cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Stereotactic body radiation therapy for melanoma and renal cell carcinoma: impact of single fraction equivalent dose on local control

Melanoma and renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are traditionally considered less radioresponsive than other histologies. Whereas stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) involves radiation dose intensification via escalation, we hypothesize SBRT might result in similar high local control rates as previously published on metastases of varying histologies. The records of patients with metastatic melanoma (n = 17 patients, 28 lesions) or RCC (n = 13 patients, 25 lesions) treated with SBRT were reviewed. Local control (LC) was defined pathologically by negative biopsy or radiographically by lack of tumor enlargement on CT or stable/declining standardized uptake value (SUV) on PET scan. The SBRT dose regimen was converted to the single fraction equivalent dose (SFED) to characterize the dose-control relationship using a logistic tumor control probability (TCP) model. Additionally, the kinetics of decline in maximum SUV (SUVmax) were analyzed. The SBRT regimen was 40-50 Gy/5 fractions (n = 23) or 42-60 Gy/3 fractions (n = 30) delivered to lung (n = 39), liver (n = 11) and bone (n = 3) metastases. Median follow-up for patients alive at the time of analysis was 28.0 months (range, 4-68). The actuarial LC was 88% at 18 months. On univariate analysis, higher dose per fraction (p < 0.01) and higher SFED (p = 0.06) were correlated with better LC, as was the biologic effective dose (BED, p < 0.05). The actuarial rate of LC at 24 months was 100% for SFED ≥45 Gy v 54% for SFED <45 Gy. TCP modeling indicated that to achieve ≥90% 2 yr LC in a 3 fraction regimen, a prescription dose of at least 48 Gy is required. In 9 patients followed with PET scans, the mean pre-SBRT SUVmax was 7.9 and declined with an estimated half-life of 3.8 months to a post-treatment plateau of approximately 3. An aggressive SBRT regimen with SFED ≥ 45 Gy is effective for controlling metastatic melanoma and RCC. The SFED metric appeared to be as robust as the BED in characterizing dose-response, though additional studies are needed. The LC rates achieved are comparable to those obtained with SBRT for other histologies, suggesting a dominant mechanism of in vivo tumor ablation that overrides intrinsic differences in cellular radiosensitivity between histologic subtypes.
Satellite remote sensing over ice

Satellite remote sensing provides unique opportunities for observing ice-covered terrain. Passive microwave data give information on snow cover on land, sea ice extent and type, and zones of summer melting on the polar ice sheets, and they have the potential of estimating snow accumulation rates on these ice sheets. All-weather, high-resolution imagery of sea ice is obtained by using synthetic aperture radars, and ice movement vectors can be deduced by comparing sequential images of the same region. Radar altimetry data provide highly detailed information on ice sheet topography and have the potential of deducing thickening/thinning rates from repeat surveys. The coastline of Antarctica can be mapped accurately using altimetry data, and the size and spatial distribution of icebergs can be monitored. Altimetry data also distinguish open ocean from pack ice, and they give an indication of sea ice characteristics.
Silica Gel Promotes Reductions of Aldehydes and Ketones by N-Heterocyclic Carbene Boranes

N-Heterocyclic carbene boranes (NHC-boranes) such as 1,3-dimethylimidazol-2-ylidine trihydridoborane (diMe-Imd-BH3) serve as practical hydride donors for the reduction of aldehydes and ketones in the presence of silica gel. Primary and secondary alcohols are formed in good yields under ambient conditions. Aldehydes are selectively reduced in the presence of ketones. One, two, or even all three of the boron hydrides can be transferred. The process is attractive because all the components are stable and easy to handle and because both the reaction and isolation procedures are convenient.
Writing the rules of global finance: France, Europe, and capital liberalization

ABSTRACT Why were capital controls orthodox in 1944, but heretical in 1997? The scholarly literature, following the conventional wisdom, focuses on the role of the United States in promoting capital liberalization. Although the United States encouraged capital liberalization bilaterally, US policy makers never embraced multilateral rules that codified the norm of capital mobility. Rather, European policy makers wrote the most important rules in favour of the free movement of capital. Paradoxically, French policy makers in particular played decisive roles. For the debates that mattered most—in the EU, OECD, and IMF—the United States was, respectively, irrelevant, inconsequential and indifferent. Europe did not capitulate to global capital. Rather, French and other European policy makers created today's liberal international financial regime. French and European policy makers have promoted a rule-based, ‘managed’ globalization of finance, whereas US policy makers have tended to embrace an ad hoc globalizati...
Position-specific information in social networks: Are you connected?

