cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Liquidity risk, economic development, and the effects of monetary policy

Abstract Empirical evidence indicates that monetary policy is not super-neutral in many countries. In particular, in high inflation economies, inflation is negatively related to economic activity. By comparison, inflation may be positively correlated with output in low inflation countries. We present a neoclassical growth model with money in which the incidence of liquidity risk is inversely related to aggregate capital formation. Interestingly, there may be multiple monetary steady-states where the effects of monetary policy vary. In poor economies, the financial system is highly distorted and higher rates of money growth are associated with less capital formation. In contrast, in advanced economies, a Tobin effect is observed. Since inflation exacerbates distortions from a coordination failure in the low-capital steady-state, individuals become much more exposed to liquidity risk. Consequently, optimal monetary policy depends on the level of development.
Optimal adaptive k-means algorithm with dynamic adjustment of learning rate

Adaptive k-means clustering algorithms have been used in several artificial neural network architectures, such as radial basis function networks or feature-map classifiers, for a competitive partitioning of the input domain. This paper presents an enhancement of the traditional k-means algorithm. It approximates an optimal clustering solution with an efficient adaptive learning rate, which renders it usable even in situations where the statistics of the problem task varies slowly with time. This modification Is based on the optimality criterion for the k-means partition stating that: all the regions in an optimal k-means partition have the same variations if the number of regions in the partition is large and the underlying distribution for generating input patterns is smooth. The goal of equalizing these variations is introduced in the competitive function that assigns each new pattern vector to the "appropriate" region. To evaluate the optimal k-means algorithm, the authors first compare it to other k-means variants on several simple tutorial examples, then the authors evaluate it on a practical application: vector quantization of image data. >
Effects of the charge-dipole interaction on the coagulation of fractal aggregates

A numerical model with broad applications to complex (dusty) plasmas is presented. The self-consistent N-body code allows simulation of the coagulation of fractal aggregates, including the charge-dipole interaction of the clusters due to the spatial arrangement of charge on the aggregate. It is shown that not only does a population of oppositely charged particles increase the coagulation rate, the inclusion of the charge-dipole interaction of the aggregates as well as the electric dipole potential of the dust ensemble decreases the gelation time by a factor of up to 20. It is further shown that these interactions can also stimulate the onset of gelation, or "runaway growth," even in a population of particles charged to a monopotential where previously it was believed that like-charged grains would inhibit coagulation. Gelation is observed to occur due to the formation of high-mass aggregates with fractal dimensions greater than two, which act as seeds for runaway growth.
Synthesis of diverse ethoxyformacetal oligomers. Toward libraries of metal-coordinating unnatural biopolymers

Abstract An expedient two-step iterative protocol for the solution-phase elaboration of ethoxyformacetal oligomers is described. A set of four O,S-thioformacetal donor monomers, with diverse chiral side-chains, were coupled using NIS/TfOH activation to afford three model tetramers.
The Volume of a Differentiable Stack

We extend the notion of the cardinality of a discrete groupoid (equal to the Euler characteristic of the corresponding discrete orbifold) to the setting of Lie groupoids. Since this quantity is an invariant under equivalence of groupoids, we call it the volume of the associated stack rather than of the groupoid itself. Since there is no natural measure in the smooth case like the counting measure in the discrete case, we need extra data to define the volume. This data has the form of an invariant section of a natural line bundle over the base of the groupoid. Invariant sections of a square root of this line bundle constitute an “intrinsic Hilbert space” of the stack.
Dimensional Reduction and Crossover to Mean-Field Behavior for Branched Polymers

This article will review recent results on dimensional reduction for branched polymers, and discuss implications for critical phenomena. Parisi and Sourlas argued in[PS81]that branched polymers fall into the universality class of the Yang-Lee edge in two fewer dimensions. Brydges and I have proven in[BI01]that the generating function for self-avoiding branched polymers inD +2 continuum dimensions is proportional to the pressure of the hard-core continuum gas at negative activity inDdimensions (which is in the Yang-Lee ori \(\phi ^3 \) class). I will describe how this equivalence arises from an underlying supersymmetry of the branched polymer model.
Ariadne: a secure on-demand routing protocol for ad hoc networks

An ad hoc network is a group of wireless mobile computers (or nodes), in which individual nodes cooperate by forwarding packets for each other to allow nodes to communicate beyond direct wireless transmission range. Prior research in ad hoc networking has generally studied the routing problem in a non-adversarial setting, assuming a trusted environment. In this paper, we present attacks against routing in ad hoc networks, and we present the design and performance evaluation of a new secure on-demand ad hoc network routing protocol, called Ariadne. Ariadne prevents attackers or compromised nodes from tampering with uncompromised routes consisting of uncompromised nodes, and also prevents many types of Denial-of-Service attacks. In addition, Ariadne is efficient, using only highly efficient symmetric cryptographic primitives.
An‐arrgh‐chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization

This article investigates the internal governance institutions of violent criminal enterprise by examining the law, economics, and organization of pirates. To effectively organize their banditry, pirates required mechanisms to prevent internal predation, minimize crew conflict, and maximize piratical profit. Pirates devised two institutions for this purpose. First, I analyze the system of piratical checks and balances crews used to constrain captain predation. Second, I examine how pirates used democratic constitutions to minimize conflict and create piratical law and order. Pirate governance created sufficient order and cooperation to make pirates one of the most sophisticated and successful criminal organizations in history.
An Empirical Model of the Medical Match

Abstract This paper develops a framework for estimating preferences in a many-to-one matching market using only observed matches. I use pairwise stability and a vertical preference restriction on one side to identify preferences on both sides of the market. Counterfactual simulations are used to analyze the antitrust allegation that the centralized medical residency match is responsible for salary depression. Due to residents' willingness to pay for desirable programs and capacity constraints, salaries in any competitive equilibrium would remain, on average, at least $23,000 below the marginal product of labor. Therefore, the match is not the likely cause of low salaries. (JEL C78, I11, J31, J44, K21, L44)
Pump noise cancellation in parametric wavelength converters

A new technique for pump-noise transfer cancellation in parametric wavelength converters is described. The method relies on simultaneous detection of the pump and the idler waveforms, and matched digital signal processing. A 4 dB improvement in receiver performance is demonstrated experimentally for the conversion of the conventional 10 Gbps OOK signal.
Lanthanide Enolates as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Shift Reagents

1 Introduction 2 General Considerations 3 Applications of Achiral Shift Reagents 4 Coupling of Achiral Shift Reagents to Chiral Derivatizing and Solvating Agents 5 Chiral Shift Reagents 6 Binuclear Lanthanide–Silver Shift Reagents Keywords: lanthanide enolates as nuclear magnetic resonance shift reagents; achiral ligand effect; applications of achiral shift reagents; configurational analysis of sulfur oxide compounds; coupling of achiral shift reagents - to chiral derivatizing and solvating agents; chiral shift reagents; assignment of absolute configuration; binuclear lanthanide–silver shift reagents
Stakeholder preferences for water management alternatives in the Red River Basin

Water management in multijurisdictional river basins requires participation and cooperation across stakeholder groups. This research estimates stakeholder preferences for Red River Basin management alternatives. Issues that basin residents and experts considered relevant were identified and preferences for implementing change were assessed. The choice experiments method was used for estimations. An analysis of different stakeholder groups was employed because of an expectation that informed stakeholders and decision-makers would be more engaged with basin management issues, particularly water quality goals and institutional arrangements. However, this analysis demonstrates that the three different samples did not have significantly different preference orderings.
Synthesis of dendrimers with multifunctional periphery using an ABB′ monomer

A new methodology using an ABB' monomer for synthesizing dendrons with multiple functionalities in the periphery is described.
Got software? What managers and engineers need to know

As part of a JPL-wide software quality initiative aimed at addressing the challenges of developing, managing, and acquiring software, a team at JPL generated a detailed Software Training Plan for both managers and engineers. The team took the approach of treating the software training program as though it were a system development task and went through all the typical phases of system development including requirements, design, and implementation. During the requirements collection phase, the team conducted dozens of interviews and identified the specific skills needed. The skills fell into categories such as software management, software engineering, systems engineering, and other technical areas. However, an equally important finding was that several "soft" skills were deemed critical for the successful and timely management and implementation of software-intensive systems. This discusses JPL's approach and "lessons learned" from planning and delivering a software training program in an engineering and scientific environment.
NEW ESTIMATION OF CHINA'S EXCHANGE RATE REGIME

Abstract. The present paper updates the question: what precisely is the exchange rate regime that China has put into place since 2005, when it announced a move away from the US dollar peg? Is it a basket anchor with the possibility of cumulatable daily appreciations, as was announced at the time? We apply to this question a new approach of estimating countries’ de facto exchange rate regimes, a synthesis of two techniques. One is a technique that has been used in the past to estimate implicit de facto currency weights when the hypothesis is a basket peg with little flexibility. The second is a technique used to estimate the de facto degree of exchange rate flexibility when the hypothesis is an anchor to the US dollar or some other single major currency. Because the RMB and many other currencies today purportedly follow variants of band-basket-crawl, it is important to have available a technique that can cover both dimensions, inferring weights and inferring flexibility. The synthesis adds a variable representing ‘exchange market pressure’ to the currency basket equation, whereby the degree of flexibility is estimated at the same time as the currency weights. This approach reveals that by mid-2007, the RMB basket had switched a substantial part of the US dollar's weight onto the euro. The implication is that the appreciation of the RMB against the US dollar during this period was due to the appreciation of the euro against the dollar, not to any upward trend in the RMB relative to its basket.
Competition in the Computer Industry: Online Versus Retail

