cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Crisis Management and Resolution: Early Lessons from the Financial Crisis

This paper compares the policy choices in recent and past crises, explains why those choices varied, and assesses the current state of financial and operational restructuring and institutional reform. While acknowledging the unique and global nature of the recent crisis and varying country circumstances, analysis suggests that the diagnosis and repair of financial institutions and overall asset restructuring are much less advanced than they should be at this stage and that moral hazard has increased. Consequently, vulnerabilities in the global financial system remain considerable and continue to threaten the sustainability of the recovery. These conclusions point to a number of steps to finish the business of financial sector repair and reform. JEL Classification Numbers: G01; G18; G32; G33; H12
DIFFUSION IN URANIUM, ITS ALLOYS, AND COMPOUNDS

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the laboratory diffusion studies. The diffusion work can be divided into three major classes according to the type of sample used: (1) diffusion in a single-phase solid, (2) diffusion in a multiphase solid, and (3) diffusion of a gas in a solid. Self-diffusion in γ - and β -uranium is known. Data are needed on the anisotropy of self-diffusion in α -uranium, and on the effect of pressure on self-diffusion in γ -uranium. The fundamentals of layer formation, especially the effect of pressure, need study. The diffusion of hydrogen is known. Information is needed on the true diffusion of rare gases in uranium. Fission gases are not released from irradiated uranium during annealing because they precipitate into bubbles that makes it impossible to measure their diffusion in uranium by gas release experiments.
Conquering the Greeks in Monte Carlo: Efficient Calculation of the Market Sensitivities and Hedge-Ratios of Financial Assets by Direct Numerical Simulation

The calculation of price-sensitivities of contingent claims is formulated in the framework of Monte Carlo simulation. Rather than perturbing the parameters that drive the economic state-variables of the model, we perturb the vector of probabilities of simulated paths in a neighborhood of the uniform distribution. The resulting hedge-ratios (sensitivities with respect to input prices) are characterized in terms of statistical moments of simulated cashflows. The computed sensitivities dislay excellent agreement with analytic closed-form solutions whenever the latter are available, e.g. with the Greeks of the Black-Scholes model, and with approximate analytic solutions for Basket Options in multi-asset, models. The advantage of the new-sensitivities is that they are “universal” (non-parametric) and simple to compute: they do not require performing multiple MC simulations, discrete-differentiation, or re-calibration of the simulation.
Functional Anatomy of the Female Lower Urinary Tract and Pelvic Floor

Stress continence depends upon three factors: proximal urethral support, vesical neck closure, and urethral contractility. The position of the vesical neck is not static but mobile and under voluntary control. Its support depends upon connections of the urethrovaginal endopelvic fascia to the medial aspect of the levator ani. In addition, these fasciae are attached to the arcus tendineus fasciae pelvis which supports the urethra during levator relaxation, and probably during stress. Levator contraction supports the proximal urethra and also pulls the vesical neck anteriorly against a band of endopelvic fascia which is suspended between the arcus tendinei, compressing it closed. Relaxation of the muscles allows the vesical neck to descend, and facilitates its opening. The connective tissue and smooth muscle of the trigonal ring encircles the vesical neck's lumen, and may contribute to closure of this area. The striated urogenital sphincter muscle can contract to assist in maintaining continence in continent women whose vesical neck is not competent. It has a circular sphincteric portion from 20 to 60% of urethral length. From 60 to 80% it has a considerable bulk of muscle which forms an arch at the perineal membrane that would compress the urethra from above.
A new approach to recursive estimation in continuous dynamical systems

Abstract The statistical theory of estimation of a constant quantity or a parameter is extended to recursive estimation in nonlinear continuous dynamical systems. Crucial to this development is the decomposition of the filtering process into two sub-processes, one accounting for the dynamics of the optimal estimate and the other for its updating in the face of information flow. The exact form of the recursive estimator is derived in terms of certain moment equations expressing the sensitivity of the estimate to the measurements. The related problems of prediction and smoothing are also treated.
Optimal Scheduling Algorithms in WDM Optical Interconnects with Limited Range Wavelength Conversion Capability

In this paper we study optimal scheduling algorithms to resolve output contentions in time slotted WDM optical interconnects with wavelength conversion ability. We consider the general case of limited range wavelength conversion with arbitrary conversion capability, as it is easier to implement and more cost effective than full range wavelength conversion, and also includes full range wavelength conversion as a special case. We consider the conversion scheme in which each wavelength can be converted to multiple wavelengths belongs to an interval and the intervals for different wavelengths are “ordered”. To be specific, the conversion range of λ i can be written as [begin(i), end(i)], where begin(i) and end(i) are positive integers and if i < j then begin(i) ≤ begin(j) and end(i) ≤ end(j). We will present linear time optimal scheduling algorithms for both buffered and unbuffered WDM switches. We will also give performance studies of these switches when scheduled by these algorithms.
Do medical marijuana laws reduce addictions and deaths related to pain killers