Abstract Individuals in social networks often imperfectly monitor others’ network relationships and have incomplete information about the value of forming new relationships. This paper introduces the Generalized Conjectural Equilibrium (GCE) concept for such settings and completely characterizes the set of GCE networks when players observe only local parts of the network. Incomplete information and imperfect monitoring generate different types of inefficiency. These inefficiencies increase in number and scope as network observation becomes more localized. These results suggest that actual social networks will be structured inefficiently in general.
Integrating the accreditation council for graduate medical education core competencies into the model of the clinical practice of emergency medicine

In response to public pressure for greater accountability from the medical profession, a transformation is occurring in the approach to medical education and assessment of physician competency. Over the past 5 years, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has implemented the Outcomes and General Competencies projects to better ensure that physicians are appropriately trained in the knowledge and skills of their specialties. Concurrently, the American Board of Medical Specialties, including the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM), has embraced the competency concept. The core competencies have been integral in ABEM's development of Emergency Medicine Continuous Certification and the development of the Model of Clinical Practice of Emergency Medicine (Model). ABEM has used the Model as a significant part of its blueprint for the written and oral certification examinations in emergency medicine and is fully supportive of the effort to more fully define and integrate the ACGME core competencies into training emergency medicine specialists. To incorporate these competencies into our specialty, an Emergency Medicine Competency Taskforce (Taskforce) was formed by the Residency Review Committee-Emergency Medicine to determine how these general competencies fit in the Model. This article represents a consensus of the Taskforce with the input of multiple organizations in emergency medicine. It provides a framework for organizations such as the Council of Emergency Medicine Residency Directors (CORD) and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine to develop a curriculum in emergency medicine and program requirement revisions by the Residency Review Committee-Emergency Medicine. In this report, we describe the approach taken by the Taskforce to integrate the ACGME core competencies into the Model. Ultimately, as competency-based assessment is implemented in emergency medicine training, program directors, governing bodies such as the ACGME, and individual patients can be assured that physicians are competent in emergency medicine.
Universal algebraic equivalences between tautological cycles on Jacobians of curves

We present a collection of algebraic equivalences between tautological cycles on the Jacobian J of a curve, i.e., cycles in the subring of the Chow ring of J generated by the classes of certain standard subvarieties of J. These equivalences are universal in the sense that they hold for all curves of given genus. We show also that they are compatible with the action of the Fourier transform on tautological cycles and compute this action explicitly.
Evolving the Web-based distributed SI/PDO architecture for high-performance visualization

We have extended the SI/PDO architecture to allow Web access to visualization tools running on MP systems. We make these tools more easily accessible by providing Web-based interfaces and by shielding the user from the details of these computing environments. We use a multi-tier architecture, where the Java-based GUI tier runs on a Web browser and provides image display and control functions. The visualization tier runs on MP machines. The middle tiers provide custom communication with MP machines, remote file selection, remote launching of services, and load balancing. The system allows for adding and removing of tiers depending upon the situation. This architecture is based on the requirements of our environment: huge data volumes (that cannot be easily moved), use of multiple middleware protocols, MP platform portability, rapid development of the visualization tools, distributed resource management (of MP resources), and the use of existing visualization tools.
What do dg-categories form?

We introduce a homotopy 2-category structure on the collection of dg-categories, dgfunctors, and their derived transformations. This construction provides for a conceptual proof of Deligne’s conjecture on Hochschild cochains.
Seismic evidence for widespread serpentinized forearc upper mantle along the Cascadia margin

Petrologic models suggest that dehydration and metamorphism of subducting slabs release water that serpentinizes the overlying forearc mantle. To test these models, we use the results of controlled-source seismic surveys and earthquake tomography to map the upper mantle along the Cascadia margin forearc. We find anomalously low upper-mantle velocities and/or weak wide-angle reflections from the top of the upper mantle in a narrow region along the margin, compatible with recent teleseismic studies and indicative of a serpentinized upper mantle. The existence of a hydrated forearc upper-mantle wedge in Cascadia has important geological and geophysical implications. For example, shearing within the upper mantle, inferred from seismic reflectivity and consistent with its serpentinite rheology, may occur during aseismic slow slip events on the megathrust. In addition, progressive dehydration of the hydrated mantle wedge south of the Mendocino triple junction may enhance the effects of a slab gap during the evolution of the California margin.
Structural origin of the thixotropic behavior of a class of metallosupramolecular gels

