cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Predicting reaction coordinates in energy landscapes with diffusion anisotropy.

We consider a range of model potentials with metastable states undergoing molecular dynamics coupled to a thermal bath in the high friction regime and consider how the optimal reaction coordinate depends on the diffusion anisotropy. For this we use our recently proposed method “spectral gap optimization of order parameters (SGOOP)” [P. Tiwary and B. J. Berne, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 113, 2839 (2016)]. We show how available information about dynamical observables in addition to static information can be incorporated into SGOOP, which can then be used to accurately determine the “best” reaction coordinate for arbitrary anisotropies. We compare our results with transmission coefficient calculations and published benchmarks wherever applicable or available, respectively.
Strategic Capacity Planning Problems in Revenue Sharing Joint Ventures

We study strategic capacity investment problems in joint ventures (JVs) with fixed‐rate revenue‐sharing contracts. We adopt a game‐theoretical approach to study two types of JVs depending on how individual resources determine the effective capacity of a JV. With complementary resources, the effective capacity of a JV is constrained by the most scarce resource. We show that multiple Nash equilibria could exist. Nevertheless, there exists a unique Strong Nash equilibrium. We show that there is an efficient and fair fixed‐rate revenue‐sharing contract which induces the system optimal outcome in the Strong Nash equilibrium. On the other hand, with substitutable a resource, the effective capacity of a JV is measured by aggregating individual contributions. We show that there does not exist a fixed‐rate revenue‐sharing contract that induces the system optimum. We quantify that the efficiency of a JV which decreases with the number of participants, the cost asymmetry and the cost margin of the JV. We propose provably‐good fixed‐rate revenue‐sharing contracts with performance guarantees. We also propose a simple modified contract to achieve the channel coordination. Finally, we fit our model with historical data to shed some insights on two JV examples in the motion picture industry.
Why Do Some Terrorist Attacks Receive More Media Attention Than Others

Terrorist attacks often dominate news coverage as reporters seek to provide the public with information. Yet, not all incidents receive equal attention. Why do some terrorist attacks receive more m...
Neural Paraphrase Identification of Questions with Noisy Pretraining

We present a solution to the problem of paraphrase identification of questions. We focus on a recent dataset of question pairs annotated with binary paraphrase labels and show that a variant of the decomposable attention model (replacing the word embeddings of the decomposable attention model of Parikh et al. 2016 with character n-gram representations) results in accurate performance on this task, while being far simpler than many competing neural architectures. Furthermore, when the model is pretrained on a noisy dataset of automatically collected question paraphrases, it obtains the best reported performance on the dataset.
Device placement optimization with reinforcement learning

The past few years have witnessed a growth in size and computational requirements for training and inference with neural networks. Currently, a common approach to address these requirements is to use a heterogeneous distributed environment with a mixture of hardware devices such as CPUs and GPUs. Importantly, the decision of placing parts of the neural models on devices is often made by human experts based on simple heuristics and intuitions. In this paper, we propose a method which learns to optimize device placement for TensorFlow computational graphs. Key to our method is the use of a sequence-to-sequence model to predict which subsets of operations in a TensorFlow graph should run on which of the available devices. The execution time of the predicted placements is then used as the reward signal to optimize the parameters of the sequence-to-sequence model. Our main result is that on Inception-V3 for ImageNet classification, and on RNN LSTM, for language modeling and neural machine translation, our model finds non-trivial device placements that outperform hand-crafted heuristics and traditional algorithmic methods.
Investigating simulation-based metrics for characterizing linear iterative reconstruction in digital breast tomosynthesis.

Purpose Simulation-based image quality metrics are adapted and investigated for characterizing the parameter dependences of linear iterative image reconstruction for DBT. Methods Three metrics based on a 2D DBT simulation are investigated: (1) a root-mean-square-error (RMSE) between the test phantom and reconstructed image, (2) a gradient RMSE where the comparison is made after taking a spatial gradient of both image and phantom, and (3) a region-of-interest (ROI) Hotelling observer (HO) for signal-known-exactly/background-known-exactly (SKE/BKE) and signal-known-exactly/background-known-statistically (SKE/BKS) detection tasks. Two simulation studies are performed using the aforementioned metrics, varying voxel aspect ratio, and regularization strength for two types of Tikhonov-regularized least-squares optimization. The RMSE metrics are applied to a 2D test phantom with resolution bar patterns at varying angles, and the ROI-HO metric is applied to two tasks relevant to DBT: lesion detection, modeled by use of a large, low-contrast signal, and microcalcification detection, modeled by use of a small, high-contrast signal. The RMSE metric trends are compared with visual assessment of the reconstructed bar-pattern phantom. The ROI-HO metric trends are compared with 3D reconstructed images from ACR phantom data acquired with a Hologic Selenia Dimensions DBT system. Results Sensitivity of the image RMSE to mean pixel value is found to limit its applicability to the assessment of DBT image reconstruction. The image gradient RMSE is insensitive to mean pixel value and appears to track better with subjective visualization of the reconstructed bar-pattern phantom. The ROI-HO metric shows an increasing trend with regularization strength for both forms of Tikhonov-regularized least-squares; however, this metric saturates at intermediate regularization strength indicating a point of diminishing returns for signal detection. Visualization with the reconstructed ACR phantom images appear to show a similar dependence with regularization strength. Conclusions From the limited studies presented it appears that image gradient RMSE trends correspond with visual assessment better than image RMSE for DBT image reconstruction. The ROI-HO metric for both detection tasks also appears to reflect visual trends in the ACR phantom reconstructions as a function of regularization strength. We point out, however, that the true utility of these metrics can only be assessed after amassing more data.
Fuzzy k-nearest neighbors applied to phoneme recognition

