cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Can fiscal decentralization strengthen social capital

This paper tests the hypothesis that, by giving people more voice in the government decision-making process, fiscal decentralisation fosters social capital, measured in terms of interpersonal trust. Empirical evidence based on World Values Survey data and seemingly unrelated probit estimations for a cross-section of countries suggests that people living in federal/decentralised countries find it more important to have voice in government decisions than their counterparts living in unitary/centralised countries. Pro-voice attitudes are, in turn, associated with greater social capital. The cross-country estimations are complemented by country-specific regressions for Brazil and Indonesia on account of these countries. experiences with fiscal decentralisation. The results show that the cohorts of individuals that have been exposed to decentralisation are in general more pro-voice (and trustful of strangers in the case of Brazil) than their counterparts that have not been exposed to decentralisation. These findings are not driven by the effects of political liberalisation on people.s attitudes towards the importance of having voice in government decisions and interpersonal trust.
THE SECULAR EVOLUTION OF A CLOSE RING-SATELLITE SYSTEM: THE EXCITATION OF SPIRAL DENSITY WAVES AT A NEARBY GAP EDGE

The Lagrange planetary equations are used to study secular evolution of a small, eccentric satellite that orbits within a narrow gap in a broad, self-gravitating planetary ring. These equations show that the satellite’s secular perturbationsof theringwillexciteaverylongwavelengthspiraldensitywavethatpropagatesawayfromthegap’s outer edge. The amplitude of these waves, as well as their dispersion relation, are derived here. That dispersion relation reveals that a planetary ring can sustain two types of density waves: long waves that, in Saturn’s A ring, would
Optimal pole-placement in discrete systems

A technique for increasing the damping in a closed-loop discrete-time system by modifying a nominal linear quadratic performance criterion is developed. The technique uses the multiple solutions of the discrete-time algebraic Riccati equation to modify the nominal criterion. These criterion modifications increase the damping by moving the nominal closed-loop eigenvalues to an exact location along the radial line segment connecting the nominal eigenvalues with the origin. >
EPA's voluntary 33/50 program: Impact on toxic releases and economic performance of firms

Abstract This paper examines the motivations for participation in the voluntary 33/50 Program and the program's impact on the toxic releases and economic performance of firms in the U.S. chemical industry. It demonstrates that the benefits due to public recognition and the potentially avoided costs of liabilities and compliance under mandatory environmental regulations provide strong incentives for participation. After controlling for sample selection bias and the impact of other firm-specific characteristics, this paper shows that program participation led to a statistically significant decline in toxic releases over the period 1991–93. The program also had a statistically significant negative impact on the current return on investment of firms, but its impact on the expected long run profitability of firms was positive and statistically significant.
Liquid-crystal polarization camera

We present a fully automated system which unites CCD camera technology with liquid crystal technology to create a polarization camera capable of sensing the polarization of reflected light from objects at pixel resolution. As polarization affords a more general physical description of light than does intensity, it can therefore provide a richer set of descriptive physical constraints for the understanding of images. Recently, it has been shown that polarization cues can be used to perform dielectric/metal material identification, specular and diffuse reflection component analysis, as well as complex image segmentations that would be immensely more complicated or even infeasible using intensity and color alone. Such analysis has so far been done with a linear polarizer mechanically rotated in front of a CCD camera. The full automation of resolving polarization components using liquid crystals not only affords an elegant application, but reduces the amount of optical distortion present in the wobbling of a mechanically rotating polarizer. In our system two twisted nematic liquid crystals are placed in front of a fixed polarizer placed in front of a CCD camera. The application of a series of electrical pulses to the liquid crystals in synchronization with the CCD camera video frame rate produces a controlled sequence of polarization component images that are stored and processed on Datacube boards. We present a scheme for mapping polarization states into hue, saturation, and intensity which is a very convenient representation for a polarization image. Our polarization camera outputs such a color image which can then be used in polarization- based vision methods. The unique vision understanding capabilities of our polarization camera system are demonstrated with experimental results showing polarization-based dielectric/metal material classification, specular reflection, and occluding contour segmentations in a fairly complex scene, and surface orientation constraints for object recognition.
On the design of robust servomechanisms for minimum phase nonlinear systems

We consider a single-input single-output nonlinear system which has a well defined normal form with asymptotically stable zero dynamics. We study the design of a robust output feedback controller, that incorporates a linear servo compensator, to achieve asymptotic tracking and disturbance rejection. We determine the least amount of precise information about the plant that is needed to design the controller. Such design will be robust to plant parameters and uncertainties which are not used in the design calculations. We also study the robustness of the design to errors in determining the linear servo compensator. Such errors could arise from approximating a general continuous nonlinear function by a polynomial one, or from errors in determining the frequencies of the exogenous signals. We give regional as well as semiglobal results.
Low-and-high gain design technique for linear systems subject to input saturation —a direct method

