cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
On Modeling Teams of Interacting Decisionmakers with Bounded Rationality

Abstract An analytical model of a team of well-trained human decisionmakers executing well-defined decisionmaking tasks is presented. Each team member is described by a two-stage model in which received information is first assessed and then responses are selected. An information theoretic framework is used in which bounded rationality is modeled as a constraint on the total rate of internal processing by each decisionmaker. Optimizing and satisficing strategies are derived and their properties analyzed in terms of organizational performance and individual workload. The relevance of this approach to the design and evaluation of command control and communications (C3) systems is discussed.
An empirical analysis of individual level casino gambling behavior

Gambling and gaming is a very large industry in the United States with about one-third of all adults participating in it on a regular basis. Using novel and unique behavioral data from a panel of casino gamblers, this paper investigates three aspects of consumer behavior in this domain. The first is that consumers are addicted to gambling, the second that they act on “irrational” beliefs, and the third that they are influenced by marketing activity that attempts to influence their gambling behavior. We use the interrelated consumer decisions to play (gamble) and the amount bet in a casino setting to focus on addiction using the standard economic definition of addiction. We test for two irrational behaviors, the “gambler’s fallacy” and the “hot hand myth”—our research represents the first test for these behaviors using disaggregate data in a real (as opposed to a laboratory) setting. Finally, we look at the effect of marketing instruments on the both the decision to play and the amount bet. Using hierarchical Bayesian methods to pin down individual-level parameters, we find that about 8% of the consumers in our sample can be classified as addicted. We find support in our data for the gambler’s fallacy, but not for the hot hand myth. We find that marketing instruments positively affect gambling behavior, and that consumers who are more addicted are also affected by marketing to a greater extent. Specifically, the long-run marketing response is about twice as high for the more addicted consumers.
Quantitation and purification of polymerase chain reaction products by high-performance liquid chromatography

This work describes the application of the fully automated high-performance liquid chromatographic system to the analysis of PCR-amplified products. Efficient separations of both DNA restriction fragments and PCR products were performed using an anion-exchange DEAE-NPR column, packed with 2.5-μm nonporous particles. The automated HPLC method was employed for the separation, quantitation, and purification of PCR products in less than 10 min in a single step.
Stress-mediated convergence of splicing landscapes in male and female rock doves.

The process of alternative splicing provides a unique mechanism by which eukaryotes are able to produce numerous protein products from the same gene. Heightened variability in the proteome has been thought to potentiate increased behavioral complexity and response flexibility to environmental stimuli, thus contributing to more refined traits on which natural and sexual selection can act. While it has been long known that various forms of environmental stress can negatively affect sexual behavior and reproduction, we know little of how stress can affect the alternative splicing associated with these events, and less still about how splicing may differ between sexes. Using the model of the rock dove (Columba livia), our team previously uncovered sexual dimorphism in the basal and stress-responsive gene transcription of a biological system necessary for facilitating sexual behavior and reproduction, the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis. In this study, we delve further into understanding the mechanistic underpinnings of how changes in the environment can affect reproduction by testing the alternative splicing response of the HPG axis to an external stressor in both sexes. This study reveals dramatic baseline differences in HPG alternative splicing between males and females. However, after subjecting subjects to a restraint stress paradigm, we found a significant reduction in these differences between the sexes. In both stress and control treatments, we identified a higher incidence of splicing activity in the pituitary in both sexes as compared to other tissues. Of these splicing events, the core exon event is the most abundant form of splicing and more frequently occurs in the coding regions of the gene. Overall, we observed less splicing activity in the 3’UTR (untranslated region) end of transcripts than the 5’UTR or coding regions. Our results provide vital new insight into sex-specific aspects of the stress response on the HPG axis at an unprecedented proximate level. Males and females uniquely respond to stress, yet exhibit splicing patterns suggesting a convergent, optimal splicing landscape for stress response. This information has the potential to inform evolutionary theory as well as the development of highly-specific drug targets for stress-induced reproductive dysfunction.
Mitochondrial tRNA methylation in Alzheimer's disease and progressive supranuclear palsy.

