cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A longitudinal dataset of five years of public activity in the Scratch online community

Scratch is a programming environment and an online community where young people can create, share, learn, and communicate. In collaboration with the Scratch Team at MIT, we created a longitudinal dataset of public activity in the Scratch online community during its first five years (2007–2012). The dataset comprises 32 tables with information on more than 1 million Scratch users, nearly 2 million Scratch projects, more than 10 million comments, more than 30 million visits to Scratch projects, and more. To help researchers understand this dataset, and to establish the validity of the data, we also include the source code of every version of the software that operated the website, as well as the software used to generate this dataset. We believe this is the largest and most comprehensive downloadable dataset of youth programming artifacts and communication. Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data (ISA-Tab format)
SUBCAPITAL FX'S: A CHANGING PARADIGM

Over the past decade there has been a shift in the approach to management of many femoral neck fractures. As noted by Miller et al. those trends are reflected in the practice patterns of surgeons applying for board certification through the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgeons. From 1999 to 2011 there was a trend toward total hip arthroplasty and corresponding small decreases in the use of hemi-arthroplasty and internal fixation for treatment of femoral neck fractures. For many years the treatment approach has been a simple diagnosis-related algorithm predicated upon classification of the fracture as displaced (historically treated with hemi-arthroplasty) or non-displaced (historically treated with internal fixation). More recently, however, the focus has shifted to a patient-centered approach. In the patient-centered approach factors such as age, functional demands, pre-existent hip disease and bone quality should all be considered. In the contemporary setting it is still important to distinguish between displaced and non-displaced fracture patterns. Non-displaced femoral neck fractures, regardless of patient age or activity, are well-suited to closed reduction and internal fixation, most commonly with three cannulated screws. The union rate is high in non-displaced fractures treated with internal fixation and the benefits of preserving the native hip joint are substantial. Displaced femoral neck fractures in younger active patients, particularly those without pre-existent hip arthritis, are best treated with early anatomic reduction and internal fixation. While a subgroup of young, active patients who undergo ORIF may fail, the benefits of native hip preservation in that group are again substantial. Displaced femoral neck fractures in older patients or those with substantial pre-existing hip arthritis are best treated with arthroplasty. The biggest practice change has been the trend to total hip arthroplasty as opposed to hemi-arthroplasty for a subgroup of patients. Total hip arthroplasty is now favored in almost all active, cognitively well-functioning patients as the degree of pain relief is better and the risk of reoperation is lower in the current era (32mm and 36mm femoral heads). Hemi-arthroplasty, either uni-polar or bi-polar, remains an appropriate treatment for cognitively impaired patients who also have limited functional demands in whom the risk of dislocation is particularly high.
Using an instrumental variable to test for unmeasured confounding

An important concern in an observational study is whether or not there is unmeasured confounding, that is, unmeasured ways in which the treatment and control groups differ before treatment, which affect the outcome. We develop a test of whether there is unmeasured confounding when an instrumental variable (IV) is available. An IV is a variable that is independent of the unmeasured confounding and encourages a subject to take one treatment level versus another, while having no effect on the outcome beyond its encouragement of a certain treatment level. We show what types of unmeasured confounding can be tested for with an IV and develop a test for this type of unmeasured confounding that has correct type I error rate. We show that the widely used Durbin-Wu-Hausman test can have inflated type I error rates when there is treatment effect heterogeneity. Additionally, we show that our test provides more insight into the nature of the unmeasured confounding than the Durbin-Wu-Hausman test. We apply our test to an observational study of the effect of a premature infant being delivered in a high-level neonatal intensive care unit (one with mechanical assisted ventilation and high volume) versus a lower level unit, using the excess travel time a mother lives from the nearest high-level unit to the nearest lower-level unit as an IV.
Regional Dimensions of Recent Weakness in Investment: Drivers, Investment Needs and Policy Responses

Investment growth in many emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) has slowed sharply since 2010. Investment growth performance has varied significantly across different regions, however. This paper examines the temporal evolution of investment growth in six EMDE regions, documents remaining investment needs, especially for infrastructure, and presents a set of region-specific policy responses to address these needs. It reports three main findings. First, investment growth has been particularly weak in EMDE regions with a large number of commodity exporters. In regions with a substantial number of commodity-importing economies, investment growth has been somewhat resilient but has also declined steadily since 2010. Second, sizable investment needs remain in most EMDE regions to make room for expanding economic activity and rapid urbanization. A sizeable portion of these investment needs is in infrastructure and human capital. Finally, while specific policy priorities vary across regions, several policy options to address remaining investment needs apply universally. These include more, or more efficient, public investment and measures to improve overall growth prospects and the business climate. Improved project selection and monitoring, as well as better governance, may enhance the efficiency and benefits from public investment.
Large-Scale trans-eQTLs Affect Hundreds of Transcripts and Mediate Patterns of Transcriptional Co-regulation

