cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Rise in the prevalence of resistance to extended-spectrum cephalosporins in the USA, nursing homes and antibiotic prescribing in outpatient and inpatient settings.

The prevalence of resistance to extended-spectrum (ES) cephalosporins for multiple types of infections treated in US hospitals and the incidence of hospitalization with ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae (many of which are detected in nursing home residents) have grown markedly in recent years. Here, I review these developments, as well as evidence for their adverse consequences, including the increase in the overall burden of bacterial infections due to proliferation of ESBL-producing/ES cephalosporin-resistant bacteria, the contribution of ESBL-producing/ES cephalosporin-resistant bacteria to the increase in the burden of mortality associated with bacterial infections and the contribution of the proliferation of ESBL-producing bacteria to the prevalence of carbapenem resistance. I argue that in order to mitigate the escalation of these phenomena, a reduction in outpatient prescribing of cephalosporins, especially to older adults, mitigation of transmission of ESBL-producing organisms in nursing homes and a reduction in inpatient prescribing of ES cephalosporins (which has seen a major increase in recent years) are needed.
The Use of Crowdfunding to Support Radiation Therapy Cancer Treatments.

Background/aim The purpose of this study was to assess patients' use of a crowdfunding platform to raise funds for radiation treatment and to better understand the direct and indirect costs associated with treatments. Materials and methods The GoFundMe crowdfunding database was queried for four unique categories related to radiation treatment campaigns. Covariates identified included clinical and demographic variables, and associations between amount raised and these predictors were analyzed using a generalized linear model. Results While 56% percent of campaigns cited direct costs associated with treatment, 73.4% of campaigns cited indirect costs related to treatment. Indirect expenses related to travel (31.7%) as well as living expenses (29.2%) were cited most often across all four treatment categories. Conclusion This study enhances understanding regarding patients use of crowdfunding for radiation treatment. Increased focus should be placed on discussing the indirect costs of care with patients and their families.
Epidemiology of Obstetrical Brachial Plexus Injury

Brachial plexus birth injury (BPBI) remains a source of morbidity and financial burden in the pediatric population. The incidence of BPBI has been estimated between 1.6 and 5.1 per 1000 live births. Risk factors include shoulder dystocia, fetal macrosomia (>4500 g), a previous child with shoulder dystocia or BPBI, maternal diabetes, assisted vaginal delivery, multiparity, prolonged labor, excessive maternal weight gain, and fetal malposition. Prevention of BPBI remains a challenge, as not all infants diagnosed with BPBI had identifiable risk factors. Cesarean delivery and induction of labor have been shown to be protective against BPBI, but their use in prevention should be targeted for patients at the highest risk.
Electron transfer processes in imaging

Many photoimaging technologies involve electron-transfer processes in the critical image capture, or light-sensitive, step of the process. This chapter reviews the photochemical and photophysical basis for these processes. The chapter is divided into several major sections: an introduction to basic imaging concepts; a brief discussion of the chemistries and photochemistries involved in conventional silver halide based imaging processes and those involving other semiconductors as primary light absorbers; and sections describing less conventional processes that are based on organic photochemical charge transfer processes (electrophotography, color formation systems, and photopolymerization processes).
Bactericidal activity of cefadroxil, cephalexin and cephradine in an in vitro pharmacokinetic model

Cefadroxil (Duricef, Mead Johnson & Company), resembles cephalexin and cephradine in spectrum of antibacterial activity but differs in human pharmacokinetic properties. Whether the latter are likely to affect activity in vivo was assessed by determining bactericidal activity against clinical isolates under conditions simulating the variation of drug concentration in the blood stream after an oral dose of 500 mg to adults. In this kinetic model, cefadroxil was more active than cephalexin or cephradine againstStaphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus mirabilis, Haemophilus influenzae and one of two strains ofEscherichia coli. The other strain ofE. coli was virtually unaffected by the cephalosporins.S. pyogenes was equally susceptible to all three cephalosporins. Analysis of the results suggests that the pharmacokinetic properties of an antibiotic affect its activity in the blood stream, provided the susceptibility of the infecting organism is concentration-dependent within the range of drug concentrations occurring in serum.
I Know Why You Went to the Clinic: Risks and Realization of HTTPS Traffic Analysis

Revelations of large scale electronic surveillance and data mining by governments and corporations have fueled increased adoption of HTTPS. We present a traffic analysis attack against over 6000 webpages spanning the HTTPS deployments of 10 widely used, industry-leading websites in areas such as healthcare, finance, legal services and streaming video. Our attack identifies individual pages in the same website with 90% accuracy, exposing personal details including medical conditions, financial and legal affairs and sexual orientation. We examine evaluation methodology and reveal accuracy variations as large as 17% caused by assumptions affecting caching and cookies. We present a novel defense reducing attack accuracy to 25% with a 9% traffic increase, and demonstrate significantly increased effectiveness of prior defenses in our evaluation context, inclusive of enabled caching, user-specific cookies and pages within the same website.
Efficient and robust implementation of the TLISMNI method

