cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Fertile Women Discount the Future: Conception Risk and Impulsivity Are Independently Associated with Financial Decisions

According to the ovulatory shift hypothesis, women’s behavior near ovulation changes in ways that will enhance mating opportunities. In this study, the relationship between the ovulatory cycle and financial decision-making was investigated. We hypothesized that fertile women, compared to non-fertile women, would exhibit steeper discounting in a monetary choice task, i.e., they would prefer smaller, sooner rewards over larger, later ones, in order to secure resources that could be used for mating purposes. One hundred college-aged women who were normally ovulating and not on hormonal contraceptives completed a monetary choice task along with measures of three forms of impulsivity: nonplanning, motor, and financial. Conception risk was assessed in two ways, by discrete cycle phase windows and by a continuous measure. Results indicated that both fertility and financial impulsivity predicted future discounting. Neither nonplanning nor motor impulsivity influenced discounting. There was no interaction between impulsivity measures and conception risk, suggesting that fertility and impulsivity have independent effects on future discounting. The findings are consistent with the ovulatory shift hypothesis in showing that women’s economic behavior, particularly their preferences for acquiring resources now rather than later, is related to their fertility status. This behavior might be adaptive in that it could help women to gain resources that could enhance their appearance in the service of attracting potential mates or deterring rivals.
Facile Surface Modification of Ubiquitous Stainless Steel Led to Competent Electrocatalysts for Overall Water Splitting

Competent and low-cost electrocatalysts play a crucial role in the wide deployment of electrocatalytic water splitting for clean H2 production. Herein, for the first time, we report that readily available stainless steel can be transformed to competent electrocatalysts for both H2 and O2 evolution reactions (HER and OER, respectively) after facile surface modification. Specifically, our sulfurized stainless steel foil (SSFS) could achieve a catalytic current density of 10 mA cm–2 at overpotentials of 136 and 262 mV for HER and OER, respectively, in 1.0 M KOH. When SSFS served as the electrocatalysts for both the cathode and the anode, an overall water splitting current density of 10 mA cm–2 was obtained at 1.64 V with robust durability. Such a superior performance can rival those of many recently reported water splitting catalysts that consist of expensive elements, contain high-cost supports, or require sophisticated synthesis. In addition, excellent water splitting activity was also achieved by SSFS in ...
The Decline of Manufacturing in the U.S. Economy: Impacts of China's ‘Trade Shock’, Trump's Protectionist Tariffs, and the Drivers of Manufacturing Job Losses (Presentation Slides)

The long-term declining role of manufacturing in the U.S. economy – reflecting a shift of the economy after World War II to a post-industrial orientation with an increased emphasis on services – was accelerated by the effects on manufacturing jobs and trade deficits of President Reagan’s budget deficits in the 1980s and China’s recent trade penetration. Similarities of Reagan’s policies to President Trump’s proposed protectionist tariffs and the cross-border corporate tax reform advocated by House Republicans in February 2017 suggest a possible partial reversal of the long-term job decline, but the ensuing major dislocations in jobs are unlikely to lead to a net increase in manufacturing jobs. The magnitude and fast pace of China’s import penetration, coupled with anemic demand for domestic goods and high productivity gains in American factories, are associated with the 33 percent decline of 5.7 million domestic manufacturing jobs in the 2000-10 period – the largest loss in a decade in U.S. history. The effects on manufacturing employment associated with trade, domestic demand, and productivity strongly suggest that the largest impact – accounting for over 85 percent of total manufacturing jobs lost in the 2000s – is attributable to technological advances in U.S. factories sustaining productivity gains, with trade a relatively minor contributory factor, when viewed from the long-term perspective. The superior productivity gains, as well as the vaunted growth in real value-added output, associated with manufacturing are driven by the performance of its computer and electronic products industry, representing only 13 percent of total manufacturing value added. China’s trade competition challenged the prevalent assumption, based on bilateral trade pacts after World War II, suggesting that economies recover from ‘trade shocks’ by displaced workers shifting into higher-productivity export industries. Free trade agreements and China’s trade penetration – with the benefits not evenly distributed in the U.S. – are associated with the geographically-concentrated and unexpected political results of the November 2016 elections.
An Investigation into the Impact of OO Design on Program Debugging with Individual and Collaborative Approaches

Object Oriented (OO) programming paradigm is widely used in software development. The primary objective of this paper is to study the impact of OO design features on the primary cognitive process namely debugging. It is an accepted fact that software engineering processes require a significant amount of time in debugging. The debugging in turn contains program comprehension and testing as the central tasks. In pair programming, two programmers work collaboratively on the same algorithm, design or programming task, sitting side by side at one computer. This practice has been used several times in the last decades as an improved way of developing software. Various researchers emphasize the need for resources to understand the relation between the cognitive activities on Program debugging and the structure of programming language. The design features were extracted using the OO metrics. From the study conducted, it is clear that depth of inheritance, coupling, number of children, and number of public methods should be reduced to enhance the debugging of any program when performed individually or in pair. It is also observed that in order to enhance the debugging ability the coupling should be minimized.
Boundary Element Method, Homogenization and Heat Conduction in Composite Materials