Efforts to decipher the causal relationships between differences in gene regulation and corresponding differences in phenotype have been stymied by several basic technical challenges. Although detecting local, cis-eQTLs is now routine, trans-eQTLs, which are distant from the genes of origin, are far more difficult to find because millions of SNPs must currently be compared to thousands of transcripts. Here, we demonstrate an alternative approach: we looked for SNPs associated with the expression of many genes simultaneously and found that hundreds of trans-eQTLs each affect hundreds of transcripts in lymphoblastoid cell lines across three African populations. These trans-eQTLs target the same genes across the three populations and show the same direction of effect. We discovered that target transcripts of a high-confidence set of trans-eQTLs encode proteins that interact more frequently than expected by chance, are bound by the same transcription factors, and are enriched for pathway annotations indicative of roles in basic cell homeostasis. We thus demonstrate that our approach can uncover trans-acting transcriptional control circuits that affect co-regulated groups of genes: a key to understanding how cellular pathways and processes are orchestrated.
Dimensions of continents and oceans – water has carved a perfect cistern

Abstract The ocean basins have almost exactly the correct surface area and average depth to hold Earth's water. This study asserts that three processes are responsible for this. First, the crust is thickened by lateral compression from mountain formation. Second, Earth's continental crust is leveled by erosion. Third, due to the efficiency of erosion, the average elevation is a few hundred meters above sea level. A theoretical fluid model, suggested partly by laboratory experiments, includes an ocean of specified depth. The resulting continents are tabular (that is, their elevation view is rectangular). The surface lies above sea level, contributing to a well-known double maximum in Earth's elevation corresponding to continents and ocean basins. Next, a simple hydrostatic balance between continent and ocean gives average depth and area of present oceans and continents within 33%. Further calculations with a suitable correction to fit present Earth cover a wide range of possible crust volumes for earlier Earth. With the present water volume, ocean area always exceeds 25% of the globe. For all possible water volumes, average continental crust thickness always exceeds 23.4 km. This may explain why cratons have thicknesses comparable to younger crust so that they are found on Earth's surface today. Therefore, mountain building and erosion have enabled water to carve its own cistern in the form of the accumulated ocean basins. The wide range of areas and depths of oceans and continents found here can constrain models of early earth. Similar calculations can be done for earthlike planets as well.
Cash-settled options for wholesale electricity markets

Abstract Wholesale electricity market designs in practice do not provide the market participants with adequate mechanisms to hedge their financial risks. Demanders and suppliers will likely face even greater risks with the deepening penetration of variable renewable resources like wind and solar. This paper explores the design of a centralized cash-settled call option market to mitigate such risks. A cash-settled call option is a financial instrument that allows its holder the right to claim a monetary reward equal to the positive difference between the real-time price of an underlying commodity and a pre-negotiated strike price for an upfront fee. Through an example, we illustrate that a bilateral call option can reduce the payment volatility of market participants. Then, we design a centralized clearing mechanism for call options that generalizes the bilateral trade. We illustrate through an example how the centralized clearing mechanism generalizes the bilateral trade. Finally, the effect of risk preference of the market participants, as well as some generalizations are discussed.
Topological Analysis of Nerves, Reeb Spaces, Mappers, and Multiscale Mappers

Data analysis often concerns not only the space where data come from, but also various types of maps attached to data. In recent years, several related structures have been used to study maps on data, including Reeb spaces, mappers and multiscale mappers. The construction of these structures also relies on the so-called nerve of a cover of the domain. In this paper, we aim to analyze the topological information encoded in these structures in order to provide better understanding of these structures and facilitate their practical usage. More specifically, we show that the one-dimensional homology of the nerve complex N(U) of a path-connected cover U of a domain X cannot be richer than that of the domain X itself. Intuitively, this result means that no new H_1-homology class can be "created" under a natural map from X to the nerve complex N(U). Equipping X with a pseudometric d, we further refine this result and characterize the classes of H_1(X) that may survive in the nerve complex using the notion of size of the covering elements in U. These fundamental results about nerve complexes then lead to an analysis of the H_1-homology of Reeb spaces, mappers and multiscale mappers. The analysis of H_1-homology groups unfortunately does not extend to higher dimensions. Nevertheless, by using a map-induced metric, establishing a Gromov-Hausdorff convergence result between mappers and the domain, and interleaving relevant modules, we can still analyze the persistent homology groups of (multiscale) mappers to establish a connection to Reeb spaces.
Accounting Quality, Liquidity Risk, and Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift†