Abstract The dynamics of large scale and complex multibody systems (MBS) that include flexible bodies and contact/impact pairs is governed by stiff equations. Because explicit integration methods can be inefficient and often fail in the case of stiff problems, the use of implicit numerical integration methods is recommended in this case. This paper presents a new and efficient implementation of the two-loop implicit sparse matrix numerical integration (TLISMNI) method proposed for the solution of constrained rigid and flexible MBS differential and algebraic equations. The TLISMNI method has desirable features that include avoiding numerical differentiation of the forces, allowing for an efficient sparse matrix implementation, and ensuring that the kinematic constraint equations are satisfied at the position, velocity and acceleration levels. In this method, a sparse Lagrangian augmented form of the equations of motion that ensures that the constraints are satisfied at the acceleration level is used to solve for all the accelerations and Lagrange multipliers. The generalized coordinate partitioning or recursive methods can be used to satisfy the constraint equations at the position and velocity levels. In order to improve the efficiency and robustness of the TLISMNI method, the simple iteration and the Jacobian-Free Newton−Krylov approaches are used in this investigation. The new implementation is tested using several low order formulas that include Hilber–Hughes–Taylor (HHT), L-stable Park, A-stable Trapezoidal, and A-stable BDF methods. The HHT method allows for including numerical damping. Discussion on which method is more appropriate to use for a certain application is provided. The paper also discusses TLISMNI implementation issues including the step size selection, the convergence criteria, the error control, and the effect of the numerical damping. The use of the computer algorithm described in this paper is demonstrated by solving complex rigid and flexible tracked vehicle models, railroad vehicle models, and very stiff structure problems. The results, obtained using these low order formulas, are compared with the results obtained using the explicit Adams–Bashforth predictor-corrector method. Using the TLISMNI method, which does not require numerical differentiation of the forces and allows for an efficient sparse matrix implementation, for solving complex and stiff structure problems leads to significant computational cost saving as demonstrated in this paper. In some problems, it was found that the new TLISMNI implementation is 35 times faster than the explicit Adams–Bashforth method.
Feature selection for ridge regression with provable guarantees

We introduce single-set spectral sparsification as a deterministic sampling-based feature selection technique for regularized least-squares classification, which is the classification analog to ridge regression. The method is unsupervised and gives worst-case guarantees of the generalization power of the classification function after feature selection with respect to the classification function obtained using all features. We also introduce leverage-score sampling as an unsupervised randomized feature selection method for ridge regression. We provide risk bounds for both single-set spectral sparsification and leverage-score sampling on ridge regression in the fixed design setting and show that the risk in the sampled space is comparable to the risk in the full-feature space. We perform experiments on synthetic and real-world data sets; a subset of TechTC-300 data sets, to support our theory. Experimental results indicate that the proposed methods perform better than the existing feature selection methods.
Age, autos, and the value of a statistical life

The value of a statistical life (VSL) is used to assign a dollar value to the benefits of health and safety regulations. Many of those regulations disproportionately benefit older people, but most estimates of the VSL come from hedonic wage regressions with few older workers and no retirees. Using automobile purchase decisions, I estimate a VSL for individuals from the age of 18 up to the age of 85. Combining information on vehicle holdings and use, household attributes, used vehicle prices, crash test results, and yearly fatal accidents for each make, model, and vintage automobile, I calculate a separate willingness to pay for reduced mortality for different age groups. I find a significant inverted-U shape to the age-VSL function that ranges from $1.5 to $19.2 million (in 2009 dollars). The shape and magnitude of the vehicle-based age-VSL relationship corroborate labor market estimates and extend the age range of revealed preference evidence on the relationship between age and the VSL.
Fast approximation of betweenness centrality through sampling

Betweenness centrality is a fundamental measure in social network analysis, expressing the importance or influence of individual vertices (or edges) in a network in terms of the fraction of shortest paths that pass through them. Since exact computation in large networks is prohibitively expensive, we present two efficient randomized algorithms for betweenness estimation. The algorithms are based on random sampling of shortest paths and offer probabilistic guarantees on the quality of the approximation. The first algorithm estimates the betweenness of all vertices (or edges): all approximate values are within an additive factor $$\varepsilon \in (0,1)$$??(0,1) from the real values, with probability at least $$1-\delta $$1-?. The second algorithm focuses on the top-K vertices (or edges) with highest betweenness and estimate their betweenness value to within a multiplicative factor $$\varepsilon $$?, with probability at least $$1-\delta $$1-?. This is the first algorithm that can compute such approximation for the top-K vertices (or edges). By proving upper and lower bounds to the VC-dimension of a range set associated with the problem at hand, we can bound the sample size needed to achieve the desired approximations. We obtain sample sizes that are independent from the number of vertices in the network and only depend on a characteristic quantity that we call the vertex-diameter, that is the maximum number of vertices in a shortest path. In some cases, the sample size is completely independent from any quantitative property of the graph. An extensive experimental evaluation on real and artificial networks shows that our algorithms are significantly faster and much more scalable as the number of vertices grows than other algorithms with similar approximation guarantees.
Dynamic Debt Maturity