In this work, the Fuzzy kNN (FkNN), an alternative of the standard kNN algorithm, is used for Timit phoneme recognition. Phoneme is the smallest unit that composes speech. For this reason, if phoneme recognition is performed, it can achieve a significant word and text recognition. Thus, the main idea consists on assigning phoneme membership to the data phonemes by measuring the distance to its kNN. FkNN compute the fuzzy distances between the data phonemes that define the cluster fuzziness. Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) associated with their first and second derivatives and energy coefficient were extracted from the speech signals as an input of the recognition system. A comparison of a crisp and fuzzy kNN was performed. Experiments show that FkNN algorithm not only can lead to significant recognition rates, but also may supersede in some ways Hidden Markov Model (HMM) the reference of speech recognition.
Neighborhood Poverty and Children's Academic Skills and Behavior in Early Elementary School

Neighborhoods provide resources that may affect children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes. However, it is unclear to what degree associations between neighborhood disadvantage and outcomes persist into elementary school and whether neighborhood disadvantage interacts with household disadvantage. Using data from the 2010–2011 Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (N = 15,100 children) merged with census data from the American Community Survey, this study examines associations between neighborhood poverty and children's math, reading, and behavioral outcomes at kindergarten and first and second grades. Findings indicate that as tract-level poverty increases, children's achievement worsens after controlling for child and family characteristics. These associations persist into second grade and are stronger for children in poor versus nonpoor households. Findings suggest that neighborhood disadvantage may contribute to poorer achievement scores, particularly among children with few household resources, but that household disadvantage and other characteristics largely explain behavioral outcomes. Research and policy implications are discussed.
Sample Rate Selection for Discrete Time Switching Controls

Abstract A criteria is proposed for upper bounding the sample period required for discrete time implementations of switching (relay and variable structure) control laws. The criteria is based upon a norm-distance limit for state variations from the switching surfaces during each sample period. Whereas these fast motions of the state are ignored in equivalent control analysis of this class of controls, their importance is often a limiting factor in the practical realization of a sliding mode on a surface. Linear and weakly nonlinear bounded-input plants are treated. A comparison is made of the sample rate requirements of switching controls with those of continuous linear discrete time controls. Results are also applied to the synthesis of dual-mode controls.
Gradient clock synchronization

We introduce the distributed gradient clock synchronization problem. As in traditional distributed clock synchronization, we consider a network of nodes equipped with hardware clocks with bounded drift. Nodes compute logical clock values based on their hardware clocks and message exchanges, and the goal is to synchronize the nodes' logical clocks as closely as possible, while satisfying certain validity conditions. The new feature of gradient clock synchronization (GCS for short) is to require that the skew between any two nodes' logical clocks be bounded by a nondecreasing function of the uncertainty in message delay (call this the distance) between the two nodes, and other network parameters. That is, we require nearby nodes to be closely synchronized, and allow faraway nodes to be more loosely synchronized. We contrast GCS with traditional clock synchronization, and discuss several practical motivations for GCS, mostly arising in sensor and ad-hoc networks. Our main result is that the worst case clock skew between two nodes at distance d or less from each other is Ω (d+log D/log log D), where D is the diameter1 of the network. This means that clock synchronization is not a local property, in the sense that the clock skew between two nodes depends not only on the distance between the nodes, but also on the size of the network. Our lower bound implies, for example, that the TDMA protocol with a fixed slot granularity will fail as the network grows, even if the maximum degree of each node stays constant.
Complications of Vaginal Atresia in Association with a Duplicated Mullerian Duct