Methylation of mitochondrial tRNAs (mt-tRNA) at the 9th position (“p9 site”) is known to impact translational efficiency and downstream mitochondrial function; however, direct assessment of mt-RNA methylation is challenging. Recent RNA sequence-based methods have been developed to reliably identify post-transcriptional methylation. Though p9 methylation has been studied in healthy human populations and in the context of cancer, it has not yet been analyzed in neurodegenerative disease, where mitochondrial dysfunction is a prominent and early hallmark of disease progression. Mitochondrial p9 methylation was inferred from multi-allelic calls in RNA-seq data. Gene-based association studies were performed in FUMA. Correlations between nuclear gene expression and p9 methylation were tested using Spearman’s rho. Fisher’s Exact test was used in PANTHER and IPA to test for overrepresentation and enrichment of biological processes and pathways in the top nuclear genes correlated with p9 methylation. Variable methylation was observed at 11 p9 sites in post-mortem cerebellar tissue of elderly subjects who were either healthy or diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) or pathological aging (PA). Similarities in degree of methylation were observed between AD and PSP. Certain nuclear encoded genes were identified as significantly associated with p9 methylation. Expression of 5300 nuclear encoded genes was significantly correlated with p9 methylation, with AD and PSP subjects exhibiting similar expression profiles. Overrepresentation and enrichment testing using the top transcripts revealed enrichment for a number of molecular processes, terms and pathways including many of which that were mitochondrial-related. With mitochondrial dysfunction being an established hallmark of neurodegenerative disease pathophysiology, this work sheds light on the potential molecular underpinnings of this dysfunction. Here we show overlap in cerebellar pathophysiology between common tauopathies such as Alzheimer’s disease and progressive supranuclear palsy. Whether p9 hypermethylation is a cause or consequence of pathology remains an area of focus.
Multi-scale spatial heterogeneity enhances particle clearance in airway ciliary arrays

Mucus clearance constitutes the primary defence of the respiratory system against viruses, bacteria and environmental insults. This transport across the entire airway emerges from the integrated activity of thousands of multiciliated cells, each containing hundreds of cilia, which together must coordinate their spatial arrangement, alignment and motility. The mechanisms of fluid transport have been studied extensively at the level of an individual cilium, collectively moving metachronal waves and, more generally, the hydrodynamics of active matter. However, the connection between local cilia architecture and the topology of the flows they generate remains largely unexplored. Here, we image the mouse airway from subcellular (nm) to organ (mm) scales, characterizing quantitatively its ciliary arrangement and the generated flows. Locally, we measure heterogeneity in both cilia organization and flow structure, but, across the trachea, fluid transport is coherent. To examine this result, a hydrodynamic model was developed for a systematic exploration of different tissue architectures. Surprisingly, we find that disorder enhances particle clearance, whether it originates from fluctuations, heterogeneity in multiciliated cell arrangement or ciliary misalignment. This resembles elements of ‘stochastic resonance’, in the sense that noise can improve the function of the system. Taken together, our results shed light on how the microstructure of an active carpet determines its emergent dynamics. Furthermore, this work is also directly applicable to human airway pathologies, which are the third leading cause of deaths worldwide. Fluid flow through airways—necessary to keep lungs healthy and free from particles—occurs thanks to moving cilia. Here the authors show that defects in the arrangement of these cilia can facilitate particle clearance through the lungs.
Bose Condensation Without Broken Symmetries

This paper considers the issue of Bose–Einstein condensation in a weakly interacting Bose gas with a fixed total number of particles. We use an old current algebra formulation of non-relativistic many body systems due to Dashen and Sharp to show that, at sufficiently low temperatures, a gas of weakly interacting Bosons displays Off-diagonal Long Range Order in the sense introduced by Penrose and Onsager. Even though this formulation is somewhat cumbersome it may demystify many of the standard results in the field for those uncomfortable with the conventional broken symmetry based approaches. All the physics presented here is well understood but as far as we know this perspective, although dating from the 60's and 70's, has not appeared in the literature. We have attempted to make the presentation as self-contained as possible in the hope that it will be accessible to the many students interested in the field.
A note on equivariant biharmonic maps and stable biharmonic maps

Abstract In this note, we generalize biharmonic equation for rotationally symmetric maps ( [4] , [20] , [12] ) to equivariant maps between model spaces and use it to give a complete classification of rotationally symmetric conformal biharmonic maps from a 4-dimensional space form into a 4-dimensional model space. We also give an improved second variation formula for biharmonic maps into a space form and use it to prove that there exists no stable proper biharmonic map with constant square norm of tension field from a compact Riemannian manifold without boundary into a space form of positive sectional curvature.
Measuring economic efficiency using inverse-optimum weights

Abstract This paper provides a method to measure the traditional Kaldor-Hicks notion of “economic efficiency” when taxes affect behavior. In contrast to traditional unweighted surplus, measuring efficiency requires weighting individual benefits (or surplus) by the marginal cost to the government of providing a $1 transfer at each income level. These weights correspond to the solution to the “inverse-optimum” program in the optimal tax literature: they are the social planning weights that would rationalize the status quo tax schedule as optimal. I estimate the weights using the universe of US income tax returns from 2012. The results suggest that measuring economic efficiency requires weighting surplus accruing to the poor roughly 1.5–2 times more than surplus accruing to the rich. This is because $1 of surplus to the poor can be turned into roughly $1.5–$2 of surplus to the rich by reducing the progressivity of the tax schedule. Following Kaldor and Hicks' original applications, I compare income distributions over time in the US and across countries. The results suggest US economic growth is 15–20% lower due to increased inequality than is suggested by changes in GDP. Because of its higher inequality, the U.S. is unable to replicate the income distribution of countries like Austria and the Netherlands, despite having higher national income per capita.
Towards Open Domain Event Trigger Identification using Adversarial Domain Adaptation