Recent work finds that medical marijuana laws reduce the daily doses filled for opioid analgesics among Medicare Part-D and Medicaid enrollees, as well as population-wide opioid overdose deaths. We replicate the result for opioid overdose deaths and explore the potential mechanism. The key feature of a medical marijuana law that facilitates a reduction in overdose death rates is a relatively liberal allowance for dispensaries. As states have become more stringent in their regulation of dispensaries, the protective value generally has fallen. These findings suggest that broader access to medical marijuana facilitates substitution of marijuana for powerful and addictive opioids.
The Role of Helicity in Magnetic Reconnection: 3D Numerical Simulations

Abstract : We demonstrate that conservation of global helicity plays only a minor role in determining the nature and consequences of magnetic reconnection in the solar atmosphere. First, we show that observations of the solar coronal magnetic field are in direct conflict with Taylor's theory. Next, we present results from three-dimensional MHD simulations of the shearing of bipolar and multi-polar coronal magnetic fields by photospheric footpoint motions, and discuss the implications of these results for Taylor's theory and for models of solar activity. The key conclusion of this work is that significant magnetic reconnection occurs only at very specific locations and, hence the Sun's magnetic field cannot relax completely down to the minimum energy state predicted by conservation of global helicity.
Mitigating the social impact of privatization and enterprise restructuring

This paper focuses on the role the of social programs in economic restructuring. Restructuring often results in significant downsizing of labor. When this occurs a negative social reaction can slow and/or stall restructuring. This is increasingly recognized by development agencies, governments, and enterprise managers and as a result social programs are increasingly becoming part of the design of enterprise restructuring programs. There are economic, social and political objectives for providing social support packages (SSPs) to workers displaced by restructuring and privatization of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs). Social support programs should include elements that combine to"pull"and entice excess labor to leave overstaffed enterprises, while at the same time helping"push"and assist displaced workers to quickly rejoin the labor market. These measures usually include both temporary income support and active labor programs. To be effective the measures must be carefully designed and targeted, and social monitoring of displaced workers should be an integral part of the design to ensure the services are reaching the most needy workers.
Identity based authenticated key agreement protocols from pairings

We investigate a number of issues related to identity based authenticated key agreement protocols in the Diffie-Hellman family enabled by the Weil or Tate pairings. These issues include how to make protocols efficient; to avoid key escrow by a Trust Authority (TA) who issues identity based private keys for users, and to allow users to use different TAs. We describe a few authenticated key agreement (AK) protocols and AK with key confirmation (AKC) protocols by modifying Smart's AK protocol (2002). We discuss the security of these protocols heuristically and give formal proofs of security for our AK and AKC protocols (using a security model based on the model defined in (Blake-Wilson et al., 1997)). We also prove that our AK protocol has the key compromise impersonation property. We also show that our second protocol has the TA forward secrecy property (which we define to mean that the compromise of the TA's private key will not compromise previously established session keys), and we note that this also implies that it has the perfect forward secrecy property.
TRIM: A Tool for Triggered Message Sequence Charts

TRIM is a tool for analyzing system requirements expressed using Triggered Message Sequence Charts (TMSCs). TMSCs enhance MSCs with capabilities for expressing conditional and partial behavior and with a refinement ordering. This paper shows how the Concurrency Workbench of the New Century may be adapted to check refinements between TMSC specifications.
FOOD SAFETY: WHAT IS ECONOMISTS' VALUE ADDED?

Economists are contributing to the food safety arena by analyzing demand for food safety, the consumer level benefits of improved food safety, the costs and benefits to companies from quality assurance for food safety, and the benefits and costs of government regulations aimed at improving food safety. In the food safety area, too much attention has been paid to risk assessment and not enough to risk management. Economists have a very important role to play in improving private and public risk management in areas such as pathogen reduction, use of traceability, and biotechnology.
Survival outcomes with the use of surgery in limited-stage small cell lung cancer: should its role be re-evaluated?