Abstract Complexation, between a ditopic ligand, consisting of a 2,6-bis-(1′-methylbenzimidazolyl)-4-oxypyridine moiety (O-Mebip) attached to either end of a penta(ethylene glycol) core, with transition metal and lanthanide ions, results in the formation of metallosupramolecular polymers, soluble in acetonitrile at high temperatures. Cooling the hot sol to room temperature causes phase separation and crystallization, and produces mechanically-strong gels, which exhibit a highly thixotropic behavior. Optical microscopy indicates that the gel morphology consists of spherulitic particles, which are easily broken by mechanical shear. Reproducible gel properties are produced when the gel is formed by cooling in a sonication bath, which produces a finely-divided globular morphology, and increases the modulus of the gels. Wide angle X-ray diffraction study shows that the crystalline structures of the gels are strongly dependent on the thermal history of gel formation and the nature of the metal ion. The gel properties are a result of the interactions between the colloidal particles produced by the phase separation and crystallization process. These interactions, which may reflect electrostatic forces and possibly metal–ligand binding, in addition to the usual van der Waals interactions, give rise to the formation of a network structure. The disruption of this network by mechanical shear, and its facile reformation when shear is removed, are the origin of the pronounced thixotropic behavior of the gels.
SPONTANEOUS PHYSICAL COMPACTIFICATION OF THE EXTRA DIMENSIONS

We conjecture that the extra dimensions are physical noncompact at high energy scale or high temperature; after the symmetry breaking or cosmological phase transition, the bulk cosmological constant may become negative, and then, the extra dimensions may become physical compact at low energy scale. We show this in a five-dimensional toy brane model with three parallel three-branes and a real bulk scalar whose potential is temperature-dependent. We also point out that after the global or gauge symmetry breaking, or the supersymmetry breaking in supergravity theory, the spontaneous physical compactification of the extra dimensions might be realized.
Performance testing of function subroutines

The certification of numerical subroutines for an automatic computer is generally a difficult job. In one sense, certification of a subroutine is an in-depth review of its documentation to determine how well the documentation describes the performance and programming of the subroutine. It involves, among other things, performance testing of the program being certified. of necessity, the details of the performance testing vary from one type of subroutine to another. Indeed, in most cases it is difficult to define a concrete measure of performance for a particular type of routine. For subroutines for computing functions, however, measures of performance are rather easy to define and much effort has gone into certifications in the past few years.
Digital compression algorithms for HDTV transmission

Digital compression of video images is a possible avenue for HDTV transmission. Compression needs to be optimized while picture quality remains high. Two techniques for compressing digitized images, vector quantization and enhanced differential pulse code modulation, are explained, and comparisons are drawn between the human vision system and artificial compression techniques. Suggestions for improving compression algorithms through the use of neural and analog circuitry are given. >
Process Variation-Aware Timing Optimization for Dynamic and Mixed-Static-Dynamic CMOS Logic

The advancement in CMOS technology with the shrinking device size towards 32 nm has allowed for placement of billions of transistor on a single microprocessor chip. Simultaneously, it reduced the logic gate delays to the order of pico seconds. However, these low delays and shrinking device sizes have presented design engineers with two major challenges: timing optimization at high frequencies, and minimizing the vulnerability from process variations. Answering these challenges, this paper presents a process variation-aware transistor sizing algorithm for dynamic CMOS logic, and a process variation-aware timing optimization flow for mixed-static-dynamic CMOS logic. Through implementation on several benchmark circuits, the proposed transistor sizing algorithm for dynamic CMOS logic has demonstrated an average performance improvement in delay by 28%, uncertainty from process variations by 32%, while sacrificing an area of 39%. Also, through implementation on benchmark circuits and a 64-b parallel binary adder, the proposed timing optimization flow for mixed-static-dynamic CMOS logic has demonstrated a performance improvement in delay by 17% and uncertainty from process variations by 13%.
It's not just lunch: extra-pair commensality can trigger sexual jealousy.

Do people believe that sharing food might involve sharing more than just food? To investigate this, participants were asked to rate how jealous they (Study 1) – or their best friend (Study 2) – would be if their current romantic partner were contacted by an ex-romantic partner and subsequently engaged in an array of food- and drink-based activities. We consistently find – across both men and women – that meals elicit more jealousy than face-to-face interactions that do not involve eating, such as having coffee. These findings suggest that people generally presume that sharing a meal enhances cooperation. In the context of romantic pairs, we find that participants are attuned to relationship risks that extra-pair commensality can present. For romantic partners left out of a meal, we find a common view that lunch, for example, is not “just lunch.”
Learning cooperative games

This paper explores a PAC (probably approximately correct) learning model in cooperative games. Specifically, we are given m random samples of coalitions and their values, taken from some unknown cooperative game; can we predict the values of unseen coalitions? We study the PAC learnability of several well-known classes of cooperative games, such as network flow games, threshold task games, and induced subgraph games. We also establish a novel connection between PAC learnability and core stability: for games that are efficiently learnable, it is possible to find payoff divisions that are likely to be stable using a polynomial number of samples.
Adjudicating Armed Conflict in Domestic Courts: The Experience of Israel’s Supreme Court