Recent microstructure research finds that liquidity risk, in particular its information component, plays an important role in explaining the post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD). We decompose liquidity risk into an accounting-associated component and a nonaccounting-associated component and examine their relative importance in explaining PEAD. Our research is motivated by recent findings that liquidity risk is a systematic risk and earnings quality is negatively associated with liquidity risk. We find that the accounting-associated component is more strongly related to PEAD returns than is its nonaccounting-associated counterpart. Further analyses reveal that the relation between accounting-associated liquidity risk and PEAD returns is weaker for firms with greater analyst following. We also find that in a significant market downturn, the relation between accounting-associated liquidity risk and PEAD returns becomes more pronounced. Our study is the first to document a liquidity risk-based role of accounting quality in explaining the PEAD phenomenon. It parses out the PEAD risk premia associated with accounting versus nonaccounting sources and, by so doing, sheds light on the role of accounting quality in shaping the liquidity risk-PEAD returns relation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Optimal digital dynamical decoupling for general decoherence via Walsh modulation

We provide a general framework for constructing digital dynamical decoupling sequences based on Walsh modulation—applicable to arbitrary qubit decoherence scenarios. By establishing equivalence between decoupling design based on Walsh functions and on concatenated projections, we identify a family of optimal Walsh sequences, which can be exponentially more efficient, in terms of the required total pulse number, for fixed cancellation order, than known digital sequences based on concatenated design. Optimal sequences for a given cancellation order are highly non-unique—their performance depending sensitively on the control path. We provide an analytic upper bound to the achievable decoupling error and show how sequences within the optimal Walsh family can substantially outperform concatenated decoupling in principle, while respecting realistic timing constraints.
Excitation variance matching with limited configuration interaction expansions in variational Monte Carlo

In the regime where traditional approaches to electronic structure cannot afford to achieve accurate energy differences via exhaustive wave function flexibility, rigorous approaches to balancing different states’ accuracies become desirable. As a direct measure of a wave function’s accuracy, the energy variance offers one route to achieving such a balance. Here, we develop and test a variance matching approach for predicting excitation energies within the context of variational Monte Carlo and selective configuration interaction. In a series of tests on small but difficult molecules, we demonstrate that the approach is effective at delivering accurate excitation energies when the wave function is far from the exhaustive flexibility limit. Results in C3, where we combine this approach with variational Monte Carlo orbital optimization, are especially encouraging.
Supermajority rule, the law of 1/n, and government spending: a synthesis

I develop models in which a minimum winning coalition decides on the level of government spending, where the Coase theorem holds amongst members of the winning coalition. An increase in the supermajority requirement has potentially conflicting effects on spending. A higher requirement increases the tax price internalized by the minimum winning coalition, but also increases the number of districts included in this coalition. I develop separate models in which the spending in question consists of (i) a nonexcludable good, (ii) a distributive consumption good, (iii) infrastructure spending and (iv) a transfer payment. A supermajority rule has no effect on spending for nonexcludable goods and ambiguous effects on spending for distributive projects and infrastructure spending. An increased supermajority requirement does unambiguously reduce transfer spending. I also relate the supermajority rule to the law of 1/n. If the Coase Theorem holds and a minimum winning coalition forms, an increase in the number of districts n has precisely the same effect on overall expenditure as a decrease in the supermajority requirement. Thus, the ambiguous spending effects stemming from supermajority rule carry over into this version of the law of 1/n.
Epistasis: Searching for Interacting Genetic Variants Using Crosses.

Within quantitative genetics, the term “epistasis” is used to broadly describe situations in which combinations of genetic variants show nonadditive phenotypic effects ([Phillips 1998][1], [2008][2]; [Mackay 2014][3]). Although most work on epistasis has focused on pairs of variants that
Data-driven maternal health literacy promotion and a postscript on its implications

Scientific discovery and global health policy are moving health literacy promotion and maternal-child health from the fringes of research and public health to the forefront of healthcare reform [1]. In 2011 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Shanghai Declaration [2]. The Declaration highlights new understanding of the origins of health and disease in early development. It calls on all nations to apply this knowledge to reduce the burdens of chronic disease and related disparities worldwide. The Declaration recommends a specific intervention strategy: promote health literacy across the life course, particularly in parents and children, and empower women. This chapter explores findings and implications of the Life Skills Progression Maternal Health Literacy studies. These LSP-MHL studies evaluated implementations of an intervention designed to promote health literacy in parents and empower women in the U.S. First, the chapter reports findings of the most recent of five published LSP-MHL studies with discussion of its implications for future work in this line of inquiry. A postscript highlights two of many implications of the LSP-MHL intervention studies for health literacy research in the third era of modern healthcare.
High-school genetic diversity and later-life student outcomes: micro-level evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