BACKGROUND: Although chemotherapy and radiation therapy currently are recommended in limited-stage small cell lung cancer (L-SCLC), several small series have reported favorable survival outcomes in patients who underwent surgical resection. The authors of this report used a US population-based database to determine survival outcomes of patients who underwent surgery. METHODS: The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry was used to identify patients who were diagnosed with L-SCLC between 1988 and 2002 coded by SEER as localized disease (T1-T2Nx-N0) or regional disease (T3-T4Nx-N0). Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were used to compare overall survival (OS) for all patients. RESULTS: In total, 14,179 patients were identified, including 863 patients who underwent surgical resection. Surgery was associated more commonly with T1/T2 disease (P < .001). Surgery was associated with improved survival for both localized disease and regional disease with improvements in median survival from 15 months to 42 months (P < .001) and from 12 months to 22 months (P < .001), respectively. Lobectomy was associated with the best outcome (P < .001). Patients with localized disease who underwent lobectomy with had a median survival of 65 months and a 5-year OS rate of 52.6%; whereas patients who had regional disease had a median survival of 25 months and a 5-year OS rate of 31.8%. On multivariate analysis, the benefit of surgery varied in a time-dependant fashion. However, the benefit of lobectomy remained across all time intervals (P = .002). CONCLUSIONS: The use of surgery, and particularly lobectomy, in selected patients with L-SCLC was associated with improved survival outcomes. Future prospective studies should consider the role of surgery as part of the multimodality management of this disease. Cancer 2010. © 2010 American Cancer Society.
Characterization of SEI Layers on LiMn2O4 Cathodes with In Situ Spectroscopic Ellipsometry

In situ spectroscopic ellipsometry was employed to study the initial stage of SEI layer formation on thin-film LiMn{sub 2}O{sub 4} electrodes. It was found that the SEI layer formed immediately upon exposure of the electrode to EC/DMC (1:1 by vol) 1.0 M LiPF{sub 6} electrolyte. The SEI layer thickness then increased in proportion to a logarithmic function of elapsed time. In comparison, the SEI layer thickness on a cycled electrode increased in proportion to a linear function of the number of cycles.
Control of the replication initiator DnaA by an anti‐cooperativity factor

Summary Proper coordination of DNA replication with cell growth and division is critical for production of viable progeny. In bacteria, coordination of DNA replication with cell growth is generally achieved by controlling activity of the replication initiator DnaA and its access to the chromosomal origin of replication, oriC. Here we describe a previously unknown mechanism for regulation of DnaA. YabA, a negative regulator of replication initiation in Bacillus subtilis, interacts with DnaA and DnaN, the sliding (processivity) clamp of DNA polymerase. We found that in vivo, YabA associated with the oriC region in a DnaA-dependent manner and limited the amount of DnaA at oriC. In vitro, purified YabA altered binding of DnaA to DNA by inhibiting cooperativity. Although previously undescribed, proteins that directly inhibit cooperativity may be a common mechanism for regulating replication initiation. Conditions that cause release of DnaN from the replisome, or overproduction of DnaN, caused decreased association of YabA and increased association of DnaA with oriC. This effect of DnaN, either directly or indirectly, is likely responsible, in part, for enabling initiation of a new round of replication following completion of a previous round.
Electricity Restructuring: What Has Worked, What Has Not, and What Is Next

In the 1990s and early 2000s, a series of state and federal initiatives restructured electric markets. In many areas of the country generation was unbundled from transmission and distribution and competitive markets for energy generation were established. A decade has now passed since many of these market reforms were implemented, and increasing energy prices have re-focused attention on these reforms. In particular, commentators are blaming the reforms for the rising energy prices and, in several states, legislators are now considering re-imposing regulation. In this paper I discuss some successful features of industry restructuring, and consider areas where further reform may be warranted. It appears that market restructuring is now producing significant tangible benefits in the areas of the country where it has been most fully implemented. Calls for the reimposition of heavy-handed regulation should be resisted.
A LEGAL ADVISOR’S RESPONSIBILITY TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY: WHEN IS LEGAL ADVICE A WAR CRIME?

Practically every attorney in every state of the United States of America takes an oath to uphold the US and that state’s Constitution. Upon taking the oath, most US lawyers become an officer of the court (“judicial officer”). As an officer of the court they are held to a higher standard of integrity and candor as is required by that state’s professional responsibility rules. As such, although an attorney is an advocate for his client, in some situations, an attorney must set aside his role as advocate and assert his role as judicial officer to maintain the integrity of the judicial system and uphold the US and state Constitution. The constant tension between an attorney’s role as judicial officer and advocate occurs because giving advice about the law an attorney’s main purpose and often that advice may further criminal conduct. However, as Professor Newman eloquently put it, “[n]either the status of ‘lawyer’ nor the obligation to provide access to the law should exempt lawyers from the criminal liabilities which face everyone else.”
The Transition from Brownian Motion to Boom-and-Bust Dynamics in Financial and Economic Systems

Quasi-equilibrium models for aggregate or emergent variables over long periods of time are widely used throughout finance and economics. The validity of such models depends crucially upon assuming that the system participants act both independently and without memory. However important real-world effects such as herding, imitation, perverse incentives, and many of the key findings of behavioral economics violate one or both of these key assumptions.
Helicobacter pylori infection in India from a western perspective