The low-and-high gain design technique, which was initiated for a chain of integrators and completed for general linear asymptotically null controllable with bounded controls systems, was conceived for semiglobal control problems beyond stabilization and was related to the performance issues such as semi-global stabilization with enhanced utilization of the available control capacity and semi-global disturbance rejection. Although the low-and-high gain design technique as initiated for a chain of integrators is based on an explicit eigenstructure assignment algorithm, its full development is based on the solution of an algebraic Riccati equation (ARE) which is parameterized in an arbitrarily small scalar, called low gain parameter. In this paper, we develop a new complete low-and-high gain design procedure which is based on an explicit eigenstructure assignment algorithm. The new design approach avoids the solution of the numerically stiff parameterized ARE.
Enantioselective syntheses of 3,4,5-trisubstituted γ-lactones: formal synthesis of (−)-blastmycinolactol

Abstract A kinetic resolution process of Rh-catalyzed intramolecular Alder-ene reaction is described along with the studies of the substrate scope and stereochemistry of this remarkably efficient process. 3,4,5-Trisubstituted γ-lactones were synthesized in high enantioselectivity (>99% ee) and efficiency. The formal asymmetric syntheses of (−)-blastmycinolactol and (+)-blastmycinone, degradation products of the macrocyclic dilactone (+)-antimycin, were reported to address the applications of this methodology.
Love and Catastrophe: Filming the Sublime in Hiroshima Mon Amour

Film-Philosophy International Salon-Journal (ISSN 1466-4615) Vol. 9 No. 38, July 2005 Reni Celeste Love and Catastrophe: Filming the Sublime in _Hiroshima Mon Amour_ [1] This essay studies two scenes from Alain Resnais's film _Hirsoshima Mon Amour_ (1959) alongside the concept of the sublime in order to take film from a discussion of desire to one of love. Love is understood, according to philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's description, as an infinite alterity, rather than as totality or unity. Though Levinas insists on a separation between love and tragedy, and argues that the work of art cannot achieve the ethical, I argue that Resnais's film expresses a sublime achievement by staging, or representing, the infinite tragically through failure and betrayal.
A latent variable representation of count data models to accommodate spatial and temporal dependence: Application to predicting crash frequency at intersections

This paper proposes a reformulation of count models as a special case of generalized ordered-response models in which a single latent continuous variable is partitioned into mutually exclusive intervals. Using this equivalent latent variable-based generalized ordered response framework for count data models, we are then able to gainfully and efficiently introduce temporal and spatial dependencies through the latent continuous variables. Our formulation also allows handling excess zeros in correlated count data, a phenomenon that is commonly found in practice. A composite marginal likelihood inference approach is used to estimate model parameters. The modeling framework is applied to predict crash frequency at urban intersections in Arlington, Texas. The sample is drawn from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) crash incident files between 2003 and 2009, resulting in 1190 intersection-year observations. The results reveal the presence of intersection-specific time-invariant unobserved components influencing crash propensity and a spatial lag structure to characterize spatial dependence. Roadway configuration, approach roadway functional types, traffic control type, total daily entering traffic volumes and the split of volumes between approaches are all important variables in determining crash frequency at intersections.
Private Practice Or Not: Economic Considerations For The Physician Assistant

The purpose of this article is to review the role that economics plays in the decision-making process for the Physician Assistant (PA) in terms of the type of practice to pursue. Critical to the decision of a new Mid-Level Professional whether or not to enter into employment in a private practice or hospital/clinical based assignment, is research into the long term economic consequences. A third practice model to add to the mix is the physician/physician assistant owned practice partnership. This entails consideration of the following: 1) Potential salary presently available and its likely growth in the future 2) Any investment costs accounting for loss of future interest 3) Potential revenue, now and in the future from private practice 4) Operating costs attributable to private practice both now and in the future 5) Problems related to reimbursement and collection of fees 6) Type of practice e.g. size, age, specialty, or multi-specialty 7) Location of practice 8) Participation in managed care, HMO’s, etc. 9) Income disbursement from the practice or organization
Evaluation, Orientation, and Action in Interactive StoryTelling

Interactive storytelling encompasses a wide variety of applications and systems that aim to allow players in a virtual world to affect the narrative progression prescribed by the author. The story world is often modeled by a set of hand-crafted causal and temporal relationships that define the possible narrative sequences based on the user’s actions. In our view, a more promising approach involves applying methods from statistical language processing to create data-driven stories. Here, we explore integrating a typology of narrative clauses from Labov & Waletzky’s theory of oral narrative (henceforth L&W) into the Say Anything data-driven storytelling approach. We show that we can automatically distinguish EVALUATION clauses from ORIENTATION and ACTION clauses with 89% accuracy in fables, suggesting that it will be possible to develop new types of data-driven stories using L&W’s typology.
Estimation and Inference of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects using Random Forests

