cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Coping with too much of a good thing : policy responses for large capital inflows in developing countries

In discussing the causes and consequences of large capital inflows to developing countries, the author emphasizes two things. First, although there are legitimate grounds for an optimistic long-term outlook on private capital flows to developing countries, there is little to suggest that the volatility of capital flows will end. In designing policy strategies to accommodate this volatility, a premium should be put on credibility, resilience, and flexibility. Second, country differences notwithstanding, host countries need to respect the basics of adjustment and finance in designing their policy response to large inflows. Host countries that want to keep using the nominal exchange rate as their key nominal anchor and that do not want to accept much appreciation in their real exchange rate must be prepared to tighten fiscal policy. This is the most reliable way to reduce aggregate demand, keep inflation in check, and limit deterioration of the current account. Regarding sterilization policy, domestic interest rates will be higher and the size of the inflow will be larger with sterilization than without it. Not that sterilization necessarily need be avoided; in the early stages of inflow, it can help moderate or even offset the induced expansion of domestic credit. But with high capital mobility, sterilization becomes more expensive and less effective the longer it is used. Effective regulation and supervision are important in ensuring the best use of large inflows of foreign resources. It makes a big difference, for example, if banks use their higher reserves to lend for productive investment and human capital formation than if they use them to fund speculative activities that eventually translate into nonperforming loans (and perhaps a large public sector liability as well). Careful assessment of credit risk and of maturity mismatches are essential if banks are to help the private sector earn a rate of return greater than the cost of capital. Similarly, good disclosure and accounting standards are essential for accurate pricing of risk in both banking and securities markets. These and similar measures are worth implementing even without large capital inflows. Beyond dealing with surges in capital inflows, host countries must decide the optimal speed at which they wish to move toward full capital account liberalization.
Pancyclic subgraphs of random graphs

An n-vertex graph is called pancyclic if it contains a cycle of length t for all 3≤t≤n. In this article, we study pancyclicity of random graphs in the context of resilience, and prove that if p>n−1/2, then the random graph G(n, p) a.a.s. satisfies the following property: Every Hamiltonian subgraph of G(n, p) with more than edges is pancyclic. This result is best possible in two ways. First, the range of p is asymptotically tight; second, the proportion of edges cannot be reduced. Our theorem extends a classical theorem of Bondy, and is closely related to a recent work of Krivelevich et al. The proof uses a recent result of Schacht (also independently obtained by Conlon and Gowers). © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (Contract grant sponsors: Samsung Scholarship (to C. L.); Schark Fellowship and Parker Fellowship (W. S.).)
The Physical, Social, and Cultural Determinants of Obesity: An Empirical Study of the U.S.

During the past three decades, levels of excess weight and obesity have risen significantly in the United States. The reasons are physical, economical and sociological. The second half of the twentieth century is characterized by changes in the diets and levels of activity in the American society. Recent studies that focus on simple explanations that are based on a few determinants or classes of determinants are inadequate in explaining the recent rise in obesity. Cross-sectional and time series data are analyzed with a variety of statistical techniques. This paper empirically examines the factors correlated with the drastic increase in excess weight in the United States. Demographic characteristics (e.g., race and gender) and income level are significantly related to obesity. Controlling for these factors, energy expenditure in physical exercise are also linked to obesity. This study suggests that policies that merely target on food consumption and physical exercise levels are likely to be inadequate. Successful policies will have to produce specific messages that are relevant for distinct cultural, racial, gender, and income groups. Examples of such group-specific messages are provided.
A stabilizing solution to the stable path problem

The stable path problem is an abstraction of the basic functionality of the Internet's BGP routing protocol. This abstraction has received considerable attention, due to the instabilities observed in BGP. In this abstraction, each process informs its neighboring processes of its current path to the destination. From the paths received from its neighbors, each process chooses the best path according to some locally chosen routing policy. However, since routing policies are chosen locally, conflicts may occur between processes, resulting in unstable behavior. Current solutions either require expensive path histories, or prevent processes from locally choosing their routing policy. In this paper, we present a solution with small overhead, and furthermore, each process has the freedom to choose any routing policy. However, to avoid instabilities, each process is restricted to choose a path that is consistent with the current paths of its descendants on the routing tree. This is enforced through diffusing computations. Furthermore, our solution is stabilizing, and thus, recovers automatically from transient faults.
From catalytic asymmetric synthesis to the transcriptional regulation of genes: in vivo and in vitro evolution of proteins.

