cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Torsion of the Spermatic Cord—A Long Term Study of the Contralateral Testis

The object of the present investigation was to study the long-term effects of the unilateral torsion of the spermatic cord on the contralateral testis. Eighteen guinea pigs were divided into 3 groups. In group I of six animals, unilateral torsion of the spermatic cords was maintained until the time of sacrifice. In group II of six animals, torsion of the spermatic cords was maintained for 8–12h, then the spermatic cords were untwisted and the animals were maintained until the day of sacrifice. Group III six animals, received an injection of pentobarbital, which served as control. All animals were sacrificed after 16 months. Extensive light and electron microscopic studies were carried out. In the contralateral testes of the experimental group of animals, several degenerative changes were noted, which included excessive intraepithelial vacuolization, a loss of germ cells and the presence of tubules containing only Sertoli cells and a few spermatogonia. 10.6% and 19.5% seminiferous tubules were damaged in the contralateral testes of torsion maintained and the torsion reversed groups of animals, respectively in comparison to 3.1% tubular damage (indicated only by occassional presence of intraepithelial vacuoles and necrotic germ cells), in the control testis. It was concluded that long-term effect of unilateral torsion of the spermatic cord is permanent and irreversible in nature.
Nephrotoxicity From Angiographic Contrast Material: A Prospective Study

Abstract Three hundred and seventy-eight hospitalized patients undergoing nonrenal angiography were evaluated for subsequent changes in renal function. Acute renal failure was defined as a rise in the serum creatinine level of 1.0 mg/dl or more. Several factors that appeared to play no significant role in causing acute renal failure included: the volume of contrast material injected, the anatomic site of injection and the presence of a prior history of cardiovascular disease or diabetes mellitus. The single risk factor identified was the presence of preexistent azotemia (blood urea nitrogen of 30 mg/dl and serum creatinine of 1.5 mg/dl). Whereas nonazotemic patients had a 2 percent incidence of definite acute renal failure, patiente with chronic azotemia (mean blood urea nitrogen/creatinine = 47/2.3 mg/dl) had a 33 percent incidence. Three patients required short-term dialysis, and two required potassium-exchange resin therapy. No patient required permanent dialysis, and no patient died of acute renal failure. The persistence of a positive nephrogram 24 hours after angiography was a sensitive detector of a rise in the serum creatinine level although more expensive than the creatinine determination. While urine sediment analysis confirmed the diagnosis in many cases, it was relatively insensitive. Monitoring of urine volume proved to be of little value. We recommend a screening serum creatinine determination 24 to 48 hours after infusion of angiographic contrast material in azotemic patients.
The Impact of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on Competitiveness, Bribery, and Investment

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prohibits U.S.-related firms from making bribes abroad. We analyze the FCPA’s effects in a model of competition between a U.S. and foreign firm for contracts in a host country. If the FCPA only applies to the U.S. firm, it reduces that firm’s competitiveness and either increases bribery by the foreign firm or reduces overall investment. If the FCPA also applies to foreign firms, it reduces total bribery, and in host countries with high corruption levels, it increases total investment. The model suggests that the FCPA will deter bribery and stimulate investment while not disadvantaging U.S. firms if its enforcement is aimed at firms who engaged in bribery in highly corrupt countries and whose main competitors are also subject to the FCPA.
Spread of entanglement in a Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev chain

We study the spread of Renyi entropy between two halves of a Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) chain of Majorana fermions, prepared in a thermofield double (TFD) state. The SYK chain model is a model of chaotic many-body systems, which describes a one-dimensional lattice of Majorana fermions, with spatially local random quartic interaction. We find that for integer Renyi index n > 1, the Renyi entanglement entropy saturates at a parametrically smaller value than expected. This implies that the TFD state of the SYK chain does not rapidly thermalize, despite being maximally chaotic: instead, it rapidly approaches a prethermal state. We compare our results to the signatures of thermalization observed in other quenches in the SYK model, and to intuition from nearly-AdS2 gravity.
Energy barriers, demons, and minimum energy operation of electronic devices

The presence of thermal noise dictates that an energy barrier is needed to preserve a binary state. Therefore, all electronic devices contain at least one energy barrier to control electron flow. The barrier properties determine the operating characteristics of electronic devices. Furthermore, changes in the barrier shape require changes in charge density. Operation of all charge transport devices includes charging/discharging capacitances to change barrier height. We analyze energy dissipation for several schemes of charging capacitors. A basic assumption of Reversible Computing is that the computing system is completely isolated from the thermal bath. An isolated system is a mathematical abstraction never perfectly realized in practice. Errors due to thermal excitations are equivalent to information erasure, and thus computation dissipates energy. Another source of energy dissipation is due to the need of measurement and control. To analyze this side of the problem, the Maxwell's Demon is a useful abstraction. We hold that apparent "energy savings" in models of adiabatic circuits result from neglecting the total energy needed by other parts of the system to implement the circuit.
Financial Advertising in the Second Generation of Behavioral Finance

Financial economists writing about financial advertising often describe them as fluff at best and misleading or fraudulent at worst. This description typifies the first generation of behavioral fin...
Scaling Personalization: Exploring the Implementation of an Academic and Social-Emotional Innovation in High Schools