This paper estimates the price sensitivity of individuals’ choice of whether to buy computers online versus in retail stores using a new data source on the computer purchases of more than 20,000 people. The paper first fits hedonic regressions for the retail price of computers in a local area and then examines how that price influences the probability of buying online. The results indicate that the decision is sensitive to the relative price of retail computers and it varies by type of customer and type of computer. Conditional on buying a computer, the elasticity of buying remotely with respect to retail store prices is about 1.5.
Toward a generalized theory of uncertainty (GTU)--an outline

It is a deep-seated tradition in science to view uncertainty as a province of probability theory. The generalized theory of uncertainty (GTU) which is outlined in this paper breaks with this tradition and views uncertainty in a much broader perspective.Uncertainty is an attribute of information. A fundamental premise of GTU is that information, whatever its form, may be represented as what is called a generalized constraint. The concept of a generalized constraint is the centerpiece of GTU. In GTU, a probabilistic constraint is viewed as a special-albeit important-instance of a generalized constraint.A generalized constraint is a constraint of the form X isr R, where X is the constrained variable, R is a constraining relation, generally non-bivalent, and r is an indexing variable which identifies the modality of the constraint, that is, its semantics. The principal constraints are: possibilistic (r=blank); probabilistic (r=p); veristic (r=v); usuality (r=u); random set (r=rs); fuzzy graph (r=fg); bimodal (r=bm); and group (r=g). Generalized constraints may be qualified, combined and propagated. The set of all generalized constraints together with rules governing qualification, combination and propagation constitutes the generalized constraint language (GCL).The generalized constraint language plays a key role in GTU by serving as a precisiation language for propositions, commands and questions expressed in a natural language. Thus, in GTU the meaning of a proposition drawn from a natural language is expressed as a generalized constraint. Furthermore, a proposition plays the role of a carrier of information. This is the basis for equating information to a generalized constraint.In GTU, reasoning under uncertainty is treated as propagation of generalized constraints, in the sense that rules of deduction are equated to rules which govern propagation of generalized constraints. A concept which plays a key role in deduction is that of a protoform (abbreviation of prototypical form). Basically, a protoform is an abstracted summary-a summary which serves to identify the deep semantic structure of the object to which it applies. A deduction rule has two parts: symbolic-expressed in terms of protoforms-and computational.GTU represents a significant change both in perspective and direction in dealing with uncertainty and information. The concepts and techniques introduced in this paper are illustrated by a number of examples.
Plasma filtering techniques for nuclear waste remediation

Nuclear waste cleanup is challenged by the handling of feed stocks that are both unknown and complex. Plasma filtering, operating on dissociated elements, offers advantages over chemical methods in processing such wastes. The costs incurred by plasma mass filtering for nuclear waste pretreatment, before ultimate disposal, are similar to those for chemical pretreatment. However, significant savings might be achieved in minimizing the waste mass. This advantage may be realized over a large range of chemical waste compositions, thereby addressing the heterogeneity of legacy nuclear waste.
Transition events in butane simulations: Similarities across models

From a variety of long simulations of all-atom butane using both stochastic and fully solved molecular dynamics, we have uncovered striking generic behavior that also occurs in one-dimensional systems. We find an apparently universal distribution of transition event durations, as well as a characteristic speed profile along the reaction coordinate. An approximate analytic distribution of event durations, derived from a one-dimensional model, correctly predicts the asymptotic behavior of the universal distribution for both short and long durations.
Drought under global warming: a review

This article reviews recent literature on drought of the last millennium, followed by an update on global aridity changes from 1950 to 2008. Projected future aridity is presented based on recent studies and our analysis of model simulations. Dry periods lasting for years to decades have occurred many times during the last millennium over, for example, North America, West Africa, and East Asia. These droughts were likely triggered by anomalous tropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs), with La Ni˜ na-like SST anomalies leading to drought in North America, and El-Ni˜ no-like SSTs causing drought in East China. Over Africa, the southward shift of the warmest SSTs in the Atlantic and warming in the Indian Ocean are responsible for the recent Sahel droughts. Local feedbacks may enhance and prolong drought. Global aridity has increased substantially since the 1970s due to recent drying over Africa, southern Europe, East and South Asia, and eastern Australia. Although El Ni˜ no-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), tropical Atlantic SSTs, and Asian monsoons have played a large role in the recent drying, recent warming has increased atmospheric moisture demand and likely altered atmospheric circulation patterns, both contributing to the drying. Climate models project increased aridity in the 21 st century over most of Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East, most of the Americas, Australia, and Southeast Asia. Regions like the United States have avoided prolonged droughts during the last 50 years due to natural climate variations, but might see persistent droughts in the next 20–50 years. Future efforts to predict drought will depend on models’ ability to predict tropical SSTs. 2010 JohnWiley &Sons,Ltd.WIREs Clim Change2010 DOI:10.1002/wcc.81
Regioselectivity in Alkylation Reactions of 1,2‐O‐Stannylene Acetals of d‐Arabinofuranose