A mullerian duct duplication with a vaginal atresia canpresent as a painful abdominal mass in a female caused by a hematometrocolpos and a hemosalpinx. This set of signs and symptoms, if caused by an associated unilateral vaginal atresia, may be found in a female with normal menstrual periods, and (1) can be misdiagnosed with often tragic consequences caused by unnecessary salpingectomy, or even hysterectomy; (2) can be successfully treated by creating an adequate channel for drainage through the area of vaginal atresia; and (3) has a high association with unilateral renal agenesis. Because of this last point, recognition of either a mullerian duct duplication or unilateral renal agenesis should prompt an investigation for the other abnormality.
Embryonal Hyperplasia of the Prostate

Unusual patterns of prostatic hyperplasia require close scrutiny by the pathologist in order to distinguish them from adenocarcinoma. One such pattern, basal cell hyperplasia, has been the subject of several recent reports. We describe a second pattern, which we refer to as embryonal hyperplasia because of its resemblance to the embryonal or fetal prostate. Although this lesion bears some resemblance to basal cell hyperplasia, it differs in histochemical characteristics. A review of previous cases of this entity, which were reported as basal cell hyperplasia, suggests that they differ in ultrastructural characteristics as well. The significance of this proliferative pattern currently rests in its resemblance to prostatic adenocarcinoma, particularly when present in many chips from a transurethral resection of the prostate. Further studies, especially relating to hormone dependency, would be useful in understanding the development of this and other more atypical prostatic proliferations.
Nb Rat Prostate Adenocarcinoma Model: Evaluation of the Subrenal Capsular Assay System

During the course of the last 6 years, this laboratory unit has evaluated the Nb rat prostate adenocarcinoma model with respect to various chemotherapies. Heretofore, tumors were treated after they had been implanted in the subcutaneous space. The most active chemotherapeutic agents have been cyclophosphamide, adriamycin, and cis-platinum. Herein, we report our initial experience utilizing the subrenal capsular assay. The advantage of this system is that one is able to determine the effect of chemotherapy in a very short period of time, ie, 7 days. This may be a method to save considerable expense and may serve as a useful predictor for potential future chemotherapeutic trials. In our assay systems, cyclophosphamide, adriamycin, cis-platinum, and methotrexate did result in a significant decrease in the change in tumor volume. This change paralleled the results that we have seen in the past with the use of chemotherapy of the subcutaneous tumor nodules. Further exploration of this method is warranted from a time efficiency standpoint as well as a cost standpoint.
Intrathoracic and Multiple Abdominal Pheochromocytomas in Von Hippel-Lindau Disease

• A patient had von Hippeln—Lindau disease, a functional Intrathoracic paraganglioma (pheochromocytoma), bilateral adrenal pheochromocytomas, and a para-adrenal pheochromocytoma. Seven other members of the patient's family had features of von Hippel–Lindau disease and one, a cousin, had medullary carcinoma of the thyroid. This is the first report of a pheochromocytoma arising outside the abdomen in von Hippel–Lindau disease and the 25th report of intrathoracic pheochromocytoma in the literature. The association between von Hippel–Lindau disease and pheochromocytoma is reviewed. ( Arch Intern Med 1982;142:1962-1964)
Paraneoplastic Syndromes With Soft-Tissue Sarcoma: A Report of Two Unusual Cases

Paraneoplastic syndromes secondary to mesodermal tumors are relatively uncommon. In this report, we describe two unusual cases associated with soft-tissue sarcoma: a 69-year-old male who had a normochromic anemia, without apparent etiology, that resolved promptly after surgical resection of the primary tumor; and a 22-year-old female with hypercalcemia without evidence of bony destruction.
On the minimum eccentricity shortest path problem

Abstract In this paper, we introduce and investigate the Minimum Eccentricity Shortest Path (MESP) problem in unweighted graphs. It asks for a given graph to find a shortest path with minimum eccentricity. Let n and m denote the number of vertices and the number of edges of a given graph. We demonstrate that: • a minimum eccentricity shortest path plays a crucial role in obtaining the best to date approximation algorithm for a minimum distortion embedding of a graph into the line; • the MESP problem is NP-hard for planar bipartite graphs with maximum degree 3 and W[2]-hard for general graphs; • a shortest path of minimum eccentricity k can be computed in O ( n 2 k + 2 m ) time; • a 2-approximation, a 3-approximation, and an 8-approximation for the MESP problem can be computed in O ( n 3 ) time, in O ( n m ) time, and in O ( m ) time, respectively; • in a graph with a shortest path of eccentricity k, a k-dominating set can be found in n O ( k ) time.
Querying Discriminative and Representative Samples for Batch Mode Active Learning