A novel hypothesis posits that levels of genetic diversity in a population may partially explain variation in the development and success of countries. Our paper extends evidence on this question by subjecting the hypothesis to an alternative context that eliminates many competing hypotheses. We do this by aggregating representative individual-level data for high schools from a single US state (Wisconsin) in 1957, when the population was composed nearly entirely of individuals of European ancestry. Using this sample of high school aggregations, we too find a strong association between school-level genetic diversity and a range of student socioeconomic outcomes. Our use of survey data also allows for a greater exploration into the potential mechanisms of genetic diversity. In doing so, we find positive associations between genetic diversity and indexes for openness to experience and extraversion, two personality traits tied to creativity and divergent thinking.
Update on Prostatic Ultrasound

Although there is good evidence that carcinomas of the prostate are usually seen as echopenic masses within the external zone of the prostate, it is unclear how often an echopenic mass has an origin other than carcinoma of the prostate. Technical problems at the periphery of the gland not uncommonly create echopenic areas on an artifactual basis. Whether ultrasound will prove to be a satisfactory screening method for the detection of carcinoma of the prostate is yet to be decided. Prospective studies are in progress, but it has not yet been established whether prostate screening is a worthwhile procedure. The best possible equipment is required to detect these subtle lesions; cheap equipment will probably not give adequate results.
On Complex Legendre Duality

Complex Legendre duality is a generalization of Legendre transformation from Euclidean spaces to Kahler manifolds that Berndtsson, Cordero-Erausquin, Klartag, and Rubinstein have recently constructed. It is a local isometry of the space of Kahler potentials. We show that the fixed point of such a transformation must correspond to a real analytic Kahler metric.
Intracaval Extension of Pheochromocytoma Simulating Pulmonary Embolism

Pheochromocytoma, a chromaffin tumor of the sympathoadrenal nervous system, rarely exhibits direct extension into the inferior vena cava. We report a patient with a right adrenal pheochromocytoma that caused symptoms of recurrent pulmonary emboli. Intracaval extension of the tumor was detected during investigations for the source of the emboli by abdominal CT scan, ultrasonography, and venacavography. The biochemical diagnosis of pheochromocytoma was confirmed by sharply elevated catecholamine, metanephrine, and VMA urinary levels, which returned to normal upon resection of the tumor. The patient had no evidence of metastatic disease.
Mediastinal Teratoma Associated With Klinefelter’s Syndrome

The clinical and autopsy findings in a case of histologically benign teratoma of the mediastinum in a 19-year-old man with Klinefelter's syndrome are presented. A rough statistical analysis based on a review of the literature revealed that the incidence rate of Klinefelter's syndrome among the patients with mediastinal germ cell tumor is 30 to 40 times that of Klinefelter's syndrome among the general control population. The pathogenesis of this neoplasm appears to be related to the genetic abnormality in Klinefelter's syndrome, and this seems to predispose to the development of extragonadal mediastinal germ cell neoplasms.
The cocaine-like behavioral effects of meperidine are mediated by activity at the dopamine transporter

Abstract Meperidine has atypical opioid receptor agonist effects and shares some structural features with the phenyltropane (WIN) analogs of cocaine. In combination with 0.1 mg/kg naltrexone, meperidine produced cocaine-like discriminative stimulus effects in monkeys, whereas morphine was inactive. Both cocaine and meperidine inhibited [3H]dopamine uptake in chopped rat caudate putamen with comparable potencies; meperidine differed from cocaine in that its effects could be characterized as having predominantly a single high-affinity component. Morphine was not active in inhibiting [3H]dopamine uptake, indicating that the effect of meperidine was not via a classic μ-opioid receptor agonist action. Further, meperidine but not morphine displaced [3H]WIN 35,428 (2β-carbomethoxy-3β-(4-fluorophenyl)tropane) binding. These data suggest that the actions of meperidine that are atypical of opioids are due to activity at the dopamine transporter. In addition, meperidine appears to interact predominantly with the high-affinity component of the dopamine transporter, and this high-affinity component may be the site of importance for the production of cocaine's behavioral effects.
Qualitative models and experimental investigation of chaotic NOR gates and set/reset flip-flops