A firm chooses its debt maturity structure and default timing dynamically, both without commitment. Via the fraction of newly issued short-term bonds, equity holders control the maturity structure, which affects their endogenous default decision. A shortening equilibrium with accelerated default emerges when cash flows deteriorate over time so that debt recovery is higher if default occurs earlier. Self-enforcing shortening and lengthening equilibria may coexist, with the latter possibly Pareto dominating the former. The inability to commit to issuance policies can worsen the Leland problem of the inability to commit to a default policyâ€“a self-fulfilling shortening spiral and adverse default policy may arise.Received April 16, 2015; accepted February 20, 2016 by Editor Itay Goldstein.
Belief Aggregation with Automated Market Makers

We consider the properties of a cost function based automated market maker aggregating the beliefs of risk-averse traders with finite budgets. Individuals can interact with the market maker an arbitrary number of times before the state of the world is revealed. We show that the resulting sequence of prices is convergent under general conditions, and explore the properties of the limiting price and trader portfolios. The limiting price cannot be expressed as a function of trader beliefs, since it is sensitive to the market maker's cost function as well as the order in which traders interact with the market. For a range of trader preferences, however, we show numerically that the limiting price provides a good approximation to a weighted average of beliefs, inclusive of the market designer's prior belief as reflected in the initial contract price. This average is computed by weighting trader beliefs by their respective budgets, and weighting the initial contract price by the market maker's worst-case loss, implicit in the cost function. Since cost function parameters are chosen by the market designer, this allows for an inference regarding the budget-weighted average of trader beliefs.
OMNIVORES VERSUS SNOBS? MUSICAL TASTES IN THE UNITED STATES AND FRANCE

Two major theories structure debates on the relationship between socioeconomic status and aesthetic tastes. The distinction hypothesis, developed by French scholars with French data, claims that high-status people with highbrow tastes shun popular culture. The omnivores hypothesis, developed by U.S. sociologists with American data, states that highbrow respondents have on the contrary more tolerant and omnivorous musical attitudes than other respondents. Do these propositions reflect real differences between the United States and France with regard to socioeconomic variation in musical tastes, or differing theoretical traditions in the two countries? This research provides some support for both views. An examination of data on musical tastes (Survey of Public Participation in the Arts 2002, Enquete sur les Pratiques Culturelles des Francais 2008) reveals a very similar organization of aesthetic judgment in the U.S. and France: in both countries highbrow respondents are omnivorous. But significant differences between the two countries are also documented for older cohorts. Older cohorts follow a pattern of distinction in France, but not in the United States. This finding delineates how once-real differences between the two countries in the relationship between socioeconomic status and aesthetic tastes may have been blunted by historical change.
Comparing Financial Systems

Financial systems are crucial to the allocation of resources in a modern economy. They channel household savings to the corporate sector and allocate investment funds among firms; they allow intertemporal smoothing of consumption by households and expenditures by firms; and they enable households and firms to share risks. These functions are common to the financial systems of most developed economies. Yet the form of these financial systems varies widely. In the United States and the United Kingdom competitive markets dominate the financial landscape, whereas in France, Germany, and Japan banks have traditionally played the most important role. Why do different countries have such different financial systems? Is one system better than all the others? Do different systems merely represent alternative ways of satisfying similar needs? Is the current trend toward market-based systems desirable? Franklin Allen and Douglas Gale argue that the view that market-based systems are best is simplistic. A more nuanced approach is necessary. For example, financial markets may be bad for risk sharing; competition in banking may be inefficient; financial crises can be good as well as bad; and separation of ownership and control can be optimal. Financial institutions are not simply veils, disguising the allocation mechanism without affecting it, but are crucial to overcoming market imperfections. An optimal financial system relies on both financial markets and financial intermediaries.
Forecasting sponsorship costs: marketing intelligence in the athletic apparel industry