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the laboratory use of molecular evolution and discusses the selection to shape the novel proteins of defined function. The chapter discusses the types of function that involve the antibody/antigen interactions of the classical type (simple binding), the nonclassical type (catalysis), and the molecular recognition of long DNA addresses in complex genomes. The ability to manipulate the expression of specific endogenous genes would have wide-ranging applications in medicine and experimental and applied biology. In the therapy of cancer, for example, oncogenes, angiogenic factors, metastatic factors, and drug resistance genes are all potential targets for down regulation, while tumor suppressors, immunostimulants, and apoptotic factors could be targets for specific up regulation. Transcription factors are modular proteins consisting typically of a DNA-binding domain that provides for localization of the protein to a specific DNA address, and an effector domain that directs the type of activity to take place at the site. The wide range of effector activities available provide significant advantages over other proposed technologies.
An on-line reorganization framework for SAN file systems

While the cost per megabyte of magnetic disk storage is economical, organizations are alarmed by the increasing cost of managing storage. Storage Area Network (SAN) architectures strive to minimize this cost by consolidating storage devices. A SAN is a special-purpose network that interconnects different data storage devices with servers. While there are many definitions for a SAN, there is a general consensus that it provides access at the granularity of a block and is typically used for database applications. In this study, we focus on SAN switches that include an embedded storage management software in support of virtualization. We describe an On-line Re-organization Environment, ORE, that controls the placement of data to improve the average response time of the system. ORE is designed for a heterogeneous collection of storage devices. Its key novel feature is its use of “time” to quantify the benefit and cost of a migration. It migrates a fragment only when its net benefit exceeds a pre-specified threshold. We describe a taxonomy of techniques for fragment migration and employ a trace driven simulation study to quantify their tradeoff. Our performance results demonstrate a significant improvement in response time (order of magnitude) for those algorithms that employ ORE's cost/benefit feature. Moreover, a technique that employs bandwidth of all devices intelligently is superior to one that simply migrates data to the fastest devices.
A generative Bayesian model for aggregating experts' probabilities

In order to improve forecasts, a decision-maker often combines probabilities given by various sources, such as human experts and machine learning classifiers. When few training data are available, aggregation can be improved by incorporating prior knowledge about the event being forecasted and about salient properties of the experts. To this end, we develop a generative Bayesian aggregation model for probabilistic classification. The model includes an event-specific prior, measures of individual experts' bias, calibration, accuracy, and a measure of dependence between experts. Rather than require absolute measures, we show that aggregation may be expressed in terms of relative accuracy between experts. The model results in a weighted logarithmic opinion pool (LogOps) that satisfies consistency criteria such as the external Bayesian property. We derive analytic solutions for independent and for exchangeable experts. Empirical tests demonstrate the model's use, comparing its accuracy with other aggregation methods.
Eosinophil peroxidase-dependent hydroxyl radical generation by human eosinophils.

Eosinophil production of superoxide (O2-.) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is important in host defense. The present study assessed the potential of eosinophils to generate another potent cytotoxic species, the hydroxyl radical (.OH). .OH formation by phorbol myristate acetate (PMA)-stimulated eosinophils was demonstrated using an alpha-(4-pyridyl-1-oxide)-N-tert-butyl nitrone/ethanol spin trapping system. Additionally, .OH was spin trapped following the addition of purified eosinophil peroxidase (EPO) to a cell-free O2-./H2O2 generating systems. Effects of superoxide dismutase, catalase, azide, aminotriazole, chloride-depleted buffer, and extensive metal chelation were consistent with .OH formation via the reaction of O2-. and EPO-generated hypohalous acid. Under chloride-depleted conditions, physiologic concentrations of Br- increased .OH formation by both PMA-stimulated eosinophils and the cell-free EPO system. Physiologic concentrations of SCN-, however, did not increase .OH formation, and in the presence of both Br- and SCN-, .OH formation was similar to SCN- only. Eosinophils appear to form .OH via an EPO-dependent mechanism, the magnitude of which varies with the availability of various EPO substrates. Given the highly reactive nature of this radical and the ability of EPO to adhere to cell membranes, even small amounts of .OH formed at such sites could contribute to eosinophil-mediated cytotoxicity.
A hybrid algorithm to compute marginal and joint beliefs in Bayesian networks and its complexity

There exist two general forms of exact algorithms for updating probabilities in Bayesian Networks. The first approach involves using a structure, usually a clique tree, and performing local message based calculation to extract the belief in each variable. The second general class of algorithm involves the use of non-serial dynamic programming techniques to extract the belief in some desired group of variables. In this paper we present a hybrid algorithm based on the latter approach yet possessing the ability to retrieve the belief in all single variables. The technique is advantageous in that it saves a NP-hard computation step over using one algorithm of each type. Furthermore, this technique re-enforces a conjecture of Jensen and Jensen [JJ94] in that it still requires a single NP-hard step to set up the structure on which inference is performed, as we show by confirming Li and D'Ambrosio's [LD94] conjectured NP-hardness of OFP.
Environmental Policies, Mergers and Welfare