It has been observed through experiments and SPICE simulations that logical circuits based upon Chua's circuit exhibit complex dynamical behaviour. This behaviour can be used to design analogues of more complex logic families and some properties can be exploited for electronics applications. Some of these circuits have been modelled as systems of ordinary differential equations. However, as the number of components in newer circuits increases so does the complexity. This renders continuous dynamical systems models impractical and necessitates new modelling techniques. In recent years, some discrete dynamical models have been developed using various simplifying assumptions. To create a robust modelling framework for chaotic logical circuits, we developed both deterministic and stochastic discrete dynamical models, which exploit the natural recurrence behaviour, for two chaotic NOR gates and a chaotic set/reset flip-flop. This work presents a complete applied mathematical investigation of logical circuits. Experiments on our own designs of the above circuits are modelled and the models are rigorously analysed and simulated showing surprisingly close qualitative agreement with the experiments. Furthermore, the models are designed to accommodate dynamics of similarly designed circuits. This will allow researchers to develop ever more complex chaotic logical circuits with a simple modelling framework.
Systemic HIV-1 infection produces a unique glial footprint in humanized mouse brains

Studies of innate glial cell responses for progressive human immunodeficiency virus type one (HIV-1) infection are limited by a dearth of human disease-relevant small-animal models. To overcome this obstacle, newborn NOD/SCID/IL2Rγc-/- (NSG) mice were reconstituted with a humanized brain and immune system. NSG animals of both sexes were transplanted with human neuroglial progenitor cells (NPCs) and hematopoietic stem cells. Intraventricular injection of NPCs symmetrically repopulated the mouse brain parenchyma with human astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Human glia were in periventricular areas, white matter tracts, the olfactory bulb and the brain stem. HIV-1 infection led to meningeal and perivascular human leukocyte infiltration into the brain. Species-specific viral-neuroimmune interactions were identified by deep RNA sequencing. In the corpus callosum and hippocampus of infected animals, overlapping human-specific transcriptional alterations for interferon type 1 and 2 signaling pathways (STAT1, STAT2, IRF9, ISG15, IFI6) and a range of host antiviral responses (MX1, OAS1, RSAD2, BST2, SAMHD1) were observed. Glial cytoskeleton reorganization, oligodendrocyte differentiation and myelin ensheathment (MBP, MOBP, PLP1, MAG, ZNF488) were downregulated. The data sets were confirmed by real-time PCR. These viral defense-signaling patterns paralleled neuroimmune communication networks seen in HIV-1-infected human brains. In this manner, this new mouse model of neuroAIDS can facilitate diagnostic, therapeutic and viral eradication strategies for an infected nervous system.
Survey of the finish characteristics of machined optical surfaces

Samples of precision machined optical flats solicited from a number of commercial suppliers were examined by both visual and Nomarski microscopy and were measured using a Wyko noncontacting profiling instrument. The profile data were analyzed in terms of finish statistics which are directly related to optical performance, and these are presented in a common format and compared. The results are of intrinsic interest and suggest a number of general observations regarding surface materials and the machining process.
Quantitative evidence for revising the definition of primary graft dysfunction after lung transplant

Rationale: Primary graft dysfunction (PGD) is a form of acute lung injury that occurs after lung transplantation. The definition of PGD was standardized in 2005. Since that time, clinical practice ...
VAE Learning via Stein Variational Gradient Descent

A new method for learning variational autoencoders (VAEs) is developed, based on Stein variational gradient descent. A key advantage of this approach is that one need not make parametric assumptions about the form of the encoder distribution. Performance is further enhanced by integrating the proposed encoder with importance sampling. Excellent performance is demonstrated across multiple unsupervised and semi-supervised problems, including semi-supervised analysis of the ImageNet data, demonstrating the scalability of the model to large datasets.
Uncorrelated Neural Firing in Mouse Visual Cortex during Spontaneous Retinal Waves.

Synchronous firing among the elements of forming circuits is critical for stabilization of synapses. Understanding the nature of these local network interactions during development can inform models of circuit formation. Within cortex, spontaneous activity changes throughout development. Unlike the adult, early spontaneous activity occurs in discontinuous population bursts separated by long silent periods, suggesting a high degree of local synchrony. However, whether the micro-patterning of activity within early bursts is unique to this early age and specifically tuned for early development is poorly understood, particularly within the column. To study this we used single-shank multi-electrode array recordings of spontaneous activity in the visual cortex of non-anesthetized neonatal mice to quantify single-unit firing rates, and applied multiple measures of network interaction and synchrony throughout the period of map formation and immediately after eye-opening. We find that despite co-modulation of firing rates on a slow time scale (hundreds of ms), the number of coactive neurons, as well as pair-wise neural spike-rate correlations, are both lower before eye-opening. In fact, on post-natal days (P)6-9 correlated activity was lower than expected by chance, suggesting active decorrelation of activity during early bursts. Neurons in lateral geniculate nucleus developed in an opposite manner, becoming less correlated after eye-opening. Population coupling, a measure of integration in the local network, revealed a population of neurons with particularly strong local coupling present at P6-11, but also an adult-like diversity of coupling at all ages, suggesting that a neuron’s identity as locally or distally coupled is determined early. The occurrence probabilities of unique neuronal ‘words’ were largely similar at all ages suggesting that retinal waves drive adult-like patterns of co-activation. These findings suggest that the bursts of spontaneous activity during early visual development do not drive hyper-synchronous activity within columns. Rather, retinal waves provide windows of potential activation during which neurons are active but poorly correlated, adult-like patterns of correlation are achieved soon after eye-opening.
Measuring the effectiveness of service delivery : delivery of government provided goods and services in India