The synthesis of β‐arabinofuranosides via alkylation of 1,2‐O‐stannylene acetal intermediates has been studied. With reactive alkyl halides (benzyl bromide, allyl bromide, and p‐methoxybenzyl chloride), the method provides a mixture of β‐arabinofuranosides and 2‐O‐alkylated lactols in ratios of 4:1 to 1:1.5. However, with carbohydrate‐derived electrophiles, no alkylated products are produced. It appears, therefore, that the method is limited to the preparation of β‐arabinofuranosides of simple alcohols. Through the use of computational chemistry, we have explored the conformational properties of one of these stannylene acetals and propose that these species exist in more than one conformation in solution and that this contributes to the relatively poor regioselectivity in these reactions.
The Teleological Conception of Practical Reasons

The Teleological Conception of Practical Reasons* D OUGLAS W. P ORTMORE Arizona State University NOTE TO ISUS X PARTICIPANTS: Due to some unfortunate personal circumstances, I am unable to attend the conference. I am, however, happy to respond to comments and questions by email. Please send them to douglas.portmore@asu.edu. Abstract: I defend the teleological conception of practical reasons (or ‘TCR’ for short), which holds that “since any rational action must aim at some result, reasons that bear on whether to perform an action must appeal to the desirability or undesirability of having that result occur, taking into account also the intrinsic value of the act itself” (Scanlon 1998, 84). On this conception, practical reasoning involves, first, determining which ends there are reason to desire and, second, determining which available action will best achieve those ends. I offer a more precise statement of the view and then clear up some common misconceptions about it, such as: (1) that TCR is incompatible with the idea that concrete entities (e.g., persons, animals, and things), not states of affairs, are the primary bearers of intrinsic value; (2) that TCR is incompatible with appropriately valuing goods such as friendship, and (3) that TCR is incompatible with the view that attitudes such as belief and blame are rationally justified on non‐instrumental grounds. And I rebut Scanlon’s putative counterexamples to TCR, where putatively “many of the reasons bearing on an action concern not the desirability of outcomes but rather the eligibility or ineligibility of various other reasons” (Scanlon 1998, 84). Lastly, I provide an argument for TCR. T HE TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPTION of practical reasons holds that “since any rational action must aim at some result, reasons that bear on whether to perform an action must appeal to the desirability or undesirability of having that result occur, taking into account also the intrinsic value of the act itself” (Scanlon 1998, 84). On this conception, practical reasoning involves, first, determining which ends there are reason to desire and, second, determining which available actions will best achieve those ends. Whether this is the correct conception of practical reasons is not only important in its own right, but also important in virtue of its potential implications for what sort of moral theory we should accept—at least, it will have such implications if we assume, as many philosophers do, that an agent can be morally required to perform an act only if she has most reason to perform that act. 1 In this paper, I argue that the teleological conception is * Working draft of 6/27/08. You may cite this work, but please check with me before quoting from it given the tentative nature of the work. The paper is currently being revised in light of reviewer comments and a revise‐and‐resubmit verdict from Philosophers’ Imprint. Future versions of the paper will be available at http://www.public.asu.edu/~dportmor/papers.htm.
Colon cancer: detection and prevention

Recent data have advanced our ability to detect, survey, and manage patients with colonic neoplasia. Current studies increasingly support the role of colonoscopic screening over less invasive testing such as FOBT or flexible sigmoidoscopy for appropriately selected individuals. There are many issues that remain unresolved regarding surveillance and management. There has not yet been a prospective cohort validation of the Bethesda criteria, and there remain questions regarding prophylaxis with dietary supplements and medications. The article reviews current technologies and treatment methods to aid in the detection and management of colon cancer.
Markets with Multidimensional Private Information

This paper explores price formation when sellers are privately informed both about their preferences and the quality of their asset. In equilibrium, sellers recognize that it will be harder to sell their asset at higher prices, while buyers recognize that they will get higher quality assets on average at higher prices. There are many equilibria of this model, including one in which all trade takes place at one price. Under a behavioral restriction, we find a unique semi-separating equilibrium in which trade takes place over an interval of prices. We characterize necessary and sufficient conditions for this equilibrium to be Pareto optimal. Even though the semi-separating equilibrium allows for more trading opportunities, it may be Pareto dominated and may have less trade than the one-price equilibrium.
Numerical Simulation of Mud-Filtrate Invasion in Deviated Wells