Purpose – Due in large part to the proprietary nature of costs, there is a dearth of academic literature investigating the factors influencing the costs for sport marketing investments, such as sponsorship. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical framework for market intelligence that enables managers to better predict and forecast costs in today’s ever-changing sport marketing environment. Design/methodology/approach – Given the dynamic and ultra-competitive nature of the athletic apparel industry, this context was chosen to investigate the influence of four distinct factors on sponsorship costs, including property-specific factors, on-field performance, and market-specific factors. A systematic, hierarchical procedure was utilized in the development of a predictive empirical model, which was then utilized to generate predicted values on a per property basis. Findings – Results demonstrated that both property-specific and performance-related factors were significant predictors of...
Peters v. Kiff and the Debate About the Standing of White Defendants to Object to the Exclusion of Black Jurors After Batson: The Nonuse and Abuse of Precedent

In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the Supreme Court held that the racially based use of the prosecution’s peremptory challenges to exclude blacks from a black defendant’s jury violates the defendant’s rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth amendment. In addition, the Court noted that “denying a person participation in jury service on account of his race” in this manner violates the excluded juror’s rights under that Clause. As might be expected, this decision has fueled the debate about whether white defendants may complain when the State uses peremptory challenges to exclude blacks from their juries. One remarkable aspect of this post-Batson controversy has been the way courts and commentators have treated Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.S. 493 (1972), the only Supreme Court decision actually to determine the standing of a white defendant to protest discrimination against blacks in the selection of juries. More often than not, Peters has simply been ignored by courts considering this issue since Batson. Those exceptional opinions that do not overlook it entirely display a truly breathtaking inability accurately to report what the Justices said in that case. Nor has Peters fared much better at the hands of the commentators. There are two reasons why it is important to bring this situation to light. One is doctrinal: Peters must somehow be rescued from this morass, and its bearing upon the standing of white defendants to contest the use of peremptory challenges to exclude black jurors clarified. As a practical matter, this problem is pressing, because the Supreme Court will address the standing question this Term in Holland v. Illinois,109 S.Ct. 1309 (1989) (granting certiorari). The other reason to examine Peters’s fate, although not doctrinal in nature, is no less important: it is only by studying this spectacle that we can hope to learn what lessons it holds for our legal system and our profession. With these twin goals of exposure and explication in mind, I begin by introducing the reader to Batson and Peters. Once this has been accomplished, Part II of the Article surveys the treatment of Peters in the judicial opinions and commentary discussing the standing question. In Part III, I speculate about the reasons for the abuse that Peters has endured in this context.
Review of matrix theory

Matrix theory [1] is a nonperturbative theory of fundamental processes which evolved out of the older perturbative string theory. There are two well-known formulations of string theory, one covariant and one in the so-called light cone frame [2]. Each has its advantages. In the covariant theory, relativistic invariance is manifest, a euclidean continuation exists and the analytic properties of the S matrix are apparent. This makes it relatively easy to derive properties like CPT and crossing symmetry. What is less clear is that the theory satisfies all the rules of conventional unitary quantum mechanics. In the light cone formulation [3], the theory is manifestly hamiltonian quantum mechanics, with a distinct non-relativistic flavor. There exists a space of states and operators which is completely gauge invariant and there are no ghosts or unphysical degreees of freedom. Among other things, this makes it easy to identify the spectrum of states. Matrix theory is also formulated in the light cone frame and enjoys the same advantages and disadvantages as LCF string theory. Unlike perturbative string theory, matrix theory is capable of addressing many of the nonperturbative questions raised by string theory and quantum gravity.
The Effect of Within-Sector, Upstream and Downstream Energy Taxes on Innovation and Productivity

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of environmental regulatory stringency on innovation and productivity using a panel of 8 European countries for 13 manufacturing sectors over the years 2001–2007. This research topic falls under the heading of the Porter hypothesis (PH) of which different versions have been tested. We consider both the strong and the weak versions of the PH, while also adding some peculiar features to the analysis. Firstly, we assess the role played by environmental taxes, that is an instrument rarely tested as a factor which can support the PH. Secondly, we analyse not only the effect of environmental taxes within a given sector (within-sector), but also the role played by environmental taxes in upstream and downstream sectors in terms of input–output relationships. Thirdly, we test these relationships also ‘indirectly’ by verifying whether innovation is one of the channels through which higher sectoral productivity can be achieved by imposing tighter environmental regulations. Our main findings suggest that downstream stringency is the most relevant driver of innovation and productivity while within-sector regulations only affect productivity but not innovation. Moreover, the effect of regulations on productivity is mostly direct, while the part of the effect mediated by induced innovations, as measured by patents, is relevant only for what concerns downstream regulations.
Modeling the effects of gas-phase CO2 intrusion on the biogeochemistry of variably saturated soils