Unlike previous theoretical studies, we examine the welfare effects of a merger when participating firms are in a pollution-intensive sector. With passive en...
Efficient Resolution of Moral Hazard Under No Arbitrage: Risk Premium, Volatility and Leverage

The shareholder-debtholder conflict is efficiently resolved when the capital market acts as a super monitor to preclude arbitrage and debtholders monitor the firm. The market value of a firm in a world where monitoring is necessary is equal to the market value in a world where monitoring is not necessary; it is the state pricing density which adjusts in equilibrium. In a no-arbitrage equilibrium, the asset risk premium and volatility of a levered firm are negatively related, the asset volatility and risk premium are increasing in the asset/debt ratio, and the threshold asset/debt ratio below which the firm is closed due to bankruptcy or liquidation is an increasing function of the asset risk premium.
On Simpson's Rule and Fractional Brownian Motion with H = 1/10

We consider stochastic integration with respect to fractional Brownian motion (fBm) with \(H 1/10\). For the case \(H = 1/10\), we prove that the sequence of sums converges in distribution. Consequently, we have an Ito-like formula for the resulting stochastic integral. The convergence in distribution follows from a Malliavin calculus theorem that first appeared in Nourdin and Nualart (J Theor Probab 23:39–64, 2010).
The utility of text: the case of amicus briefs and the supreme court

We explore the idea that authoring a piece of text is an act of maximizing one's expected utility. To make this idea concrete, we consider the societally important decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Extensive past work in quantitative political science provides a framework for empirically modeling the decisions of justices and how they relate to text. We incorporate into such a model texts authored by amici curiae ("friends of the court" separate from the litigants) who seek to weigh in on the decision, then explicitly model their goals in a random utility model. We demonstrate the benefits of this approach in improved vote prediction and the ability to perform counterfactual analysis.
To the solar foci

Earlier authors showed that the sun is likely to act as a lens for gravitational radiation, with focui in the outer solar system. They suggested that missions to these foci have the potential of directly measuring the density structure of the sun. Other applications include gravitational wave astronomy and tests of general relativity. This idea is reexamined, concentrating on the engineering aspects of focal missions; primarily spacecraft design and performance. Other topics studied include solar optics, gravitational wave detectors, navigation, and the design of missions for different purposes. Specifically, it is shown that shuttle launched chemical rockets have a substantial capability for reaching some foci; and that all can be reached with large payloads using nuclear isotope-electric propulsion.
Optical pulse compression

The interest in using large lasers to achieve a very short and intense pulse for generating fusion plasma has provided a strong impetus to re-examine the possibilities of optical pulse compression at high energy.
Budget optimization for sponsored search: censored learning in MDPs

We consider the budget optimization problem faced by an advertiser participating in repeated sponsored search auctions, seeking to maximize the number of clicks attained under that budget. We cast the budget optimization problem as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) with censored observations, and propose a learning algorithm based on the well-known Kaplan-Meier or product-limit estimator. We validate the performance of this algorithm by comparing it to several others on a large set of search auction data from Microsoft adCenter, demonstrating fast convergence to optimal performance.
DimmWitted: a study of main-memory statistical analytics

We perform the first study of the tradeoff space of access methods and replication to support statistical analytics using first-order methods executed in the main memory of a Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) machine. Statistical analytics systems differ from conventional SQL-analytics in the amount and types of memory incoherence that they can tolerate. Our goal is to understand tradeoffs in accessing the data in row- or column-order and at what granularity one should share the model and data for a statistical task. We study this new tradeoff space and discover that there are tradeoffs between hardware and statistical efficiency. We argue that our tradeoff study may provide valuable information for designers of analytics engines: for each system we consider, our prototype engine can run at least one popular task at least 100× faster. We conduct our study across five architectures using popular models, including SVMs, logistic regression, Gibbs sampling, and neural networks.
Unsophisticated Arbitrageurs and Market Efficiency: Overreacting to a History of Underreaction?

