cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Freedom of speech and adolescent public school students.

Federal judges' assumptions about adolescent development - and about teenagers' susceptibility to the words of their peers - influence their conclusions about how freely public school students may exercise their First Amendment speech rights. Written for a non-legal audience of psychiatrists and psychologists, this essay surveys the state of First Amendment law at both the U.S. Supreme Court and circuit court levels. The piece also explores the 'conventional wisdom' about adolescent vulnerability offered by both Justice Alito's concurrence in 'Morse v. Frederick' and Judge Reinhardt's opinion in the now-vacated Ninth Circuit decision of 'Harper v. Poway Unified School District'.
Keeping Watch! Recounting Twenty-Five Years of the Office of Chief Accountant, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 1976–2001

This article adds to the literature of accounting regulation by providing background, including facts and circumstances relating to a quarter century of SEC activity preceding the events identified with the reshaping of the capital markets following the dot.com collapse and the attack on the World Trade Center, 11 September 2001. The subsequent collapse of Enron, the bankruptcy of Worldcom, the dissolution of Andersen, one of the Big Five accounting firms, and the passage in the United States of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, collectively have ushered in a new era of public–private capital market relationships. This study provides guidance and outlines topics useful to future researchers undertaking assessments of regulatory policies and the individuals involved in their administration. From 1976 to 2001 five individuals played a significant role in the development of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's disclosure and reporting practices by virtue of their office and the collective influence of their views. A. Clarence Sampson (1976–87), Edmund Coulson (1988–91), Walter P. Schuetze (1992–95), Michael H. Sutton (1995–98) and Lynn E. Turner (1998–2001) directed accounting policy activities at the SEC during these years.
Hedge commitments and agency costs of debt: evidence from interest rate protection covenants and accounting conservatism

We provide large sample evidence that credible hedge commitments reduce the agency costs of debt and that accounting conservatism enhances hedge commitments. We examine 2,338 bank loans entered into by 263 mandatory derivative users that are contractually obligated by interest rate protection covenants, 709 voluntary derivative users, and 1,366 non-users. We show that loan contracts are more likely to include interest rate protection covenants when borrowers are less likely to maintain the hedge position once the financing is completed. We find that borrowers who credibly commit to hedge using these covenants significantly reduce their interest rates. While we do not find an average interest savings for voluntary derivative users, we do find a reduction in their loan rates when they practice conservative financial reporting. Our results suggest that accounting conservatism helps borrowers resolve shareholder-creditor conflicts by committing to maintain their hedge positions after completing debt financing.
The Death of God and the Death of Morality

Nietzsche famously proclaimed the "death of God," but in so doing it was not God's death that was really notable -- Nietzsche assumes that most reflective, modern readers realize that "the belief in the Christian god has become unbelievable" (GS 343) -- but the implications of that belief becoming unbelievable, namely, "how much must collapse now that this faith has been undermined," in particular, "the whole of our European morality" (GS 343). What is the connection between the death of God and the death of morality? I argue that Nietzsche thinks the death of God will undermine the "moral egalitarianism" that is central to modern morality, in both its deontological and utilitarian forms. I offer an account of how Nietzsche sees the connection, arguing that no one has yet offered a non-theistic defense of moral egalitarianism (I focus, in particular but not only, on Rawls). I conclude with some skeptical considerations about whether Nietzsche was right that atheism would, in fact, undermine morality.
The Real Effects of Hedge Fund Activism: Productivity, Risk, and Product Market Competition

This paper studies the long-term effect of hedge fund activism on the productivity of target firms using plant-level information from the U.S. Census Bureau. A typical target firm improves its production efficiency within two years after activism, and this improvement is concentrated in industries with a high degree of product market competition. By following plants that were sold post-intervention, we also find that efficient capital redeployment is an important channel via which activists create value. Furthermore, our analyses demonstrate that measuring performance using the Compustat data is likely to lead to a downward bias because target firms experiencing greater improvement post-intervention are also more likely to disappear from the Compustat database. Finally, consistent with recent work in asset-pricing linking firm investment decisions and expected returns, we show how changes to target firms’ productivity are associated with a decline in systemic risk, particularly in competitive industries.
Matrix Metrics: Network-Based Systemic Risk Scoring

The author proposes a novel framework for network-based systemic risk measurement and management. He defines a new systemic risk score that depends on the level of individual risk at each financial institution and the interconnectedness across institutions; this score is generally applicable irrespective of how interconnectedness is defined. This risk metric is decomposable into risk contributions from each entity, forming a basis for taxing each entity appropriately. The authors shows that we may calculate risk increments to assess the potential risk of each entity on the overall financial system. The article develops other subsidiary risk measures, such as system fragility and entity criticality. An assessment using a measure of spillover risk is obtained to determine the scale of externalities that one bank might impose on the system; the metric is robust to this cross-risk and does not induce predatory spillovers. The analysis in this article suggests that splitting up too-big-to-fail banks does not lower systemic risk.
State Responsibility and Antitrust in the Energy Charter Treaty: Socialization vs. Liberalization in Bilateral Investment Relations