Empirical risk minimization (ERM) provides a principled guideline for many machine learning and data mining algorithms. Under the ERM principle, one minimizes an upper bound of the true risk, which is approximated by the summation of empirical risk and the complexity of the candidate classifier class. To guarantee a satisfactory learning performance, ERM requires that the training data are i.i.d. sampled from the unknown source distribution. However, this may not be the case in active learning, where one selects the most informative samples to label, and these data may not follow the source distribution. In this article, we generalize the ERM principle to the active learning setting. We derive a novel form of upper bound for the true risk in the active learning setting; by minimizing this upper bound, we develop a practical batch mode active learning method. The proposed formulation involves a nonconvex integer programming optimization problem. We solve it efficiently by an alternating optimization method. Our method is shown to query the most informative samples while preserving the source distribution as much as possible, thus identifying the most uncertain and representative queries. We further extend our method to multiclass active learning by introducing novel pseudolabels in the multiclass case and developing an efficient algorithm. Experiments on benchmark datasets and real-world applications demonstrate the superior performance of our proposed method compared to state-of-the-art methods.
Voluntary Sustainability Standards: A Squandered Opportunity to Improve Workers' Wages

The sustainable development agenda has long been linked with social justice, income equality, and workers' rights. This article argues that voluntary sustainability standards-setting organizations (VSSSOs) can contribute to these goals by requiring employers to pay living wages and actively support collective bargaining. Examining the content of 25 voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) set by 16 systematically selected VSSSOs, this study finds that only 32% of VSS mandate a living wage, and only 16% rigorously support collective bargaining. It argues that supporting national minimum wages is helpful but not sufficient, examines sources of downward pressure on VSS, identifies potential explanations for variation among standards, and briefly describes a new initiative promoting living wage standards. While VSS are not a silver bullet for sustainable development or wage equity, VSSSOs are overlooking a significant opportunity to be a transformative part of a broader solution. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of Mesoamerican Aesthetics

This article offers a new interpretation of how and why Europeans developed a taste for chocolate. While previous studies have suggested that Europeans transformed chocolate materially and ideologically in order to make it fit their existing set of tastes and prejudices, it is demonstrated that Europeans learned to like chocolate on Indian terms as a result of their status as cultural minorities in colonial Mesoamerica. In addition this article uses the historical case study of chocolate's transcultural migration to revise current models of taste used in historical and anthropological literature. It rejects biologicalessentialism and culturalfunctionalism and instead shows that taste is an independent historical variable affected by social circumstances.
Hate Speech on Social Media

This essay expounds on Raphael Cohen-Almagor’s recent book, Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side, Moral and Social Responsibility on the Free Highway, and advocates placing narrow limitations on hate speech posted to social media websites. The Internet is a limitless platform for information and data sharing. It is, in addition, however, a low-cost, high-speed dissemination mechanism that facilitates the spreading of hate speech including violent and virtual threats. Indictment and prosecution for social media posts that transgress from opinion to inciteful hate speech are appropriate in limited circumstances. This article uses various real-world examples to explore when limitations on Internet-based hate speech are appropriate. In October 2015, twenty thousand Israelis joined a civil lawsuit filed against Facebook in the Supreme Court for the State of New York. Led by the civil rights organization, Shurat HaDin, the suit alleges Facebook allows Palestinian extremists to openly recruit and train terrorists to plan violent attacks calling for the murder of Israeli Jews through their Facebook pages. The suit raises important questions, amongst them: When should the government initiate similar suits to impose criminal sanctions for targeted hate speech posted to Facebook? What constitute effective restrictions on social media that also balance society’s need for robust dialogue and free communication, subject to limitations reflecting a need for order and respect among people? Our essay progresses in four stages. First, we examine philosophical origins of free speech and the historical foundations of free speech in the United States. Second, we provide an overview of American free speech jurisprudence. Third, we address particular jurisprudence that provides a framework for imposing limitations on free speech in the context of social media. American history and jurisprudence embrace free speech as a grounding principle of democracy, yet simultaneously subject speech to limitations. Finally, through a comparative exploration of real-world examples, we address the narrow instance when limitations on inciteful and targeted hate speech are appropriate.
Encapsulant Adhesion to Surface Metallization on Photovoltaic Cells

Delamination of encapsulant materials from PV cell surfaces often appears to originate at regions with metallization. Using a fracture mechanics based metrology, the adhesion of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) encapsulant to screen-printed silver metallization was evaluated. At room temperature, the fracture energy Gc [J/m2] of the EVA/silver interface (952 J/m2) was ∼70% lower than that of the EVA/antireflective (AR) coating (>2900 J/m2) and ∼60% lower than that of the EVA to the surface of cell (2265 J/m2). After only 300 h of damp heat aging, the adhesion energy of the silver interface dropped to and plateaued at ∼50–60 J/m2 while that of the EVA/AR coating and EVA/cell remained mostly unchanged. Elemental surface analysis showed that the EVA separates from the silver in a purely adhesive manner, indicating that bonds at the interface were likely displaced in the presence of humidity and chemical byproducts at elevated temperature, which in part accounts for the propensity of metalized surfaces to delaminate in the field.
Impact of New Information Technologies on Teachers and Students