The homogenization method for solution of the heat conduction problem is presented below in the context the Boundary Element Method. The approach is introduced for the fiber-reinforced composite with deterministically and randomly defined material properties. Computational implementation of the method can find the application for the composites with random interfaces where application of the Finite Element Method is very complicated. Numerical illustration shows deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity of effective composite heat conductivity with respect to fiber volume ratio and randomness level of composite constituents.
“I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys”: Turquoise, Queenship‚ and the Exotic

One of the most poignant moments in The Merchant of Venice is when Shylock learns that the turquoise ring he valued above anything was not only stolen by his daughter Jessica, but also traded for a monkey. This essay uses Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice as a lens for exploring the value of turquoise in the early modern period. Shakespeare’s deliberate use of a turquoise ring in his play is profoundly emblematic, meant convey cultural contentions and serve as a touchstone for questions of trade and exoticism. But the turquoise, coming from Persia and Arabia, was also a valuable stone in sixteenth-century England. It was worn by queens and also given as gifts to and from queens. Mary Stuart received a turquoise ring when she was being pressured to abdicate the throne of Scotland. For Queen Elizabeth, her turquoise jewelry worked as a symbol of expansion of empire and exchange.
Independent Synthesis Projects in the Organic Chemistry Teaching Laboratories: Bridging the Gap Between Student and Researcher

Science educators strive to teach students how to be well-rounded scientists with the ability to problem solve, anticipate errors, and adapt to unexpected roadblocks. Traditional organic chemistry experiments seldom teach these skills, no matter how novel or contemporary the subject material. This paper reports on the success of a quarter-long organic chemistry laboratory experiment that takes the form of a research project designed to teach these real-life skills. Students took a three-step synthetic sequence from a literature source, and changed parameters to improve the yield. This involved library research and two levels of proposals, followed by a written report and a poster presentation. The goal was to simulate the different aspects of a research lab, from literature searches to problem-solving to presenting results. The students experienced unexpected difficulties and were graded on how they overcame these obstacles, rather than on how much they improved the yields.
Shamanic Rituals and South Asian Tourist Perceptions

Shamanic rituals have long been a subject of curiosity among researchers and tourists. While tourist motivations from a Western perspective and issues of authenticity have been explored in shamanic tourism literature, the interaction between the shaman and the tourist during a ritual and the power relations between the two have rarely been discussed. In this paper, I investigate the roles of, and the interaction between, the shaman and a tourist in a place called Mayong in India. Throughout the years, Mayong has become famous not only as the ‘land of black magic’ and its shamans (locally known as bej) but also a place surrounded by an aura of mystery, myth and topophobia. I employ Althusser’s theory of ideology, in particular, the concepts of Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and interpellation to analyse the interpersonal relationships in shamanic tourism based on an analysis of tourist narratives and interviews with the shamans. The findings reveal a suspension of ideological discourse and a transfer of power between the tourist and the shaman during a ritual along with a generation or affirmation of belief immediately after this transfer of power.
Phase II study of olaparib (without ADT) in men with high-risk biochemically-recurrent prostate cancer following prostatectomy, with integrated biomarker analysis.

TPS386Background: Patients with a high-risk biochemical recurrence (BCR) of prostate cancer after local therapy, defined by a rapid PSA doubling time (≤6 mo), are likely to experience metastases an...
Transformation of Shocks in Laminated and Porous Materials

Impulse transformation in laminates and porous materials has important practical applications connected with impact and blast mitigation. The investigation of strong shock-wave dynamics in laminar media is focused mainly on two important aspects. One is wave transformation, for example, attenuation or amplification of the shock amplitude as a function of the laminar system structure. Zababakhin [1965], [1970] predicted that as the layer thickness continuously decreased with distance for a one-dimensional system of alternating materials with different densities, the phenomenon of unlimited cumulation of the shock wave could be obtained. This was a first demonstration of unrestricted cumulation which is not related to the centripetal motion of matter. Later, this tendency was numerically and experimentally confirmed (Kozyrev, Kostyleva, and Ryazanov [1969]; Ogarkov, Purygin, and Samylov [1969]; Fowles [1979]). The successful application of this idea was demonstrated by the launching of the thin titanium plate to velocities of 16 km/s using a multiply graded-density impactor with increasing shock impedance from the impact surface in sequence TPX-plastic, magnesium, aluminum, titanium, copper, and tantalum (Chhabildas, Kmetyk, Reinhard, and Hall [1996]). This system tailors the time-dependent stress pulse to launch the flier plate intact by using a precisely controlled thickness of each layer.
Use of colon as an oesophageal replacement