This article analyzes state responsibility and antitrust as conflicting forces of investment protection under the Energy Charter Treaty (“ECT”). State responsibility is defined in Articles 22 and 23; it imposes a strict liability rule and reinforces the role of government in the conclusion of energy investment contracts. This phenomenon is what I call the socialization of bilateral investment relations. At the same time, Article 6 proposes antitrust as a normative commitment for all signatory parts; its goal is to advance energy sector liberalization in the ECT region. International arbitration (Article 26) is a much more effective dispute settlement mechanism than diplomatic negotiations (Article 27). Four state-investor disputes in the East European energy sector are used to model the interaction between state responsibility and antitrust (Matrix I). Bilateral investment relations are modeled on the distinction between open and closed markets in the case of German-Russian gas relations (Matrix II). Despite the radically different political environments in Germany and Russia, the calculus of the two governments vis-a-vis energy liberalization is the same: neither really believes in it. Thus, there is no dilemma between liberalization and socialization in energy market development. States have never been able to boost competition when they are part of the domestic market play; international economic agreements can.
An Equilibrium Model of Wealth Distribution

I present an explicitly solved equilibrium model for the distribution of wealth and income in an incomplete-markets economy. I flrst propose a self-insurance model with an inter-temporally dependent preference (Uzawa (1968), Lucas and Stokey (1984), and Obstfeld (1990)). I then derive an analytical consumption rule which captures stochastic precautionary saving motive and generates stationary wealth accumulation. Finally, I provide a complete characterization for the equilibrium cross-sectional distribution of wealth and income in closed form by developing a recursive formulation for the moments of the distribution of wealth and income. Using this recursive formulation, I show that income persistence and the degree of wealth mean reversion are the main determinants of wealth-income correlation and relative dispersions of wealth to income, such as skewness and kurtosis ratios between wealth and income.
Endogenous Farmer Schooling and the Application of High‐Yielding Variety Technology in a Less‐Developed Country

The paper uses data from the World Bank’s Pakistan Integrated Household Survey to study the effect of farmer schooling on the application of high-yielding variety technology in Pakistan in 1990–91. Unlike previous studies of the role of schooling in agriculture in less-developed countries, it emulates estimation of Mincer earnings functions to treat schooling as an endogenous variable. This purges the estimates of inconsistency arising from positive correlation between unobserved farmer ability and schooling, and measurement errors in observed schooling. A measure of access to schools identifies the true causal effect of schooling on the use of improved seeds.
With Child, Without Rights?: Restoring a Pregnant Woman's Right to Refuse Medical Treatment Through the HIV Lens

In Doe v. Division of Youth & Family Services,' a hospital employee sought state intervention when an HIV-positive woman refused to comply with treatment recommendations during her pregnancy that would drastically reduce the chances of mother-to-child-transmission (MTCT), eventually triggering a lawsuit against the hospital. With an increase in the number of HIV-positive women becoming pregnant and the courts avoiding constitutional analysis of a woman's right to refuse medical treatment, there is a clear void where legal analysis is surely needed. This Article fills this void for the inevitable case where an HIV-positive pregnant woman's right to refuse medical treatment is weighed against the state interest in the fetus. Abortion case law recognizes and upholds the state interest in fetal life, but state interest in fetal health has yet to be established as a compelling interest which may override the constitutionally protected right of the woman. Meanwhile, compelled-treatment jurisprudence has unfailingly relied on protecting the potentiality of life. As such, this Article demonstrates that prior precedent demands a pregnant woman's liberty interest in bodily integrity be protected, as opposed to further relegating pregnant women into a group of second-class citizens whose right to refuse treatment is weakened by the mere fact of pregnancy. In ignoring prior jurisprudence, a court would sustain the stigma surrounding HIV and cause regression in education. Meanwhile, examining the issue through a public health lens reveals that a genuine interest in fetal health would support education rather than compelled treatment to ensure HIVpositive pregnant women are not driven from the health care system they
Competition Between Low and High Quality Products in the Financial Services Market

The deregulation of the financial services markets has introduced many forms of competition. The game-theory model in this paper examines the interaction of firms who share the market by choosing products of different qualities. Such a model might apply to the competition between full-service and discount brokerage firms. The results show how the firms share the market and how the qualities and prices of the products react to changes in exogenous parameters. The low-quality level is more sensitive to changes in market volatility, and the high-quality level is more sensitive to consumer preferences and the cost of information. Assuming a uniform distribution of investor attitudes towards risk, the high-quality firm sells to 52.5% of the market, and the low-quality firm sells to 26.25%. The profit level of the low-quality firm is about 6% of that of the high-quality firm.
The Perils of Minimalism