Prior research has documented that arbitrage activity significantly reduces or eliminates stock market anomalies. However, if anomalies arise due to unsophisticated investors’ behavioral biases, then these same biases can also apply to unsophisticated arbitrageurs and thereby disrupt the arbitrage process. Consistent with a disruption in the arbitrage process for the post-earnings announcement drift anomaly, I document that the historically positive autocorrelation in firms’ earnings announcement news has become significantly negative for firms with active exchange-traded options. For these easy-to-arbitrage firms, the firms in the highest decile of prior earnings announcement abnormal return (prior earnings surprise), on average, underperform the firms in the lowest decile by 1.59% (1.43%) at their next earnings announcement. Additional analyses are consistent with investors learning about the post-earnings announcement drift anomaly and overcompensating. This study suggests that unsophisticated attempts to profit from a well-known anomaly can significantly reverse a previously documented stock return pattern.
Forecasting migrant remittances during the global financial crisis

The financial crisis has highlighted the need for forecasts of remittance flows in many developing countries where these flows have proved to be a lifeline to the poor people and the economy. This note describes a simple methodology for forecasting country-level remittance flows in a manner consistent with the medium-term outlook for the global economy. Remittances are assumed to depend on bilateral migration stocks and income levels in the host country and the origin country. Changes in remittance costs, shifts in remittance channels, global exchange rate movements, and unpredictable immigration controls in the migrant-destination countries pose risks to the forecasts. Much remains to be done to improve the forecast methodology, data on bilateral flows, and high-frequency monitoring of migration and remittance flows.
Multiresolution Topological Simplification.

Abstract Persistent homology has been advocated as a new strategy for the topological simplification of complex data. However, it is computationally intractable for large data sets. In this work, we introduce multiresolution persistent homology for tackling large datasets. Our basic idea is to match the resolution with the scale of interest so as to create a topological microscopy for the underlying data. We adjust the resolution via a rigidity density-based filtration. The proposed multiresolution topological analysis is validated by the study of a complex RNA molecule.
The essence of multitasking

This article demonstrates how a powerful and expressive abstraction from concurrency theory—monads of resumptions—plays a dual role as a programming tool for concurrent applications. The article demonstrates how a wide variety of typical OS behaviors may be specified in terms of resumption monads known heretofore exclusively in the literature of programming language semantics. We illustrate the expressiveness of the resumption monad with the construction of an exemplary multitasking kernel in the pure functional language Haskell.
The Global Findex Database 2014 : measuring financial inclusion around the world

The Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) database, launched by the World Bank in 2011, provides comparable indicators showing how people around the world save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. The 2014 edition of the database reveals that 62 percent of adults worldwide have an account at a bank or another type of financial institution or with a mobile money provider. Between 2011 and 2014, 700 million adults became account holders while the number of those without an account—the unbanked—dropped by 20 percent to 2 billion. What drove this increase in account ownership? A growth in account penetration of 13 percentage points in developing economies and innovations in technology—particularly mobile money, which is helping to rapidly expand access to financial services in Sub-Saharan Africa. Along with these gains, the data also show that big opportunities remain to increase financial inclusion, especially among women and poor people. Governments and the private sector can play a pivotal role by shifting the payment of wages and government transfers from cash into accounts. There are also large opportunities to spur greater use of accounts, allowing those who already have one to benefit more fully from financial inclusion. In developing economies 1.3 billion adults with an account pay utility bills in cash, and more than half a billion pay school fees in cash. Digitizing payments like these would enable account holders to make the payments in a way that is easier, more affordable, and more secure.
Virulence genes are a signature of the microbiome in the colorectal tumor microenvironment

The human gut microbiome is associated with the development of colon cancer, and recent studies have found changes in the microbiome in cancer patients compared to healthy controls. Studying the microbial communities in the tumor microenvironment may shed light on the role of host–bacteria interactions in colorectal cancer. Here, we highlight the major shifts in the colorectal tumor microbiome relative to that of matched normal colon tissue from the same individual, allowing us to survey the microbial communities in the tumor microenvironment and providing intrinsic control for environmental and host genetic effects on the microbiome. We sequenced the microbiome in 44 primary tumor and 44 patient-matched normal colon tissue samples to determine differentially abundant microbial taxa These data were also used to functionally characterize the microbiome of the cancer and normal sample pairs and identify functional pathways enriched in the tumor-associated microbiota. We find that tumors harbor distinct microbial communities compared to nearby healthy tissue. Our results show increased microbial diversity in the tumor microenvironment, with changes in the abundances of commensal and pathogenic bacterial taxa, including Fusobacterium and Providencia. While Fusobacterium has previously been implicated in colorectal cancer, Providencia is a novel tumor-associated agent which has not been identified in previous studies. Additionally, we identified a clear, significant enrichment of predicted virulence-associated genes in the colorectal cancer microenvironment, likely dependent upon the genomes of Fusobacterium and Providencia. This work identifies bacterial taxa significantly correlated with colorectal cancer, including a novel finding of an elevated abundance of Providencia in the tumor microenvironment. We also describe the predicted metabolic pathways and enzymes differentially present in the tumor-associated microbiome, and show an enrichment of virulence-associated bacterial genes in the tumor microenvironment. This predicted virulence enrichment supports the hypothesis that the microbiome plays an active role in colorectal cancer development and/or progression. Our results provide a starting point for future prognostic and therapeutic research with the potential to improve patient outcomes.
Generalizing jeffrey conditionalization