AbstractMany scientific and engineering challenges—ranging from personalized medicine to customized marketing recommendations—require an understanding of treatment effect heterogeneity. In this paper, we develop a non-parametric causal forest for estimating heterogeneous treatment effects that extends Breiman's widely used random forest algorithm. In the potential outcomes framework with unconfoundedness, we show that causal forests are pointwise consistent for the true treatment effect, and have an asymptotically Gaussian and centered sampling distribution. We also discuss a practical method for constructing asymptotic confidence intervals for the true treatment effect that are centered at the causal forest estimates. Our theoretical results rely on a generic Gaussian theory for a large family of random forest algorithms. To our knowledge, this is the first set of results that allows any type of random forest, including classification and regression forests, to be used for provably valid statistical infe...
What Is Political Science? What Should It Be?

This article examines the five myths that govern political science: that it studies politics; that it is scientific; that one can study politics cut off from the other social sciences and history; that the state is neutral; and that the bulk of the work in the discipline furthers the cause of democracy. Within political science, there have been three main approaches to criticizing these myths: a moderate one that treats the elements in these myths as more or less disconnected; a radical one that sees a systemic connection between these elements but doesn't bring out what it is and how it works; and a Marxist one that names this system, “capitalism,” and privileges the role of the capitalist state in explaining both politics and political science.
Concise Total Synthesis of (+)-Asperazine, (+)-Pestalazine A, and (+)-iso-Pestalazine A. Structure Revision of (+)-Pestalazine A.

The concise, enantioselective total syntheses of (+)-asperazine (1), (+)-iso-pestalazine A (2), and (+)-pestalazine A (3) have been achieved by the development of a late-stage C3–C8′ Friedel–Crafts union of polycyclic diketopiperazines. Our modular strategy enables the union of complex polycyclic diketopiperazines in virtually their final forms, thus providing rapid and highly convergent assembly at the challenging quaternary stereocenter of these dimeric alkaloids. The significance of this carbon–carbon bond formation can be gauged by the manifold constraints that were efficiently overcome, namely the substantial steric crowding at both reactive sites, the nucleophilic addition of C8′ over N1′ to the C3 carbocation, and the multitude of reactivity posed by the use of complex diketopiperazine fragments in the coupling event. The success of the indoline π-nucleophile that evolved through our studies is notable given the paucity of competing reaction pathways observed in the presence of the highly reactive ...
Learning the semantics of structured data sources

Information sources such as relational databases, spreadsheets, XML, JSON, and Web APIs contain a tremendous amount of structured data that can be leveraged to build and augment knowledge graphs. However, they rarely provide a semantic model to describe their contents. Semantic models of data sources represent the implicit meaning of the data by specifying the concepts and the relationships within the data. Such models are the key ingredients to automatically publish the data into knowledge graphs. Manually modeling the semantics of data sources requires significant effort and expertise, and although desirable, building these models automatically is a challenging problem. Most of the related work focuses on semantic annotation of the data fields (source attributes). However, constructing a semantic model that explicitly describes the relationships between the attributes in addition to their semantic types is critical.We present a novel approach that exploits the knowledge from a domain ontology and the semantic models of previously modeled sources to automatically learn a rich semantic model for a new source. This model represents the semantics of the new source in terms of the concepts and relationships defined by the domain ontology. Given some sample data from the new source, we leverage the knowledge in the domain ontology and the known semantic models to construct a weighted graph that represents the space of plausible semantic models for the new source. Then, we compute the top k candidate semantic models and suggest to the user a ranked list of the semantic models for the new source. The approach takes into account user corrections to learn more accurate semantic models on future data sources. Our evaluation shows that our method generates expressive semantic models for data sources and services with minimal user input. These precise models make it possible to automatically integrate the data across sources and provide rich support for source discovery and service composition. They also make it possible to automatically publish semantic data into knowledge graphs.
Disability and philosophy: applying ethics in circumstances of injustice

Despite antidiscrimination laws, disability discrimination remains ongoing. A recent field experiment in the USA indicates that employers are significantly more reluctant to interview qualified applicants with disabilities, whether physical or mental. This reluctance is especially noticeable among smaller employers and for more experienced job applicants.1 Such barriers impede people with disabilities from work, economic self-sufficiency, employer-provided health insurance, and more generally full participation in the societies in which they live. These impediments, in short, are a serious problem of justice and yet another indication that we live in an imperfect world in which non-ideal and partial compliance theorising about justice is imperative.2–4 It is thus highly welcome to see this journal devote a mini-symposium to philosophy and disability. The contributions illustrate many ways that philosophical techniques can inform our understanding of disability and disability discrimination and with this of bioethics more generally. This achievement is not always deliberate for the articles vary in success and at times primarily illustrate the limits of philosophical methods. Nonetheless there are important lessons to be drawn: that context matters to the understanding of disability and disability discrimination, and that applied ethics relies on the interplay of conceptual analysis, understanding of how arguments function, and the challenges of often-unjust social circumstances. The relevance of social context should not surprise readers familiar with claims about the social nature of disability: that the disadvantages attendant on differences in bodily functioning vary with the structures of the built and social worlds. It should also not surprise readers in bioethics familiar with non-ideal justice: that what justice requires in contexts of injustice may be very different from what it would require in an ideal world. Greg Bognar's ‘ Is Disability Mere Difference? ’ deploys conceptual analysis to debunk the claim that disability is only difference. Take spinal …
Effective Pain Management and Improvements in Patients’ Outcomes and Satisfaction