The Israeli Supreme Court in recent years has engaged in judicial review of questions pertaining to the conduct of hostilities within the context of what it has recognized as an armed conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups. This can be attributed to several factors that are unique to Israel, the most prominent being Israel’s long-time military presence in the Territories, which has made the Israeli Supreme Court accustomed to adjudicating matters governed by international law and scrutinizing the discretion of military commanders. Combined with the evolution in the Court’s jurisprudence regarding standing and political question doctrine, which has made the Court overall more accessible to general petitions challenging national security issues, this paved the road to adjudication of questions pertaining to the modern battlefield, as at least some counter-terrorism policies, previously considered to be law enforcement actions, have come to be perceived in Israel and elsewhere as part of the armed conflict paradigm. While the Israeli situation is unique in many aspects, other jurisdictions are also encountering legal challenges to the actions of the military in combat arenas abroad. To the extent that such jurisdictions are receptive to comparative law, the Israeli experience may prove useful in developing domestic jurisprudence on questions pertaining to the Law of Armed Conflict and its application to executive policy in the ‘war on terror’.
NAFTA Intra-industry Trade in Agricultural Food Products

This paper focuses on NAFTA's impact on intra-industry and inter-industry trade in agricultural food products. Bilateral trade among the United States, Canada, and Mexico and their trade with the rest of the world during 1990 and 1995 are investigated. The study shows that U.S. trade patterns for agricultural food products are slowly changing. The proportion of the intra-industry trade was higher for food products involving a greater degree of processing, whereas trade in bulk commodities with little or no processing was predominantly inter-industry. U.S.–Canada bilateral trade has been increasingly more dominated by intra-industry trade. On the other hand, Mexican bilateral trade with both the United States and Canada has been predominantly inter-industry in nature. The study also indicated a decline in the proportion of intra-industry trade in U.S. trade with the rest of the world during this period. [EconLit citations: F120, F190]. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Program and interface slicing for reverse engineering

A case is presented for the use of conventional and interface slicing as enabling mechanisms for numerous reverse engineering and reengineering tasks. The authors first discuss the applicability of conventional slicing to algorithm extraction and design recovery at statement-level granularity. They then present interface slicing and show how it provides similar capabilities at module-level granularity. Module is a general term for a collection of subprograms, possibly with information hiding mechanisms: It includes but is not limited to Ada packages. Component refers to a module in a reuse repository. A component is thus a code asset of a repository, possibly also incorporated into a program. Ada is used for the example, as Ada's features facilitate the types of transformations which are invoked. >
Adaptive entropy-coded predictive vector quantization of images

The authors consider 2-D predictive vector quantization (PVQ) of images subject to an entropy constraint and demonstrate the substantial performance improvements over existing unconstrained approaches. They describe a simple adaptive buffer-instrumented implementation of this 2-D entropy-coded PVQ scheme which can accommodate the associated variable-length entropy coding while completely eliminating buffer overflow/underflow problems at the expense of only a slight degradation in performance. This scheme, called 2-D PVQ/AECQ (adaptive entropy-coded quantization), is shown to result in excellent rate-distortion performance and impressive quality reconstructions of real-world images. Indeed, the real-world coding results shown demonstrate little distortion at rates as low as 0.5 b/pixel. >
Trends and Socioeconomic Gradients in Adult Mortality around the Developing World

The authors combine data from 84 Demographic and Health Surveys from 46 countries to analyze trends and socioeconomic differences in adult mortality, calculating mortality based on the sibling mortality reports collected from female respondents aged 15-49. The analysis yields four main findings. First, adult mortality is different from child mortality: while under-5 mortality shows a definite improving trend over time, adult mortality does not, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. The second main finding is the increase in adult mortality in Sub-Saharan African countries. The increase is dramatic among those most affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Mortality rates in the highest HIV-prevalence countries of southern Africa exceed those in countries that experienced episodes of civil war. Third, even in Sub-Saharan countries where HIV-prevalence is not as high, mortality rates appear to be at best stagnating, and even increasing in several cases. Finally, the main socioeconomic dimension along which mortality appears to differ in the aggregate is gender. Adult mortality rates in Sub-Saharan Africa have risen substantially higher for men than for womenespecially so in the high HIV-prevalence countries. On the whole, the data do not show large gaps by urban/rural residence or by school attainment.
The Meaning of Memory: Family, Class, and Ethnicity in Early Network Television Programs