This paper uses new survey data to measure the government's capacity to deliver goods and services in a manner that includes: high coverage of the population; equal access; and high quality of service delivery. The paper finds variation in these indicators across and within Indian states. Overall: (i) access to government provided goods and services is low -- about 60 percent of the surveyed population are unable to apply for goods and services they self-report needing; (ii) inequality in access is high -- women and poor adults are more likely to report an inability to apply for goods and services they need; and (iii) less than a third of the respondents who did manage to apply for a government delivered good or service found the application process to be easy. Access can be improved by reducing application costs and processing times, simplifying the application process, and providing alternative channels to receive applications.
Do analysts affect bad news timeliness

I investigate the effect of analysts on the speed with which bad news is reflected in earnings. Intuitively, the more analysts that cover a firm, the more costly it will be for the firm to keep bad news suppressed. Thus, analyst coverage should positively affect bad news timeliness (BNT) (but not necessarily the differential timeliness of bad news over good news, or conditional conservatism). Using brokerage house mergers as a natural experiment with a difference-in-differences design, I find that an exogenous decrease in analyst coverage decreases BNT; that is, analysts positively affect BNT. The decrease in BNT is robust to controlling for unobserved firm heterogeneity, using a propensity score matched sample, persists for up to three years after the brokerage house merger, and is stronger for firms with relatively low analyst coverage before the merger. The result improves our understanding of how analysts affect a firm's information environment.
The Argentina-Brazil Regional Power Transition

Almost four decades have passed since the Argentina-Brazil balance of power gave way to a Brazilian uncontested primacy in the Southern Cone. The peaceful and cooperative nature of this regional power transition poses an interesting puzzle for structural theories and those concerned with the US-China transition. Why do certain countries accept accommodation more leniently, like Argentina did? I offer an explanatory model and use process tracing to show that key cooperative turns in this bilateral relationship—during the late 1970s and early 1990s—required concurrent structural changes, both at the international and domestic levels. My conclusions suggest, against the prevalent narrative, that cooperation between Argentina and Brazil was not a product of democracy. Instead, peaceful power transitions take place when the costs of confrontation are high and social coalitions are largely redefined in the declining state.
Matrix vesicles induce calcification of recipient vascular smooth muscle cells through multiple signaling pathways

In patients with chronic kidney and end-stage renal diseases, the major risk factor for progression of arterial calcification is the presence of existing (baseline) calcification. Here, we tested whether calcification of arteries is extended from calcified vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) to adjacent normal cells by matrix vesicle–induced alteration of cell signaling. Matrix vesicles isolated from VSMC of rats with chronic kidney disease were co-cultured with VSMCs from normal littermates. Endocytosis of vesicles by recipient cells was confirmed by confocal microscopy. The addition of cellular matrix vesicles with characteristics of exosomes and low fetuin-A content enhanced the calcification of recipient VSMC. Further, only cellular-derived matrix vesicles induced an increase in intracellular calcium ion concentration, NOX1 (NADPH oxidase) and the anti-oxidant superoxide dismutase-2 in recipient normal VSMC. The increase in intracellular calcium ion concentration was due to release from endoplasmic reticulum and partially attributed to the activation of both NOX1 and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK1 and Erk1/2) signaling, since inhibiting both pathways blocked the increase in intracellular calcium ion in recipient VSMC. In contrast, matrix vesicles isolated from the media had no effect on the intracellular calcium ion concentration or MEK1 signaling, and did not induce calcification. However, media matrix vesicles did increase Erk1/2, although not to the level of cellular matrix vesicles, and NOX1 expression. Blockade of NOX activity further inhibited the cellular matrix vesicle–induced accelerated calcification of recipient VSMC, suggesting a potential therapeutic role of such inhibition. Thus, addition of cellular-derived matrix vesicles from calcifying VSMC can accelerate calcification by inducing cell signaling changes and phenotypic alteration of recipient VSMC.
The Dilemma of the Golden Age