Adequate pain management is a compelling and universal requirement in health care. Despite considerable advancements, the adverse physiological and psychological implications of unmanaged pain remain substantially unresolved. Ineffective pain management can lead to a marked decrease in desirable clinical and psychological outcomes and patients' overall quality of life. Effective management of acute pain results in improved patient outcomes and increased patient satisfaction. Although research and advanced treatments in improved practice protocols have documented progressive improvements in management of acute and postoperative pain, little awareness of the effectiveness of best practices persists. Improved interventions can enhance patients' attitudes to and perceptions of pain. What a patient believes and understands about pain is critical in influencing the patient's reaction to the pain therapy provided. Use of interdisciplinary pain teams can lead to improvements in patients' pain management, pain education, outcomes, and satisfaction.
Urinary Tract Antiseptics

The urinary tract antiseptics discussed herein have specific advantages and disadvantages. All share a pharmacokinetic fate that makes them effective in treating acute, uncomplicated symptomatic bladder bacteriuria. Nitrofurantoin appears to be the most versatile because it is effective against upper tract infection, recurrent bacteriuria, and as a long-term suppressive agent in children and pregnant patients with only a low incidence of the development of resistance. Methenamine, when used with proper understanding of it pharmacokinetic behavior, is also effective in females with uncomplicated recurrent bacteriuria including those with multiply resistant pathogens, as well as a prophylactic agent in males with recurrent infection. There is little evidence that methenamine combined with mandelic or hippuric acid confers any pharmacologic or therapeutic advantage over the use of methanamine base alone. Nalidixic acid and oxolinic acid, in addition to effectiveness in treating uncomplicated acute lower urinary tract infections, may be effective in some patients with recurrent infections, but requires careful sensitivity monitoring of pathogens for the development of resistance. Finally, in a society whose economic pressures are such that it may not be cost-effective to use sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim for urinary tract prophylaxis--unless two or more acute infections occur per year--the use of these urinary antiseptics may offer increasing advantages now and in the future.
Using droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) to detect copy number variation in sugarcane, a high-level polyploid

Copy number variation (CNV) generally refers to duplications or deletions of sections of DNA, including genes. In polyploid plant species, CNV can also take the form of multiple copies of an allele at a given locus. This variation in dosage has been shown to alter gene expression and phenotype. As copy number rises, it becomes increasingly challenging to quantify dosage changes. A new technique, known as droplet digital PCR (ddPCR), has been used for measuring CNV. Digital PCR partitions a PCR reaction into many thousands to millions of discrete reactions (emulsified droplets in the case of ddPCR). This partitioning has the effect of diluting the target DNA, such that some droplets contain zero copies of the target, while others contain one or more copies. Post-PCR, this results in a binary (positive or negative) outcome, hence the term digital. Partitioning the reaction into a large number of discrete tests also increases sensitivity and dynamic range. In this article, ddPCR was employed to survey sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) germplasm for dosage variation for the Bru1 locus, which imparts resistance to the fungal disease known as brown rust. The breeding nursery at the USDA-ARS Sugarcane Field Station in Canal Point, FL was surveyed for the presence of Bru1 using standard methods. Those clones which were Bru1-positive were then analyzed via ddPCR. Out of 80 Bru1-positive clones, 60 were simplex or single copy. Eighteen clones were duplex for Bru1, and there were two clones that were triplex. The progeny of several testcrosses supported the results of ddPCR; a simplex parent produced approximately 50 % positive progeny, while parents that were duplex produced more than 80 %. Further verification was done via quantitative PCR. Results generally agreed with ddPCR, in that three groups could be distinguished, but the groups were relative, and not quantitative. This analysis of dosage variation has important implications for both breeding and molecular biology research. Clones with more than one copy of Bru1 (or any other gene of interest) will pass on the gene at much higher frequencies than clones that are simplex. In addition, the identification of clones with varying gene dosages allows for formal testing of dosage effects. This is the first report of ddPCR being used to measure copy number/dosage variation in a high-level polyploid plant species.
An essay on late structuralism