We develop a numerical algorithm intended to replicate the physics of mud-filtrate invasion in vertical, horizontal, and highly deviated overbalanced wells. This algorithm is adapted from a general three-dimensional multi-phase fluid-flow simulator otherwise widely used in large-scale reservoir applications. Checks of numerical consistency and accuracy are performed against equivalent geometries and against one commercial simulator. Special emphasis is placed on describing the influence of mud-cake buildup on the mud filtration process. We approach the latter problem by introducing an effective flow-rate function that describes the evolution in time of the rate of injection of mud filtrate into existing formations. Specific parametric representations of the equivalent flow-rate function are derived on the basis of previously published laboratory experiments of mud circulation. An extensive sensitivity analysis is presented with the intention to quantify the influence of several geometrical and petrophysical parameters on the spatial distribution of mudfiltrate invasion away from the borehole wall. These parameters include relative permeability, capillary pressure, permeability anisotropy, dipping layers, degree of hydraulic communication between adjacent layers, and gravity segregation, among others. Our simulations shed new light to the character of invasion profiles in complex geometrical environments taking place under realistic petrophysical conditions. We show that standard piston-like descriptions of mud-filtrate invasion, commonly used in well-log interpretation, can lead to rather inaccurate interpretations of wireline measurements. It is envisioned that our study will provide a sorely needed petrophysical and fluid-flow template that could be used to guide the integrated interpretation of several wireline measurements into a unique distribution of petrophysical parameters in the near-borehole region. We present an example of the use of such a template by calculating the sensitivity of electromagnetic induction measurements to three specific conditions of mud-filtrate invasion in a vertical well.
Promoting Economic Literacy: Ideas for Your Classroom

Instructors hope their students retain an understanding of coures material beyond the end of the term; in agricultural economics courses, improved retention may take the form of increased economic literacy. This paper offers practical ideas for improving the economic literacy of students in agricultural economics courses. Specific suggestions for implementation of these ideas is also provided.
Modeling the Politics of Punishment: A Contextual Analysis of Racial Disparity in Drug Sentencing

This study uses Tobit to assess contextual punishment determinants for a large sample of felony drug cases that reached final disposition in 1990. After statistically holding constant ascribed and legal variables, the authors find that punishments for African American defendants in drug-related cases varied by social and political context. African American defendants adjudicated in jurisdictions characterized by a large Black population received reduced punishments; but in jurisdictions that were characterized by strong law-and-order political support, Black defendants received longer sentences. After introducing these interactions, Blacks faced on average reduced penalties for drug crimes. Blacks were the recipients of adjusted sentencing but not in the uniformly harsh direction proposed by much of the sentencing research. In sum, the results of this research add to the growing literature documenting the political foundations of punishment patterns in the U.S. criminal courts.
Determining the rotational mobility of a single molecule from a single image: a numerical study.

Measurements of the orientational freedom with which a single molecule may rotate or ‘wobble’ about a fixed axis have provided researchers invaluable clues about the underlying behavior of a variety of biological systems. In this paper, we propose a measurement and data analysis procedure based on a widefield fluorescence microscope image for quantitatively distinguishing individual molecules that exhibit varying degrees of rotational mobility. Our proposed technique is especially applicable to cases in which the molecule undergoes rotational motions on a timescale much faster than the framerate of the camera used to record fluorescence images. Unlike currently available methods, sophisticated hardware for modulating the polarization of light illuminating the sample is not required. Additional polarization optics may be inserted in the microscope’s imaging pathway to achieve superior measurement precision, but are not essential. We present a theoretical analysis, and benchmark our technique with numerical simulations using typical experimental parameters for single-molecule imaging.
Chiral symmetries associated with angular momentum

In quantum mechanics courses, symmetries of a physical system are usually introduced as operators which commute with the Hamiltonian. In this paper we will consider chiral symmetries which anticommute with the Hamiltonian. Typically, introductory courses at the (under)graduate level do not discuss these simple, useful and beautiful symmetries at all. The first time a student encounters them is when the Dirac equation is discussed in a course on relativistic quantum mechanics, or when particle–hole symmetry is studied in the context of superconductivity. In this paper, we will show how chiral symmetries can be simply elucidated using the theory of angular momentum, which is taught in virtually all introductory quantum mechanics courses.
Calibrated Elastic Regularization in Matrix Completion