Almost every Friday night between 1949 and 1956, millions of Americans watched Rosemary Rice turn the pages of an old photograph album. With music from Edvard Grieg's "Holverg Suite" playing in the background, and with pictures of tur-of-the-century San Francisco displayed on the album pages, Rice assumed the identity of her television character, Katrin Hansen, on the CBS network program Mama. She told the audience about her memories of her girlhood, her family's house on Steiner Street, and her experiences there with her big brother Nels, her little sister Dagmar, her Papa, and her Mama--"most of all," she said, "when I remember that San Francisco of so long ago, I remember Mama" (Meehan and Ropes 1954). Katrin Hansen's memories of her Norwegian immigrant working-class family had powerful appeal for viewers in the early years of commercial network broadcasting. Mama established itself as one of CBS' most popular programs during its first season on the air, and it retained high ratings for the duration of its prime time run (Mitz 1983:458). The show's popularity coincided with that of other situation comedies based on ethnic working-class family life-The Goldbergs, depicting the experiences of Jews in the Bronx; Amos 'n Andy, blacks in Harlem; The Honeymooners and Hey Jeannie, Irish working-class families in Brooklyn; Life with Luigi, Italian immigrants in Chicago; and Life of Riley, working-class migrants to Los Angeles during and after World War II.' The presence of this subgenre of ethnic, working-class situation comedies on television network schedules seems to run contrary to the commercial and artistic properties of the medium. Television delivers audiences to advertisers by glorifying consumption, not only during commercial breaks but in the programs themselves (Barouw 1979). The relative economic deprivation of ethnic workingclass households would seem to provide an inappropriate setting for the display and promotion of commodities as desired by the networks and their commercial sponsors. Furthermore, the mass audience required to repay the expense of network programming encourages the depiction of a homogenized mass society, not the particularities and peculiarities of working-class communities. As an artistic medium, television's capacity for simultaneity conveys a sense of living in an
Convergence of iterative split-operator approaches for approximating nonlinear reactive transport problems

Numerical solutions to nonlinear reactive solute transport problems are often computed using split-operator (SO) approaches, which separate the transport and reaction processes. This uncoupling introduces an additional source of numerical error, known as the splitting error. The iterative split-operator (ISO) algorithm removes the splitting error through iteration. Although the ISO algorithm is often used, there has been very little analysis of its convergence behavior. This work uses theoretical analysis and numerical experiments to investigate the convergence rate of the iterative split-operator approach for solving nonlinear reactive transport problems.
Use of High-Temperature Superconductors in High Speed Electronic Switches with Current Gain

Recent developments in superconductivity have taken 77 K superconducting electronics from a dream to a likelihood. Rather than following the conventional path by developing Josephson junction-based devices, this paper discusses the unique possibilities of hybrid superconductor/semiconductor devices. The two devices discussed are a true three-terminal hybrid resonant tunneling transistor and the semiconductor-coupled Josephson junction. Also, a list is given of as yet uninvestigated issues concerning the new superconductors and their proximity effects with semiconductors -issues that are critical to the operation of these hybrid superconductor/semiconductor devices.
Generating Ambiguity in the Laboratory

This article develops a method for drawing samples from a distribution with no finite quantiles or moments. The method provides researchers with a way to give subjects the experience of ambiguity. In any experiment, learning the distribution from experience is impossible for the subjects, essentially because it is impossible for the experimenter. We characterize our method, illustrate it in simulations, and then test it in a laboratory experiment. Our method does not withhold sampling information, does not assume that the subject is incapable of making statistical inferences, is replicable across experiments, and requires no special apparatus. We compare our method to the techniques used in related experiments that attempt to produce an ambiguous experience for the subjects. This paper was accepted by Peter Wakker, decision analysis.
Estrogen receptor-β regulates mechanical signaling in primary osteoblasts

Mechanical loading is an important regulator in skeletal growth, maintenance, and aging. Estrogen receptors have a regulatory role in mechanically induced bone adaptation. Estrogen receptor-α (ERα) is known to enhance load-induced bone formation, whereas ERβ negatively regulates this process. We hypothesized that ERβ regulates mechanical signaling in osteoblasts. We tested this hypothesis by subjecting primary calvarial cells isolated from wild-type and ERβ-knockout mice (BERKO) to oscillatory fluid flow in the absence or presence of estradiol (E2). We found that the known responses to fluid shear stress, i.e., phosphorylation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase ERK and upregulation of COX-2 expression, were inhibited in BERKO cells in the absence of E2. Flow-induced increase in prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) release was not altered in BERKO cells in the absence of E2, but was increased when E2 was present. Additionally, immunofluorescence analysis and estrogen response element luciferase assays revealed increased ERα expression and flow- and ligand-induced nuclear translocation as well as transcriptional activity in BERKO cells in both the presence and absence of E2. Taken together, these data suggest that ERβ plays both ligand-dependent and ligand-independent roles in mechanical signaling in osteoblasts. Furthermore, our data suggest that one mechanism by which ERβ regulates mechanotransduction in osteoblasts may result from its inhibitory effect on ERα expression and function. Targeting estrogen receptors (e.g., inhibiting ERβ) may represent an effective approach for prevention and treatment of age-related bone loss.
The Epstein-Barr virus lytic protein BZLF1 as a candidate target antigen for vaccine development

The Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) is an oncogenic, γ-herpesvirus associated with a broad spectrum of disease. Although most immune-competent individuals can effectivley develop efficient adaptive immune responses to EBV, immunocompromised individuals are at serious risk for developing life-threatening diseases, such as Hodgkin lymphoma and posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD). Given the significant morbidity associated with EBV infection in high-risk populations, there is a need to develop vaccine strategies that restore or enhance EBV-specific immune responses. Here, we identify the EBV immediate-early protein BZLF1 as a potential target antigen for vaccine development. Primary tumors from patients with PTLD and a chimeric human-murine model of EBV-driven lymphoproliferative disorder (EBV-LPD) express BZLF1 protein. Pulsing human dendritic cells (DC) with recombinant BZLF1 followed by incubation with autologous mononuclear cells led to expansion of BZLF1-specific CD8+ T cells in vitro and primed BZLF1-specific T-cell responses in vivo. In addition, vaccination of hu-PBL-SCID mice with BZLF1-transduced DCs induced specific cellular immunity and significantly prolonged survival from fatal EBV-LPD. These findings identify BZLF1 as a candidate target protein in the immunosurveillance of EBV and provide a rationale for considering BZLF1 in vaccine strategies to enhance primary and recall immune responses and potentially prevent EBV-associated diseases. Cancer Immunol Res; 3(7); 1–8. ©2015 AACR.
The Economic Aftermath of the 1960s Riots in American Cities: Evidence from Property Values

In the 1960s numerous cities in the United States experienced violent, race-related civil disturbances. Although social scientists have long studied the causes of the riots, the consequences have received much less attention. This paper examines census data from 1950 to 1980 to measure the riots' impact on the value of central-city residential property, and especially on black-owned property. Both ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares estimates indicate that the riots depressed the median value of black-owned property between 1960 and 1970, with little or no rebound in the 1970s. Analysis of household-level data suggests that the racial gap in the value of property widened in riot-afflicted cities during the 1970s.
Oscillations of Starless Cores

If the split, asymmetric molecular spectral line profiles that are seen in many starless cores are interpreted as indicativeofglobalcollapseorexpansionofthecore,thenonepossibleimplicationisthatmoststarlesscoreshaveshort lifetimes, on the order of the collapse or sound crossing timescale. An alternative interpretation of the line profiles, as indicative of perturbations on an underlying equilibrium structure, leads to the opposite implication, that many cores have long lifetimes. While evidence suggests that some cores are collapsing on a free-fall timescale, we show that observations of some other starless cores can be reproduced by a model of nonradial oscillations about the equilibrium configuration of a pressure-bounded, thermally-supported sphere (Bonnor-Ebert sphere). We model the oscillations as linear perturbations following a standard analysis developed for stellar pulsations and compare the column densities and molecular spectral line profiles predicted from a particular model to observations of the Bok globule B68. Subject headingg ISM: clouds — stars: formation
DESIGNING A CAPITALIST ECONOMY FOR FAST GROWTH AND HIGH EMPLOYMENT IN TODAY'S GLOBALIZED WORLD ECONOMY

(1998). Designing a Capitalist Economy for Fast Growth and High Employment in Today's Globalized World Economy. Journal of Applied Economics: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 87-103.
Generation of 36-femtosecond pulses from a ytterbium fiber laser

By optimizing the cavity dispersion map, 1.5-nJ, 36-fs pulses are obtained from a Yb-doped fiber laser. Higher-order dispersion currently limits the pulse duration.
Efficient provision of public goods with endogenous redistribution

We study a balanced mechanism that is capable of implementing in Nash equilibrium all the Pareto-efficient individually rational allocations for an economy with public goods. The Government chooses a set of weights directly related to the Lindahl prices corresponding to the Pareto-efficient allocation to be implemented. The mechanism then guarantees that initial endowments are re-allocated so that the chosen vector of Lindahl prices is indeed a Lindahl equilibrium, and implements the corresponding Lindahl allocation. Finally, besides being balanced, our mechanism is ‘simple’. Each agent has to declare a desired increase in the amount of public good, and a vector of redistributive transfers of initial endowments (across other agents).
Engine emissions modeling for a hybrid electric vehicle

The objective of this work is the development of engine emissions models for an internal combustion engine of a hybrid electric vehicle. From the vast variety of models initially considered, the following three classes were extensively investigated: static engine maps, dynamic multiple regression linear models, and time delay dynamic neural network models. All the models were built and validated with experimental data from a fuel injected SI engine burning conventional 87 octane unleaded fuel. The total time duration of the experimental data was about 10,000 seconds. The data was divided into two groups: 6700 seconds used for model development and a 3300 second validation set were used to verify the performance of the developed models. The two groups of data contain sections of highway and urban driving, as well as limited cold starting. The models use input variables of engine speed, engine torque, output power, throttle angle, coolant, exhaust, and engine block temperatures. The model outputs are the engine output NO/sub x/, CO/sub 2/, CO, and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions. The models are intended to operate on a per second rate. All the dynamic models predict satisfactorily the grams per second engine emissions of NO/sub x/, CO/sub 2/, and CO for hot engine operation. HC emissions for a hot engine functioning at positive torque output are well predicted only by the neural network model. In the cases of engine operation at negative torque outputs, as well as for cold engine starts, all of the models have large prediction errors mainly due to the small data set utilized. In these conditions the neural network models outperformed both the linear dynamical models and the static map.
Population Aging and Economic Growth in Asia