This paper traces the evolution of structuralist thought from the early European and Latin American structuralists through the late structuralism of Taylor and his followers. The genesis of the structuralist method is located in the writings of the early structuralists and necessarily leads to what neoclassicals call ad hoc theory. It is argued that simulation models are the logical outgrowth of the structuralist methodological trajectory and the validity of structuralist method is established by it scope as well as its
Communication is Bounded by Root of Rank

We prove that any total boolean function of rank r can be computed by a deterministic communication protocol of complexity O(√ c log(r)). Equivalently, any graph whose adjacency matrix has rank r has chromatic number at most 2O(√rclog(r)). This gives a nearly quadratic improvement in the dependence on the rank over previous results.
Estimation of Yield Densities: A Bayesian Nonparametric Perspective

The pricing of crop insurance products hinges crucially on the accurate estimation of the underlying yield densities. Multiple estimation methods have already been examined in the literature, but the need for other potential candidates remains essential. Here we propose and examine a Bayesian nonparametric model which is based on Dirichlet processes for yield estimation. We deploy our proposed model for the empirical estimation of county level yield data for Cotton from Texas. Next, we examine the implications of our modeling framework on the pricing of the Group Risk Plan (GRP) insurance compared to a nonparametric Kernel-type model.
UV Completions for Non-Critical Strings

Compactifications of the physical superstring to two dimensions provide a general template for realizing 2D conformal field theories coupled to worldsheet gravity, i.e. non-critical string theories. Motivated by this observation, in this paper we determine the quasi-topological 8D theory which governs the vacua of 2D $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = (0, 2) gauged linear sigma models (GLSMs) obtained from compactifications of type I and heterotic strings on a Calabi-Yau fourfold. We also determine the quasi-topological 6D theory governing the 2D vacua of intersecting 7-branes in compactifications of F-theory on an elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau fivefold, where matter fields and interaction terms localize on lower-dimensional subspaces, i.e. defect operators. To cancel anomalies / cancel tadpoles, these GLSMs must couple to additional chiral sectors, which in some cases do not admit a known description in terms of a UV GLSM. Additionally, we find that constructing an anomaly free spectrum can sometimes break supersymmetry due to spacetime filling anti-branes. We also study various canonical examples such as the standard embedding of heterotic strings on a Calabi-Yau fourfold and F-theoretic “rigid clusters” with no local deformation moduli of the elliptic fibration.
Large-area, uniform and low-cost dual-mode plasmonic naked-eye colorimetry and SERS sensor with handheld Raman spectrometer

We demonstrated a highly-sensitive, wafer-scale, highly-uniform plasmonic nano-mushroom substrate based on plastic for naked-eye plasmonic colorimetry and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). We gave it the name FlexBrite. The dual-mode functionality of FlexBrite allows for label-free qualitative analysis by SERS with an enhancement factor (EF) of 108 and label-free quantitative analysis by naked-eye colorimetry with a sensitivity of 611 nm RIU−1. The SERS EF of FlexBrite in the wet state was found to be 4.81 × 108, 7 times stronger than in the dry state, making FlexBrite suitable for aqueous environments such as microfluid systems. The label-free detection of biotin–streptavidin interaction by both SERS and colorimetry was demonstrated with FlexBrite. The detection of trace amounts of the narcotic drug methamphetamine in drinking water by SERS was implemented with a handheld Raman spectrometer and FlexBrite. This plastic-based dual-mode nano-mushroom substrate has the potential to be used as a sensing platform for easy and fast analysis in chemical and biological assays.
Fracton Topological Order, Generalized Lattice Gauge Theory and Duality

We introduce a generalization of conventional lattice gauge theory to describe fracton topological phases, which are characterized by immobile, pointlike topological excitations, and subextensive topological degeneracy. We demonstrate a duality between fracton topological order and interacting spin systems with symmetries along extensive, lower-dimensional subsystems, which may be used to systematically search for and characterize fracton topological phases. Commutative algebra and elementary algebraic geometry provide an effective mathematical tool set for our results. Our work paves the way for identifying possible material realizations of fracton topological phases.
Impact of Opioid and Nonopioid Drugs on Postsurgical Pain Management in the Rat

Aim. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or opioids are commonly used to control surgical pain following veterinary and clinical procedures. This study evaluated the efficacy of postoperative ketorolac or buprenorphine following abdominal surgery. Main Methods. Mean arterial pressure (MAP), heart rate, animal activity, corticosterone levels, and a nociceptive sensitivity assay were used to evaluate 18 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats which underwent aortic artery occlusion for implantation of a radiotelemetry device. The animals were treated postoperatively with intraperitoneal injections of vehicle, ketorolac (10 mg/kg), or buprenorphine (0.06 mg/kg) every 8 hours for 3 days. Key Findings. There were no consistent significant changes in any of the telemetry parameters after treatment with ketorolac compared with no saline treatment with the exception of increased MAP in the buprenorphine group during the first 48 hours when compared with other treatment groups. There was a sustained increase in fecal corticosterone levels from baseline on days 2–7 with buprenorphine compared with vehicle- or ketorolac-treated animals. All treatment conditions displayed reduced paw withdrawal thresholds (PWTs) from day 1 to day 21 following surgery. Compared with the vehicle treatment group, buprenorphine-treated animals exhibited significantly lower PWT levels from day 4 to 14 days. Significance. Given the prolonged increase in fecal corticosterone levels and pronounced changes in tactile hyperalgesia behavior in rodents subjected to buprenorphine treatment, these data suggest that ketorolac may be superior to buprenorphine for the treatment of postprocedure pain behavior in rodents.
Pump frequency noise coupling into a microcavity by thermo-optic locking