This paper concerns the problem of matrix completion, which is to estimate a matrix from observations in a small subset of indices. We propose a calibrated spectrum elastic net method with a sum of the nuclear and Frobenius penalties and develop an iterative algorithm to solve the convex minimization problem. The iterative algorithm alternates between imputing the missing entries in the incomplete matrix by the current guess and estimating the matrix by a scaled soft-thresholding singular value decomposition of the imputed matrix until the resulting matrix converges. A calibration step follows to correct the bias caused by the Frobenius penalty. Under proper coherence conditions and for suitable penalties levels, we prove that the proposed estimator achieves an error bound of nearly optimal order and in proportion to the noise level. This provides a unified analysis of the noisy and noiseless matrix completion problems. Simulation results are presented to compare our proposal with previous ones.
Optimizing wide-field coded aperture imaging: radial mask holes and scanning

Imaging at hard X-ray energies (~10-600 keV) over very large fields of view (~60° per telescope) is required to conduct a high sensitivity all-sky and all-time survey for black holes. The proposed Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey Telescope (EXIST) could achieve the high sensitivity required for the mission science objectives by scanning an array of wide-field coded aperture telescopes with aperture mask holes radially aligned to minimize auto-collimation by the thick (~7mm) masks required for high energy imaging. Simulation results from a preliminary design study are reported which quantify the improvement in off-axis imaging sensitivity vs. the conventional case with mask holes all perpendicular to the mask. Such masks can be readily constructed from a stacked laminate of thin (1mm) laser-etched W sheets. An even more dramatic increase in coded aperture imaging sensitivity, and dynamic range, for a realistic telescope and imaging detector with typical systematic errors can be achieved by continuously scanning the field of view of the telescope over the source region to be imaged. Simulation results are reported for detectors with systematic errors 1-10%, randomly distributed but unknown in each detector pixel. For the simplified case of a 1-D coded aperture telescope scanning along its pattern, the systematics are removed identically. Results are also presented for the 2-D case with both 1-D and partial 2-D scanning which demonstrate the feasibility of a coded aperture scanning telescope with systematic errors achieving nearly Poisson-limited sensitivity for signal/background ratios S/B ~ 10-4, in constrast to limits typically ~10-100X worse that have been actually achieved by pointed or dithered coded aperture telescopes flown (or proposed) previously.
Nonparametric Bayesian testing for monotonicity

This paper adopts a nonparametric Bayesian approach to testing whether a function is monotone. Two new families of tests are constructed. The first uses constrained smoothing splines with a hierarchical stochastic-process prior that explicitly controls the prior probability of monotonicity. The second uses regression splines together with two proposals for the prior over the regression coefficients. Via simulation, the finite-sample performance of the tests is shown to improve upon existing frequentist and Bayesian methods. The asymptotic properties of the Bayes factor for comparing monotone versus nonmonotone regression functions in a Gaussian model are also studied. Our results significantly extend those currently available, which chiefly focus on determining the dimension of a parametric linear model.
Innovations in credit risk transfer : implications for financial stability

Banks and other lenders often transfer credit risk in order to liberate capital for further loan intermediation. Beyond selling loans outright, lenders are increasingly active in the markets for syndicated loans, collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), credit default swaps, credit derivative product companies, “specialty finance companies,” and other financial innovations designed for credit risk transfer. My purpose here is to explore the design, prevalence, and effectiveness of credit risk transfer. My focus will be the costs and benefits for the
Polystyrene sulfonic acid catalyzed greener synthesis of hydrazones in aqueous medium using microwaves

An environmentally benign aqueous protocol for the synthesis of cyclic, bi-cyclic, and heterocyclic hydrazones using polystyrene sulfonic acid (PSSA) as a catalyst has been developed; the simple reaction proceeds efficiently in water in the absence of any organic solvent under microwave irradiation and involves basic filtration as the product isolation step.
9-[(Hydroxymethyl)phenyl]adenines: new aryladenine substrates of adenosine deaminase.

Abstract New phenyl adenine compounds 5 – 7 were synthesized as analogues of adenosine and studied for their adenosine deaminase (ADA) substrate activity. The 9-[( o -hydroxymethyl)phenyl]methyl]adenine 5 and 9-[( m -hydroxymethyl)phenyl]adenine 7 were deaminated by ADA, and 9-[( o -hydroxyethyl)phenyl]adenine 6 was not deaminated up to 7 days. The ADA substrates 5 and 7 were deaminated quantitatively to their inosine analogues in 10 and 6 h, respectively.
A 0.68V 0.68mW 2.4GHz PLL for ultra-low power RF systems