We tackle the task of building supervised event trigger identification models which can generalize better across domains. Our work leverages the adversarial domain adaptation (ADA) framework to introduce domain-invariance. ADA uses adversarial training to construct representations that are predictive for trigger identification, but not predictive of the example’s domain. It requires no labeled data from the target domain, making it completely unsupervised. Experiments with two domains (English literature and news) show that ADA leads to an average F1 score improvement of 3.9 on out-of-domain data. Our best performing model (BERT-A) reaches 44-49 F1 across both domains, using no labeled target data. Preliminary experiments reveal that finetuning on 1% labeled data, followed by self-training leads to substantial improvement, reaching 51.5 and 67.2 F1 on literature and news respectively.
Using compartmental models to simulate directed acyclic graphs to explore competing causal mechanisms underlying epidemiological study data

Accurately estimating the effect of an exposure on an outcome requires understanding how variables relevant to a study question are causally related to each other. Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) ar...
Quenched asymptotics for a 1-d stochastic heat equation driven by a rough spatial noise

Abstract In this note we consider the parabolic Anderson model in one dimension with time-independent fractional noise W in space. We consider the case H 1 2 and get existence and uniqueness of solution. In order to find the quenched asymptotics for the solution we consider its Feynman–Kac representation and explore the asymptotics of the principal eigenvalue for a random operator of the form 1 2 Δ + W .
MPCs, MPEs and Multipliers: A Trilemma for New Keynesian Models

We show that New Keynesian models with frictionless labor supply face a challenge: given standard parameters, they cannot simultaneously match plausible estimates of marginal propensities to consume (MPCs), marginal propensities to earn (MPEs), and fiscal multipliers. A HANK model with sticky wages provides a solution to this trilemma.
Routing Optical Spin and Pseudospin with Metasurfaces

Controlling and guiding optical spins and pseudospins over an interface is of great importance in the emerging fields of spintronics and valleytronics, holding the promise for new degrees of freedom in the quest for efficient information transport. Here we explore the general possibilities offered by metasurfaces to route optical momentum, spin and helicity through surface waves. We show how anisotropy and bianisotropy can be engineered to impart extreme directionality to local spin excitations. While most previous works have focused on out-of-plane spins, in-plane excitations have become particularly important for valleytronic applications relying on two-dimensional materials, and they offer specific challenges addressed here with suitably engineered nonlocality in metasurfaces.
Culture Wars and COVID-19 Conduct: Christian Nationalism, Religiosity, and Americans' Behavior During the Coronavirus Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans' behavioral responses were quickly politicized Those on the left stressed precautionary behaviors, while those on the (religious) right were more likely to disregard recommended precautions We propose the far right response was driven less by partisanship or religiosity per se, but rather by an ideology that connects disregard for scientific expertise;a conception of Americans as God's chosen and protected people;distrust for news media;and allegiance to Trump?Christian nationalism Analyzing panel data collected in the thick of the COVID-19 crisis, we find Christian nationalism was the leading predictor that Americans engaged in incautious behavior like eating in restaurants, visiting family/friends, or gathering with 10+ persons (though not attending church), and was the second strongest predictor that Americans took fewer precautions like wearing a mask or sanitizing/washing one's hands Religiosity, in contrast, was the leading predictor that Americans engaged in more frequent precautionary behaviors Findings document that Christian nationalism, not religious commitment per se, undergirded the far-right response to COVID-19 that disregarded precautionary recommendations, thus potentially worsening the pandemic
Lessons From COVID-19 Responses in East Asia: Institutional Infrastructure and Enduring Policy Instruments

Existing commentaries on government responses to COVID-19 have focused on such factors as competent leadership, policy instruments, or cultural dispositions. Yet, few have provided a synthesis that...
Corporate Finance Policies and Social Networks

This paper shows that managers are influenced by their social peers when making corporate policy decisions. Using biographical information about executives and directors of U.S. public companies, w...
Detecting sample swaps in diverse NGS data types using linkage disequilibrium.

As the number of genomics datasets grows rapidly, sample mislabeling has become a high stakes issue. We present CrosscheckFingerprints (Crosscheck), a tool for quantifying sample-relatedness and detecting incorrectly paired sequencing datasets from different donors. Crosscheck outperforms similar methods and is effective even when data are sparse or from different assays. Application of Crosscheck to 8851 ENCODE ChIP-, RNA-, and DNase-seq datasets enabled us to identify and correct dozens of mislabeled samples and ambiguous metadata annotations, representing ~1% of ENCODE datasets. Parallelized analysis in clinical genomics can lead to sample or data mislabelling, and could have serious downstream consequences. Here the authors present a tool to quantify sample genetic relatedness and detect such mistakes, and apply it to thousands of datasets from the ENCODE consortium.
Telemedicine, Privacy, and Information Security in the Age of COVID-19

COVID-19 has highlighted the shortcomings of healthcare systems globally as countries struggle to meet the high demand for patient care The spread of COVID-19
Latent Factor Analysis of Gaussian Distributions under Graphical Constraints