As thermo-optic locking is widely used to establish a stable frequency detuning between an external laser and a high Q microcavity, it is important to understand how this method affects microcavity temperature and frequency fluctuations. A theoretical analysis of the laser-microcavity frequency fluctuations is presented and used to find the spectral dependence of the suppression of laser-microcavity, relative frequency noise caused by thermo-optic locking. The response function is that of a high-pass filter with a bandwidth and low-frequency suppression that increase with input power. The results are verified using an external-cavity diode laser and a silica disk resonator. The locking of relative frequency fluctuations causes temperature fluctuations within the microcavity that transfer pump frequency noise onto the microcavity modes over the thermal locking bandwidth. This transfer is verified experimentally. These results are important to investigations of noise properties in many nonlinear microcavity experiments in which low-frequency, optical-pump frequency noise must be considered.
Vanishing theorems and character formulas for the Hilbert scheme of points in the plane

In an earlier paper [14], we showed that the Hilbert scheme of points in the plane H n =Hilb n (ℂ2) can be identified with the Hilbert scheme of regular orbits ℂ2 n //S n . Using this result, together with a recent theorem of Bridgeland, King and Reid [4] on the generalized McKay correspondence, we prove vanishing theorems for tensor powers of tautological bundles on the Hilbert scheme. We apply the vanishing theorems to establish (among other things) the character formula for diagonal harmonics conjectured by Garsia and the author in [9]. In particular we prove that the dimension of the space of diagonal harmonics is equal to (n+1) n -1.
Sonic boom generation propagation and minimization

Consideration of the possibility of reducing sonic boom noise to a level acceptable in populated areas. A detailed study is made of the possibility of predicting sonic boom generation, taking into account the effect of atmospheric conditions, air turbulence, and the effect of the shape and condition of the ground where people are located. The relation between the shape of the sonic boom signature on the ground and the aircraft shape is shown to be an important factor governing the use of supersonic aircraft over populated areas.
The cost of integrating external technologies: Supply and demand drivers of value creation in the markets for technology

A classic question faced by technology suppliers and buyers is whether to compete in the product markets or to cooperate through licensing. We address this question by examining an important, demand-side barrier to licensing—the buyers' cost of integrating a licensed technology. We argue that this cost can be affected by suppliers' knowledge transfer capabilities, buyers' absorptive capacity, and the cospecialization between R&D and downstream activities in the buyers' industries. Following this argument and a stylized bargaining model, we hypothesize that the supplier's knowledge transfer capability stimulates licensing. Moreover, the importance of this capability increases when licensing to industries where potential buyers have weak absorptive capacity or R&D and downstream activities are cospecialized. We find support for our hypotheses using a panel dataset of small ‘serial innovators.’ Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Highly Diastereo- and Enantioselective Aldol Reaction of Methyl α-Isocyanoacetate: A Cooperative Catalysis Approach

The cooperative catalyst activity between a chiral transition-metal catalyst and an achiral organocatalyst has been identified as one of the critical asymmetric reaction optimization components in the highly diastereo- and enantioselective aldol reaction of methyl α-isocyanoacetate.
Dinuclear Zinc–ProPhenol-Catalyzed Enantioselective α-Hydroxyacetate Aldol Reaction with Activated Ester Equivalents

An enantioselective α-hydroxyacetate aldol reaction that employs N-acetyl pyrroles as activated ester equivalents and generates syn 1,2-diols in good yield and diastereoselectivity is reported. This dinuclear zinc–ProPhenol-catalyzed transformation proceeds with high enantioselectivity with a wide variety of substrates including aryl, alyl, and alkenyl aldehydes. The resulting α,β-dihydroxy activated esters are versatile intermediates for the synthesis of a variety of carboxylic acid derivatives including amides, esters, and unsymmetrical ketones.
PyFluor: A Low-Cost, Stable, and Selective Deoxyfluorination Reagent

We report an inexpensive, thermally stable deoxyfluorination reagent that fluorinates a broad range of alcohols without substantial formation of elimination side products. This combination of selectivity, safety, and economic viability enables deoxyfluorination on preparatory scale. We employ the [18F]-labeled reagent in the first example of a no-carrier-added deoxy-radiofluorination.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Parallel Tempering