[1] The transport of gas phase carbon dioxide through unsaturated soils has the potential to significantly alter the soil biogeochemistry. Leakage of CO2 from deep reservoirs, either naturally occurring or anthropogenically emplaced, may displace oxygen in the soil gas and hence radically alter the redox conditions of a soil. Furthermore, the formation of carbonic acid in the aqueous phase will alter the pH of the soil system. A two-dimensional numerical model has been developed to explore the effects of gaseous CO2 leakage on the biogeochemistry of a variably saturated porous media. The model describes the sequential degradation of organic carbon by microorganisms using a series of terminal electron acceptors. Gas phase CO2 intrusion results in changes in redox conditions and pH of the soil water, both of which lead to alteration of the biogeochemistry of the soil. Alteration of the biogeochemical profile of a representative field site is explored with the numerical model.
Distributing intelligence within an individual

Distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) refers to systems in which decentralized, cooperative agents work synergistically to perform a task. Alternative DAI models resemble particular biological or social systems, such as teams, contract nets, or societies. Our DAI model resembles a single individual, characterized by adaptability, versatility, and coherence. The proposed DAI architecture comprises a hierarchy of loosely coupled agents for specific perception, action, and reasoning functions, all operating under the supervision of a top-level control agent. We demonstrate the proposed architecture in the Guardian system for intensive-care monitoring.
Enantiospecific Synthesis and Biological Investigations of a Nuphar Alkaloid: Proposed Structure of a Castoreum Component.

An enantiospecific synthesis of a nuphar alkaloid was achieved in nine steps from N-Boc-(L)-proline. The alkaloid is a minor component of castoreum, which is secreted from the dried scent glands of a beaver. During the course of our study, the stereochemistry of three synthetic intermediates was verified by X-ray crystal structure analysis, which helped to resolve the existing discrepancies among reports regarding the structure of this particular compound. On the basis of our synthesized alkaloid, we proposed the structure of the natural product. Also, intrigued by the therapeutic uses of castoreum, which was employed for gynecological purposes in ancient Greece and Rome, we conducted a biological screening and found that the alkaloid has affinity for the oxytocin receptor.
Stability study of a non-synchronous sampled-data chemical reactor system using a parameter plane method

This paper applies a parameter plane method to a simple PI controlled chemical reactor system with nonsynchronous samplers. With the PI gains as the adjustable parameters, their allowed ranges for system stability is examined. The effect of non-synchronous sampling on stability is also studied.
A MIMO architecture for IEEE 802.16d (WiMAX) heterogeneous wireless access using optical wireless technology

Recently, there has been much interest in convergence in the communications industry: convergence of fixed and mobile terminals, convergence of optical and wireless networks, and convergence of wireless cellular and broadband platforms. At the core of the push for mobile broadband convergence is a user-centric model for next-generation networks that are envisioned to provide an array services “anytime, anywhere” reliably and cost-effectively. Solutions for this problem will undoubtedly require a cross-layer approach that considers everything from physical layer parameters, to scheduling and routing protocols. In this paper, we focus on heterogeneous fixed broadband topologies and study physical-layer convergence of optical and wireless networks. We adopt a point-to-point architecture and present a performance analysis of a multiple-input, multiple output (MIMO) hybrid RF/optical wireless system that implements the physical layer of the IEEE 802.16d WiMAX standard. The key technique of interest is multi-subcarrier modulation of OFDM signals on the optical carrier. Average power efficiency, atmospheric turbulence, adaptive modulation, receiver noise, as well as cross-layer protocol design are considered. Expressions for average symbol error rate are derived and evaluated to determine system performance. We thus assess optical wireless technology as a potential distributor of WiMAX traffic and highlight the MIMO advantage in such a hybrid system.
A legislative initiative: the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990.

The statistical and human consequences associated with the HIV/AIDS crisis is described in this article. The focus of the article is the Ryan White legislation, which provided economic relief to particular persons, local medical facilities, and experimental treatment options to geographical localities most affected by the medical crisis occasioned by AIDS. Many persons affected by HIV lived in poorer communities, were often without medical insurance, and lacked the knowledge and connections that usually provide access to relief. The article supports the Ryan White Act, particularly the legislation’s offer of grants, education, and support to communities already adversely affected by neglect and discriminatory treatment. The federal legislation is explained and its goals lauded, particularly the manner in which the financial support is paid directly to small communities already overextended, but more knowledgeable than others in how to manage the effects of the virus. The article concludes that this is an effective example of federal cooperation with local communities in an attempt to address both a medical emergency and a human tragedy.
Hot Electrons and Cold Photons: Galaxy Clusters and the Sunyaev-Zel’Dovich Effect

The hot gas in clusters of galaxies emits thermal bremsstrahlung emission that can be probed directly through measurements in the X-ray band. Another probe of this gas comes from its effect on the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR): the hot cluster electrons inverse Compton scatter the CMBR photons and thereby distort the background radiation from its blackbody spectral form. Although this, the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect, is quite small, heroic efforts during the 1980’s resulted in its detection in three moderately distant clusters of galaxies: A665, A2218, and CL 0016+16. It is well known that one of the purposes of conducting such measurements is to determine the Hubble constant. The technique has generated considerable interest because it is independent of all other rungs of the cosmic distance ladder and is effective over a wide range of redshifts: ∼0.02 to ∼1.
Comparison of 7.5-minute and 1-degree digital elevation models