We explore the algebraic structure of the solution space of convex optimization problem Constrained Minimum Trace Factor Analysis (CMTFA), when the population covariance matrix Σ x has an additional latent graphical constraint, namely, a latent star topology. In particular, we have shown that CMTFA can have either a rank 1 or a rank n − 1 solution and nothing in between. The special case of a rank 1 solution, corresponds to the case where just one latent variable captures all the dependencies among the observables, giving rise to a star topology. We found explicit conditions for both rank 1 and rank n − 1 solutions for CMTFA solution of Σ x . As a basic attempt towards building a more general Gaussian tree, we have found a necessary and a sufficient condition for multiple clusters each having rank 1 CMTFA solution to satisfy a minimum probability, to combine together to build a Gaussian tree.
"Scentsor": A Whole-Cell Yeast Biosensor with an Olfactory Reporter for Low-Cost and Equipment-Free Detection of Pharmaceuticals.

Portable and inexpensive analytical tools are required to monitor pharmaceutical quality in technology limited settings including low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Whole cell yeast biosenso...
Alternative Splicing Regulation of an Alzheimer’s Risk Variant in CLU

Clusterin (CLU) is one of the risk genes most associated with late onset Alzheimer's disease (AD), and several genetic variants in CLU are associated with AD risk. However, the functional role of known AD risk genetic variants in CLU has been little explored. We investigated the effect of an AD risk variant (rs7982) in the 5th exon of CLU on alternative splicing by using an integrative approach of brain-tissue-based RNA-Seq and whole genome sequencing data from Accelerating Medicines Partnership-Alzheimer's Disease (AMP-AD). RNA-Seq data were generated from three regions in the temporal lobe of the brain-the temporal cortex, superior temporal gyrus, and parahippocampal gyrus. The rs7982 was significantly associated with intron retention (IR) of the 5th exon of CLU; as the number of alternative alleles (G) increased, the IR rates decreased more significantly in females than in males. Our results suggest a sex-dependent role of rs7982 in AD pathogenesis via splicing regulation.
Coupling Weap and Leap Models Using Interaction Modeling

It is useful to model the interactions between the water and energy models separately. A coupled water and energy model using an interaction model lends itself to developing flexible, yet rigorous predictive simulation studies. A WEAP-LEAP interaction model is developed based on the Knowledge Interchange Broker modeling approach. A RESTful simulation framework is developed for coupling the Componentized-WEAP and Componentized-LEAP systems. Every interaction model is defined to have a set of modules where each module has its input and output ports with data transformation schemes. The input and output ports of the Componentized-WEAP and Componentized-LEAP models are coupled with those of the interaction model. A cyclic, synchronous execution protocol is defined for concurrent, bidirectional data transformations. The computational efficiency of this loosely coupled water-energy framework is acceptable compared with the tightly WEAP-LEAP system. This proposed framework shows understanding the water-energy system nexus is advantageous using interaction modeling.
On-board Deep-learning-based Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Fault Cause Detection and Identification

With the increase in use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)/drones, it is important to detect and identify causes of failure in real time for proper recovery from a potential crash-like scenario or post incident forensics analysis. The cause of crash could be either a fault in the sensor/actuator system, a physical damage/attack, or a cyber attack on the drone’s software. In this paper, we propose novel architectures based on deep Convolutional and Long Short-Term Memory Neural Networks (CNNs and LSTMs) to detect (via Autoencoder) and classify drone mis-operations based on real-time sensor data. The proposed architectures are able to learn high-level features automatically from the raw sensor data and learn the spatial and temporal dynamics in the sensor data. We validate the proposed deep-learning architectures via simulations and realworld experiments on a drone. Empirical results show that our solution is able to detect (with over 90% accuracy) and classify various types of drone mis-operations (with about 99% accuracy (simulation data) and upto 85% accuracy (experimental data)).
Current Understanding of Circulating Biomarkers in Pulmonary Hypertension Due to Left Heart Disease

Pulmonary hypertension due to left heart disease (PH-LHD; Group 2), especially in the setting of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), is the most frequent cause of PH. Despite its prevalence, no effective therapies for PH-LHD are available at present. This is largely due to the lack of a concise definition for hemodynamic phenotyping, existence of significant gaps in the understanding of the underlying pathology and the impact of associated comorbidities, as well as the absence of specific biomarkers that can aid in the early diagnosis and management of this challenging syndrome. Currently, B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal proBNP (NT-proBNP) are guideline-recommended biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of heart failure (HF) and PH. Endothelin-1 (ET-1), vascular endothelial growth factor-D (VEGF-D), and microRNA-206 have also been recently identified as new potential circulating biomarkers for patients with PH-LHD. In this review, we aim to present the current state of knowledge of circulating biomarkers that can be used to guide future research toward diagnosis, refine specific patient phenotype, and develop therapeutic approaches for PH-LHD, with a particular focus on PH-HFpEF. Potential circulating biomarkers identified in pre-clinical models of PH-LHD are also summarized here.
Consensus on SO(3) with piecewise-continuous sinusoids