Helicobacter pylori is a common bacterial infectious disease whose manifestations predominately affect the gastrointestinal tract. India is the prototypical developing country as far as H. pylori infection is concerned and more than 20 million Indians are estimated to suffer from peptic ulcer disease. Considering the high level of medical research and of the pharmaceutical industry, one would expect that India would be the source of much needed information regarding new therapies and approaches that remain effective in the presence of antimicrobial resistance, new methods to reliably prevent reinfection, and the development of therapeutic and preventive vaccines. Here we discuss H. pylori as a problem in India with an emphasis on H. pylori infection as a serious transmissible infectious disease. We discuss the pros and cons of eradication of H. pylori from the entire population and come down on the side of eradication. The available data from India regarding antimicrobial use and resistance as well as the effectiveness of various treatments are discussed. Rigorous ongoing studies to provide current regional antibiotic resistance patterns coupled with data concerning the success rate with different treatment regimens are needed to guide therapy. A systematic approach to identify reliably effective (e.g., 90% or greater treatment success) cost-effective regimens is suggested as well as details of regimens likely to be effective in India. H. pylori is just one of the health care problems faced in India, but one where all the resources are on hand to understand and solve it.
Vaught’s conjecture on analytic sets

Conjecture 0.2, like 0.1, remains open. Under the assumption of the continuum hypothesis both these conjectures are trivially true, and for this reason it is often customary to consider a strengthened version which has the same spirit as the original. To phrase this stronger version we need to equip the collection of all models whose underlying set is N with a topology, whose basic open sets consist of all M for which
On the robustness of fixed effects and related estimators in correlated random coefficient panel data models.

I show that a class of fixed effects estimators is reasonably robust for estimating the population-averaged slope coefficients in panel data models with individual-specific slopes, where the slopes are allowed to be correlated with the covariates. In addition to including the usual fixed effects estimator, the results apply to estimators that eliminate individual-specific trends. Further, asymptotic variance matrices are straightforward to estimate. I apply the results, and propose alternative estimators, to estimation of average treatment in a general class of unobserved effects models.
A general synthetic approach to optically active iridoid aglycones : The total syntheses of β-ethyl descarbomethoxyverbenalol, ethyl catalpol, and (-)-specionin

Abstract A general approach to the synthesis of iridoid aglycones is reported. A combination Claisen rearrangement/nitrile oxide cycloaddition sequence has permitted the facile annulation of a highly functionalized cyclopentane ring onto a simple glycal derived from D-xylal. The title aglycones have been prepared and the work has culminated with a stereoselective total synthesis of (-)-specionin. Two other anomers of specionin have also been independently prepared. The work confirms Vandewalle's relative stereochemical assignment of specionin and also confirms the absolute stereochemistry of this compound.
Finances of Egyptian listed firms

The author presents an analysis of the finances of Egyptian listed companies evaluating recent trends in growth and profitability during the 1995-2001 period. The data from financial statements reveal the effect of the economic slowing of the past few years, especially in the construction and real estate sectors and especially in smaller companies. She finds that smaller firms appear to be less profitable and experience lower growth, likely because of being particularly adversely affected by many of the sources of the high costs of doing business in Egypt. While the Egyptian firms are not very highly leveraged on average, she finds that smaller firms have significantly less access to bank finance than larger firms do. This confirms the widely held view that there is a need to improve the availability of credit for small enterprises.
Patents and Other Intellectual Property Rights

In this article, the author reviews intellectual property rights (IPRs), with some emphasis on the protection of agricultural and life sciences innovations. The main institutional features of IPRs are first discussed, along with a brief historical background and an articulation of the main rationale for the existence of such rights. This is followed by an overview of the principal economic issues related to IPRs. The author explains the main benefit/cost trade-offs of allowing patents and other IPRs, and then analyzes specific issues in some depth, including the scope of patent protection, the effects of patent races, and the problems arising when IPRs concern cumulative and/or complementary innovations. The author further illustrates the economics of IPRs by considering instruments alternative to patents, such as prizes and government procurement contracts. Finally, the author briefly discusses some open policy issues in this area.
Immigration and the Economy of Cities and Regions

Abstract In this chapter, we analyze immigration and its effect on urban and regional economies focusing on productivity and labor markets. While immigration policies are typically national, the effects of international migrants are often more easily identified on local economies. The reason is that their settlements are significantly concentrated across cities and regions, relative to natives. Immigrants are different from natives in several economically relevant skills. Their impact on the local economy depends on these skills. We emphasize that to evaluate correctly such impact, we also need to understand and measure the local adjustments produced by the immigrant flow. Workers and firms take advantage of the opportunities brought by immigrants and respond to them trying to maximize their welfare. We present a common conceptual frame to organize our analysis of the local effects of immigration, and we describe several applications. We then discuss the empirical literature that has tried to isolate and identify a causal impact of immigrants on the local economies and to estimate the different margins of response and the resulting outcomes for natives of different skill types. We finally survey promising recent avenues for advancing this research.
Philippine Agriculture and GATT Reforms