A 2.4GHz PLL consuming 0.68mW has been implemented in 65nm LPCMOS for use in ultra-low power Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) applications. VCO, charge pump and dynamic flip-flop design optimization allow low voltage operation at 0.68V, bringing down dynamic power. The integer-N PLL covers all BLE channels and has a phase noise of −110dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset. To extend operation to extremely low duty cycles, extensive power gating is applied to bring the leakage power down to 170pW.
Corporate Policies in a World with Information Asymmetry

Introduction The Capital Acquisition Decision: Model The Capital Acquisition Decisions under Symmetric Information The Capital Acquisition Decisions under Information Asymmetry: Good Economy Capital Acquisition Decisions under Information Asymmetry: Average Economy and Bad Economy Application of the Theory when Managers can only Issue Debt and Equity Application of the Theory to Other Security Spaces Application of the Theory for Practitioners Concluding Remarks and Future Research.
A theoretical study of substituent effects on allylic ion and ion pair SN2 reactions.

An ab initio study of ionic and ion pair displacement reactions involving allylic systems has been carried out at the RHF/6-31+G* level. The geometries and natural charges show the absence of conjugative stabilization in the ionic transition states, thus differing from traditional explanations. The high reactivity of allyl halides is explained by electrostatic polarization of the double bond. Substituent effects were also studied; in general, electron-withdrawing groups lower the barriers of the ionic SN2 reactions but increase the barriers of the ion pair reactions. The allylic reactions are compared with related benzylic systems. Hammett correlations give ρ of opposite sign for the ionic and ion pair displacement reactions, in agreement with some experimental results.
MediaWare: a distributed multimedia environment with interoperability

Abstract MediaWare is a distributed multimedia environment based on state-of-the-art distributed object computing standards as specified by corba . MediaWare enhances interoperability among media objects through the interoperable virtual connection protocol. MediaWare provides an infrastructure for building interactive multimedia applications that support synchronized, time-based media in a heterogeneous, distributed environment. This paper discusses MediaWare's architecture and its object life cycle. MediaWare's architecture includes an application layer; a quality-of-connection layer, which is an aggregation of the quality-of-service in addition to the user's interaction and synchronization requirements; an interoperable virtual connection protocol layer; an objects database including the interoperable database layer; an object request broker layer; an interface definition language (IDL) mapping layer; and finally, an object implementation layer. The paper includes examples to show MediaWare's power to generate several multimedia teleorchestrations and scenarios.
Nonminimal Couplings in the Early Universe: Multifield Models of Inflation and the Latest Observations

Models of cosmic inflation suggest that our universe underwent an early phase of accelerated expansion, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields. Inflationary models make specific, quantitative predictions for several observable quantities, including particular patterns of temperature anistropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation. Realistic models of high-energy physics include many scalar fields at high energies. Moreover, we may expect these fields to have nonminimal couplings to the spacetime curvature. Such couplings are quite generic, arising as renormalization counterterms when quantizing scalar fields in curved spacetime. In this chapter I review recent research on a general class of multifield inflationary models with nonminimal couplings. Models in this class exhibit a strong attractor behavior: across a wide range of couplings and initial conditions, the fields evolve along a single-field trajectory for most of inflation. Across large regions of phase space and parameter space, therefore, models in this general class yield robust predictions for observable quantities that fall squarely within the “sweet spot” of recent observations.
A Geometric Model for the Coiling of an Elastic Rod Deployed Onto a Moving Substrate

We report results from a systematic numerical investigation of the nonlinear patterns that emerge when a slender elastic rod is deployed onto a moving substrate; a system also known as the elastic sewing machine (ESM). The discrete elastic rods (DER) method is employed to quantitatively characterize the coiling patterns, and a comprehensive classification scheme is introduced based on their Fourier spectrum. Our analysis yields physical insight on both the length scales excited by the ESM, as well as the morphology of the patterns. The coiling process is then rationalized using a reduced geometric model (GM) for the evolution of the position and orientation of the contact point between the rod and the belt, as well as the curvature of the rod near contact. This geometric description reproduces almost all of the coiling patterns of the ESM and allows us to establish a unifying bridge between our elastic problem and the analogous patterns obtained when depositing a viscous thread onto a moving surface; a well-known system known as the fluid-mechanical sewing machine (FMSM).
Property rights and the first great divergence: Europe 1500–1800