The use of long segments of colon for replacement or bypass of all or part of the thoracic oesophagus was introduced independently by Kelling1 and Vulliet2 in 1911. Subsequently, the interposed colon has emerged as a durable, well functioning substitute for the oesophagus. Initially it was used in patients with malignancy of the upper oesophagus. Subsequently, with refinements in technique and improved results it, rather than the stomach, has been used for an oesophageal substitute in advanced benign disease or early malignancy arising in the distal oesophagus, cardia and proximal stomach, particulary when it is expected that the replacement must function for a decade or more.
Pre-hospital qSOFA as a predictor of sepsis and mortality.

Abstract Background The quick sequential organ failure assessment score (qSOFA) has been proposed as a simple tool to identify patients with sepsis who are at risk for poor outcomes. Its utility in the pre-hospital setting has not been fully elucidated. Methods This is a retrospective observational study of adult patients arriving by ambulance in September 2016 to an academic emergency department in Fresno, California. The qSOFA score was calculated from pre-hospital vital signs. We investigated its association with sepsis, ED diagnosis of infection, and mortality. Results Of 2292 adult medical patients transported by ambulance during the study period, the sensitivity of qSOFA for sepsis and in-hospital mortality were 42.9% and 40.6%, respectively. Specificity of qSOFA for sepsis and mortality were 93.8% and 91.9%, respectively. Of those with an ED diagnosis of infection compared to all patients, qSOFA was more specific but less sensitive for sepsis. Increasing qSOFA score was associated with a discharge diagnosis of sepsis (OR 4.21, 95% CI 3.41–5.21, p Conclusions Pre-hospital qSOFA is specific, but poorly sensitive, for sepsis and sepsis outcomes, especially among patients with an ED diagnosis of infection. Higher qSOFA score was associated with worse outcomes.
Observing fast mesoscale atmospheric processes with a geostationary microwave sounder

A geostationary microwave sounder, GeoSTAR, capable of providing continuous monitoring every 15 minutes of atmospheric temperature, water vapor, clouds, precipitation, and wind in the presence of clouds and precipitation, which will add tremendously to our ability to observe rapidly evolving dynamic atmospheric phenomena, such as hurricanes and severe storms, monsoonal moisture flow, and atmospheric rivers, has been developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. GeoSTAR uses aperture synthesis to overcome the difficulty of attaining adequate spatial resolution from geostationary orbit. It is made possible with new technology that has now been developed and fully tested. Low-risk mission development can start as soon as funding becomes available. The sensor can be hosted on a commercial communications satellite, which could reduce the cost substantially. Plans have been developed at JPL for such a mission, called “GeoStorm”, focused on observing severe convective storms – tropical cyclones, mesoscale convective systems, and extratropical cyclones – with a goal of improving our understanding, modeling and prediction of these destructive phenomena. It can equally well be configured as an operational mission, where the goal is to collect data for immediate assimilation into regional forecast systems, provide “now-casting” as the storms unfold, and support post-disaster relief and recovery efforts. With key observables including vertical profiles of temperature, water vapor, wind and precipitation over a wide area, many focused applications are possible, particularly pertaining to aviation, transportation and marine operations, in both the civilian and defense domains.
Abstract 47: Incidence of Cervical Artery Dissection Across Age Groups

Introduction: Dissection of a cervical artery has been well described as a cause of ischemic stroke in the young. The role of dissection as a cause of stroke among older adults is less clear, but t...
The Most Beautiful Man: An Integration of Hypnosis and Biofeedback for Depression and Dissociation

Hypnosis and biofeedback techniques are evidence-based psychophysiological therapies that can be applied with a wide variety of medical and mental health disorders. Research shows efficacy for anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTDS), chronic pain, hypertension, fibromyalgia, and a host of other disorders. Hypnosis and biofeedback can also augment the effectiveness of psychotherapy. The author utilizes the case narrative of a 36-year-old woman, presenting with postpartum depression and dissociative features, to illustrate the integration of biofeedback training, physiological monitoring, self-hypnosis, hypnotic age regression, and affective journaling into dynamic psychotherapy. The hypnotic techniques and the affective journaling assisted in the retrieval of critical traumatic events during the patient's adolescence, and a combination of breath training, self-hypnosis, and biofeedback aided the patient in self-calming.
Palumbo’s strabismus

Comment on Berardino Palumbo, Lo strabismo della DEA: Antropologia, accademia e societa in Italia, Palermo, Edizioni Museo Pasqualino, 2018, pp. 289.
Empirical evaluation of IRI mitigation strategies in retail stores