Abstract We present and analyze feedback control algorithms for multi-agent orientation consensus on SO(3), where each agent’s angular-velocity control is restricted to be a piecewise-continuous sinusoid. The main results are three algorithms for orientation consensus using piecewise-continuous sinusoidal controls. Each algorithm can either include or not include a leader, which can be either stationary or rotating. The first algorithm achieves almost global orientation consensus for the case where each agent uses absolute-orientation feedback of its neighbor agents. The second algorithm achieves local orientation consensus for the case where each agent uses relative-orientation feedback of its neighbor agents. The third algorithm achieves local reduced-orientation (i.e., pointing-direction) consensus for the case where each agent uses pointing-direction feedback of its neighbor agents. We also present numerical simulations to demonstrate these algorithms.
RNA structure prediction using positive and negative evolutionary information

Knowing the structure of conserved structural RNAs is important to elucidate their function and mechanism of action. However, predicting a conserved RNA structure remains unreliable, even when using a combination of thermodynamic stability and evolutionary covariation information. Here we present a method to predict a conserved RNA structure that combines the following three features. First, it uses significant covariation due to RNA structure and removes spurious covariation due to phylogeny. Second, it uses negative evolutionary information: basepairs that have variation but no significant covariation are prevented from occurring. Lastly, it uses a battery of probabilistic folding algorithms that incorporate all positive covariation into one structure. The method, named CaCoFold (Cascade variation/covariation Constrained Folding algorithm), predicts a nested structure guided by a maximal subset of positive basepairs, and recursively incorporates all remaining positive basepairs into alternative helices. The alternative helices can be compatible with the nested structure such as pseudoknots, or overlapping such as competing structures, base triplets, or other 3D non-antiparallel interactions. We present evidence that CaCoFold predictions are consistent with structures modeled from crystallography.
Wukong: a scalable and locality-enhanced framework for serverless parallel computing

Executing complex, burst-parallel, directed acyclic graph (DAG) jobs poses a major challenge for serverless execution frameworks, which will need to rapidly scale and schedule tasks at high throughput, while minimizing data movement across tasks. We demonstrate that, for serverless parallel computations, decentralized scheduling enables scheduling to be distributed across Lambda executors that can schedule tasks in parallel, and brings multiple benefits, including enhanced data locality, reduced network I/Os, automatic resource elasticity, and improved cost effectiveness. We describe the implementation and deployment of our new serverless parallel framework, called Wukong, on AWS Lambda. We show that Wukong achieves near-ideal scalability, executes parallel computation jobs up to 68.17X faster, reduces network I/O by multiple orders of magnitude, and achieves 92.96% tenant-side cost savings compared to numpywren.
From Grandma’s Attic to Amnesty Programs: Adventures in Accessioning Archaeological Collections

Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum (the Center) located in Dolores, Colorado is a federal Bureau of Land Management curation facility for archaeological collections generated from pe...
Quantum field theories on algebraic curves. I. Additive bosons

Using Serre's adelic interpretation of cohomology, we develop a `differential and integral calculus' on an algebraic curve over an algebraically closed field of constants of characteristic zero, define algebraic analogues of additive multi-valued functions on and prove the corresponding generalized residue theorem. Using the representation theory of the global Heisenberg algebra and lattice Lie algebra, we formulate quantum field theories of additive and charged bosons on an algebraic curve . These theories are naturally connected with the algebraic de Rham theorem. We prove that an extension of global symmetries (Witten's additive Ward identities) from the -vector space of rational functions on to the vector space of additive multi-valued functions uniquely determines these quantum theories of additive and charged bosons.
Finiteness of flux vacua from geometric transitions

We argue for finiteness of flux vacua around type IIB CY singularities by computing their gauge theory duals. This leads us to propose a geometric transition where the compact 3-cycles support both RR and NS flux, while the open string side contains 5-brane bound states. By a suitable combination of S duality and symplectic transformations, both sides are shown to have the same IR physics. The finiteness then follows from a holomorphic change of couplings in the gauge side. As a nontrivial test, we compute the number of vacua on both sides for the conifold and the Argyres-Douglas point, and we find perfect agreement.
INSIDE-OUT PLANET FORMATION. III. PLANET–DISK INTERACTION AT THE DEAD ZONE INNER BOUNDARY