Jeffrey's rule has been generalized by Wagner to the case in which new evidence bounds the possible revisions of a prior probability below by a Dempsterian lower probability. Classical probability kinematics arises within this generalization as the special case in which the evidentiary focal elements of the bounding lower probability are pairwise disjoint. We discuss a twofold extension of this generalization, first allowing the lower bound to be any two-monotone capacity and then allowing the prior to be a lower envelope.
Utility of EUS following endoscopic polypectomy of high-risk rectosigmoid lesions.

Background: The utility of endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) compared with standard white light endoscopy (WLE) following recent polypectomy of high-risk colorectal polyps is unknown. Objective: To assess the incremental yield of EUS after endoscopic polypectomy of a high-risk rectal lesion. Design: Retrospective cohort. Setting: Tertiary referral center. Materials and Methods: Patients referred for EUS following attempted endoscopic resection of a high-risk rectal neoplasm, defined as a tubulovillous adenoma, tubular adenoma with high-grade dysplasia, carcinoid, carcinoma in-situ or adenocarcinoma (CA). Interventions: Sigmoidoscopy ± mucosal biopsy and EUS ± fine-needle aspiration (FNA) to evaluate for: (1) Residual polyp/tumor in the rectal wall or (2) peritumoral adenopathy. Main Outcome: Sensitivity and specificity for detection of residual neoplasia for WLE ± biopsy (WLE/BX) and EUS ± FNA for cancer (CA group) or benign disease (non-CA group). The incremental yield of EUS defined as: (1) Residual intramural neoplasia not present on WLE ± BX and; (2) abnormal peritumoral adenopathy. Results: A total of 70 patients (mean age 64 ± 11 years, 61% male) with a final diagnosis of CA (n = 38) and non-CA (n = 32) were identified. There was no difference between the sensitivity and specificity of WLE alone (65% and 84%), WLE with biopsy (71% and 95%), and EUS (59% and 84%), for the detection of residual neoplasia (P > 0.05 for all). EUS identified 3 masses missed by WLE, all in the CA group. A malignant (n = 2) or benign (n = 3) node was identified in 5 (13%) CA patients; EUS-FNA in two showed residual malignancy in one and a reactive lymph node (LN) in one. No LNs were identified in the non-CA patients. Limitations: Retrospective design, incomplete follow-up in some patients. Conclusion: Following endoscopic polypectomy of high-risk rectal neoplasia, the incremental yield of EUS compared with WLE/BX for evaluation of residual disease appears limited, especially in patients with benign disease.
Counting-based look-ahead schemes for constraint satisfaction

The paper presents a new look-ahead scheme for backtracking search for solving constraint satisfaction problems. This look-ahead scheme computes a heuristic for value ordering and domain pruning. The heuristic is based on approximating the number of solutions extending each partial solution. In particular, we investigate a recent partition-based approximation of tree-clustering algorithms, Iterative Join-Graph Propagation (IJGP), which belongs to the class of belief propagation algorithms that attracted substantial interest due to their success for probabilistic inference. Our empirical evaluation demonstrates that the counting-based heuristic approximated by IJGP yields a scalable, focused search.
Sterically hindered benzoates: a synthetic strategy for modeling dioxygen activation at diiron active sites in proteins

Bulky terphenyl carboxylates and related benzyl-substituted benzoates have been used to assemble a variety of new diiron complexes analogous to nonheme diiron protein active sites. Through this conceptually simple approach, novel biomimetic structures have been accessed and biologically relevant oxidized intermediates and products have been isolated and characterized by both spectroscopic and X-ray crystallographic methods. Interesting similarities and differences in the observed chemistry of the iron(II) complexes, including ligand substitution and dioxygen activation reactions, result from variation of the specific carboxylate and accompanying N-donor ligand structures. As a result, new insights have been obtained into structure/function relationships in carboxylate-rich nonheme diiron proteins.
Politics and preschool : the political economy of investment in pre-primary education