Minimalism is a theory, of increasing popularity in the United States in recent decades, that requires the judiciary to base its decisions on the most limited grounds available. One of its central tenets dictates that the judiciary, if at all possible, should base its rulings on statutory rather than constitutional grounds. Set in the context of the "War on Terror" and a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the rights of prisoners held in Guanta´namo, this Article seeks to identify the pitfalls of such an approach to judicial decisionmaking. Specifically, it shows how minimalism has led to legislative enactments that deprive the prisoners of basic rights and that, as a practical matter, compromise the capacity of the Supreme Court ever to adequately address the prisoners’ claims. Although minimalism has been defended on the ground that it furthers democratic values, such a view reduces democracy to majoritarianism as opposed to a broad-based deliberative process that gives content to the fundamental values of the nation. It also overlooks the important and constructive role of the judiciary in that process.
Famine in North Korea Redux

Abstract In the 1990s, 600,000 to 1 million North Koreans, or about 3–5 percent of the pre-crisis population perished in one of the worst famines of the 20th century. North Korea is once again poised on the brink of famine. Although the renewed provision of aid is likely to avert a disaster on the scale of the 1990s, hunger-related deaths are already occurring and a dynamic has been set in motion that will carry the crisis into the future. North Korea is a complex humanitarian emergency characterized by highly imperfect information. This paper triangulates quantity and price evidence with direct observation to assess food insecurity in North Korea and its causes. We critique the widely cited UN figures and present original data on grain quantities and prices. These data demonstrate that for the first time since the 1990s famine, the aggregate grain balance has gone into deficit. Prices have also risen steeply. The reemergence of pathologies from the famine era is documented through direct observation. Although exogenous shocks have played a role, foreign and domestic policy choices have been key.
Beyond Indigenous Property Rights: Exploring the Emergence of a Distinctive Connection Doctrine

Human rights law has begun to offer normative protection for what remains of indigenous lands. Yet territory now better defended from conquest and encroachment is increasingly threatened by their byproducts. Water scarcity, food security, waste deposition, climate change - in short the multiple impacts of industrial development - pose a new territorial challenge to indigenous communities that will test the reach and capacity of the human rights regime. This article examines that challenge and argues a solution may lie in emerging human rights doctrine recognizing indigenous peoples' land rights not as heirs to a European conception of property but as peoples with a distinctive historical, cultural, and spiritual relationship to the land and environment. The article doesn't purport to create this doctrine, but merely to name it and examine its contours. The author traces multiple sources of law that affirm indigenous property rights based on land-connectedness and proposes, for the sake of analysis, a distinctive connection doctrine. The article asks: 1. How has this doctrine been defined and applied in indigenous property claims based in part on cultural and spiritual land-relationships; and 2. Can it be effectively deployed to protect against the "new" territorial encroachment; the impact on indigenous communities' environment? While a distinctive connection has been repeatedly advanced its significance has not been fully deployed to address natural resource and ecological concerns of indigenous peoples. The author thus offers an analytic framework within which the connection might be further understood, emphasizing its relevance to the environment. The article looks by way of example at recent indigenous environmental cases - an Inuit climate change claim, Western Shoshone concerns regarding mining practices and nuclear waste disposal on traditional lands, and remedial rights of Inuit communities affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill - to suggest that a distinctive connection doctrine may offer a means of redressing injury bound up with indigenous communities' relationship to the land and environment.
The Reopening of the Islamic Code: The Second Era of Ijtihad

Resisting radical proposals for change, most Muslim communities are refusing to discard the entire past.Although some Islamic regimes have experimented with secularism - and Turkey has officially adopted non-amendable constitutional secularism - most Islamic nations reject the secular model of law under which legislative authority is reposed in institutions divorced from religion and law is separated from the principles of the Quran and the Sunna - the Basic Code. Mainstream Muslim scholars and jurists from across the world seem to have reached a near-consensus that, although the Basic Code cannot be abandoned, it must be re-interpreted to establish legal systems that respect classical fiqh but also incorporate change. This evolutionary call - that history, as a continuous movement in time, is a genuinely creative movement and not a movement whose path is already determined - is made to extract Muslims from historical stalemate and expose them to ceaseless dynamism. Every day, in the words of the Quran, shines with new splendor, majesty and freshness (shan).
The Enforcement of WTO Judgments