The Kepler mission has discovered more than 4000 exoplanet candidates. Many of them are in systems with tightly packed inner planets. Inside-out planet formation (IOPF) has been proposed as a scenario to explain these systems. It involves sequential in situ planet formation at the local pressure maximum of a retreating dead zone inner boundary (DZIB). Pebbles accumulate at this pressure trap, which builds up a pebble ring and then a planet. The planet is expected to grow in mass until it opens a gap, which helps to both truncate pebble accretion and also induce DZIB retreat that sets the location of formation of the next planet. This simple scenario may be modified if the planet undergoes significant migration from its formation location. Thus, planet–disk interactions play a crucial role in the IOPF scenario. Here we present numerical simulations that first assess the degree of migration for planets of various masses that are forming at the DZIB of an active accretion disk, where the effective viscosity is undergoing a rapid increase in the radially inward direction. We find that torques exerted on the planet by the disk tend to trap the planet at a location very close to the initial pressure maximum where it formed. We then study gap opening by these planets to assess at what mass a significant gap is created. Finally, we present a simple model for DZIB retreat due to penetration of X-rays from the star to the disk midplane. Overall, these simulations help to quantify both the mass scale of first ("Vulcan") planet formation and the orbital separation to the location of second planet formation.
PAIR: Planning and Iterative Refinement in Pre-trained Transformers for Long Text Generation

Pre-trained Transformers have enabled impressive breakthroughs in generating long and fluent text, yet their outputs are often “rambling” without coherently arranged content. In this work, we present a novel content-controlled text generation framework, PAIR, with planning and iterative refinement, which is built upon a large model, BART. We first adapt the BERT model to automatically construct the content plans, consisting of keyphrase assignments and their corresponding sentence-level positions. The BART model is employed for generation without modifying its structure. We then propose a refinement algorithm to gradually enhance the generation quality within the sequence-to-sequence framework. Evaluation with automatic metrics shows that adding planning consistently improves the generation quality on three distinct domains, with an average of 20 BLEU points and 12 METEOR points improvements. In addition, human judges rate our system outputs to be more relevant and coherent than comparisons without planning.
NGC 5195 in M51: Feedback 'Burps' after a Massive Meal?

We describe a double-arc-like X-ray structure lying ~15-30" (~0.8-1.7 kpc) south of the NGC 5195 nucleus visible in the merged exposures of long Chandra pointings of M51. The curvature and orientation of the arcs argues for a nuclear origin. The arcs are radially separated by ~15" (~1$ kpc), but are rotated relative to each other by ~30 deg. From an archival image, we find a slender Halpha-emitting region just outside the outer edge of the outer X-ray arc, suggesting that the X-ray-emitting gas plowed up and displaced the Halpha-emitting material from the galaxy core. Star formation may have commenced in that arc. Halpha emission is present at the inner arc, but appears more complex in structure. In contrast to an explosion expected to be azimuthally symmetric, the X-ray arcs suggest a focused outflow. We interpret the arcs as episodic outbursts from the central super-massive black hole (SMBH). We conclude that NGC 5195 represents the nearest galaxy exhibiting on-going, large-scale outflows of gas, in particular, two episodes of a focused outburst of the SMBH. The arcs represent a clear demonstration of feedback.
Quantum corrections to the BTZ black hole extremality bound from the conformal bootstrap

Any unitary compact two-dimensional CFT with c > 1 and no symmetries beyond Virasoro has a parametrically large density of primary states at large spin for $$ \overline{h} $$ > $$ {\overline{h}}_{\mathrm{extr}} $$ ∼ $$ \frac{c-1}{24} $$ , of a universal form determined by modular invariance. By including the contribution of light primary operators and multi-twist composites constructed from them in the modular bootstrap, we find that $$ {\overline{h}}_{\mathrm{extr}} $$ receives corrections in a large spin expansion, which we compute at finite c. The analysis uses a formulation of the modular S-transform as a Fourier transform acting on the density of primary states. For theories with gravitational duals, $$ {\overline{h}}_{\mathrm{extr}} $$ is interpreted as the extremality bound of rotating BTZ black holes, receiving quantum corrections which we compute at one loop by prohibiting naked singularities in the quantum-corrected geometry. This gravity result is reproduced by modular bootstrap in a semiclassical c → ∞ limit.
Dimensional Bounds on Vircator Emission

Virtual cathode oscillators (vircators) are sources of short-pulsed, high-power, microwave (GHz) radiation. An essentially dimensional argument relates their radiated power, pulse energy and oscillation frequency to their driving voltage and fundamental physical constants. For a diode of width and gap 10 cm and for the voltages of a few hundred keV, the peak radiated power cannot exceed ${\mathcal{ O}} (\text {30 GW})$ and the broadband single cycle radiated energy cannot exceed ${\mathcal{ O}}(\text {3 J})$ . If electrons can be accelerated to relativistic energies, higher powers and radiated energies may be possible.
Aperiodic Lorentz gas: recurrence and ergodicity

We prove that any generic (i.e., possibly aperiodic) Lorenz gas in two dimensions, with finite horizon and non-degenerate geometrical features, is ergodic if it is recurrent. We also give examples of aperiodic recurrent gases.
DETERMINING FREQUENTIST CONFIDENCE LIMITS USING A DIRECTED PARAMETER SPACE SEARCH