This study evaluates the effectiveness of mitigation strategies currently employed by retailers to manage operational issues related to inventory record inaccuracy (IRI) in retail stores. A simulat...
Estimates of voluntary activation in individuals with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: Effects of type of stimulator, number of stimuli, and quantification technique

Abstract Background Accurate quantification of voluntary activation is important for understanding the extent of quadriceps dysfunction in individuals with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). Voluntary activation has been quantified using both percent activation derived from the interpolated twitch technique and central activation ratio (CAR) derived from the burst superimposition technique, as well as by using different types of electrical stimulators and pulse train conditions. However, it is unclear how these parameters affect voluntary activation estimates in individuals with ACLR. This study was performed to fill this important knowledge gap in the anterior cruciate ligament literature. Methods Quadriceps strength and voluntary activation were examined in 18 ACLR participants (12 quadriceps/patellar tendon graft, 6 hamstring tendon graft; time since ACLR: 1.06 ± 0.82 years, mean ± SD) at 90° of knee flexion using 2 stimulators (Digitimer and Grass) and pulse train conditions (3-pulse and 10-pulse). Voluntary activation was quantified by calculating both CAR and percent activation. Results Results indicated that voluntary activation was significantly overestimated by CAR when compared with percent activation (p 0.05); however, the Digitimer evoked greater torque at rest than the Grass (p Conclusion These results indicate that percent activation derived from the interpolated twitch technique provides superior estimates of voluntary activation than CAR derived from burst superimposition and is less affected by pulse train conditions or stimulators in individuals with ACLR.
Radiologic, pathologic, clinical, and physiologic findings of electronic cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI): Evolving knowledge and remaining questions

Proposed as a safer alternative to smoking, the use of electronic cigarettes has not proven to be innocuous. With numerous deaths, there is an increasing degree of public interest in understanding the symptoms, imaging appearances, causes of, and treatment of electronic cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI). Patients with EVALI typically have a nonspecific clinical presentation characterized by a combination of respiratory, gastrointestinal, and constitutional symptoms. EVALI is a diagnosis of exclusion; the patient must elicit a history of recent vaping within 90 days, other etiologies must be eliminated, and chest imaging findings must be abnormal. Chest CT findings in EVALI most commonly show a pattern of acute lung injury on the spectrum of organizing pneumonia and diffuse alveolar damage. The pathologic pattern found depends on when in the evolution of the disease process the biopsy sample is taken. Other less common forms of lung injury, including acute eosinophilic pneumonia and diffuse alveolar hemorrhage, have also been reported. Radiologists and pathologists help play an important role in the evaluation of patients suspected of having EVALI. Accurate and rapid identification may decrease morbidity and mortality by allowing for aggressive clinical management and glucocorticoid administration, which have been shown to decrease the severity of lung injury in some patients. In this review, the authors summarize the current state of the art for the imaging and pathologic findings of this disorder and outline a few of the major questions that remain to be answered.
Cultural competency: A call to action to address microaggression in preservice health education:

Background:The United States Census Bureau projects half of the population to be from a minority group by 2044 and one in five of the population to be foreign born by 2060. Health educators must ad...
Psychologists’ Contributions to Medical Education and Interprofessional Education in Medical Schools

Recognition of the importance of behavioral and psychological phenomena has grown. Patients and physicians are receptive to psychological insights and processes in health and healthcare. Psychologists serve in diverse roles in medical schools, spanning activities such as didactics, rounds, precepting, supervising, mentoring, participating in educational projects, directing courses, and serving on educational committees. They address multiple content areas fundamental to medicine. Their participation in medical education and professional development activities for faculty are well-regarded. As healthcare becomes more interprofessional, with services delivered via interprofessional teams, opportunities for psychologists to contribute to, and play leadership roles in, interprofessional education (IPE) are expanding. It is critical that psychologists seize them. This article reviews psychologists' historic roles in medical education and provides a snapshot of their educational, faculty development, and IPE activities based on the 2017 survey of members of the Association of Psychologists in Academic Health Centers and their colleagues.
Relative orientation constraints in the nonlinear large displacement analysis: application to soft materials