Two digital elevation models are compared for the Echo Mountain SE quadrangle in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. Comparisons were made between 7.5-minute (1:24,000-scale) and 1-degree (1:250,000-scale) images using the variables of elevation, slope aspect, and slope gradient. Both visual and statistical differences are presented.
Hacia una revisión del realismo medieval: El conde Lucanor, ejemplo 46

En otro estudio tratamos de mostrar como el ejemplo 36 de El conde Lucanor esta subordinado en todos sus aspectos a la sententia que le es anterior y a la cual amplifica y desarrolla. En efecto, todas las inverosimilitudes alli observadas, y de las que no podian dar cuenta las interpretaciones mimeticas y expresivas propuestas por, varios estudiosos, se debian a la necesidad de adaptar las acciones y la conducta de los personajes a los fines didascalicos del relato, a expensas, incluso, del "realismo" mas elemental.
The Acquisition of a Lexicon from Paired Phoneme Sequences and Semantic Representations

We present an algorithm that acquires words (pairings of phonological forms and semantic representations) from larger utterances of unsegmented phoneme sequences and semantic representations. The algorithm maintains from utterance to utterance only a single coherent dictionary, and learns in the presence of homonymy, synonymy, and noise. Test results over a corpus of utterances generated from the Childes database of mother-child interactions are presented.
Fiscal Policy, the Real Exchange Rate and Commodity Prices

The role of the international commodity market in transmitting disturbances is considered in a model that incorporates commodities as an input in production. The analysis employs a three-country framework: a liquidity-constrained commodity supplier and two industrial countries that import the commodity, export differentiated manufactured goods and hold the outstanding debt of the commodity exporter. In this setting the impact of changes in fiscal policy, commodity supplies, and the real interest rate are assessed. Particular attention is paid to the responses of the real exchange rate, commodity prices, and the international distribution of debt to the various shocks.
A generalized empirical likelihood approach for two-group comparisons given a U-statistic constraint

We investigate a generalized empirical likelihood (EL) approach in a two-group setting where the constraints on parameters have a form of U-statistics. In this situation, the summands that consist of the constraints for the EL are not independent, and a weight of each summand may not have a direct interpretation as a probability point mass, dissimilar to the common EL constraints based on independent summands. We show that the resulting EL ratio statistic has a weighted χ2 distribution in the univariate case and a combination of weighted χ2 distributions in the multivariate case. Through an extensive Monte-Carlo study, we show that the proposed methods applied for some well-known U-statistics have robust Type I error control under various underlying distributions including cases with a violation of exchangeability under null hypotheses. For the application, we employ the proposed methods to test hypotheses in crossover designs demonstrating an adaptability of the proposed methods in various hypothesis tests.
Midwest Welfare Program and Labor Force Participation

The author examines family welfare and labor force participation of families potentially eligible for the new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in the Midwest region. High wage rates and low unemployment rates decrease the probability of welfare participation. For these low-wealth families, labor supply is shown to be highly responsive to the wage rate.
Towards a Framework for Evolvable Network Design

The layered Internet architecture that had long guided network design and protocol engineering was an “interconnection architecture” defining a framework for interconnecting networks rather than a model for generic network structuring and engineering. We claim that the approach of abstracting the network in terms of an internetwork hinders the thorough understanding of the network salient characteristics and emergent behavior resulting in impeding design evolution required to address extreme scale, heterogeneity, and complexity. This paper reports on our work in progress that aims to: 1) Investigate the problem space in terms of the factors and decisions that influenced the design and development of computer networks; 2) Sketch the core principles for designing complex computer networks; and 3) Propose a model and related framework for building evolvable, adaptable and self organizing networks We will adopt a bottom up strategy primarily focusing on the building unit of the network model, which we call the “network cell”. The model is inspired by natural complex systems. A network cell is intrinsically capable of specialization, adaptation and evolution. Subsequently, we propose CellNet; a framework for evolvable network design. We outline scenarios for using the CellNet framework to enhance legacy Internet protocol stack.
Interactive Visualization of Graph Pyramids

Graph or image pyramids can be used for hierarchical par- titioning of images. One related application area is the automatical de- termination of landscapes in Landscape Ecology. The visualization of graph pyramids facilitates studies about their structure, such as their vertex distribution or height in relation of a speciflc input image. Thus, a researcher can debug algorithms and ask for statistical information. Fur- thermore, it improves the better understanding of contraction processes or the role of vertex and edge attributes. DGCVis is an interactive vi- sualization tool that supports several coordinated views, for example on graph pyramids, subpyramids, and level graphs. Most important prop- erties and applications of this tool are described in this paper.
Cone Opsin Determines The Time Course Of Cone Photoreceptor Degeneration In Leber Congenital Amaurosis