This paper examines the Philippine agricultural sector and the implications of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) reforms. The importance of agriculture to the Philippine economy includes providing the principal means of livelihood for the more than 60 percent of the population that live in rural areas and contributing between 27 percent and 29 percent of the Philippine gross domestic product (GDP).
USING PSEUDO-PANELS TO MEASURE INCOME MOBILITY IN LATIN AMERICA

This paper presents a comparative overview of mobility patterns in 14 Latin American countries between 1992 and 2003. Using three alternative econometric techniques on constructed pseudo-panels, the paper provides a set of estimators for the traditional notion of income mobility as well as for mobility around extreme and moderate poverty lines. The estimates suggest very high levels of time-dependent unconditional immobility for the Region. However, the introduction of socioeconomic and personal factors reduces the estimate of income immobility by around 30 percent. There are also large variations in country-specific income mobility (estimated to explain some additional 10 percent of inter-temporal income variation). Analyzing the determinants of changes in poverty incidence within cohorts revealed statistically significant roles for age, gender, and education of the household head, the latter subject to distinctive effects across levels of attainment and transition in and out of poverty.
Superconducting radio-frequency technology : Understanding and improvements of limitations through application of cryogenic instrumentation

A large number of diagnostic methods have been developed during the last two decades to gain insight in limiting phenomena occurring in superconducting rf cavities during operation. Temperature mapping in subcooled and superfluid helium and x -ray mapping have successfully been applied to understand and subsequently prevent or eliminate loss mechanisms present in these devices. Newer techniques specific to problems such as rf window arcing are under development.
Safeguarding Employment for U.S. Workers: Do Undocumenteds Take Away Jobs

Until passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), regulating the employment of non-citizens was held to be only a “peripheral concern” of the immigration statute. Beginning in 1987, United States employers were subject to sanctions for the hiring of undocumented workers, making it indisputable that Congress intends to use the immigration laws as a tool to protect American labor. Under IRCA, it is unlawful to knowingly employ an “alien [who is not] lawfully admitted for permanent residence” or who is “unauthorized to be…employed.” Although federal immigration policy now enshrines the principle that denying work opportunities to certain classes of non-citizens is a way to safeguard jobs for Americans, this seemingly common sense assumption obscures the complex relationship between domestic and foreign labor. For more than five years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has been stymied in its efforts to implement a rule prohibiting immigrants from working while out on bond pending deportation or exclusion. The U.S. Attorney General has the authority to prescribe conditions governing a release under bond, including an employment ban. A challenge to the “no work rule” has been up to the U.S. Supreme Court and back. As this article demonstrates, the no-work rule is founded on a faulty hypothesis: “illegal” workers displace “legal” workers. While this may be the case in very limited circumstances, it by no means explains why U.S. laborers suffer unemployment, substandard working conditions and low wages. For that reason alone, the rule makes for poor public policy, and should permanently enjoined.
The Formation of the Galaxy

The formation of galaxies from density perturbations is discussed, and it is shown that the Galaxy could have grown from a typical isolated peak in the now-fashionable “cold dark matter” model; most of its properties are correctly predicted by such a model.
Efficiently learning from revealed preference

In this paper, we consider the revealed preferences problem from a learning perspective. Every day, a price vector and a budget is drawn from an unknown distribution, and a rational agent buys his most preferred bundle according to some unknown utility function, subject to the given prices and budget constraint. We wish not only to find a utility function which rationalizes a finite set of observations, but to produce a hypothesis valuation function which accurately predicts the behavior of the agent in the future. We give efficient algorithms with polynomial sample-complexity for agents with linear valuation functions, as well as for agents with linearly separable, concave valuation functions with bounded second derivative.
Dynamics of Interest Rate Curve by Functional Auto-regression

The paper applies methods of functional data analysis – functional auto-regression, principal components and canonical correlations – to the study of the dynamics of interest rate curve. In addition, it introduces a novel statistical tool based on the singular value decomposition of the functional cross-covariance operator. This tool is better suited for prediction purposes as opposed to either principal components or canonical correlations. Based on this tool, the paper provides a consistent method for estimating the functional autoregression of interest rate curve. The theory is applied to estimating dynamics of Eurodollar futures rates. The results suggest that future movements of interest rates are predictable only at very short and very long horizons.
A theory of enterprise transformation

The information technology revolution has driven the pace of competition and rapid globalization. Consequently, enterprises increasingly need to consider and pursue fundamental change - transformation - to maintain or gain competitive advantage. This need raises important research issues concerning how transformation is best understood and pursued. This paper outlines a theory of enterprise transformation to guide research on these issues. The theory focuses on why and how transformation happens, as well as ways in which transformation is addressed and pursued in terms of work processes and the architecture of these processes.
Spectral analysis of New York stock market prices