A new simple formulation of the orientation constraints for very flexible bodies is introduced in this investigation. This constraint formulation avoids using the tangent or cross-section frames previously used in the literature by directly using two position-gradient vectors to define the orientation constraint equations that eliminate the relative rotations between two bodies. The orientation constraints are commonly used to define clamped (rigid) joint between very flexible bodies, and rigid and less-flexible bodies. The very flexible bodies are modeled using the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) which employs position gradients as nodal coordinates, while other rigid and less-flexible bodies have kinematics described in terms of orientation parameters. The less-flexible bodies can be modeled using the floating frame of reference formulation. Conventional clamped-end conditions eliminate all rigid body and deformation degrees of freedom because of the low-order of the finite element interpolation. When using a higher interpolation order, distinction is made between fully- and partially-clamped joints; the former eliminates all the degrees of freedom, while the latter eliminates only the relative translations and rotations, allowing for local deformations at the joint definition point. The singularity problem that arises, in the formulation of the orientation constraints, as the result of using ANCF orientation vectors derived using one position-gradient vector is demonstrated using simple, but common, example of a cantilever beam. The applicability of Saint–Venant principle, which states that the effect of the load diminishes away from the point of application of the load, to constraint forces that eliminate degrees of freedom is examined. Numerical results obtained in this study demonstrate that elimination of degrees of freedom, which leads to different kinematic structures and deformation basis-vectors, can be more significant in the case of soft materials.
HGF/c-met expression signature defines a subset of human hepatocellular carcinomas with poor prognosis and an aggressive phenotype

3386 Identification of specific gene expression signatures characteristic of oncogenic pathways is an important step towards molecular classification of human malignancies. Aberrant activation of the c-met signaling pathway is frequently associated with tumor progression and metastasis. Recently we defined the c-met dependent gene expression signature using global gene expression profiling of wild-type and c-met deficient primary mouse hepatocytes. Newly identified transcriptional targets of the c-met pathway included genes involved in the regulation of oxidative stress responses as well as cell motility, cytoskeletal organization, and angiogenesis. To assess the importance of a c-met regulated gene expression signature, we applied a comparative functional genomic approach on 242 human hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC) and 7 metastatic liver lesions. Hierarchical cluster analysis of the combined human HCC and mouse hepatocyte expression profiles with conserved orthologous c-met target genes revealed that a subset of human HCC and all the liver metastasis shared the c-met regulated expression signature with the HGF treated murine hepatocytes. Moreover, the presence of the c-met signature showed significant correlation (p
Monitoring cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms at high spatiotemporal resolution by fusing Landsat and MODIS imagery

Abstract Toxic Cyanobacteria-rich Harmful Algal Blooms (CyanoHABs) are severe environmental issues impacting water environment, aquatic life populations, and surrounding wild and human lives. Given their fast-changing variations in space and time, frequent monitoring of CyanoHABs with sufficient spatial details and coverage is needed to understand their impacts. However, current monitoring activities based on in situ or satellite data do not meet this requirement due to the limited spatial coverages of buoy measurements and the compromise between spatial resolution and temporal frequency of satellite observations. In this study, we develop a Spatial-Temporal Image Fusion (STIF) approach to enable high spatial-temporal resolution monitoring of CyanoHABs. The proposed approach consists of two steps: (1) a new CyanoHAB spectral index called Broad Wavelength Algae Index (BWAI) is developed for fine-but-sparse (Landsat) and coarse-but-frequent (MODIS) satellite images, and (2) the Landsat and MODIS derived BWAI images are fused by the Robust Adaptive Spatial and Temporal Fusion Model (RASTFM) to generate fine-and-frequent Landsat-like BWAI images. Our results show that the proposed BWAI index is with higher similarity and correlation with the reference Cyanobacteria Index (CI) images and in situ observations than the comparative algae indices devised for broad wavelength sensors. Moreover, the 30-m Landsat-like BWAI image series provide more accurate and detailed results than their 500-m MODIS counterparts and greatly improve the temporal frequency over Landsat-based algae indices, demonstrating the contribution of the improved spatial-temporal resolution achieved by the proposed STIF approach. Consequently, this research fills the gap of high spatiotemporal resolution monitoring of CyanoHABs and paves a new way of assessing water environment in a timely and detailed manner.
EEG distinguishes heroic narratives in ISIS online video propaganda

The Islamic State (ISIS) was uniquely effective among extremist groups in the Middle East at recruiting Westerners. A major way ISIS accomplished this was by adopting Hollywood-style narrative structures for their propaganda videos. In particular, ISIS utilized a heroic martyr narrative, which focuses on an individual’s personal glory and empowerment, in addition to traditional social martyr narratives, which emphasize duty to kindred and religion. The current work presented adult participants (n = 238) video clips from ISIS propaganda which utilized either heroic or social martyr narratives and collected behavioral measures of appeal, narrative transportation, and psychological dispositions (egoism and empathy) associated with attraction to terrorism. Narrative transportation and the interaction between egoism and empathy predicted video recruitment appeal. A subset of adults (n = 80) underwent electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements while watching a subset of the video-clips. Complementary univariate and multivariate techniques characterized spectral power density differences when perceiving the different types of narratives. Heroic videos show increased beta power over frontal sites, and globally increased alpha. In contrast, social narratives showed greater frontal theta, an index of negative feedback and emotion regulation. The results provide strong evidence that ISIS heroic narratives are specifically processed, and appeal to psychological predispositions distinctly from other recruitment narratives.
The Obese Patient