Abstract Recent literature on developing countries has revived interest in structural change involving the reallocation of resources from agriculture to industry. Here, we focus on the first such historically important structural transformation in which some parts of Europe escaped from the Malthusian trap centuries earlier than the Industrial Revolution, while others stagnated. There is as yet no consensus as to the causes of this First Great Divergence. The paper advances the thesis that what lies at the root of different paths is the type of property rights inherited. As populations everywhere in Europe recovered from the catastrophes of the late medieval period, what mattered for the direction taken was the size of the landlord class and their landholdings. In Western Europe where peasant proprietors tilled small plots, increases in population levels led to lower real wages. Given the low incomes of landlords and peasants, demand for manufactured goods remained low. At the other extreme, in eastern Europe, second serfdom kept wages low, and rents high. Yet given the small size of the land-owning class, these rents could not generate enough demand for high-end manufacturing processes either. Northwestern Europe, being in the middle in terms both of the size of the landholding classes and their properties, prospered as wages failed to decline even when population levels rapidly rose. Combined demand from landlords and workers kindled an expansion of the manufacturing sector.
Learning Concept Embeddings with Combined Human-Machine Expertise

This paper presents our work on "SNaCK," a low-dimensional concept embedding algorithm that combines human expertise with automatic machine similarity kernels. Both parts are complimentary: human insight can capture relationships that are not apparent from the object's visual similarity and the machine can help relieve the human from having to exhaustively specify many constraints. We show that our SNaCK embeddings are useful in several tasks: distinguishing prime and nonprime numbers on MNIST, discovering labeling mistakes in the Caltech UCSD Birds (CUB) dataset with the help of deep-learned features, creating training datasets for bird classifiers, capturing subjective human taste on a new dataset of 10,000 foods, and qualitatively exploring an unstructured set of pictographic characters. Comparisons with the state-of-the-art in these tasks show that SNaCK produces better concept embeddings that require less human supervision than the leading methods.
Mechanism design for team formation

Team formation is a core problem in AI. Remarkably, little prior work has addressed the problem of mechanism design for team formation, accounting for the need to elicit agents' preferences over potential teammates. Coalition formation in the related hedonic games has received much attention, but only from the perspective of coalition stability, with little emphasis on the mechanism design objectives of true preference elici-tation, social welfare, and equity. We present the first formal mechanism design framework for team formation, building on recent combinatorial matching market design literature. We exhibit four mechanisms for this problem, two novel, two simple extensions of known mechanisms from other domains. Two of these (one new, one known) have desirable theoretical properties. However, we use extensive experiments to show our second novel mechanism, despite having no theoretical guarantees, empirically achieves good incentive compatibility, welfare, and fairness.
Towards a hybrid agent-based model for mosquito borne disease

Agent-based models (ABM) are used to simulate the spread of infectious disease through a population. Detailed human movement, demography, realistic business location networks, and in-host disease progression are available in existing ABMs, such as the Epidemic Simulation System (EpiSimS). These capabilities make possible the exploration of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical mitigation strategies used to inform the public health community. There is a similar need for the spread of mosquito borne pathogens due to the re-emergence of diseases such as chikungunya and dengue fever. A network-patch model for mosquito dynamics has been coupled with EpiSimS. Mosquitoes are represented as a "patch" or "cloud" associated with a location. Each patch has an ordinary differential equation (ODE) mosquito dynamics model and mosquito related parameters relevant to the location characteristics. Activities at each location can have different levels of potential exposure to mosquitoes based on whether they are inside, outside, or somewhere in-between. As a proof of concept, the hybrid network-patch model is used to simulate the spread of chikungunya through Washington, DC. Results are shown for a base case, followed by varying the probability of transmission, mosquito count, and activity exposure. We use visualization to understand the pattern of disease spread.
Bitter to Better — How to Make Bitcoin a Better Currency

Bitcoin is a distributed digital currency which has attracted a substantial number of users. We perform an in-depth investigation to understand what made Bitcoin so successful, while decades of research on cryptographic e-cash has not lead to a large-scale deployment. We ask also how Bitcoin could become a good candidate for a long-lived stable currency. In doing so, we identify several issues and attacks of Bitcoin, and propose suitable techniques to address them.
THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS: A NEW INSTRUMENT TO ADDRESS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

The article discusses the adoption of the new Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as a means to obtain redress for violations against economic, social and cultural rights in the international sphere – including its potential use for the consideration of the violation of extraterritorial obligations. Keywords : Human rights. Social rights. Violations. Optinal protocol.
Officer perceptions of the impact of mobile broadband technology on police operations

ABSTRACTResearch examining police departments' use of technology is underdeveloped relative to other areas of policing. This gap in the literature is troubling as policing models are becoming more data-driven and thus, relying more heavily on information technologies. Arguably, the most commonly utilised technology in policing practice, and examined in policing research, has been mobile computers. However, there has been little insight into the technological advancement in data communications that directly influence the functionality of mobile computers. This research seeks to inform this shortcoming by examining a police department that implemented a dedicated wireless mobile broadband system. A mixed-methods approach is employed within a medium-sized department in the northeast region of the USA. Survey data were gathered from 76 uniformed police personnel. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with key personnel to further contextualise survey results. Survey results suggest tentative support for i...