This essay examines the WTO’s dispute resolution system known as the Dispute Settlement Understanding (“DSU”). Inspiration for this essay comes from an influential article written by Michael Reisman four decades ago titled “The Enforcement of International Judgments.” Professor Reisman’s article presented a model for improving enforcement of international judicial decisions in cases between states. My essay shows that the DSU has achieved much of what Professor Reisman envisioned with respect to systematic enforcement of multilateral tribunal decisions.My essay begins by summarizing the institutional improvements recommended by Professor Reisman. Then the essay demonstrates how the DSU achieves many of those objectives in law and practice. Finally, this essay takes note of continued confirmation of Professor Reisman's thesis in the Appellate Body decision in the United States-Continued Suspension case, a dispute about how to judge compliance and when to lift trade sanctions.
“Thugs” versus “Good Guys”: The Impact of NBA Cares on Player Image

Abstract In the current social landscape, the media concentrate on the lifestyle and behavior of certain sport celebrities, and they demand that professional athletes display high standards of moral behavior. In addition, growing media intrusion presents the professional athlete as a “damaged hero”. The wealth and star status of professional athletes make them primary targets for the media. In light of the 2004 brawl and the increased controversy surrounding the National Basketball Association (NBA), the purpose of this exploratory study was to examine individuals’ perceptions towards the NBA players’ image. These perceptions were assessed relative to the league's corporate social initiatives, such as the “NBA Cares” program, which are implemented in order to restore the credibility and image of the players. Results indicated an increased influence of the specific corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaign on participants’ opinions towards the image of NBA players.
A Positive Externalities Approach to Copyright Law: Theory and Application

This Article has two goals. The first is to explain in some detail what copyright law might look like if it reflected economic reasoning. The second is to put to the test the question of whether copyright law is as far out of sync with economic guidelines as cases ranging from White-Smith Music to Eldred suggest. Although this introduction has stressed the economic irrationality of copyright law, could it actually be that within copyright decisions there is an implicit economic sensibility?
Globalization and the monopoly of ABA-approved law schools: Missed opportunities or dodged bullets?

As the market for lawyers and for law itself has responded to global forces, legal education also is becoming accustomed to working within a global context. U.S. law schools routinely look beyond the country’s borders to attract new students and opportunities. As with law firms and business generally, it no longer is sufficient to be domestic only; in order to gain prestige and to effectively compete in the U.S. market, schools must have a credible claim to being globally connected, if not global themselves. But despite the reorientation of law schools toward globalization, the regulatory regime in which U.S. law schools operate has not made a parallel shift toward embracing a global framework. Rather, it continues to maintain a distinctly U.S.-centric approach. The article offers a case study of globalization’s role in the fragmentation of power, and explores the resulting tensions.
Accountability Online: Understanding the Web-Based Accountability Practices of Nonprofit Organizations

Nonprofit organizations are increasingly using Internet-based technologies to address accountability. This article presents a set of conceptual, theoretical, and empirical innovations to help under...
SeizureNet: Multi-Spectral Deep Feature Learning for Seizure Type Classification

Automatic classification of epileptic seizure types in electroencephalograms (EEGs) data can enable more precise diagnosis and efficient management of the disease. This task is challenging due to factors such as low signal-to-noise ratios, signal artefacts, high variance in seizure semiology among epileptic patients, and limited availability of clinical data. To overcome these challenges, in this paper, we present SeizureNet, a deep learning framework which learns multi-spectral feature embeddings using an ensemble architecture for cross-patient seizure type classification. We used the recently released TUH EEG Seizure Corpus (V1.4.0 and V1.5.2) to evaluate the performance of SeizureNet. Experiments show that SeizureNet can reach a weighted F1 score of up to 0.95 for seizure-wise cross validation and 0.62 for patient-wise cross validation for scalp EEG based multi-class seizure type classification. We also show that the high-level feature embeddings learnt by SeizureNet considerably improve the accuracy of smaller networks through knowledge distillation for applications with low-memory constraints.
Adversarial Shape Perturbations on 3D Point Clouds

The importance of training robust neural network grows as 3D data is increasingly utilized in deep learning for vision tasks in robotics, drone control, and autonomous driving. One commonly used 3D data type is 3D point clouds, which describe shape information. We examine the problem of creating robust models from the perspective of the attacker, which is necessary in understanding how neural networks can be exploited. We explore two categories of attacks: distributional attacks that involve imperceptible perturbations to the distribution of points, and shape attacks that involve deforming the shape represented by a point cloud. We explore three possible shape attacks for attacking 3D point cloud classification and show that some of them are able to be effective even against preprocessing steps, like the previously proposed point-removal defenses. (Source code available at https://github.com/Daniel-Liu-c0deb0t/Adversarial-point-perturbations-on-3D-objects).
Berkovich log discrepancies in positive characteristic