This paper summarises findings from several commissioned studies, doctoral dissertations, and federally-funded technology in education projects coordinated by the authors in conjunction with international colleagues over the past five years. It features evidence regarding the impact of information technologies on teacher training and student achievement, and spotlights trans-national trend analysis through common instrumentation as the technique believed to be the most promising research avenue for the future.
MEDIAL PIVOT DESIGNS LIMIT THE NEED FOR LIGAMENT BALANCING

Most total knee prostheses are designed to have limited congruence between the femoral and tibial components to reduce constraint, based on the widely accepted principle that “constraint causes loosening”. Studies of the normal knee, however, indicate that stability under axial load occurs mostly by the geometric conformity of the surfaces. When moving in the plane of flexion-extension, the ligaments contribute little to stability because the ligaments are in the “toe-region” of their force-displacement curve. When an “out-of-plane” load is applied (i.e., load outside the plane of flexion-extension), ligaments are “recruited” for stability by being stressed into the elastic portion of the curve to resist the load. For the traditional total knee prosthesis, because of the lack of geometric congruity, the ligaments must provide all stability by being “balanced”, i.e. tensioned into the elastic portion of the force-displacement curve. Further, they must remain in that tensioned state indefinitely, with no stretching or migration of the implant. The medial pivot knee design has a fully conforming medial “ball-in-socket” articulation that provides stability to the knee through the geometric conformity. Ligaments need not be tensioned into the elastic region of the force-displacement curve but can be left in the toe-region to be recruited for out-of-plane loads. Clinical follow-up results in patients with a medial pivot prosthesis indicate that, based on Knee Society and WOMAC scores, patients report greater than 90% satisfaction with pain and function. Further, the most satisfied patients are those who, during physical examination, display medial and lateral opening that might be classified as “mid-flexion instability” for prostheses that depend on ligament tensioning for stability.
To Bargain or Not to Bargain: The Role of Fixed Costs in Price Negotiations*

ABSTRACT Retailers routinely allow consumers to negotiate a discount off the posted price, especially for big ticket items such as home appliances, furniture, automobiles, and real estate, as well as on online platforms such as Amazon, eBay and Alibaba. The profitability of such a strategy, relative to selling only at posted prices, depends on consumers' willingness to initiate a negotiation and ability to negotiate a discount. In this paper, we incorporate a consumers' decision of whether or not to negotiate into a demand model. The decision to negotiate hinges on how the expected discount from negotiation compares to the magnitude of a non-pecuniary cost that the consumer incurs by initiating the negotiation. This cost has implications for consumer demand and firm profitability; the current study shows how this cost can be non-parametrically identified, separately from consumers' ability to get a discount and marginal utility of income. The application of this model to individual-level data on refrigera...
Private Equity Valuations and Public Equity Performance

It is reasonable to expect that changes in private equity valuations should bear some correspondence to public equity performance because private assets and public assets both respond to common influences such as changes in discount rates. But it is also reasonable to recognize that changes in private equity valuations should depart to some extent from public equity performance owing to differences in risk, liquidity, and cash flow expectations. These differences affect the degree of correspondence. In this article, the authors explore an additional influence on private equity valuations that affects not the degree of correspondence, but rather the symmetry of the correspondence. The authors argue that because private equity managers are less constrained than public market participants by the forces of no-arbitrage pricing, they have greater discretion to introduce biases into their valuations. Based on an extensive sample of private equity valuations, the authors find persuasive evidence that private equity managers produce positively biased valuations that appear to be rationalized by information that should not be relevant. TOPICS:Private equity, performance measurement
Corporate apology for environmental damage

Apologies are a powerful way to restore trust and reduce punishment costs in bilateral settings. But what do we know about public apologies for large scale man-made disasters? Herein we report on results from an experiment with apologies in a multilateral setting: a firm-caused environmental disaster. Subjects read about an oil spill scenario, and learned whether the oil firm made a full apology, a partial apology, or no apology, and whether the firm had a good, bad, or no environmental reputation. A partial apology is one that fails to accept full material responsibility for damages, such as by shifting the blame to another party. We find that full apologies and better reputation reduce the demand for punishment. However, full apologies and reputation are substitutes, with reputation being significantly more important. Additionally, apologies do not reduce the demand for compensation and may increase it if the firm is clearly a bad actor, or if admission of guilt is the only information subjects have. Our results help explain corporate social responsibility investments and greenwashing, and why many public apologies over an environmental disaster are only partial apologies.
Meeting Earnings Benchmarks via Real Activities Manipulation: Debt Market Effects:

We investigate the cost of debt effects for firms that manage earnings per share (EPS) through abnormal share repurchases. Although prior research finds a significant cost of debt decrease for firm...
Engineering a Functional small RNA Negative Autoregulation Network with Model-guided Design