New York stock price series are analyzed by a new statistical technique. It is found that short-run movements of the series obey the simple random walk hypothesis proposed by earlier writers, but that the long-run components are of greater importance than suggested by this hypothesis. The seasonal variation and the "business-cycle" components are shown to be of tittle or no importance and a surprisingly small connection was found between the amount of stocks sold and the stock price series.
Autoacceleration of an intense relativistic electron beam

The conditions for effective autoacceleration of a relativistic electron beam are discussed. The autoacceleration processes are the result of the mutual interaction between the electron beam and passive structures which are inserted in a conventional drift tube. This interaction leads to the redistribution of energy within the beam such that the majority of the electrons transfer their energy to only a small portion of the beam. (MOW)
The Global Existence Problem in General Relativity

We survey some known facts and open questions concerning the global properties of 3+1-dimensional spacetimes containing a compact Cauchy surface. We consider spacetimes with an l-dimensional Lie algebra of space-like Killing fields. For each l ≤ 3, we give some basic results and conjectures on global existence and cosmic censorship.
EUVE Photometry of SS Cygni: Dwarf Nova Outbursts and Oscillations

I present EUVE Deep Survey photometry and AAVSO optical measurements of the 1993 August and 1994 June/July outbursts of the dwarf nova SS Cygni. The EUV and optical light curves are used to illustrate the different response of the accretion disk to outbursts which begin at the inner edge and propagate outward, and those which begin at the outer edge and propagate inward. Furthermore, we describe the properties of the quasi-coherent 7–9 s sinusoidal oscillations in the EUV flux detected during the rise and plateau stages of these outbursts.
Intercomparison of lunar laser and traditional determinations of earth rotation

The rotational orientation of the earth (UTO at McDonald Observatory) has been determined from lunar laser ranging (LLR) measurements for the interval 1971 to 1980. The results have been differenced from those obtained by conventional means as published by the Bureau International de l’Heure (BIH), on its 1979 system. The difference displays a quasi-seasonal signature, which we ascribe to systematic errors in the conventional measurements. The lunar data are well represented by a smooth curve, which gives UTO at McDonald with a precision of about 3/4 milliseconds or better, and UT1 to within 1 millisecond using BIH polar coordinates.
Quantum Computing, Metrology, and Imaging

Information science is entering into a new era in which certain subtleties of quantum mechanics enables large enhancements in computational efficiency and communication security. Naturally, precise control of quantum systems required for the implementation of quantum information processing protocols implies potential breakthoughs in other sciences and technologies. We discuss recent developments in quantum control in optical systems and their applications in metrology and imaging.
Hubble Space Telescope Photometry of Hodge 301: An ``Old'' Star Cluster in 30 Doradus

We present Hubble Space Telescope Planetary Camera UVI data for Hodge 301, the little-studied cluster 3' northwest of the central ionizing cluster R136 in 30 Doradus. The average reddening of Hodge 301 is found to be EB-V = 0.28 ± 0.05 mag from published infrared and ultraviolet photometry. Using two different sets of evolutionary models, we derive an age of about 20–25 Myr for Hodge 301, which makes it roughly 10 times as old as R136. Hodge 301 is the most prominent representative of the oldest population in the 30 Dor starburst region, a region that has undergone multiple star formation events. This range of ages is an important consideration for the modeling of starburst regions. Hodge 301 shows a widened upper main sequence largely caused by Be stars. We present a list of Be star candidates. The slope of the initial mass function for intermediate-mass, main-sequence stars ranging from 10 to 1.3 M⊙ is found to be Γ = -1.4 ± 0.1, in good agreement with a Salpeter law. There is no indication for a truncation or change of slope of the initial mass function (IMF) within this mass range. In accordance with the age of Hodge 301, no obvious pre–main-sequence stars are seen down to about 1 M⊙. We estimate that up to 41 ± 7 stars with masses more than 12 M⊙ may have turned into supernovae since the formation of the cluster. Multiple supernova explosions are the most likely origin of the extremely violent gas motions and the diffuse X-ray emission observed in the cluster surroundings.
Principled Standards vs. Boundless Discretion: A Tale of Two Approaches to Intermediary Trademark Liability Online