We introduce and study a log discrepancy function on the space of semivaluations centered on an integral noetherian scheme of positive characteristic. Our definition shares many properties with the analogue in characteristic zero; we prove that if log resolutions exist, then our definition agrees with previous approaches to log discrepancies of semivaluations that these resolutions. We then apply this log discrepancy to a variety of topics in singularity theory over fields of positive characteristic. Strong F-regularity and sharp $F$-purity of Cartier subalgebras are detected using positivity and non-negativity of log discrepancies of semivaluations, just as Kawamata log terminal and log canonical singularities are defined using divisorial log discrepancies, making precise a long-standing heuristic. We prove, in positive characteristic, several theorems of Jonsson and Mustata in characteristic zero regarding log canonical thresholds of graded sequences of ideals. Along the way, we give a valuation-theoretic proof that asymptotic multiplier ideals are coherent on strongly F-regular schemes.
Learning Bayes Filter Models for Tactile Localization

Localizing and tracking the pose of robotic grippers are necessary skills for manipulation tasks. However, the manipulators with imprecise kinematic models (e.g. low-cost arms) or manipulators with unknown world coordinates (e.g. poor camera-arm calibration) cannot locate the gripper with respect to the world. In these circumstances, we can leverage tactile feedback between the gripper and the environment. In this paper, we present learnable Bayes filter models that can localize robotic grippers using tactile feedback. We propose a novel observation model that conditions the tactile feedback on visual maps of the environment along with a motion model to recursively estimate the gripper’s location. Our models are trained in simulation with self-supervision and transferred to the real world. Our method is evaluated on a tabletop localization task in which the gripper interacts with objects. We report results in simulation and on a real robot, generalizing over different sizes, shapes, and configurations of the objects.
A Bitter-type electromagnet for complex atomic trapping and manipulation.

We create a pair of symmetric Bitter-type electromagnet assemblies capable of producing multiple field configurations including uniform magnetic fields, spherical quadruple traps, or Ioffe–Pritchard magnetic bottles. Unlike other designs, our coil allows both radial and azimuthal cooling water flows by incorporating an innovative 3D-printed water distribution manifold. Combined with a double-coil geometry, such orthogonal flows permit stacking of non-concentric Bitter coils. We achieve a low thermal resistance of 4.2(1) °C kW−1 and high water flow rate of 10.0(3) l min−1 at a pressure of 190(10) kPa.
TASE: Reducing Latency of Symbolic Execution with Transactional Memory.

We present the design and implementation of a tool called TASE that uses transactional memory to reduce the latency of symbolic-execution applications with small amounts of symbolic state. Execution paths are executed natively while operating on concrete values, and only when execution encounters symbolic values (or modeled functions) is native execution suspended and interpretation begun. Execution then returns to its native mode when symbolic values are no longer encountered. The key innovations in the design of TASE are a technique for amortizing the cost of checking whether values are symbolic over few instructions, and the use of hardware-supported transactional memory (TSX) to implement native execution that rolls back with no effect when use of a symbolic value is detected (perhaps belatedly). We show that TASE has the potential to dramatically improve some latency-sensitive applications of symbolic execution, such as methods to verify the behavior of a client in a client-server application.
Clustering to Reduce Spatial Data Set Size

Traditionally it had been a problem that researchers did not have access to enough spatial data to answer pressing research questions or build compelling visualizations. Today, however, the problem is often that we have too much data. Spatially redundant or approximately redundant points may refer to a single feature (plus noise) rather than many distinct spatial features. We use a machine learning approach with density-based clustering to compress such spatial data into a set of representative features.
A pole-to-equator ocean overturning circulation on Enceladus

Enceladus is believed to have a saltwater global ocean, heated at the ocean–core interface and losing heat to the floating ice shell above. This configuration suggests an important role for vertical convection. The ice shell has dramatic meridional thickness variations that, in steady state, must be sustained by the ocean circulation against processes acting to remove these anomalies. This could be achieved through spatially separated regions of freezing and melting at the ocean–ice interface. Here, we use an idealized, dynamical ocean model forced by an observationally guided density flux at the ocean–ice interface to argue that Enceladus’s interior ocean should support a meridional overturning circulation. This circulation establishes an interior density structure that is more complex than in studies that have focused only on vertical convection, including a shallow freshwater lens in the polar regions. Spatially separated sites of ice formation and melt enable Enceladus to sustain significant vertical and horizontal stratification, which influences interior heat transport and is critical for understanding the relationship between a global ocean and the planetary energy budget. On the basis of our model, the presence of low salinity layers near the polar ocean–ice interface implies the ocean’s bulk salinity could substantially exceed values inferred from Cassini plume samples. Enceladus’s interior ocean could sustain a pole-to-equator overturning circulation, which might mean its bulk salinity is greater than that estimated from plume sampling by Cassini, according to numerical simulations.
Shape-induced obstacle attraction and repulsion during dynamic locomotion:

Robots still struggle to dynamically traverse complex 3D terrain with many large obstacles, an ability required for many critical applications. Body–obstacle interaction is often inevitable and ind...
A two-variable series for knot complements

The physical 3d $\mathcal{N}=2$ theory T[Y] was previously used to predict the existence of some 3-manifold invariants $\hat{Z}_{a}(q)$ that take the form of power series with integer coefficients, converging in the unit disk. Their radial limits at the roots of unity should recover the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants. In this paper we discuss how, for complements of knots in $S^3$, the analogue of the invariants $\hat{Z}_{a}(q)$ should be a two-variable series $F_K(x,q)$ obtained by parametric resurgence from the asymptotic expansion of the colored Jones polynomial. The terms in this series should satisfy a recurrence given by the quantum A-polynomial. Furthermore, there is a formula that relates $F_K(x,q)$ to the invariants $\hat{Z}_{a}(q)$ for Dehn surgeries on the knot. We provide explicit calculations of $F_K(x,q)$ in the case of knots given by negative definite plumbings with an unframed vertex, such as torus knots. We also find numerically the first terms in the series for the figure-eight knot, up to any desired order, and use this to understand $\hat{Z}_a(q)$ for some hyperbolic 3-manifolds.
The ATLAS Tile Calorimeter Calibration and Performance

A brief summary of the hadronic calorimeter calibration systems and performance results, in the ATLAS detector at the LHC is given.
Axes for Sociotechnical Inquiry in AI Research

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has far exceeded the investigation of their relationship with society. Sociotechnical inquiry is needed to mitigate the harms of new technologies whose potential impacts remain poorly understood. To date, subfields of AI research develop primarily individual views on their relationship with sociotechnics, while tools for an external investigation, comparison, and cross-pollination are lacking. In this article, we propose four directions for inquiry into new and evolving areas of technological development: 1) value —what progress and direction does a field promote; 2) optimization —how the defined system within a problem formulation relates to broader dynamics; 3) consensus —how the agreement is achieved and who is included in building it; and 4) failure —what methods are pursued when the problem specification is found wanting. This article provides a lexicon for sociotechnical inquiry and illustrates it through the example of consumer drone technology.
Minimizing the Information Leakage Regarding High-Level Task Specifications

Abstract We consider a scenario in which an autonomous agent carries out a mission in a stochastic environment while passively observed by an adversary. For the agent, minimizing the information leaked to the adversary regarding its high-level specification is critical in creating an informational advantage. We express the specification of the agent as a parametric linear temporal logic formula, measure the information leakage by the adversary’s confidence in the agent’s mission specification, and propose algorithms to synthesize a policy for the agent which minimizes the information leakage to the adversary. In the scenario considered, the adversary aims to infer the specification of the agent from a set of candidate specifications, each of which has an associated likelihood probability. The agent’s objective is to synthesize a policy that maximizes the entropy of the adversary’s likelihood distribution while satisfying its specification. We propose two approaches to solve the resulting synthesis problem. The first approach computes the exact satisfaction probabilities for each candidate specification, whereas the second approach utilizes the Frechet inequalities to approximate them. For each approach, we formulate a mixed-integer program with a quasiconcave objective function. We solve the problem using a bisection algorithm. Finally, we compare the performance of both approaches on numerical simulations.
Variable Selection with Rigorous Uncertainty Quantification using Deep Bayesian Neural Networks: Posterior Concentration and Bernstein-von Mises Phenomenon.

This work develops rigorous theoretical basis for the fact that deep Bayesian neural network (BNN) is an effective tool for high-dimensional variable selection with rigorous uncertainty quantification. We develop new Bayesian non-parametric theorems to show that a properly configured deep BNN (1) learns the variable importance effectively in high dimensions, and its learning rate can sometimes "break" the curse of dimensionality. (2) BNN's uncertainty quantification for variable importance is rigorous, in the sense that its 95% credible intervals for variable importance indeed covers the truth 95% of the time (i.e., the Bernstein-von Mises (BvM) phenomenon). The theoretical results suggest a simple variable selection algorithm based on the BNN's credible intervals. Extensive simulation confirms the theoretical findings and shows that the proposed algorithm outperforms existing classic and neural-network-based variable selection methods, particularly in high dimensions.
Going Viral: A Gravity Model of Infectious Diseases and Tourism Flows