Parallel tempering, also known as replica exchange Monte Carlo, is studied in the context of two simple free energy landscapes. The first is a double well potential defined by two macrostates separated by a barrier. The second is a ‘golf course’ potential defined by microstates having two possible energies with exponentially more high energy states than low energy states. The equilibration time for replica exchange is analyzed for both systems. For the double well system, parallel tempering with a number of replicas that scales as the square root of the barrier height yields exponential speedup of the equilibration time. On the other hand, replica exchange yields only marginal speed-up for the golf course system. For the double well system, the free energy difference between the two wells has a large effect on the equilibration time. Nearly degenerate wells equilibrate much more slowly than strongly asymmetric wells. It is proposed that this difference in equilibration time may lead to a bias in measuring overlaps in spin glasses. These examples illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of replica exchange and may serve as a guide for understanding and improving the method in various applications. ∗Electronic address: machta@physics.umass.edu 1 ar X iv :0 90 8. 00 12 v2 [ co nd -m at .s ta tm ec h] 8 A ug 2 00 9
Metastatic Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma After Total Pancreatectomy Islet Autotransplantation for Chronic Pancreatitis

Total pancreatectomy with islet autotransplantation (TPIAT) is being used increasingly as a definitive treatment for chronic pancreatitis. Patients with chronic pancreatitis have an elevated risk of pancreatic cancer, which can also masquerade as acute or chronic pancreatitis, making the diagnosis challenging. We describe here the first case of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma developing in the liver of a patient after TPIAT for presumed benign chronic pancreatitis. Retrospective analysis of the patient's preoperative serum revealed normal carbohydrate antigen 19-9 and carcinoembryonic antigen levels but elevated levels of microRNAs -10b, -30c, and -106b compared with controls. Screening guidelines are important to reduce the risk of transplantation of malignant tissue. More sensitive screening tools, including the potential use of microRNAs, are needed to detect early preclinical disease, given the highly malignant nature of pancreatic cancer.
Robust Distributed Averaging: When are Potential-Theoretic Strategies Optimal?

We study the interaction between a network designer and an adversary over a dynamical network. The network consists of nodes performing continuous-time distributed averaging. The adversary strategically disconnects a set of links to prevent the nodes from reaching consensus. Meanwhile, the network designer assists the nodes in reaching consensus by changing the weights of a limited number of links in the network. We formulate two Stackelberg games to describe this competition where the order in which the players act is reversed in the two problems. Although the canonical equations provided by the Pontryagin's maximum principle seem to be intractable, we provide an alternative characterization for the optimal strategies that makes connection to potential theory. Finally, we provide a sufficient condition for the existence of a saddle-point equilibrium for the underlying zero-sum game.
A Spectral Climatology for Atmospheric Compensation of Hyperspectral Imagery

Most Earth observation hyperspectral imagery (HSI) detection and identification algorithms depend critically upon a robust atmospheric compensation capability to correct for the effects of the atmosphere on the radiance signal. Atmospheric compensation methods typically perform optimally when ancillary ground truth data are available, e.g., high fidelity in situ radiometric observations or atmospheric profile measurements. When ground truth is incomplete or not available, additional assumptions must be made to perform the compensation. Meteorological climatologies are available to provide climatological norms for input into the radiative transfer models; however no such climatologies exist for empirical methods. The success of atmospheric compensation methods such as the empirical line method suggests that remotely sensed HSI scenes contain comprehensive sets of atmospheric state information within the spectral data itself. It is argued that large collections of empirically-derived atmospheric coefficients collected over a range of climatic and atmospheric conditions comprise a resource that can be applied to prospective atmospheric compensation problems. A previous study introduced a new climatological approach to atmospheric compensation in which empirically derived spectral information, rather than sensible atmospheric state variables, is the fundamental datum. The current work expands the approach across an experimental archive of 127 airborne HSI datasets spanning nine physical sites to represent varying climatological conditions. The representative atmospheric compensation coefficients are assembled in a scientific database of spectral observations and modeled data. Improvements to the modeling methods used to standardize the coefficients across varying collection and illumination geometries and the resulting comparisons of adjusted coefficients are presented. The climatological database is analyzed to show that common spectral similarity metrics can be used to separate the climatological classes to a degree of detail commensurate with the modest size and range of the imaging conditions comprising the study.
The nutritional value of Pacific herring: An ancient cultural keystone species on the Northwest Coast of North America