Mutations in RPE65 or lecithin-retinol acyltransferase (LRAT) disrupt 11-cis-retinal recycling and cause Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), the most severe retinal dystrophy in early childhood. We used Lrat−/−, a murine model for LCA, to investigate the mechanism of rapid cone degeneration. Although both M and S cone opsins mistrafficked as reported previously, mislocalized M-opsin was degraded whereas mislocalized S-opsin accumulated in Lrat−/− cones before the onset of massive ventral/central cone degeneration. As the ventral and central retina express higher levels of S-opsin than the dorsal retina in mice, our results may explain why ventral and central cones degenerate more rapidly than dorsal cones in Rpe65−/− and Lrat−/− LCA models. In addition, human blue opsin and mouse S-opsin, but not mouse M-opsin or human red/green opsins, aggregated to form cytoplasmic inclusions in transfected cells, which may explain why blue cone function is lost earlier than red/green-cone function in patients with LCA. The aggregation of short-wavelength opsins likely caused rapid cone degenerations through an endoplasmic reticulum stress pathway, as demonstrated in both the Lrat−/− retina and transfected cells. Replacing rhodopsin with S-opsin in Lrat−/− rods resulted in mislocalization and aggregation of S-opsin in the inner segment and the synaptic region of rods, ER stress, and dramatically accelerated rod degeneration. Our results demonstrate that cone opsins play a major role in determining the degeneration rate of photoreceptors in LCA.
Poverty reduction and shared prosperity in Tajikistan : a diagnostic

Tajikistan was one of the fastest growing countries in the Europe and Central Asia region during the last decade. The economic growth was widely shared by the population and as a result poverty (measured by the national poverty line) declined from 73 percent in 2003 to 47 percent in 2009 accompanied by falling inequality. Consumption growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population -- a measure of shared prosperity proposed by the World Bank- was positive, pointing out that the growth was shared among the less well off. This work presents a diagnostic of shared prosperity and poverty reduction in Tajikistan during 2003-2009. The paper also focuses on quantifying the main drivers of poverty reduction, shared prosperity, and intra-generational mobility (class transitions). Some of the mechanisms of poverty reduction are explored in detail. Finally, main impediments to inter-generational mobility are discussed.
Decision making using probabilistic inference methods

The analysis of decision making under uncertainty is closely related to the analysis of probabilistic inference. Indeed, much of the research into efficient methods for probabilistic inference in expert systems has been motivated by the fundamental normative arguments of decision theory. In this paper we show how the developments underlying those efficient methods can be applied immediately to decision problems. In addition to general approaches which need know nothing about the actual probabilistic inference method, we suggest some simple modifications to the clustering family of algorithms in order to efficiently incorporate decision making capabilities.
What is the role of CCR3 in choroidal neovascularization

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly in the developed world (Klein et al. 1992 ) . AMD presents in two distinct forms: the geographic atrophy and the exudative or “wet” AMD. The wet AMD is characterized by choroidal neovascularization (CNV) in which new blood vessels from the choroid invade the macula area, resulting in retinal edema, hemorrhage, retinal detachment, and disciform scar formation, which eventually destroy the structure of the retina and lead to irreversible loss of central vision. Compiling evidence indicates that vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF), the major regulator of vasculogenesis and angiogenesis (Ferrara and Davis-Smyth 1997 ) , is critical in CNV development (Das and McGuire 2003 ; Grisanti and Tatar 2008 ; Penn et al. 2008 ) . Clinically, neutralization of VEGF has become standard care in the treatment of wet AMD (Rosenfeld et al. 2005 ; Brown et al. 2006 ; Rosenfeld et al. 2006 ; Emerson and Lauer 2007 ; Lin and Rosenfeld 2007 ; Chappelow and Kaiser 2008 ) . Recently, CCR3 has been reported to play a critical role of in CNV development and CCR3 targeting is believed to be superior to VEGF neutralization in CNV suppression (Takeda et al. 2009 ) . In our attempts to investigate the role of CCR3 in CNV development, no CNV inhibition was observed when CCR3 was blocked
Listener-Controlled Dynamic Navigation of VoiceXML Documents