China’s future population structure can be projected with reasonable confidence. In recent decades, China has had a ‘demographic window of opportunity’, in which a large and growing proportion of the population have been of working age. This process is now stalling and will soon reverse.
Adult claustrophobia, anxiety and sedation in MRI

Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify the proportion of adult patients at our institution who require sedation to tolerate MR imaging. We also wished to identify whether the type of study and patient age or sex was associated with a variation in the use of sedation. A total of 939 patients, 18 years of age or older, underwent MR imaging at a large university hospital during a randomly selected 7-week period. Age, sex, type of study, number of prior MRI's, and use of sedation were identified in this group. Patients requiring sedation were compared by these criteria to all non-sedated members over 18 years of age in the cohort who acted as a control. Of the 939 patients 134 (14.3%) required oral sedation, IV sedation, or general anesthesia to tolerate MRI. This group was 35.8% male, 64.1% female (control group 48.1% male, 51.9% female). Of those requiring sedation, 89 patients (66.4%) were having brain MRI (male n = 29 or 32.6%, female n = 60 or 67.4%). In the control group 461 patients (57.3%) were having brain MRI (male n = 209 or 45.3%, female n = 252 or 54.6%). The mean age of the sedated group was 60.75 (range 19–91). The non-sedated group had a mean age of 67.3 (range 28–93). The sedated group had undergone a mean of 1.56 prior MR studies (range 0–16); the control group had a mean of 0.9 prior studies (range 0–7). Sedation was more commonly utilized in women than men, in patients having brain MRI, and in patients who had undergone prior MRI procedures. The identification of a population having the greatest need for sedation may aid in the development and selection of methods of stress reduction which will result in greater patient comfort, reduction in motion artifact, and fewer prematurely terminated studies.
Uncertainty Evaluation Through Mapping Identification in Intensive Dynamic Simulations

We study how the dependence of a simulation output on an uncertain parameter can be determined when simulations are computationally expensive and so can only be run for very few parameter values. Specifically, the methodology that is developed-known as the probabilistic collocation method (PCM)-permits selection of these few parameter values, so that the mapping between the parameter and the output can be approximated well over the likely parameter values, using a low-order polynomial. Several new analyses are developed concerning the ability of PCM to predict the mapping structure, as well as output statistics. A holistic methodology is also developed for the typical case where the uncertain parameter's probability distribution is unknown, and instead, only depictive moments or sample data (which possibly depend on known regressors) are available. Finally, the application of PCM to weather-uncertainty evaluation in air traffic flow management is discussed.
Transfer prices and the structure of intra-firm trade

In this paper the structure of intra-firm trade within the context of transfer price manipulation by a multinational firm is endogenized. ‘High’ and ‘low’ values of host-country tax rates give rise to intra-firm trade in final goods and intermediate inputs, and ‘intermediate’ values of the tax rate are associated with intra-firm trade in either the intermediate inputs or the final goods only. Higher tariffs and stricter local content restrictions bias intra-firm trade towards intermediate-good trade and final-good trade, respectively. In the presence of endogenous transfer prices host-country sales may increase if the multinational faces stricter trade restrictions and higher host-country tax rates. JEL Classification: F23, F12 Prix de cession interne et structure du commerce itnra-firme. Ce memoire endogeneise la structure du commerce intra-firme dans le contexte d'un modele qui permet la manipulation du prix de cession interne par une firme plurinationale. Des taux de taxation hauts et bas par le pays hote entrainent un commerce international intra-firme tant dans les biens finaux que dans les intrants intermediaires; des taux moyens de taxation sont associes a un commere intra-firme soit dans les intrants intermediaires, soit dans les biens finaux mais pas dans les deux. Des droits de douane eleves et des restrictions sur le contenu interieur plus importantes creent des distorsions en faveur du commerce intra-firme dans les biens intermediaires et dans les biens finaux respectivement. Quand il existe des prix de cession interne endogenes, les ventes de la firme nationale peuvent s'accroitre si la firme plurinationale fait face a des restrictions au commerce plus importantes et a des taux de taxation plus eleves de la part du pays hote.
Freeze/thaw classification for prairie soils using SSM/I radiobrightnesses