We consider the problem of inferring constraints on a high-dimensional parameter space with a computationally expensive likelihood function. We propose a machine learning algorithm that maps out the Frequentist confidence limit on parameter space by intelligently targeting likelihood evaluations so as to quickly and accurately characterize the likelihood surface in both low- and high-likelihood regions. We compare our algorithm to Bayesian credible limits derived by the well-tested Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm using both multi-modal toy likelihood functions and the seven yr Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe cosmic microwave background likelihood function. We find that our algorithm correctly identifies the location, general size, and general shape of high-likelihood regions in parameter space while being more robust against multi-modality than MCMC.
Sasaki-Einstein metrics and K-stability

We show that a polarized affine variety with an isolated singularity admits a Ricci flat Kahler cone metric if and only if it is K–stable. This generalizes the Chen–Donaldson–Sun solution of the Yau–Tian–Donaldson conjecture to Kahler cones, or equivalently, Sasakian manifolds. As an application we show that the five-sphere admits infinitely many families of Sasaki–Einstein metrics.
An Empirical Study of Generation Order for Machine Translation

In this work, we present an empirical study of generation order for machine translation. Building on recent advances in insertion-based modeling, we first introduce a soft order-reward framework that enables us to train models to follow arbitrary oracle generation policies. We then make use of this framework to explore a large variety of generation orders, including uninformed orders, location-based orders, frequency-based orders, content-based orders, and model-based orders. Curiously, we find that for the WMT'14 English $\to$ German and WMT'18 English $\to$ Chinese translation tasks, order does not have a substantial impact on output quality. Moreover, for English $\to$ German, we even discover that unintuitive orderings such as alphabetical and shortest-first can match the performance of a standard Transformer, suggesting that traditional left-to-right generation may not be necessary to achieve high performance.
Motion of slightly compressible fluids in a bounded domain, II

We study the problem of inviscid slightly compressible fluids in a bounded domain. We find a unique solution to the initial-boundary value problem and show that it is near the analogous solution for an incompressible fluid provided the initial conditions for the two problems are close. In particular, the divergence of the initial velocity of the compressible flow at time zero is assumed to be small. Furthermore, we find that solutions to the compressible motion problem in Lagrangian coordinates depend differentiably on their initial data, an unexpected result for this type of nonlinear equations.
CR transversality of holomorphic mappings between generic submanifolds in complex spaces

We show that a holomorphic mapping sending one generic submanifold into another of the same dimension is CR transversal to the target submanifold provided that the source manifold is of finite type and the map is of generic full rank. This result and its corollaries completely resolve two questions posed by Linda P. Rothschild and the first author in 2006. Another one of our main results, in the special setting of hypersurfaces, was also explicitly stated as a conjecture by B. Lamel and N. Mir in a paper from 2006.
DETECTION OF KOI-13.01 USING THE PHOTOMETRIC ORBIT

We use the KOI-13 transiting star-planet system as a test case for the recently developed BEER algorithm, aimed at identifying non-transiting low-mass companions by detecting the photometric variability induced by the companion along its orbit. Such photometric variability is generated by three mechanisms: the beaming effect, tidal ellipsoidal distortion, and reflection/heating. We use data from three Kepler quarters, from the first year of the mission, while ignoring measurements within the transit and occultation, and show that the planet's ephemeris is clearly detected. We fit for the amplitude of each of the three effects and use the beaming effect amplitude to estimate the planet's minimum mass, which results in Mp sin i = 9.2 ± 1.1 M J (assuming the host star parameters derived by Szabo et al.). Our results show that non-transiting star-planet systems similar to KOI-13.01 can be detected in Kepler data, including a measurement of the orbital ephemeris and the planet's minimum mass. Moreover, we derive a realistic estimate of the amplitudes uncertainties, and use it to show that data obtained during the entire lifetime of the Kepler mission of 3.5 years will allow detecting non-transiting close-in low-mass companions orbiting bright stars, down to the few Jupiter mass level. Data from the Kepler Extended Mission, if funded by NASA, will further improve the detection capabilities.
Pixel Lensing Experiment toward the M31 Bulge

I demonstrate that one can detect pixel gravitational microlensing events at the rate ~ 180 events yr-1 and that some fraction of events (~ 15) will be good enough to measure timescales at the 20% level if the experiment is carried out toward the central M31 bulge region with a dedicated 1 m telescope and a 2K × 2K CCD. I show also that the event rate could be increased significantly (up to a factor 6.5) if more aggressive observation strategies are adopted. These aggressive strategies include multiple observation sites, using a bigger telescope, and reduction of seeing differences among images. A few years of observation could provide a data set large enough to extract important information about the M31 bulge such as the optical depth distribution, the mass spectrum of M31 MACHOs, and the luminosity function, which currently cannot be obtained by other methods. In addition, I find that the extinction of M31 bulge light by dust in the disk is not important and can be approximated by the model in which only 20% of light in V band is extinguished over most of the bulge area.
Metal Absorption Lines as Probes of the Intergalactic Medium Prior to the Reionization Epoch