Emergency physicians and intensivists are likely to have to deal with the critically ill obese patient more frequently. Medications are metabolized differently in obese patients than in lean patients so appropriate dosing is important to prevent over- or under sedation. Positioning the obese patient for intubation and mechanical ventilation is also different from that of the lean patient due to the effects of body habitus. An understanding of the key differences between intubation of the obese and lean patient is paramount for providing safe care and first-pass success.
'Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude': The Constitutional and Persistent Immigration Law Doctrine

For over a century, American immigration law has provided that an alien is deportable for “crimes involving moral turpitude” (CIMT). For nearly as long, observers have lamented the persistence of the phrase, complaining of its antiquarianism and imprecision. These criticisms have ripened in recent years into the argument that the phrase is so vague as to be unconstitutional. Defenders of the phrase are scarce among judges and nonexistent in the scholarly community. This Article offers a defense of the CIMT provisions, built upon a more thorough understanding of their history. It demonstrates that Congress has acknowledged objections to the CIMT provisions but ultimately rejected these criticisms. The recent void-for-vagueness precedents cited to support the invalidation of the CIMT provisions are, for the most part, inapposite. Furthermore, the argument that the CIMT provisions are indeterminate, because there is no moral consensus in American contemporary society, is overstated. The Article concludes that the CIMT provisions reflect and highlight the differences between criminal law, which punishes discrete acts, and immigration law, which sets a minimum moral threshold for inclusion in a political community. The CIMT provisions invest executive officials with a measure of discretion, channeled by precedent, that allows them to achieve the goals of immigration law.
Next generation nanopatterning using small molecule inhibitors for area-selective atomic layer deposition

Area-selective atomic layer deposition (ALD) is an approach to self-aligned, bottom-up nanofabrication with the potential to overcome many of the challenges facing the semiconductor industry around continued device downscaling. Currently, the most common method for achieving area-selective ALD uses self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) as a means of surface deactivation. Alternative routes are also being pursued that may better meet the demands of high-volume device manufacturing and overcome some disadvantages of the SAM method. One promising alternative is the use of small molecule inhibitors (SMIs). This Perspective provides an overview of the current developments in the use of SMIs for selective deposition by describing systems from the literature and providing insight into SMI selection. Although little is yet known about the mechanistic behavior of SMIs, this Perspective aims to lay the framework for both a better understanding of their inhibitive performance and strategies to innovate their design. It establishes two key interfaces—between the ALD precursor and the inhibitor, and between the inhibitor and the substrate—and discusses the role of each in selective deposition. Building upon the established understanding of SAMs together with current knowledge of SMIs, this Perspective aims to define guiding principles and key considerations for improving SMI design.
High through-plane resolution CT imaging with self-supervised deep learning.

CT images for radiotherapy planning are usually acquired in thick slice to reduce imaging dose, especially for pediatric patients, and to lessen the need for contouring and treatment planning on more slices. However, low through-plane resolution may degrade the accuracy of dose calculations. In this paper, a self-supervised deep learning workflow is proposed to synthesize high through-plane resolution CT images by learning from their high in-plane resolution features. The proposed workflow was designed to facilitate the neural networks to learn the mapping from low resolution (LR) to high resolution (HR) images in the axial plane. During the inference step, the HR sagittal and coronal images were generated by feeding two parallelly trained neural networks with the respective LR sagittal and coronal images to the trained neural networks. The CT simulation images of a cohort of 75 head and neck (HN) cancer patients (1 mm slice thickness) and 200 CT images of a cohort of 20 lung cancer patients (3 mm slice thickness) were retrospectively investigated with a cross validation manner. The generated HR images with the proposed method were qualitatively (visual quality, image intensity profiles and preliminary observer study) and quantitatively (Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Edge Keeping Index (EKI), Structural Similarity Index Measurement (SSIM), Information Fidelity Criterion (IFC) and Visual Information Fidelity in Pixel domain (VIFP)) inspected, while taking the original HN and lung cancer patients' CT images as the reference. The qualitative results have shown the capability of the proposed method for generating high through-plane resolution CT images with data of the HN and lung cancer patients. All the improvements of the measure metrics are confirmed to be statistically significant with paired two-sample t-test analysis. The innovative point of the work is that the proposed deep learning workflow for CT image generation with high through-plane resolution in radiotherapy is self-supervised, which means it does not rely on ground truth CT images to train the network. In addition, the assumption that the in-plane HR information can supervise the through-plane HR generation is confirmed and anticipated to potentially inspire more researches on this topic to further improve the through-plane resolution of medical images.
Simplified Finite Element Models of Pyramidal Truss Sandwich Panels with Welded Joints for Dynamic Analysis and Their Experimental Validation

