigenvector computation

In this paper, we present a protocol for computing the principal eigenvector of a collection of data matrices belonging to multiple semi-honest parties with privacy constraints. Our proposed protocol is based on secure multi-party computation with a semi-honest arbitrator who deals with data encrypted by the other parties using an additive homomorphic cryptosystem. We augment the protocol with randomization and oblivious transfer to make it difficult for any party to estimate properties of the data belonging to other parties from the intermediate steps. The previous approaches towards this problem were based on expensive QR decomposition of correlation matrices, we present an efficient algorithm using the power iteration method. We present an analysis of the correctness, security, and efficiency of protocol.
Coding with constraints: Minimum distance bounds and systematic constructions

We examine an error-correcting coding framework in which each coded symbol is constrained to be a function of a fixed subset of the message symbols. With an eye toward distributed storage applications, we seek to design systematic codes with good minimum distance that can be decoded efficiently. On this note, we provide theoretical bounds on the minimum distance of such a code based on the coded symbol constraints. We refine these bounds in the case where we demand a systematic linear code. Finally, we provide conditions under which each of these bounds can be achieved by choosing our code to be a subcode of a Reed-Solomon code, allowing for efficient decoding. This problem has been considered in multisource multicast network error correction. The problem setup is also reminiscent of locally repairable codes.
Performance Analysis of Blue Gene/L Using Parallel Discrete Event Simulation

High performance computers currently under construction, such as IBM's Blue Gene/L, consisting of large numbers (64K) of low cost processing elements with relatively small local memories (256MB) connected via relatively low bandwidth (0.0625 Bytes/FLOP) low cost interconnection networks promise exceptional cost-performance for some scientific applications. Due to the large number of processing elements and adaptive routing networks in such systems, performance analysis of meaningful application kernels requires innovative methods. This paper describes a method that combines application analysis, tracing and parallel discrete event simulation to provide early performance prediction. Specifically, results of performance analysis of a Lennard-Jones Spatial (LJS) Decomposition molecular dynamics benchmark code for Blue Gene/L are given.
Armed conflict and children's health - exploring new directions: The case of Kashmir

The exposure to violence in utero and early in life has adverse impacts on children's age-adjusted height (z-scores). Using the experience of the Kashmir insurgency, I find that stress during pregnancy and the limited access to health services in more conflict-affected regions of Jammu and Kashmir have different regional and cohort effects. Furthermore, the link between children's health at birth, mother's health during pregnancy, and children's height in the context of negative exogenous shocks has not been fully researched yet. Children small at birth and children with anemic mothers are shorter for their age. Overall, children more affected by the insurgency are 0.9 to 1.4 standard deviations smaller compared with children less affected by the insurgency. The effect is stronger for children who were born during peaks in violence. Gender differences are small. Finally, a robust finding in the health literature is that shorter children perform worse in schools, in jobs, and are sicker throughout their life. Here, children already negatively affected by the insurgency in their height, are also more likely to be sick in the two weeks prior to the survey.
Synthesis and Reactions of Allenylzinc Reagents

1 Zincation of Propargylic Bromides 2 Mechanistic Studies 3 Regiochemistry of Additions to Aldehydes and Ketones 4 Stereochemistry of Additions 5 Transition State Calculations 6 Reagent Regioselectivity 7 Iodoallene-Derived Reagents 8 Configurational Stability 9 Allenyl Alkylzinc Reagents 10 Coupling of Allenylzinc Bromide Reagents with Aryl and Vinyl Halides 11 Palladiozincation of Propargylic Mesylates 12 Double Diastereoselection 13 Applications to Natural Product Synthesis 14 Additions to Imines and Aldehydes 15 Kinetic Resolution of Chiral Allenylzinc Reagents 16 Amine-Substituted Allenylzinc Reagents 17 Additions to Sulfoximines 18 Additions of Chloroallenylzinc Reagents to Aldehydes and Imines Keywords: propargylic bromide zincation; allenylzinc bromide additions; stereochemistry of additions; transition state geometry; iodoallene-derived reagents; optical stability of allenylzinc reagents; allenyl alkylzinc reagents; palladiozincation methodology
Program synthesis from polymorphic refinement types