These are confused and troubling times for science and the scientific community. Limits on resources have made visible serious differences within our community, differences that may weaken the nation's scientific enterprise if they are not resolved without acrimony. We face the dilemma of living in both the best and worst of times. In all fields of science, the journals and professional meetings are filled with exciting and challenging reports of new discoveries, new ideas, new applications. At the same time, President Reagan's proposed budget for 1989 is the strongest budget in support of science and technology in recent history. Yet that budget is in difficulty with an essentially proscience Congress, and it has divided the scientific community. The United States supports more scientific research than Western Europe and Japan combined, and our system of universities and national and industrial laboratories is the envy of the world. Why then is our community in an unprecedented state of stress and internal dissension? That is the issue I want to confront. That is the issue that we as an academy must confront.
Streaming Video at the University at Albany Libraries

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the options for streaming video service available to libraries and determine which platform would best fit the needs of the University at Albany Libraries. Design/methodology/approach Usage data and faculty and student feedback about the streaming video collections already in use by the Libraries were compiled to evaluate current needs, and information was gathered about a selection of additional streaming video platforms to be considered. Findings It was determined that a multi-disciplinary collection with a PDA-style subscription model would be the best choice to add to the Libraries streaming video offerings. Research limitations/implications This study focuses on the needs and experiences of the University at Albany Libraries, but the methodology can be used by other institutions assessing their own collections. Originality/value Most of the current literature related to streaming video in libraries focuses on building new collections, with little discus...
MSeer—An Advanced Technique for Locating Multiple Bugs in Parallel

In practice, a program may contain multiple bugs. The simultaneous presence of these bugs may deteriorate the effectiveness of existing fault-localization techniques to locate program bugs. While it is acceptable to use all failed and successful tests to identify suspicious code for programs with exactly one bug, it is not appropriate to use the same approach for programs with multiple bugs because the due-to relationship between failed tests and underlying bugs cannot be easily identified. One solution is to generate fault-focused clusters by grouping failed tests caused by the same bug into the same clusters. We propose MSeer—an advanced fault localization technique for locating multiple bugs in parallel. Our major contributions include the use of (1) a revised Kendall tau distance to measure the distance between two failed tests, (2) an innovative approach to simultaneously estimate the number of clusters and assign initial medoids to these clusters, and (3) an improved K-medoids clustering algorithm to better identify the due-to relationship between failed tests and their corresponding bugs. Case studies on 840 multiple-bug versions of seven programs suggest that MSeer performs better in terms of effectiveness and efficiency than two other techniques for locating multiple bugs in parallel.
Did the FASB's Simplification Initiative Increase Errors in Analysts' Implied ETR Forecasts? Evidence from Early Adoption of ASU 2016-09

ABSTRACT Part of the FASB's broader simplification initiative, ASU 2016-09 was issued on March 30, 2016 and became effective for all firms for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2016. ASU 20...
Labor unemployment insurance and firm cash holdings

Abstract This paper presents evidence that firms conserve cash to manage employees' perceptions of the risk of becoming unemployed. Employing a matched sample design and using state level changes in unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to proxy for unemployment risk, we test the hypothesis that cash holdings and unemployment risk are positively related. We find an economically and statistically significant decrease in cash holdings after an increase in UI benefits (i.e., lower unemployment risk). Robust to alternative specifications, our findings also suggest that the positive relation between cash holdings and unemployment risk is more pronounced for firms that are more labor intensive, have a high layoff propensity, have a higher fraction of low-wage workers, and are in industries with a higher fraction of UI recipients. Overall, our results are consistent with the idea that cash holdings are affected by not only shareholders but also other stakeholders: namely employees.
Development of a tissue-specific ribosome profiling approach in Drosophila enables genome-wide evaluation of translational adaptations

Recent advances in next-generation sequencing approaches have revolutionized our understanding of transcriptional expression in diverse systems. However, measurements of transcription do not necessarily reflect gene translation, the process of ultimate importance in understanding cellular function. To circumvent this limitation, biochemical tagging of ribosome subunits to isolate ribosome-associated mRNA has been developed. However, this approach, called TRAP, lacks quantitative resolution compared to a superior technology, ribosome profiling. Here, we report the development of an optimized ribosome profiling approach in Drosophila. We first demonstrate successful ribosome profiling from a specific tissue, larval muscle, with enhanced resolution compared to conventional TRAP approaches. We next validate the ability of this technology to define genome-wide translational regulation. This technology is leveraged to test the relative contributions of transcriptional and translational mechanisms in the postsynaptic muscle that orchestrate the retrograde control of presynaptic function at the neuromuscular junction. Surprisingly, we find no evidence that significant changes in the transcription or translation of specific genes are necessary to enable retrograde homeostatic signaling, implying that post-translational mechanisms ultimately gate instructive retrograde communication. Finally, we show that a global increase in translation induces adaptive responses in both transcription and translation of protein chaperones and degradation factors to promote cellular proteostasis. Together, this development and validation of tissue-specific ribosome profiling enables sensitive and specific analysis of translation in Drosophila.
The Dynamic Relationship between Oil Prices and Exchange Rates