Winds from star-forming galaxies provide the most promising explanation for the enrichment of the intergalactic medium with heavy elements. Theoretical and observational arguments indicate that the pollution may have occurred at z 6; however, direct observational tests of such a scenario are needed. We model starburst winds in the high-redshift universe and find that the fraction of space filled by enriched material varies strongly with the assumed star formation efficiency f* and the fraction of supernova energy powering each wind fesc. We show that metals carried by these winds can be seen in absorption against bright background sources, such as quasars or gamma-ray bursts, in narrow lines with characteristic equivalent widths ~0.5 A W 5 A. We argue that a substantial fraction of the metals in high-redshift winds are likely to reside in low-ionization states (C II, O I, Si II, and Fe II), but higher ionization states (C IV and Si IV) could also provide useful probes of the winds. The number of such lines can constrain both f* and fesc. Statistics of metal absorption lines can also be used to identify whether H2 is an efficient coolant in the early universe and to study the initial mass function of stars at high redshifts.
The complex charm of the pulsar magnetosphere

I give a brief overview of recent results from self-consistent modeling of electron-positrons cascades in pulsar polar caps. These results strongly suggest that the pulsar magnetosphere is a more complex system than was assumed before.
Connected sum at infinity and 4-manifolds

We study connected sum at infinity on smooth, open manifolds. This operation requires a choice of proper ray in each manifold summand. In favorable circumstances, the connected sum at infinity operation is independent of ray choices. For each m 3, we construct an infinite family of pairs of m‐manifolds on which the connected sum at infinity operation yields distinct manifolds for certain ray choices. We use cohomology algebras at infinity to distinguish these manifolds. 57R19; 55P57
Spatial and Temporal Stability of Airglow Measured in the Meinel Band Window at 1191.3 nm

We report on the temporal and spatial fluctuations in the atmospheric brightness in the narrow band between Meinel emission lines at 1191.3 nm using a λ/Δλ = 320 near-infrared instrument. We present the instrument design and implementation, followed by a detailed analysis of data taken over the course of a night from Table Mountain Observatory. At low airmasses, the absolute sky brightness at this wavelength is found to be 5330 ± 30 nW m^(−2) sr^(−1), consistent with previous measurements of the inter-band airglow at these wavelengths. This amplitude is larger than simple models of the continuum component of the airglow emission at these wavelengths, confirming that an extra emissive or scattering component is required to explain the observations. We perform a detailed investigation of the noise properties of the data and find no evidence for a noise component associated with temporal instability in the inter-line continuum. This result demonstrates that in several hours of ~100 s integrations the noise performance of the instrument does not appear to significantly degrade from expectations, giving a proof of concept that near-infrared line intensity mapping may be feasible from ground-based sites.
Categories of massless D-branes and del Pezzo surfaces

In analogy with the physical concept of a massless D-brane, we define a notion of “ $ \mathbb{Q}\hbox{-}\mathrm{masslessness} $ ” for objects in the derived category. This is defined in terms of monodromy around singularities in the stringy Kahler moduli space and is relatively easy to study using “spherical functors”. We consider several examples in which del Pezzo surfaces and other rational surfaces in Calabi-Yau threefolds are contracted. For precisely the del Pezzo surfaces that can be written as hypersurfaces in weighted $ {{\mathbb{P}}^3} $ , the category of $ \mathbb{Q}\hbox{-}\mathrm{massless} $ objects is a “fractional Calabi-Yau” category of graded matrix factorizations.
Strong coupling universality at large N for pure CFT thermodynamics in 2+1 dimensions

Pure CFTs have vanishing β-function at any value of the coupling. One example of a pure CFT is the O(N) Wess-Zumino model in 2+1 dimensions in the large N limit. This model can be analytically solved at finite temperature for any value of the coupling, and we find that its entropy density at strong coupling is exactly equal to $$ \frac{31}{35} $$ of the non-interacting Stefan-Boltzmann result. We show that a large class of theories with equal numbers of N-component fermions and bosons, supersymmetric or not, for a large class of interactions, exhibit the same universal ratio. For unequal numbers of fermions and bosons we find that the strong-weak thermodynamic ratio is bounded to lie in between $$ \frac{4}{5} $$ and 1.
MEASURING THE ATMOSPHERIC INFLUENCE ON DIFFERENTIAL ASTROMETRY: A SIMPLE METHOD APPLIED TO WIDE FIELD CCD FRAMES

Sets of short exposure, guided CCD frames are used to measure the noise added by the atmosphere to differential astrometric observations. Large nightly variations that are correlated with the seeing have been found in the data obtained over 2 years at the KPNO and CTIO 0.9-meter telescopes. The rms noise added by the atmosphere, after a linear transformation of the raw x, y data, is found to be 3 to 7 mas, normalized to 100 seconds exposure time and a field of view of 20 arcminutes near the zenith. An additional nearly constant noise (base-level) of 8.5 mas = 0.012 pixel is found for the KPNO and 6.0 mas = 0.015 pixel for the CTIO telescope. This implies that a ground-based, all sky, astrometric survey from guided CCD frames is more likely limited by the base-level noise than by the atmosphere and could reach an accuracy better than 10 mas under good seeing conditions.