We present a method for synthesizing recursive functions that provably satisfy a given specification in the form of a polymorphic refinement type. We observe that such specifications are particularly suitable for program synthesis for two reasons. First, they offer a unique combination of expressive power and decidability, which enables automatic verification—and hence synthesis—of nontrivial programs. Second, a type-based specification for a program can often be effectively decomposed into independent specifications for its components, causing the synthesizer to consider fewer component combinations and leading to a combinatorial reduction in the size of the search space. At the core of our synthesis procedure is a newalgorithm for refinement type checking, which supports specification decomposition. We have evaluated our prototype implementation on a large set of synthesis problems and found that it exceeds the state of the art in terms of both scalability and usability. The tool was able to synthesize more complex programs than those reported in prior work (several sorting algorithms and operations on balanced search trees), as well as most of the benchmarks tackled by existing synthesizers, often starting from a more concise and intuitive user input.
Service Failure Recovery and Prevention: Managing Stockouts in Distribution Channels

In managing service failures such as stockouts, most research has emphasized preventive mechanisms, whereas stockout recovery mechanisms have been largely ignored. We propose and examine a failure-recovery mechanism i.e., contractual stockout recovery in the presence of demand uncertainty and compare it with failure-prevention mechanisms in a dyadic distribution channel. We find that stockout recovery mechanisms can improve channel profitability under certain conditions. More importantly, we find that stockout recovery may outperform stockout prevention mechanisms such as return policy and vendor managed inventory in improving manufacturer and channel profitability. This is because stockout recovery reduces channel-wide stockout risks and allows benefits from the reduced risks to be shared between the manufacturer and the retailer, helping alleviate double marginalization. Although return policy also reduces stockout risks, it does so by increasing inventory risks in the channel without reducing channel exposure to demand uncertainty. Thus, our research suggests that stockout recovery can be an effective alternative in managing stockouts to those common methods of stockout prevention mechanisms.
African Regional Trade Agreements as Flexible Legal Regimes

Introduction Trade integration in Africa is often viewed in light of the European Union and other regional integration arrangements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). From this perspective, integration is regarded as necessarily destined to proceed on a linear path where tariffs and non-tariff barriers are progressively eliminated, the trade regimes of member countries are linked together, and eventually their fiscal and monetary policies are harmonized. In the European experience, trade integration has been the result of a series of treaty commitments that also created a supranational organization to which the states transferred certain types of authority.
VIP: Finding important people in images

People preserve memories of events such as birthdays, weddings, or vacations by capturing photos, often depicting groups of people. Invariably, some individuals in the image are more important than others given the context of the event. This paper analyzes the concept of the importance of individuals in group photographs. We address two specific questions - Given an image, who are the most important individuals in it? Given multiple images of a person, which image depicts the person in the most important role? We introduce a measure of importance of people in images and investigate the correlation between importance and visual saliency. We find that not only can we automatically predict the importance of people from purely visual cues, incorporating this predicted importance results in significant improvement in applications such as im2text (generating sentences that describe images of groups of people).
On the hydrodynamics of swimming enzymes

Several recent experiments suggest that rather generally the diffusion of enzymes may be augmented through their activity. We demonstrate that such swimming motility can emerge from the interplay between the enzyme energy landscape and the hydrodynamic coupling of the enzyme to its environment. Swimming thus occurs during the transit time of a transient allosteric change. We estimate the velocity during the transition. The analysis of such a swimming motion suggests the final stroke size is limited by the hydrodynamic size of the enzyme. This limit is quite a bit smaller than the values that can be inferred from the recent experiments. We also show that one proposed explanation of the experiments based on reaction heat effects can be ruled out using an extended hydrodynamic analysis. These results lead us to propose an alternate explanation of the fluorescence correlation measurements.