Pyramidal truss sandwich panels (PTSPs) are widely used in engineering structures, and their face sheets and core parts are generally bonded by the welding process. A large number of solid elements are usually required in the finite element model of a PTSP with welded joints to obtain its accurate modal parameters. Ignoring welded joints of the PTSP can save many degrees of freedom (DOFs) but significantly change its natural frequencies. This study aims to accurately determine modal parameters of a PTSP with welded joints with much fewer DOFs than its solid element model and to obtain its operational modal analysis results by avoiding missing its modes. Two novel methods that consider welded joints as equivalent stiffness are proposed to create beam-shell element models of the PTSP. The main step is to match stiffnesses of beam and shell elements of a welded joint with those of its solid elements. Compared with the solid element model of the PTSP, its proposed models provide almost the same levels of accuracy for natural frequencies and mode shapes for the first 20 elastic modes while reducing DOFs by about 98% for the whole structure and 99% for each welded joint. The first 14 elastic modes of a PTSP specimen that were measured without missing any modes by synchronously capturing its two-faced vibrations through use of a three-dimensional scanning laser vibrometer and a mirror experimentally validate its beam-shell element models created by the two proposed methods.
Impact of Quality-Tiering in a Sharing Economy Platform: Evidence from Airbnb

Quality certification is one way for online marketplaces and sharing economy platforms to establish trust and reduce quality uncertainty. While prior work has examined the efficacy of third-party quality certification, little attention has been paid to quality self-certification by the platform itself. In this paper, we examine the economic impact of the launch of Airbnb Plus, wherein the platform inspects properties (for a fee) and provides a quality badge that presumably signals high quality of the property, in terms of style, amenities, maintenance, and reliability of the host. Given the relatively small magnitude of the one-time inspection fee and lack of capacity for ongoing monitoring, it is an empirical question as to whether the Plus badge is a credible signal of quality — or just “cheap talk.” The fact that the Plus service was launched in different cities at different times, and individual listings within the cities received the certification at different times, allows us to identify the economic impact of Airbnb Plus using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy, in conjunction with suitable matching methods. We find that Plus certification increases the weekly booking rate of Plus listings by about 7.6% on average (direct effect). On the other hand, a non-Plus listing sees a 1.5% decline in booking rate when one or more neighboring properties receive a Plus certification (externality effect). The net impact of the Airbnb Plus service on the platform itself is an increase in revenues of over $80,000 per year for the average 2-kilometer zone that includes one or more Plus listings, as compared to matched zones without any Plus listings (local platform effect). These empirical regularities raise some intriguing questions for the future of the sharing economy platform, and whether quality-tiering will help Airbnb to more effectively compete against the hotel industry.
Optimizing Deeper Spiking Neural Networks for Dynamic Vision Sensing

Abstract Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) have recently emerged as a new generation of low-power deep neural networks due to sparse, asynchronous, and binary event-driven processing. Most previous deep SNN optimization methods focus on static datasets (e.g., MNIST) from a conventional frame-based camera. On the other hand, optimization techniques for event data from Dynamic Vision Sensor (DVS) cameras are still at infancy. Most prior SNN techniques handling DVS data are limited to shallow networks and thus, show low performance. Generally, we observe that the integrate-and-fire behavior of spiking neurons diminishes spike activity in deeper layers. The sparse spike activity results in a sub-optimal solution during training (i.e., performance degradation). To address this limitation, we propose novel algorithmic and architectural advances to accelerate the training of very deep SNNs on DVS data. Specifically, we propose Spike Activation Lift Training (SALT) which increases spike activity across all layers by optimizing both weights and thresholds in convolutional layers. After applying SALT, we train the weights based on the cross-entropy loss. SALT helps the networks to convey ample information across all layers during training and therefore improves the performance. Furthermore, we propose a simple and effective architecture, called Switched-BN, which exploits Batch Normalization (BN). Previous methods show that the standard BN is incompatible with the temporal dynamics of SNNs. Therefore, in Switched-BN architecture, we apply BN to the last layer of an SNN after accumulating all the spikes from previous layer with a spike voltage accumulator (i.e., converting temporal spike information to float value). Even though we apply BN in just one layer of SNNs, our results demonstrate a considerable performance gain without any significant computational overhead. Through extensive experiments, we show the effectiveness of SALT and Switched-BN for training very deep SNNs from scratch on various benchmarks including, DVS-Cifar10, N-Caltech, DHP19, CIFAR10, and CIFAR100. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work showing state-of-the-art performance with deep SNNs on DVS data.
Entwicklung und Anwendung von Kriterien für die Bodenqualität und Sanierung von Altlasten