The next frontier for research on the Web is to make it universally accessible, primarily via audio. Work in this direction includes the development of voice browsers and the design of VoiceXML, an XML-based standard for marking-up documents to be played on voice browsers. VoiceXML is interactive and allows voice input to be received and processed by a voice browser (i.e., VoiceXML documents can be aurally navigated). Unfortunately, this interaction is completely controlled by the author of the VoiceXML document. Coupled with the sequential nature of audio output, this results in a navigation process that is tedious and not under the listener’s control. It also inhibits the development of more advanced applications that require aural navigation. In this paper we develop techniques that put aural navigation under the listener’s control. We propose voice anchors that allow listeners to aurally tag specific points in the audio document for access via spoken commands later. We discuss a spectrum of techniques for realizing anchors and their implementation. We also introduce voice-commanded scripting languages for orally programming aural navigation strategies.
Probabilistic Site-Dependent Response Spectra

A method is developed for obtaining probabilistic soil-dependent pseudo-absolute acceleration response spectra. The resulting spectra are consistent with the acceptable design risk level from future earthquakes at a specific site. Structural exposure to future earthquakes is obtained in terms of probabilities of peak ground acceleration values that can occur at firm grounds, intermediate soils, and soft soil sites. These are combined with gamma-distributed response spectral shapes (or dynamic amplification factors) and for firm grounds, intermediate soils, and soft soils. Strong earthquake ground-motion data from past seismic events are used as basis for the development of the response spectral shapes. The convolution of the probability distribution of peak ground acceleration with the corresponding probability distributions on response spectral shapes yield the probability distribution of pseudo-absolute acceleration response spectra as functions of structural period and damping. From them, response spectra for 10%, 20%, and 50% risk levels are developed at sites with firm, intermediate, and soft ground conditions.
Thermochemical Aspects of Organotransition Metal Chemistry. Insights Provided by Metal-Ligand Bond Enthalpies

The past several decades have witnessed enormous growth in what we know about the synthesis, reactivity, reaction mechanisms, molecular structures, and electronic structures of organometallic molecules. Curiously, however, we know far less about the thermodynamics of most organometallic transformations and, in particular, about the exact strengths of metal-ligand bonds. In principle, such information offers a better understanding of metal-ligand bonding, a better insight into the course(s) of known reactions, and a valuable advantage in designing new transformations.1–5 For organometallic chemistry involving actinides, lanthanides, and early transition elements, our thermochemical/calorimetric investigations were motivated by growing evidence that deviations in reactivity patterns from those of middle and late transition elements could not be explained by kinetic factors alone. In the present chapter, we briefly review some of our recent results in this area, focusing upon how ancillary ligands affect metal-ligand bond enthalpies, metal-ligand bonding patterns as a function of position in the Periodic Table, and the thermochemically-assisted design of a new catalytic reaction pattern: organolanthanide-catalyzed hydroamination.
A behavioral model for software containers

Software containers present an effective mechanism for decoupling cross-cutting concerns in software. System-wide concerns such as persistence, transaction management, security, fault masking, etc., are implemented as container services. While a lot of effort has been expended in developing effective container implementations, specifications for software containers are largely presented in informal natural language, which hampers predictable reasoning about the behavior of components deployed within containers. In this paper, we present a formal model for reasoning about the behavior of software containers. Our model allows developers to reason precisely about how the behaviors of software components deployed within a container are modified by the container. We further present the specifications of a few examples of container services that are found in different container implementations, and use our formal model to prove the correctness of the behavioral transformations that these services cause.
CURRENT TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE REMOVAL OF IRON FROM ALUMINUM ALLOYS

In the current paper, the Fe-rich phases in and their detrimental effect on aluminum alloys are summarized. The existence of brittle platelet β-Fe-rich phases lowers the mechanical properties of aluminum alloys. The methods to neutralize the detrimental effect of iron are discussed. The use of high cooling rate, solution heat treatment and addition of elements such as Mn, Cr, Be, Co, Mo, Ni, V, W, Cu, Sr, or the rare earth elements Y, Nd, La and Ce are reported to modify the platelet Fe-rich phases in aluminum alloys. The mechanism of the modification is briefly described. Technologies to remove iron from aluminum are extensively reviewed. The precipitation and removal of Fe-rich phases (sludge) are discussed. The dense phases can be removed by methods such as gravitational separation, electromagnetic separation, and centrifuge. Other methods include electrolysis, electro-slag refining, fractional solidification, and fluxing refining. The expensive three-layer cell electrolysis process is the most successful technique to remove iron from aluminum so far.
Greenhouse, Samuel W

Samuel W. Greenhouse helped pioneer the use of statistical methods in epidemiological research and was influential in the early development of the theory and practice of clinical trials. As one of the founding statisticians at the National Institutes of Health, he helped create the current infrastructure that supports biostatistical research and service at the NIH. Keywords: clinical trials; diagnostic tests; epidemiologic methods; Greenhouse–Geisser correction; national institutes of health; profile analysis
From first principles of QED to an application: Hyperfine structure of P states of muonic hydrogen

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, we attempt to give a brief overview of the different application areas of quantum electrodynamics (QED). These include fundamental physics (prediction...