Using daily data of oil prices and exchange rates of 14 countries for the period January 1999 to November 2014, this study examines the dynamic correlation between oil prices and exchange rates by DCC-GARCH model. The results show the significant negative correlation between oil prices and exchange rates over the period. These results imply that the increase of oil price is coinciding with US dollar depreciation and vice versa. This correlation strengthens in negative direction during financial crisis period, while it shifts to an upward trend after financial crisis period.
Bubble nucleation in superhydrophobic microchannels due to subcritical heating

Abstract This work experimentally studies the effects of single wall heating on laminar flow in a high-aspect ratio superhydrophobic microchannel. When water that is saturated with air is used as the working liquid, the non-wetted cavities on the superhydrophobic surfaces act as nucleation sites and allow air to effervesce out of the water and onto the surface when heated. Previous works in the literature have only considered the opposite case where the water is undersaturated and absorbs air out the cavities for a microchannel setting. The microchannel considered in this work consists of a rib/cavity structured superhydrophobic surface and a glass surface separated by spacers. The microchannel is 60 mm long by 14 mm wide and two channel heights of nominally 183 μm and 366 μm are explored. The superhydrophobic side is in contact with a heated aluminum block and a camera is used to visualize the flow through the glass side. Thermocouples are embedded in the aluminum to record the temperature profile along the length of the channel. Temperatures are maintained below the boiling temperature of the working liquid. The friction factor-Reynolds product (fRe) is obtained via pressure drop and volumetric flow-rate measurements. Five surface types/configurations are investigated: smooth hydrophilic, smooth hydrophobic, superhydrophobic with ribs perpendicular to the flow, superhydrophobic with ribs parallel to the flow, and superhydrophobic with ribs parallel to the flow with several breaker ridges perpendicular to the flow. The surface type/configuration has a significant impact on the mass transport dynamics. For surfaces with closed cell micro-structures, large bubbles eventually form and adversely affect fRe and lead to higher temperatures along the channel. When degassed water is used, no bubble nucleation is observed and the air initially trapped in the superhydrophobic cavities is quickly absorbed by the water.
On the optimal space complexity of consensus for anonymous processes

The optimal space complexity of consensus in asynchronous shared memory was an open problem for two decades. For a system of n processes, no algorithm using a sublinear number of registers is known. Up until very recently, the best known lower bound due to Fich, Herlihy, and Shavit was $${\varOmega }(\sqrt{n})$$ registers. Fich, Herlihy, and Shavit first proved their lower bound for the special case of the problem where processes are anonymous (i.e. they run the same algorithm) and then extended it to the general case. In this paper we close the gap for the anonymous case of the problem. We show that any consensus algorithm from read–write registers for anonymous processes that satisfies nondeterministic solo termination has to use $${\varOmega }(n)$$ registers in some execution. This implies an $${\varOmega }(n)$$ lower bound on the space complexity of deterministic obstruction-free and randomized wait-free consensus, matching the upper bound. We introduce new techniques for marshalling anonymous processes and their executions, in particular, the concepts of leader–follower pairs and reserving executions, that play a critical role in the lower bound argument and will hopefully be more generally applicable.
Short-Term Genetic Selection for Adolescent Locomotor Sensitivity to Delta9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)

Cannabis use is linked to positive and negative outcomes. Identifying genetic targets of susceptibility to the negative effects of cannabinoid use is of growing importance. The current study sought to complete short-term selective breeding for adolescent sensitivity and resistance to the locomotor effects of a single 10 mg/kg THC dose in the open field. Selection for THC-locomotor sensitivity was moderately heritable, with the greatest estimates of heritability seen in females from the F2 to S3 generations. Selection for locomotor sensitivity also resulted in increased anxiety-like activity in the open field. These results are the first to indicate that adolescent THC-locomotor sensitivity can be influenced via selective breeding. Development of lines with a genetic predisposition for THC-sensitivity or resistance to locomotor effects allow for investigation of risk factors, differences in consequences of THC use, identification of correlated behavioral responses, and detection of genetic targets that may contribute to heightened cannabinoid sensitivity.