Ein kritisches und zugleich irritierendes Problem bei schadstoffbelastetem Land war seit jeher, den Grad der Belastung und das Ausmas der erforderlichen Sanierungsmasnahmen fur schadstoffbelastete Boden und Sedimente zu bestimmen. Es sind verschiedene Verfahrensweisen zur Losung dieses schwierigen Problems entwickelt worden, und die Streitfrage, welche davon am besten geeignet ist, bleibt unentschieden. Mit der zunehmenden Anzahl von Schadstoff-belasteten Grundstucken, die in den meisten Fallen nicht katastrophal belastet sind, ist das Interesse an einer auf Kriterien basierenden Verfahrensweise gestiegen. Obwohl die Entwicklung und Anwendung von generischen Kriterien mit Schwierigkeiten verbunden ist, dienen sie im Rahmen eines allgemeinen Programms fur das Management von schadstoffbelasteten Boden einem deutlichen Zweck, und sie werden immer haufiger in mehr und mehr Zustandigkeitsbereichen in der ganzen Welt angewendet.
Microgravity burner-generated spherical diffusion flames: experiment and computation‡

Abstract Microgravity experiments were conducted in the 2.2-s drop-tower facility at the NASA Glenn Research Center to study the transient response of the burner-generated spherical diffusion flame caused by its initial displacement from the steady-state position. The experiment involved issuing H2/CH4/inert mixtures of constant fuel mass flow rates from a bronze, porous, 1.27-cm-diameter, spherical burner into atmospheric air. The experimental results on the flame trajectory were found to agree well with those obtained through fully transient computational simulation with detailed chemistry and transport, and appropriate initial conditions. Furthermore, although steady-state behavior should exist for such flames, the experimental and computational results indicated that it cannot be reached within the 2.2-s microgravity duration for the fuels and mass-flow rates tested. To assess the role of radiation on the flame dynamics and extinction, computations were performed without radiation, with radiation employing the optically thin approximation, and with radiation utilizing a detailed emission/absorption statistical narrow band (SNB) model. The computation showed that while the influence of radiative heat loss on the position of the flame is small, proper consideration of radiative effects is crucial in assessing the state of flame extinction. Specifically, while all simulations of the experimental cases studied incorporating radiative heat loss revealed that the flame extinguishes well before the attainment of steady state, simulations accounting for gaseous reabsorption of radiative emissions were required to adequately represent the experiments in terms of extinction time, with the optically thin simulations predicting premature extinction during the flame expansion process. Effects of heat loss to the porous burner were also examined, and the lack of correspondence between the visible flame luminosity and flame strength, as related to flame temperature and heat release rate, was noted.
The Church Abuse Scandal: Prosecuting the Pope Before the International Criminal Court

In the early 2000s, the Catholic Church was revealed to have been involved in a pattern of sexual abuse of children. The Church's internal policies allowed members to cover up the abuse by swearing victims to secrecy and refusing to report the abuse to authorities. This routine arguably enabled further abuse by providing abusers with continued access to children. Due, in part, to the hierarchical structure of the Church, commentators argued for the prosecution of Church leadership. Commentators focused on Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, who was, from 1971 to his elevation to the Holy See in 2005, the individual in the Catholic Church directly responsible for handling accusations of sexual abuse. In April 2010, United Nations Judge Geoffrey Robinson suggested that the Pope be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court for "crimes against humanity" for his role in the scandal. This Comment analyzes the viability of a potential prosecution, considering not only the substantive legal grounds of such a prosecution, but defenses, jurisdictional obstacles, and meaningful outcomes for victims as well. While this Comment concludes that, legally, a prosecutor could make a compelling and potenialy successful case, there are political and practical obstacles to obtaining jurisdiction over the Pope that will likely preclude a case from ever moving forward.
Interactions between evolutionary processes at high mutation rates.

Evolution at high mutation rates is minimally affected by six processes: mutation-selection balance, error catastrophes, Muller’s Ratchet, robustness and compensatory evolution, and clonal interference. Including all of these processes in a tractable, analytical model is difficult, but they can be captured in simulations that utilize realistic genotype-phenotype-fitness maps, as done here by modeling RNA folding. Subjecting finite, asexual populations to a range of mutation rates revealed simple criteria that predict when particular evolutionary processes are important. Populations were initiated with a genotype encoding the most fit phenotype. When purifying selection was strong relative to mutation, the initial genotype was replaced by one more mutationally robust, and the maximally fit phenotype was maintained in a mutation-selection balance where the deleterious mutation rate determined mean fitness. With weaker purifying selection, the most fit genotypes were lost. Although loss of the best genotype was ongoing and might have led to a progressive fitness decline, continual compensatory evolution led to an approximate fitness equilibration. Per total genomic mutation rate, mean fitness was similar for strong and weak purifying selection. These results represent a first step at separating interactions between evolutionary processes at high mutation rate, but additional theory is needed to interpret some outcomes.