RNA regulators are powerful components of the synthetic biology toolbox. Here, we expand the repertoire of synthetic gene networks built from these regulators by constructing a transcriptional negative autoregulation (NAR) network out of small RNAs (sRNAs). NAR network motifs are core motifs of natural genetic networks, and are known for reducing network response time and steady state signal. Here we use cell-free transcription–translation (TX-TL) reactions and a computational model to design and prototype sRNA NAR constructs. Using parameter sensitivity analysis, we design a simple set of experiments that allow us to accurately predict NAR function in TX-TL. We transfer successful network designs into Escherichia coli and show that our sRNA transcriptional network reduces both network response time and steady-state gene expression. This work broadens our ability to construct increasingly sophisticated RNA genetic networks with predictable function.
Fast salt boundary interpretation with optimal path picking

Salt boundary interpretation is a crucial step for velocity-model building in seismic migration, but remains a highly labor-intensive task for manual interpretation and a big challenge for automatic methods. We propose a semi-automatic method to efficiently and accurately extract 2D and 3D complicated salt boundaries from a seismic attribute image that highlights salt boundaries. In 2D salt boundary extraction, we first pick a few points to interpolate an initial curve that is close to the true salt boundary. These points are picked near the salt boundary but are not required to be exactly on the boundary, which makes human interactions convenient and efficient. We then resample the salt boundary attribute image in a band area centered at the initial curve to obtain a new image where the true salt boundary is an open curve extending laterally. We then extract the salt boundary in the new image using an optimal-path picking algorithm, which is robust to track a highly discontinuous salt boundary following ...
Is early intervention effective

This document is the second part in a report on longitudinal_ecaluations of preschool programs. Part I reviewed long-term, controlled studies in order to generally assess the impact of preschool intervention. Part II reviews follow-up data in order to resolve the following five questions: (1) Do children in experimental programs continue to gain in intellectual development as long as intervention continues?, (2) Are gains increased or maintained after termination of the programs?, (3) Is development enhanced by beginning intervention at earlier ages, including the first years of life?, (4) What kinds of programs are most effective for 'long -range impact?, and (5) Which children from what circumstances are most likely to benefit in the long run from early intervention? The report includes discussion of the nature and limitations of the data used, methodological problems, effects of preschool intervention in group settings, effects of home-based intervention, a sequential strategy for early intervention, and the ecology of intervention, in whicb focus is on the characteristics and problema of d4.sadvantaged families. (DP)
Effects of Greenhouse Gas Increase and Stratospheric Ozone Depletion on Stratospheric Mean Age of Air in 1960–2010

The relative impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) increase and stratospheric ozone depletion on stratospheric mean age of air in the 1960-2010 period are quantified using the Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry-Climate Model. The experiment compares controlled simulations using a coupled atmosphere-ocean version of the Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry-Climate Model, in which either GHGs or ozone depleting substances, or both factors evolve over time. The model results show that GHGs and ozone-depleting substances have about equal contributions to the simulated mean age decrease, but GHG increases account for about two thirds of the enhanced strength of the lower stratospheric residual circulation. It is also found that both the acceleration of the diabatic circulation and the decrease of the mean age difference between downwelling and upwelling regions are mainly caused by GHG forcing. The results show that ozone depletion causes an increase in the mean age of air in the Antarctic summer lower stratosphere through two processes: (1) a seasonal delay in the Antarctic polar vortex breakup that inhibits young midlatitude air from mixing with the older air inside the vortex, and (2) enhanced Antarctic downwelling that brings older air from middle and upper stratosphere into the lower stratosphere.
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and the Exemption for Fantasy Sports

In 2006, Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Contained within the finance and banking statute designed to curb the ability of gambling websites to process payments was an exemption for certain forms of fantasy sports games. The so-called fantasy sports exemption was widely misperceived as a blanket exemption legalizing all compliant fantasy sports games, this proved to be false as various state attorney generals, beginning in 2015, began to examine whether daily fantasy sports games were compliant with state gambling laws. This brought renewed focus to the statute, which was often credited with inspiring the daily fantasy sports boom. This paper examines the origins of the inclusion of the fantasy sports exemption in proposed statutes pre-dating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and examines the archival materials associated with Senator Richard Bryan, who introduced the fantasy sports exemption, and proposes that the fantasy sports amendment may have been included to broach First Amendment concerns rather than to appease the interests of the National Football League or Major League Baseball, as has been suggested previously.
A comparison of measured versus self-reported anthropometrics for assessing obesity in adults: a literature review:

Aims: Up-to-date information on the accuracy between different anthropometric data collection methods is vital for the reliability of anthropometric data. A previous review on this matter was conducted a decade ago. Our aim was to conduct a literature review on the accuracy of self-reported height, weight, and body mass index (BMI) against measured values for assessing obesity in adults. To obtain an overview of the present situation, we included studies published after the previous review. Differences according to sex, BMI groups, and continents were also assessed. Methods: Studies published between January 2006 and April 2017 were identified from a literature search on PubMed. Results: Our search retrieved 62 publications on adult populations that showed a tendency for self-reported height to be overestimated and weight to be underestimated when compared with measured values. The findings were similar for both sexes. BMI derived from self-reported height and weight was underestimated; there was a clear ...
Cochlear implantation in infants below 12 months of age.