This paper develops an augmented gravity model framework to estimate the impact of infectious diseases on bilateral tourism flows among 38,184 pairs of countries over the period 1995–2017. The results confirm that international tourism is adversely affected by infectious disease risk, and the magnitude of this negative effect is statistically and economically significant. In the case of SARS, for example, a 10% increase in the number of confirmed cases leads, on average, to a reduction of 4.7% in international tourist arrivals. Furthermore, while infectious diseases appear to have a smaller and statistically insignificant negative effect on tourism flows to advanced economies, the magnitude and statistical significance of the impact of infectious diseases are much greater in developing countries, where such diseases tend to be more prevalent and health infrastructure lags behind.
Canonical Decomposition of Steerable Functions

This paper describes a general mathematical formulation for the problem of constructing steerable functions. The formulation is based on Lie group theory and is thus applicable to transformations which are Lie groups, such as, rotation, translation, scaling, and affine transformation. For one-parameter and Abelian multi-parameter Lie transformation groups, a canonical decomposition of all possible steerable functions, derived using the Jordan decomposition of matrices, is developed. It is shown that any steerable function under Lie transformation groups can be described using this decomposition. Finally, a catalog of steerable functions for several common multi-parameter image transformation groups is also provided.
Multiple-camera defocus imaging of ultracold atomic gases

In cold atom experiments, each image of light refracted and absorbed by an atomic ensemble carries a remarkable amount of information. Numerous imaging techniques including absorption, fluorescence, and phase-contrast are commonly used. Other techniques such as off-resonance defocused imaging (ORDI, [1–4]), where an in-focus image is deconvolved from a defocused image, have been demonstrated but find only niche applications. The ORDI inversion process introduces systematic artifacts because it relies on regularization to account for missing information at some spatial frequencies. In the present work, we extend ORDI to use multiple cameras simultaneously at degrees of defocus, eliminating the need for regularization and its attendant artifacts. We demonstrate this technique by imaging Bose-Einstein condensates, and show that the statistical uncertainties in the measured column density using the multiple-camera off-resonance defocused (McORD) imaging method are competitive with absorption imaging near resonance and phase contrast imaging far from resonance. Experimentally, the McORD method may be incorporated into existing set-ups with minimal additional equipment.
The Impact of Risk and the Potential for Loss on Managers' Demand for Audit Quality†

This study uses experimental economic markets to investigate the impact of risk and the potential for loss on managers’ demand for audit quality. We posit that these two important contextual factors influence managers’ audit quality preferences. We study these factors because they are ubiquitous to companies, and we focus on their influence on managers because managers continue to play a significant role in the auditor hiring process and we know relatively little about their auditor preferences. We predict risk, the potential for loss, and their interaction will each decrease manager demand for high audit quality due to a desire to achieve greater reporting flexibility. Experimental results are consistent with our predictions; specifically, increased risk, the potential for loss, and to a lesser extent their interaction, significantly reduce managers’ likelihood of hiring the best available auditor in the market. Path analysis indicates that this reduction in audit quality demand leads to increases in misreporting. Finally, we observe investors overpaying for assets to a greater extent when managers hire lower-quality auditors. Our results show that the contextual factors of risk and the potential for loss, which are ubiquitous to companies, can reduce demand for audit quality, which can increase misreporting behavior and ultimately harm investors.
Number Partitioning With Grover’s Algorithm in Central Spin Systems

An application of Grover's search algorithm to solving a class of NP-complete problems is proposed; a hardware-efficient encoding in central-spin systems opens near-term prospects for implementation.
Gibbs sampler and coordinate ascent variational inference: A set-theoretical review

One of the fundamental problems in Bayesian statistics is the approximation of the posterior distribution. Gibbs sampler and coordinate ascent variational inference are renownedly utilized approxim...
Can constraint closure provide a generalized understanding of community dynamics in ecosystems

Understanding causal complexity in ecological communities has been a challenge to ecologists since the inception of the discipline. Here we draw insights from recent work on constraint closure that suggests ways of grappling with ecological complexity and that yield generalizable theoretical insights. Using a set of evolutionary constraints on species flow in ecological communities, including selection, species drift, dispersal, and speciation, combined with multispecies interactions such as mutualistic interactions, and abiotic constraints, we show how theoretical work drawing on constraint closure allows the possibly of the emergence of communities as semi-autonomous structures. Through agent-based modeling we articulate ways ecological pattern formation viewed through the lens of constraint closure, which inform questions about stability and turnover in community ecology.
Molecular mechanism of N-terminal acetylation by the ternary NatC complex.

Summary Protein N-terminal acetylation is predominantly a ribosome-associated modification, with NatA-E serving as the major enzymes. NatC is the most unusual of these enzymes, containing one Naa30 catalytic subunit and two auxiliary subunits, Naa35 and Naa38; and substrate selectivity profile that overlaps with NatE. Here, we report the cryoelectron microscopy structure of S. pombe NatC with a NatE/C-type bisubstrate analog and inositol hexaphosphate (IP6), and associated biochemistry studies. We find that the presence of three subunits is a prerequisite for normal NatC acetylation activity in yeast and that IP6 binds tightly to NatC to stabilize the complex. We also describe the molecular basis for IP6-mediated NatC complex stabilization and the overlapping yet distinct substrate profiles of NatC and NatE.
Predicting youth diabetes risk using NHANES data and machine learning.