Data from the Nimbus-7 Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) have been used to classify snow-free soils in the northern Great Plains as either frozen or thawed. The technique is based on differing sensitivities among SMMR radiobrightness frequencies to liquid moisture and volume scattering in the upper few millimeters of bare soil. The SMMR is no longer active. A current near-equivalent is the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I). The authors demonstrate that SSM/I radiobrightnesses also exhibit differential sensitivities to liquid water and volume scattering in frozen soil despite their higher frequencies. They find that the best classification discriminants for SSM/I data are a combination of the 37-GHz V-pol radiobrightnesses and the 19-to-37-GHz V-pol spectral gradients. They also examine the sensitivity of the classification to atmospheric emission and absorption and find little effect.
Copper‐Catalyzed Oxidative Amination and Allylic Amination of Alkenes

Enamines and enamides are useful synthetic intermediates and common components of bioactive compounds. A new protocol for their direct synthesis by a net alkene C-H amination and allylic amination by using catalytic Cu(II) in the presence of MnO2 is reported. Reactions between N-aryl sulfonamides and vinyl arenes furnish enamides, allylic amines, indoles, benzothiazine dioxides, and dibenzazepines directly and efficiently. Control experiments further showed that MnO2 alone can promote the reaction in the absence of a copper salt, albeit with lower efficiency. Mechanistic probes support the involvement of nitrogen-radical intermediates. This method is ideal for the synthesis of enamides from 1,1-disubstituted vinyl arenes, which are uncommon substrates in existing oxidative amination protocols.
Computer networking among executives: a case study

Group support systems may be 'distributed' for non-simultaneous use by being embedded in a computer-mediated communication system (CMCS). In this manner, large groups may use them for complex tasks over an extended period of time. Will executives use such systems, and what are their reactions? This case study of elites formulating recommendations for the White House Conference on Productivity demonstrates that executives can use such systems effectively for 'real' and important decision-making tasks, given that 'critical success factors' are met. Perceived information richness is strongly correlated with perceptions of productivity enhancement as a result of system use. >
A New Mechanism for the Free-Rider Problem

The free-rider problem arises in the provisioning of public resources, when users of the resource have to contribute towards the cost of production. Selfish users may have a tendency to misrepresent preferences-so as to reduce individual contributions-leading to inefficient levels of production of the resource. Groves and Loeb formulated a classic model capturing this problem, and proposed (what later came to be known as) the VCG mechanism as a solution. However, in the presence of heterogeneous users and communication constraints, or in decentralized settings, implementing this mechanism places an unrealistic communication burden. In this paper, we propose a class of alternative mechanisms for the same problem as considered by Groves and Loeb, but with the added constraint of severely limited communication between users and the provisioning authority. When these mechanisms are used, efficient production is ensured as a Nash equilibrium outcome, for a broad class of users. Furthermore, a natural bid update strategy is shown to globally converge to efficient Nash equilibria. Also, upper bounds are provided for the revenue that can be generated by any individually rational mechanism that ensures efficient production at any Nash equilibrium. It is shown that there exist mechanisms in our class that achieve each of the bounds. An extension to multiple public goods with interrelated valuations is also presented.
A portable gamma camera for radiation monitoring

A compact gamma camera capable of imaging high energy gamma rays (up to 2 MeV) is currently being developed for nuclear industrial applications. This camera uses a three inch square position sensitive photomultiplier tube (PSPMT) [Hamamatsu, R-2487-05] coupled to a NaI(Tl) scintillator. The incoming gamma ray direction is determined by a segmented collimator. The camera exhibits energy resolutions of 17% FWHM at 122 keV and 12% FWHM at 662 keV. With the collimator design used, an angular resolution at the source plane of 6/spl deg/ FWHM was measured for 412 keV. Images have been obtained using gamma ray sources up to 1 MeV using this system. The image reconstruction technique used is presented in detail. Corrections for the non-uniformities across the face of the PSPMT are implemented to improve the spatial and spectral information content in the final image. >
Mean Three-Dimensional Circulation in the Northeast Tropical Pacific*

Abstract Historical XBT data are used to construct a mean climatology of the three-dimensional geostrophic circulation in the northeast tropical Pacific (southwest of Mexico and Central America) and are diagnosed based on linear dynamics forced with satellite scatterometer winds. Unlike the familiar central tropical Pacific, where the zonal scales are very large and the wind forcing nearly a function of latitude alone, the North Pacific east of about 120°W is strongly influenced by wind jets blowing through gaps in the Central American cordillera. The curl imposed by these wind jets imprints on the ocean, producing a distinctive pattern of thermocline topography and geostrophic currents that are consistent with the Sverdrup balance. Notably, the weakening of the North Equatorial Countercurrent near 110°W is due to the wind forcing. Given the observed stratification and wind stress curl, planetary vorticity conservation also determines the distribution of vertical velocity in the region, with about 3.5 Sv ...