Abstract Objectives To provide safety and efficacy data on infants implanted below 12 months of age. Methods With the wide application of newborn hearing screening programs, infants with deafness are being identified at birth. When a hearing aid trial fails, cochlear implantation is the only option to restore hearing. Mounting evidence suggests that age at implantation is a strong predictor of language outcomes. Using the minimally invasive surgical technique we have employed for nearly two decades, a limited clinical trial was initiated in the year 2000 because this age limitation fell outside of FDA guidelines. The infants were initially assessed using the preferential listening paradigm to confirm that they could learn associations between speech sounds and objects. Sufficient time was allowed to pass to administer more traditional language measures. Results No surgical or anesthetic complications occurred in this group of infants. The pattern of listening skill development mirrored that seen in normal hearing infants. Long-term language assessments using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and other measures have demonstrated that many of infants achieved age appropriate language skills. Conclusion Cochlear implantation in children less than 12 months of age is safe and efficacious as demonstrated by long-term PPVT language data.
SEAR: A Polynomial- Time Multi-Robot Path Planning Algorithm with Expected Constant-Factor Optimality Guarantee

We study the labeled multi-robot path planning problem in continuous 2D and 3D domains in the absence of obstacles where robots must not collide with each other. For an arbitrary number of robots in arbitrary initial and goal arrangements, we derive a polynomial time, complete algorithm that produces solutions with constant-factor optimality guarantees on both makespan and distance optimality, in expectation, under the assumption that the robot labels are uniformly randomly distributed. Our algorithm only requires a small constant-factor expansion of the initial and goal configuration footprints for solving the problem, i.e., the problem can be solved in a fairly small bounded region. Beside theoretical guarantees, we present a thorough computational evaluation of the proposed solution. In addition to the baseline implementation, adapting an effective (but non-polynomial time) routing subroutine, we also provide a highly efficient implementation that quickly computes near-optimal solutions. Hardware experiments on the microMVP platform composed of non-holonomic robots confirms the practical applicability of our algorithmic pipeline.
A General Class of Multifractional Processes and Stock Price Informativeness

Abstract We introduce a general class of stochastic processes driven by a multifractional Brownian motion (mBm) and study the estimation problems of their pointwise Holder exponents (PHE) based on a new localized generalized quadratic variation approach (LGQV). By comparing our suggested approach with the other two existing benchmark estimation approaches (classic GQV approach and oscillation approach) through a simulation study, we show that our estimator has better performance in the case where the observed process is some unknown bivariate function of time and mBm. Such multifractional processes, whose PHEs are time-varying, can be used to model stock prices under various market conditions, that are both time-dependent and region-dependent. As an application to finance, an empirical study on modeling cross-listed stocks provides new evidence that the equity path’s roughness varies via time and so does the corresponding stock price informativeness properties from global stock markets.
Simpler but More Accurate Semantic Dependency Parsing

While syntactic dependency annotations concentrate on the surface or functional structure of a sentence, semantic dependency annotations aim to capture between-word relationships that are more closely related to the meaning of a sentence, using graph-structured representations. We extend the LSTM-based syntactic parser of Dozat and Manning (2017) to train on and generate these graph structures. The resulting system on its own achieves state-of-the-art performance, beating the previous, substantially more complex state-of-the-art system by 0.6% labeled F1. Adding linguistically richer input representations pushes the margin even higher, allowing us to beat it by 1.9% labeled F1.
Preschool and Children's Outcomes in Elementary School: Have Patterns Changed Nationwide Between 1998 and 2010?

This study employs data from both kindergarten cohorts of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (n ~ 12,450 in 1998; n ~ 11,000 in 2010) to assess whether associations between preschool participation and children's academic and behavioral outcomes-both at school entry (Mage = 5.6 years in both cohorts) and through third grade-have changed over time. Findings are strikingly similar across these two, nationally representative, U.S. cohorts: preschool is positively associated with academic outcomes and negatively associated with behavioral outcomes both at school entry and as children progress through school. Heterogeneity is documented with respect to child and preschool characteristics. However, there is no evidence that associations between preschool and medium-term child outcomes differ by elementary school characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Androgen Receptor-CaMKK2 Axis in Prostate Cancer and Bone Microenvironment.