The perspective of nutritional ecology produces a more comprehensive understanding of the dietary, economic, and socio-cultural importance of Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) to Northwest Coast societies and Alaska Natives than do models derived from optimal foraging theory. The food value of herring meat, eggs, and oil are found to rank highly not just in calories or protein, but especially in healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Herring provides large amounts of EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) in addition to iron, zinc, copper, and selenium. In coastal Alaska and along the Northwest Coast, herring was/is one of a vast array of traditional foods in a diverse diet. Herring apparently played different dietary roles in different cultural settings; in some areas it was a seasonal feast food, while in others its products were processed into forms that could be consumed throughout the annual cycle. Herring provided essential nutrients that affected human health, growth, and development, and likely facilitated demographic expansion. Paired with the indigenous and scientific knowledge of how herring function within North Pacific ecosystems, we can better appreciate the role of herring as a cultural keystone species.
Clonal CD8+ T Lymphocytic Proliferation and Karyotypical Abnormalities in an EBV Associated Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis

EBV associated hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and EBV-positive T cell lymphoproliferative disease of childhood share many histologic and clinical features, which sometimes makes it very difficult to render a definitive diagnosis. In this report, we present a 16-year-old male who developed symptoms clinically consistent with EBV associated hematophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis including fulfilling most of HLH diagnostic criteria and responding promptly to HLH targeted therapy. However, histologic and cytogenetics features of this case are very concerning for EBV-positive T cell lymphoproliferative disease of childhood. This case demonstrates an ambiguous boundary of these two disease entities and emphasizes the importance of comprehensive evaluation and clinical correlation with cases suspicious of EBV driven hemophagocytic or lymphoproliferative process.
How useful is contrast-enhanced ultrasonography in the diagnosis of intraductal papillary mucinous tumors?

How useful is contrast-enhanced ultrasonography in the diagnosis of intraductal papillary mucinous tumors?
Framing Human Trafficking: A Content Analysis of Recent U.S. Newspaper Articles

ABSTRACTThe news media can play a significant role in shaping public perceptions of social problems. One of these, human trafficking, has attracted increasing media attention since the early 2000s. This article builds on earlier work with a content analysis of articles on human trafficking published in the New York Times and the Washington Post during 2012–2013. In order to identify both continuities and changes in reporting over time, we replicate and expand on a study of the 1980–2006 time period, in addition to analyzing additional factors not examined in the previous study. In addition to documenting a sharply increasing amount of coverage compared to earlier years, we examine the ways in which trafficking is defined and framed, the types of sources relied on in the articles, the types of victims that received the most attention, and other important features. We document key similarities and differences over time in reporting on human trafficking.
Increased circulating levels of bromocriptine after vaginal compared with oral administration.

Objective To compare the circulating levels of bromocriptine after oral and vaginal administration of the drug. Design Experimental Participants Seven ovulatory female volunteers and one hyperprolactinemic patient. Interventions Ovulatory volunteers were randomized to receive either oral or vaginal bromocriptine (2.5mg). In a second session, the subjects were crossed-over to bromocriptine by the alternate route. An additional hyperprolactinemic patient received vaginal bromocriptine only. Main Outcome Measure Serum bromocriptine and prolactin (PRL) levels were measured hourly for 12hours in the normal volunteers and for 10hours in the hyperprolactinemic patient. Results Circulating bromocriptine levels were significantly higher after vaginal bromocriptine after the 7th hour ( P Conclusions Vaginally administered bromocriptine may result in a reduction in the overall dose required, thereby improving compliance without compromising therapeutic efficacy.
BaCu2Sn(S,Se)4: Earth-Abundant Chalcogenides for Thin-Film Photovoltaics

Chalcogenides such as CdTe, Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 (CIGSSe), and Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 (CZTSSe) have enabled remarkable advances in thin-film photovoltaic performance, but concerns remain regarding (i) the toxicity (CdTe) and (ii) scarcity (CIGSSe/CdTe) of the constituent elements and (iii) the unavoidable antisite disordering that limits further efficiency improvement (CZTSSe). In this work, we show that a different materials class, the BaCu2SnSexS4–x (BCTSSe) system, offers a prospective path to circumvent difficulties (i–iii) and to target new environmentally friendly and earth-abundant absorbers. Antisite disordering and associated band tailing are discouraged in BCTSSe due to the distinct coordination environment of the large Ba2+ cation. Indeed, an abrupt absorption edge and sharp associated photoluminescence emission demonstrate a reduced impact of band tailing in BCTSSe relative to CZTSSe. Our combined experimental and computational studies of BCTSSe reveal that the compositions 0 ≤ x ≤ 4 exhibit a tunable nea...
Role of hepatic macrophages in alcoholic liver disease

Alcohol consumption can lead to the increase in gut permeability and cause the translocation of bacteria-derived lipopolysaccharides from the gut to the liver, which subsequently activates immune responses. In this process, macrophages play a critical role and involve in the pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease (ALD). To define the mechanism underpinning the function of macrophages, it is important to conduct extensive studies to further explicate the phenotypic diversity of macrophages in the context of ALD. In this review, the role of hepatic macrophages in the pathogenesis of ALD is discussed.