What drives governments with similar revenues to publicly provide very different amounts of goods for which private substitutes are available? Key examples are education and health care. This paper compares spending by Brazilian municipalities on pre-primary education -- a good that is also provided privately -- with spending on public infrastructure like parks and roads, which lacks private substitutes. Panel data from 1995-2008 reveal how the distribution of income affects public investment. Revenue is endogenous to investment outcomes, and the analysis addresses this problem by exploiting a 1998, nationwide education finance reform and several revisions to the policy. The author constructs a variable that captures exogenous variation in revenue generated by nonlinearities of the law to instrument for observed revenue. Municipalities with higher median income and more inequality are less likely to allocate revenue to education or to expand pre-primary enrollment. They are more likely to allocate revenue to public infrastructure. There is suggestive evidence that this occurs for two reasons, hypothesized in two separate literatures. In rich and unequal municipalities, fewer total people support public education spending (the collective choice channel), and also, any given poor person wanting public education has less influence over policymakers there (the political power channel).
Immunity to Diphtheria in an Urban Population

Immunity against diphtheria is poorly understood since protection is the result of a complex interaction between host and environment, and technical problems with the present antitoxin assays exist. A radioimmunoassay which permits a reproducible estimation of antitoxin concentration and relative avidity was employed to characterize the immunological response to diphtheria of 195 healthy urban children. The antitoxin concentration in cord serum was equal to or greater than the concentration in maternal serum and decreased rapidly during the first two months of life. The first diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis inoculation was not immunogenic enough to initiate significant antitoxin production in infants without maternal antitoxin or in older children. A significant increase in antibody concentration and affinity was found after the second, third, and fourth toxoid administrations. More than four injections did not alter concentration, affinity, or duration of active immunity. Correlation with recent epidemiologic studies suggested that a serum contained a "protective" concentration of antitoxin if it bound more than 100 ng of diphtheria toxin nitrogen per milliliter of serum (approximately 0.1 IU of antitoxin). By this criterion, among the study group only 74% of the healthy children who had received three immunizations and 84% of the children who had received four or more inoculations were "protected." Antitoxin concentrations observed in serum from children with chronic diseases who had received appropriate immunizations were lower than in serum from appropriately immunized healthy children. These observations suggest that the immunologic status of urban children against this disease is not optimal and should serve as a stimulus to improve both patient education and immunization practices.
Efficient Schmidt number scaling in dissipative particle dynamics

Dissipative particle dynamics is a widely used mesoscale technique for the simulation of hydrodynamics (as well as immersed particles) utilizing coarse-grained molecular dynamics. While the method is capable of describing any fluid, the typical choice of the friction coefficient γ and dissipative force cutoff rc yields an unacceptably low Schmidt number Sc for the simulation of liquid water at standard temperature and pressure. There are a variety of ways to raise Sc, such as increasing γ and rc, but the relative cost of modifying each parameter (and the concomitant impact on numerical accuracy) has heretofore remained undetermined. We perform a detailed search over the parameter space, identifying the optimal strategy for the efficient and accuracy-preserving scaling of Sc, using both numerical simulations and theoretical predictions. The composite results recommend a parameter choice that leads to a speed improvement of a factor of three versus previously utilized strategies.
Hegelian Macroeconomics : The Dialectics of Global Imbalances

Traditional narratives of external imbalances have focused on the analysis of national accounts, trade flows, and financial flows. They have generated two opposing views of the current situation of the world economy: on one side, a prudent, if not pessimistic view considers large imbalances as evidence of problems with the international monetary and financial system, and symptoms of domestic distortions (mainly in the United States and China). On the other side, a relaxed, if not optimistic view suggests that global imbalances are not anomalies but simply the predictable outcome of a world with increasingly globalized financial flows in search of the right mix of risks and returns. The former view prescribes that the two largest countries in the world rebalance their economies to avoid the potentially painful cost of disruption and adjustment. The latter contends that global imbalances will be corrected through time by the normal functioning of market forces. This paper offers a critical analysis of these competing explanations of the United States-China imbalances and suggests a way of reconciling them. Starting with an exploration of the accounting frameworks that underpin any discussion of current account deficits and surpluses, the paper argues that China and the United States have become economically so interdependent that fears of any abrupt change in their current Nash equilibrium situation may be exaggerated. The paper also uses Hegels parable of the development of self-consciousness to explain the dynamics between the two countries. Hegel may not have been a great philosopher of history but his analysis of lordship and bondage (also known as the master-slave dynamics) provides a good framework for analyzing the dialectics of recognition and acknowledgement that currently characterizes the macroeconomic relationships between the United States and China.
Reorientation of Vesta: Gravity and tectonic predictions

[1] Vesta's large southern hemisphere impact basin is likely to have caused reorientation. However, because the basin is not centred at the south pole, Vesta likely also has a remnant rotational figure. Reorientation of ≈6° is predicted to have occurred based on the dimensions of the basin. Existing measurements of Vesta's shape are consistent with ≈20° or less reorientation, and ≈20% or less despinning. Both the remnant rotational figure and the basin contribute to the degree-2 gravity coefficients, which will be measured by the Dawn mission and will provide a test of the reorientation hypothesis. Reorientation and despinning also give rise to stresses. Vesta's stress state is likely to be dominated by isotropic contraction due to cooling (which does not affect the gravity coefficients). However, the orientation of the resulting thrust features will be controlled by the amount of reorientation and despinning, providing another observational test.
Critical Rates of Stellar Mass Loss