Over the past decade, courts have developed two distinct approaches in evaluating trademark claims against online intermediaries. The first and most common method frames the issue as one of secondary liability: should the intermediary face liability for wrongdoing committed by its advertisers, subscribers, or other users of its services? In this approach, courts struggle with the tension between preserving legitimate, non-infringing uses of technologies on the one hand, and minimizing infringement on the other. While no clear doctrinal consensus has formed, courts are converging on a framework centered on specific knowledge, reasonable response and inducement—principles derived from trademark law but mirroring their counterparts in copyright.1 At the same time, some opinions have suggested a different form of trademark liability focused on the intermediary’s choices in designing services that use—or allow others to use—trademarks in various ways.2 Though branded as direct trademark infringement, the doctrine bears little resemblance to historical direct infringement law. Instead, it resembles a roving unfair competition law, leaving discretion with the fact finder to assess the intermediary’s culpability in enabling confusion.3 Because the likelihood-of-confusion factors map poorly onto such an inquiry,4 this form of direct infringement has no clear doctrinal framework. Nor have courts articulated a coherent normative vision to guide lower courts in shaping and applying the law. Most troubling, the scant case law has paid little attention to issues at the core of secondary liability analysis—namely, the need to strike a balance between infringing and non-infringing uses, and the worry that liability might threaten legitimate uses of trademarks that enhance competition and increase consumer choice. If this mutant form of direct infringement is here to stay, courts must recognize it as a new cause of action, and must define its normative objectives with an eye to
Reframing Development: Global Peasant Movements and the New Agrarian Question

This paper criticizes the conventional conception of the agrarian question and argues that the way the “agrarian question” is traditionally understood should be revised. The role played by the agrarian movement, especially transnational agrarian movements such as the Via Campesina, is underscored.
Strategic environmental assessment : improving water resources governance and decision making

The overall goal of this report is to assist water resources and environment professionals within the Bank and client countries to use Strategic environmental assessment (SEAs) to effectively implement the principles of Integrated water resources management (IWRM). It (a) delineates environmental issues related IWRM; (b) identifies opportunities for SEAs to addressing these environmental issues; (c) uses the literature and ten Bank and non-Bank case studies to identify procedural and substantive factors and institutional drivers that lead to effective SEAs in the water sector at the policy, strategy, program, and plan levels; (d) reviews four national and state water policies to understand the inclusions of environment; (e) observes the introduction of SEAs in a developing country as an in-depth pilot study to identify practical issues arising from the introduction of SEAs for the water sector; and (f) recommends how the Bank can expand the use of SEAs to improve the integration of environmental issues in water resources investments.
COMPARATIVE STATICS OF A MONOPOLISTIC FIRM FACING RATE‐OF‐RETURN AND COMMAND‐AND‐CONTROL POLLUTION CONSTRAINTS

The intrinsic comparative statics properties of a general rate-of-return regulated, profit-maximizing model of a monopolist facing a command-and-control pollution constraint are derived. Recent advances in the theory of comparative statics are used to derive the basic comparative statics of the model, which are contained in an observable negative semi-definite matrix and possess the form of Slutsky-like expressions. We consider several command-and-control pollution constraints that are commonly implemented in practice, and conclude that the intrinsic comparative statics properties of the model are qualitatively invariant to the type of command-and-control pollution constraint imposed. We compare our results with those extant, and find that several basic results from the standard A–J model no longer hold in our model.
Committing to civil service reform : the performance of pre-shipment inspection under different institutional regimes

If the only solution tried for customs corruption and evasion in a developing country is to outsource certain customs functions to a pre-shipment inspection (PSI) company, PSI will prove more of a fiscal burden than a panacea. PSI works best in countries where the customs service already performs fairly well-by reducing the costs of catching evaders. Typically a developing country's customs service brings in a large share of its revenues and accounts for an even larger share of its corruption. One prescription popular among development agencies for reducing corruption and customs evasion by importers has been to outsource certain customs functions to pre-shipment inspection (PSI) companies. More than 35 countries employ PSI as a second-best solution to corruption in customs collection. But whether PSI companies are an effective alternative to comprehensive civil service reform has been widely questioned. The success of PSI contracts depends on the institutional environment-the formal and informal rules of enforcement that affect different agents'incentives-but the reasons for PSI's success or failure in different institutional settings have not been well understood. Johnson presents a simple model highlighting the principal-agent problems in a typical PSI contract. Based on his conclusions, he suggests that PSI should be thought of less as a second-best alternative to customs reform (in countries where the customs service performs poorly) than as a cost-effective complement to reforms in"intermediate"cases (countries where the customs service already performs fairly well). PSI could help in these intermediate cases by reducing the costs of catching evaders. This would make it easier for the ministry of finance to maintain separate reforms to eliminate corruption between customs and importers. In countries where the customs service is powerful-ishighly independent and controls the country's borders-and where the government does not have the institutional ability to put through the complementary reforms essential for using PSI successfully, introducing a PSI contract will add to the burdens of public finance rather than provide the hoped-for panacea.
Randomized block Kaczmarz method with projection for solving least squares