Prediabetes and diabetes mellitus (preDM/DM) have become alarmingly prevalent among youth in recent years. However, simple questionnaire-based screening tools to reliably assess diabetes risk are only available for adults, not youth. As a first step in developing such a tool, we used a large-scale dataset from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) to examine the performance of a published pediatric clinical screening guideline in identifying youth with preDM/DM based on American Diabetes Association diagnostic biomarkers. We assessed the agreement between the clinical guideline and biomarker criteria using established evaluation measures (sensitivity, specificity, positive/negative predictive value, F-measure for the positive/negative preDM/DM classes, and Kappa). We also compared the performance of the guideline to those of machine learning (ML) based preDM/DM classifiers derived from the NHANES dataset. Approximately 29% of the 2858 youth in our study population had preDM/DM based on biomarker criteria. The clinical guideline had a sensitivity of 43.1% and specificity of 67.6%, positive/negative predictive values of 35.2%/74.5%, positive/negative F-measures of 38.8%/70.9%, and Kappa of 0.1 (95%CI: 0.06–0.14). The performance of the guideline varied across demographic subgroups. Some ML-based classifiers performed comparably to or better than the screening guideline, especially in identifying preDM/DM youth (p = 5.23 × 10−5).We demonstrated that a recommended pediatric clinical screening guideline did not perform well in identifying preDM/DM status among youth. Additional work is needed to develop a simple yet accurate screener for youth diabetes risk, potentially by using advanced ML methods and a wider range of clinical and behavioral health data.
Electromagnetic Interference to Flight Navigation and Communication Systems: New Strategies in the Age of Wireless

Electromagnetic interference (EMI) promises to be an ever-evolving concern for flight electronic systems. This paper introduces EMI and identifies its impact upon civil aviation radio systems. New wireless services, like mobile phones, text messaging, email, web browsing, radio frequency identification (RFID), and mobile audio/video services are now being introduced into passenger airplanes. FCC and FAA rules governing the use of mobile phones and other portable electronic devices (PEDs) on board airplanes are presented along with a perspective of how these rules are now being rewritten to better facilitate in-flight wireless services. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of NASA cooperative research with the FAA, RTCA, airlines and universities to obtain laboratory radiated emission data for numerous PED types, aircraft radio frequency (RF) coupling measurements, estimated aircraft radio interference thresholds, and direct-effects EMI testing. These elements are combined together to provide high-confidence answers regarding the EMI potential of new wireless products being used on passenger airplanes. This paper presents a vision for harmonizing new wireless services with aeronautical radio services by detecting, assessing, controlling and mitigating the effects of EMI.
Detection of tides on the Patagonian shelf by the SEASAT satellite radar altimeter - An initial comparison

The detection of tides on the Patagonian shelf off Argentina by the SEASAT satellite radar altimeter is reported. The satellite data was obtained during two passes of the satellite over the shelf on August 1 and August 4, 1978, and compared with empirical estimates of the tidal elevation along the satellite ground tracks based on coastal tide gage data, an estimate of tidal variation over the shelf, and the tidal prediction equations of Shureman (1958). Good agreement was observed between the satellite data of sea surface height with respect to a standard ellipsoid and the empirical estimate for the near-shore pass, with agreement degraded slightly for the pass further off shore. It is concluded that the generally good agreement found demonstrates the applicability of satellite radar altimeter data to the determination of tides and that small length scale fluctuations in the geoid are minor along the two ground tracks.
Regularized Online Allocation Problems: Fairness and Beyond

Online allocation problems with resource constraints have a rich history in computer science and operations research. In this paper, we introduce the \emph{regularized online allocation problem}, a variant that includes a non-linear regularizer acting on the total resource consumption. In this problem, requests repeatedly arrive over time and, for each request, a decision maker needs to take an action that generates a reward and consumes resources. The objective is to simultaneously maximize total rewards and the value of the regularizer subject to the resource constraints. Our primary motivation is the online allocation of internet advertisements wherein firms seek to maximize additive objectives such as the revenue or efficiency of the allocation. By introducing a regularizer, firms can account for the fairness of the allocation or, alternatively, punish under-delivery of advertisements---two common desiderata in internet advertising markets. We design an algorithm when arrivals are drawn independently from a distribution that is unknown to the decision maker. Our algorithm is simple, fast, and attains the optimal order of sub-linear regret compared to the optimal allocation with the benefit of hindsight. Numerical experiments confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and of the regularizers in an internet advertising application.