Many of the effects of mass loss on OB stars have now been explored. Mass loss will cause a star to be overluminous for its mass (though less luminous than a star of its original mass) and, for moderate mass-loss rates, the luminosity decreases at the same rate as the mass contained in the convective core decreases causing the main sequence lifetime to remain unchanged (Chiosi and Nasi 1974, 1978, Deloore, DeGreve and Lamers 1977, Dearborn, Blake, Hainebach and Schramm 1978). Mass loss can also expose layers where 14N has been enhanced via the CNO tricyle (Dearborn and Eggleton 1977) and, in extreme cases, can produce a stripped helium core resembling a Wolf-Rayet Star (Hartwick 1967). While many of these phenomena (in particular the composition change) are more sensitive to the total mass removed than the formalism used to represent the mass loss, significant differences will result for the same average mass-loss rate depending on whether the mass was removed early (near the ZAMS), or late (near core hydrogen depletion). In addition, there appears to be a critical mass loss rate which depends on initial mass and separates those models which continue to evolve in a relatively normal (though subluminous) manner, and those models which evolve to a Wolf-Rayet configuration.
Growth, inequality and social welfare: cross-country evidence

Social welfare functions that assign weights to individuals based on their income levels can be used to document the relative importance of growth and inequality changes for changes in social welfare. In a large panel of industrial and developing countries over the past 40 years, most of the cross-country and over-time variation in changes in social welfare is due to changes in average incomes. In contrast, the changes in inequality observed during this period are on average much smaller than changes in average incomes, are uncorrelated with changes in average incomes, and have contributed relatively little to changes in social welfare.
Response of global soil consumption of atmospheric methane to changes in atmospheric climate and nitrogen deposition

[1] Soil consumption of atmospheric methane plays an important secondary role in regulating the atmospheric CH4 budget, next to the dominant loss mechanism involving reaction with the hydroxyl radical (OH). Here we used a process-based biogeochemistry model to quantify soil consumption during the 20th and 21st centuries. We estimated that global soils consumed 32–36 Tg CH4 yr−1 during the 1990s. Natural ecosystems accounted for 84% of the total consumption, and agricultural ecosystems only consumed 5 Tg CH4 yr−1 in our estimations. During the twentieth century, the consumption rates increased at 0.03–0.20 Tg CH4 yr−2 with seasonal amplitudes increasing from 1.44 to 3.13 Tg CH4 month−1. Deserts, shrublands, and xeric woodlands were the largest sinks. Atmospheric CH4 concentrations and soil moisture exerted significant effects on the soil consumption while nitrogen deposition had a moderate effect. During the 21st century, the consumption is predicted to increase at 0.05-1.0 Tg CH4 yr−2, and total consumption will reach 45–140 Tg CH4 yr−1 at the end of the 2090s, varying under different future climate scenarios. Dry areas will persist as sinks, boreal ecosystems will become stronger sinks, mainly due to increasing soil temperatures. Nitrogen deposition will modestly reduce the future sink strength at the global scale. When we incorporated the estimated global soil consumption into our chemical transport model simulations, we found that nitrogen deposition suppressed the total methane sink by 26 Tg during the period 1998–2004, resulting in 6.6 ppb higher atmospheric CH4 mixing ratios compared to without considering nitrogen deposition effects. On average, a cumulative increase of every 1 Tg soil CH4 consumption decreased atmospheric CH4 mixing ratios by 0.26 ppb during the period 1998–2004.
Motion Planning for Highly Constrained Spaces

In many motion planing problems, the feasible subspace becomes thin in some directions. This is often due to kinematic closure constraints, which restrict the feasible configurations to a lower-dimensional manifold or variety. This may also be simply due to the way the obstacles are arranged. For example, is planning for a closed chain different from planning a sliding motion for a washer against a rod? An illustration for the two instances of such problems is shown on Fig. 27.1. Traditionally, the two problems are solved with different methods in motion planning. However, the two seemingly different problems have similar algebraic and geometric structure of the sets of feasible configurations. In either case, there may exist functions of the form |f i (q)| ≤ e i , e i ≥ 0, that contain most or all of the feasible set. Typically, e i is very small, and in the case of closed chains, e i = 0. When this occurs, a region of the feasible space has small intrinsic dimensionality, in comparison to the ambient configuration space. Note that in the problem on Fig. 27.1(b) and in similar motion planning problems, the f i are not necessarily given.
On Probabilistic Time versus Alternating Time