Abstract The Kaczmarz method is an iterative method for solving overcomplete linear systems of equations A x = b . The randomized version of the Kaczmarz method put forth by Strohmer and Vershynin iteratively projects onto a randomly chosen solution space given by a single row of the matrix A and converges linearly 1 in expectation to the solution of a consistent system. In this paper we analyze two block versions of the method each with a randomized projection, designed to converge in expectation to the least squares solution, often faster than the standard variants. Our approach utilizes both a row and column-paving of the matrix A to guarantee linear convergence when the matrix has consistent row norms (called nearly standardized), and a single column-paving when the row norms are unbounded. The proposed methods are an extension of the block Kaczmarz method analyzed by Needell and Tropp and the Randomized Extended Kaczmarz method of Zouzias and Freris. The contribution is thus two-fold; unlike the standard Kaczmarz method, our results demonstrate convergence to the least squares solution of inconsistent systems (both methods in the nearly standardized case and the second method in other cases). By using appropriate blocks of the matrix this convergence can be significantly accelerated, as is demonstrated by numerical experiments.
Etiologic factors related to unsatisfactory ThinPrep® cervical cytology: Evaluation and potential solutions to improve

Background: In cervical cytology, the unsatisfactory rates for ThinPrep (TP) are slightly higher compared to SurePath. We examined various causes and explored potential for resolution of this discrepancy. Materials and Methods: Totally, 19,422 cases were reviewed and 1000 unsatisfactory specimens were selected and analyzed. 531 specimens were available for wash protocol. Out of 114 unsatisfactory specimens associated with atrophic cellular changes (ACC), 48 were resubmitted by provider and reevaluated. Results: Lubricant and lubricant-like debris/contamination (LUBE) was the most common cause of unsatisfactory specimens (68%; 681/1000) followed by blood (7.5%); ACC only (without other interfering factors) (2.4%); inflammation (3.0%); and combinations thereof (1.9%). 11.5% showed scant cellularity without an identifiable cause. 3.3% were virtually acellular. Wash protocol improved cellularity in 48% (256/531) of cases. However, only 29% (73/256) of those were satisfactory (with more than 5000 cells). Quantitative reduction in LUBE after wash protocol varied with different morphological subtypes. Interpretation patterns on satisfactory specimens after wash protocol were comparable to the results on selected cohort of specimens during the same study period. Out of 114 ACC, wash protocol was performed on 68 ACC specimens leading to satisfactory TP in 24% (16/68). Totally, 48 cases reported as unsatisfactory with ACC, were resubmitted by the providers between 2 weeks and 2 years. 44 (92%) showed increased cellularity, out of which 52% (23/44) did not show ACC. Conclusion: LUBE was the most common cause of unsatisfactory TP in addition to interference by blood and association with atrophic changes. Knowing the morphological spectrum of LUBE would help to identify it as the cause of unsatisfactory TP. Communicating the cause of unsatisfactory TP such as LUBE, ACC, and blood would hint the provider to take appropriate precaution during submission of the repeat specimen, leading to improved patient care.
Mobilization of intracellular Ca2+ by endothelin-1 in rat intrapulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells

Endothelin-1 (ET-1) increases intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) in pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells (PASMCs); however, the mechanisms for Ca2+ mobilization are not clear. We determin...
Characterization of multidimensional spatial models of elections with a valence dimension

Spatial models of political competition are typically based on two assumptions. One is that all the voters identically perceive the platforms of the candidates and agree about their score on a "valence" dimension. The second is that each voter's preferences over policies are decreasing in the distance from that voter's ideal point, and that valence scores enter the utility function in an additively separable way. The goal of this paper is to examine the restrictions that these two assumptions impose, starting from a more primitive (and observable) data. Specifically, we consider the case where only the ideal point in the policy space and the ranking over candidates are known for each voter. We provide necessary and su±cient conditions for this collection of preference relations to be consistent with utility maximization as in the standard models described above. That is, we characterize the case where there are policies x1,...,xm for the m candidates and numbers v1,...,vm representing valence scores, such that a voter with an ideal policy y ranks the candidates according to vi-||xi-y||^2.
On the Abundance of Holmium in the Sun

The abundance of holmium (Z = 67) in the Sun remains uncertain. The photospheric abundance, based on lines of Ho II, has been reported as + 0.26 ± 0.16 (on the usual scale where log(H) = 12.00), while the meteoritic value is + 0.51 ± 0.02. Cowan-code calculations have been undertaken to improve the partition function for this ion by including important contributions from unobserved levels arising from the (4f 11 6p+4f 10 (5d+6s) 2 ) group. Based on 6994 computed energy levels, the partition function for Ho II is 67.41 for a temperature of 6000 K. This is ≈ 1.5 times larger than the value derived from the 49 published levels. The new partition function alone leads to an increase in the solar abundance of Ho to log (Ho) =+ 0.43. This is within 0.08 dex of the meteoritic abundance. Support for this result has been obtained through LTE spectrum synthesis calculations of a previously unidentified weak line at λ� 3416.38. Attributing the feature to Ho II, the observations may be fitted with log (Ho) =+ 0.53. This calculation assumes log (gf ) = 0.25 and is uncertain by at least 0.1 dex.