The skeletal system is of paramount importance in advanced stage prostate cancer (PCa) as it is the preferred site of metastasis. Complex mechanisms are employed sequentially by PCa cells to home to and colonize the bone. Bone-resident PCa cells then recruit osteoblasts, osteoclasts and macrophages with the niche into entities that promote cancer cell growth and survival. Since PCa is heavily reliant on androgens for growth and survival, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is the standard of care for advanced disease. Although it significantly improves survival rates, ADT detrimentally affects bone health and significantly increases the risk of fractures. Moreover, whereas the majority patients with advanced PCa respond favorably to androgen deprivation, most experience a relapse of the disease to a hormone-refractory form within 1-2 years of ADT. The tumor adapts to surviving under low testosterone conditions by selecting for mutations in the androgen receptor (AR) that constitutively activate it. Thus AR signaling remains active in PCa cells and aids in its survival under low levels of circulating androgens and additionally allows the cancer cells to manipulate the bone microenvironment to fuel its growth. Hence, AR and its downstream effectors are attractive targets for therapeutic interventions against PCa. Ca2+/calmodulin dependent protein kinase kinase 2 (CaMKK2), was recently identified as a key downstream target of AR in coordinating PCa cell growth, survival and migration. Additionally, this multi-functional serine/threonine protein kinase is a critical mediator of bone remodeling and macrophage function, thus emerging as an attractive therapeutic target downstream of AR in controlling metastatic PCa and preventing ADT-induced bone loss. Here we discuss the role played by AR-CaMKK2 signaling axis in PCa survival, metabolism, cell growth and migration as well as the cell-intrinsic roles of CaMKK2 in osteoblasts, osteoclasts and macrophages within the bone microenvironment.
3PC ORAM with Low Latency, Low Bandwidth, and Fast Batch Retrieval

Multi-Party Computation of Oblivious RAM (MPC ORAM) implements secret-shared random access memory in a way that protects access pattern privacy against a threshold of corruptions. MPC ORAM enables secure computation of any RAM program on large data held by different entities, e.g. MPC processing of database queries on a secret-shared database. MPC ORAM can be constructed by any (client-server) ORAM, but there is an efficiency gap between known MPC ORAM’s and ORAM’s. Current asymptotically best MPC ORAM is implied by an “MPC friendly” variant of Path-ORAM [26] called Circuit-ORAM, due to Wang et al [27]. However, using garbled circuit for Circuit-ORAM’s client implies MPC ORAM which matches Path-ORAM in rounds but increases bandwidth by \(\varOmega (\kappa )\) factor, while using GMW or BGW protocols implies MPC ORAM which matches Path-ORAM in bandwidth, but increases round complexity by \(\varOmega ({\log n}\log {\log n})\) factor, where \(\kappa \) is a security parameter and \(n\) is memory size.
Stress-responsive and metabolic gene regulation are altered in low S-adenosylmethionine

S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) is a donor which provides the methyl groups for histone or nucleic acid modification and phosphatidylcholine production. SAM is hypothesized to link metabolism and chromatin modification, however, its role in acute gene regulation is poorly understood. We recently found that Caenorhabditis elegans with reduced SAM had deficiencies in H3K4 trimethylation (H3K4me3) at pathogen-response genes, decreasing their expression and limiting pathogen resistance. We hypothesized that SAM may be generally required for stress-responsive transcription. Here, using genetic assays, we show that transcriptional responses to bacterial or xenotoxic stress fail in C. elegans with low SAM, but that expression of heat shock genes are unaffected. We also found that two H3K4 methyltransferases, set-2/SET1 and set-16/MLL, had differential responses to survival during stress. set-2/SET1 is specifically required in bacterial responses, whereas set-16/MLL is universally required. These results define a role for SAM in the acute stress-responsive gene expression. Finally, we find that modification of metabolic gene expression correlates with enhanced survival during stress.
Do Most U.S. Farms Really Lose Money? Taxation and Farm Income Underreporting

This article explores whether income underreporting for tax purposes can explain why the majority of U.S. farmers earn low or negative net farm income. Using 10 years of U.S. Department of Agriculture farm-level data, the extent of underreporting is estimated by exploiting the fact that farm households face an incentive to underreport farm income that varies with their reported off-farm income. Results indicate that 39% of total farm income is underreported. For large farms, the results imply a substantial discrepancy between reported and earned farm income. For small-scale operations, underreporting reduces but does not eliminate the gap between farm and off-farm wages.
On Weingarten-Volterra Defects

The kinematic theory of Weingarten-Volterra line defects is revisited, both at small and finite deformations. Existing results are clarified and corrected as needed, and new results are obtained. The primary focus is to understand the relationship between the disclination strength and Burgers vector of deformations containing a Weingarten-Volterra defect corresponding to different cut-surfaces.