Sipser and GAƒÂics, and independently Lautemann, proved in '83 that probabilistic polynomial time is contained in the second level of the polynomial-time hierarchy, i.e. BPP is in Sigma_2 P. This is essentially the only non-trivial upper bound that we have on the power of probabilistic computation. More precisely, the Sipser-GAƒÂics-Lautemann simulation shows that probabilistic time can be simulated deterministically, using two quantifiers, **with a quadratic blow-up in the running time**. That is, BPTime(t) is contained in Sigma_2 Time(t^2). In this talk we discuss whether this quadratic blow-up in the running time is necessary. We show that the quadratic blow-up is indeed necessary for black-box simulations that use two quantifiers, such as those of Sipser, GAƒÂics, and Lautemann. To obtain this result, we prove a new circuit lower bound for computing **approximate majority**, i.e. computing the majority of a given bit-string whose fraction of 1's is bounded away from 1/2 (by a constant): We show that small depth-3 circuits for approximate majority must have bottom fan-in Omega(log n). On the positive side, we obtain that probabilistic time can be simulated deterministically, using three quantifiers, in quasilinear time. That is, BPTime(t) is contained in Sigma_3 Time(t polylog t). Along the way, we show that approximate majority can be computed by uniform polynomial-size depth-3 circuits. This is a uniform version of a striking result by Ajtai that gives *non-uniform* polynomial-size depth-3 circuits for approximate majority. If time permits, we will discuss some applications of our results to proving lower bounds on randomized Turing machines.
Patterns of Long Term Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

Using the most recent purchasing power parity data for 44 sub-Saharan African countries, this paper examines the characteristics of long run growth in Africa between 1975 and 2005. The authors investigate the following issues: cross-country income structure, income convergence, the country level distribution of income, growth and income persistence, and formation of convergence clubs.
Solving highly constrained search problems with quantum computers

A previously developed quantum search algorithm for solving 1-SAT problems in a single step is generalized to apply to a range of highly constrained k-SAT problems. We identify a bound on the number of clauses in satisfiahility problems for which the generalized algorithm can find a solution in a constant number of steps as the number of variables increases. This performance contrasts with the linear growth in the number of steps required by the best classical algorithms, and the exponential number required by classical and quantum methods that ignore the problem structure. In some cases, the algorithm can also guarantee that insoluble problems in fact have no solutions, unlike previously proposed quantum search algorithms.
Strict Local Martingales with Jumps

Abstract A strict local martingale is a local martingale which is not a martingale. There are few explicit examples of “naturally occurring” strict local martingales with jumps available in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to provide such examples, and to illustrate how they might arise via filtration shrinkage, a phenomenon we would contend is common in applications such as filtering, control, and especially in mathematical finance. We give a method for constructing such examples and analyze one particular method in detail.
A sustainable model for training teachers to use pivotal response training

The increase in the rate of autism diagnoses has created a growing demand for teachers who are trained to use effective interventions. The train-the-trainer model, which involves training supervisors to train others, may be ideal for providing cost-effective training and ongoing support to teachers. Although research supports interventions, such as pivotal response training, as evidence-based, dissemination to school environments has been problematic. This study assessed the benefits of using the train-the-trainer model to disseminate pivotal response training to school settings. A multiple-baseline design was conducted across three training groups, each consisting of one school staff member (trainer), three special education teachers, and six students. Trainers conducted the teacher-training workshop with high adherence to training protocol and met mastery criteria in their ability to implement pivotal response training, assess implementation of pivotal response training, and provide feedback to teachers. Six of the nine teachers mastered all components of pivotal response training. The remaining three teachers implemented 89% of the pivotal response training components correctly. The majority of trainers and teachers maintained their abilities at follow-up. These results support the use of the train-the-trainer model as an effective method of disseminating evidence-based practices in school settings.
Developing a long-range information architecture

A methodology is presented for eliciting enterprise information requirements and developing a long-range information architecture. The methodology is based on a combination of business system planning, critical success factors, and ends/means analysis. The methodology is independent of organizational structure, personnel, and hardware and software; and it has been successfully implemented in a variety of organizational settings.
Preventing the Next Pandemic

The article discusses the possibility that monitoring the transmission of viruses from animals to humans could prevent the occurrence of pandemics. The fact that most human infectious diseases were originally diseases that only infected animals is noted. Also mentioned is the fact that wild animals can pose as much of a threat to the spread of disease as domestic animals. INSETS: Infectious Diseases from Wild Animals;From Animal Microbe to Human Pathogen;Building a Surveillance Network;THE THREAT FROM PETS