Scaling in educational settings has tended to focus on replication of external programs with less focus on the nature of adaptation. In this article, we explore the scaling of Personalization for A...
Mission HydroSci: a progress report on a transformational role playing game for science learning

Mission HydroSci is a game-based 3D virtual environment for enacting transformational role-playing for middle school science students. Student-players will be engaged in a narrative about needing to investigate water resources and use scientific argumentation to complete missions critical to the survival and accomplishments of the members of their scientific enterprise. Our poster presents our progress in years 1 and 2 of a funded project to integrate pedagogical and gameplay objectives, and build mechanisms for purposeful player engagement and activity.
March Madness: NCAA Tournament Participation and College Alcohol Use

We examine the impact of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on college students’ drinking behavior using a nationally representative sample of American institutions. While success in intercollegiate athletics may augment the visibility of a university to prospective students and thereby benefit the school, it may also have a negative effect on the current student body by influencing risky behavior, especially the consumption of alcohol commonly associated with game day festivities. Using the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study (CAS), we find that a school’s participation in the NCAA Tournament is associated with a 30% increase in binge drinking and a 9% increase in self-reported drunk driving by male students at that school. The results suggest that this increase is not offset by less alcohol use before or after the tournament (intertemporal substitution) but instead seems to represent a net increase in the amount of alcohol consumed by students at participating schools.
The effect of fluid and solid properties on the auxetic behavior of porous materials having rock-like microstructures

Abstract Materials with a negative Poisson's Ratio (PR), known as auxetics, exhibit the counterintuitive behavior of becoming wider when uniaxially stretched and thinner when compressed. Though negative PR is characteristic of polymer foams or cellular solids, tight as well as highly porous rocks have also been reported to exhibit negative PR. The paper proposes a novel auxetic structure based on pore-space configuration observed in rocks. We developed a theoretical auxetic 3D model consisting of rotating rigid bodies. To alleviate the mechanical assumption of rotating bodies, the theoretical model was modified to include crack-like features being represented by intersecting, elliptic cylinders. We then used a 3D printer to create a physical version of the modified model, whose PR was tested. We also numerically explored how the compressibility of fluids located in the pore-space of the modified model as well as how the elastic properties of the material from which the model is made of affect its auxetic behavior. We conclude that for a porous medium composed of a single material saturated with a single fluid (a) the more compliant the fluid is and (b) the lower the PR of the solid material, the lower the PR value of the composite material.
Acute White-Matter Abnormalities in Sports-Related Concussion: A Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study from the NCAA-DoD CARE Consortium

Sport-related concussion (SRC) is an important public health issue. While standardized assessment tools are useful in the clinical management of acute concussion, the underlying pathophysiology of SRC and the time course of physiological recovery after injury remain unclear. In this study, we used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to detect white-matter alterations in football players within 48 hours after SRC. As part of the NCAA-DoD CARE Consortium study of SRC, 30 American football players diagnosed with acute concussion, and 28 matched controls received clinical assessments and underwent advanced MRI scans. To avoid selection bias and partial voluming effects, whole-brain skeletonized white matter was examined via tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) to investigate between group differences in DTI metrics and their associations with clinical outcome measures. Mean diffusivity was significantly higher in the brain white matter of the concussed athletes, particularly in frontal and sub-frontal long white-...
Taking Stock of the Ability to Change: The Effect of Prior Experience

In aiming to understand why teams differ in their ability to adapt to new contexts, I explore the extent to which prior experience with a previous practice impacts the ability to properly execute a new organizational practice. I generate predictions by integrating the organizational learning and path dependency literatures. To test my predictions, I use internal data from 294 stores of a large retail chain that implemented a new restocking process in its stores. Initial findings show that, on average, stores dramatically improve execution performance over time, and employee experience with the prior practice moderates the effect. Stores where employees have greater exposure to the old practice perform significantly worse than other stores at the outset—consistent with the notion of “competency traps.” However, these stores also learn more quickly, which I suggest may be the result of increased efficiency in their coordination and communication when learning the new process.
Toxoplasma gondii-positive human sera recognise intracellular tachyzoites and bradyzoites with diverse patterns of immunoreactivity

Antibody detection assays have long been the first line test to confirm infection with the zoonotic parasite Toxoplasma gondii. However, challenges exist with serological diagnosis, especially distinguishing between acute, latent and reactivation disease states. The sensitivity and specificity of serological tests might be improved by testing for antibodies against parasite antigens other than those typically found on the parasite surface during the acute stage. To this end, we analysed the reactivity profile of human sera, identified as positive for anti-Toxoplasma gondii IgG in traditional assays, by indirect immunofluorescence reactivity to acute stage intracellular tachyzoites and in vitro-induced latent stage bradyzoites. The majority of anti-Toxoplasma gondii IgG positive sera recognised both intracellularly replicating tachyzoites and in vitro-induced bradyzoites with varying patterns of immune-reactivity. Furthermore, anti-bradyzoite antibodies were not detected in sera that were IgM-positive/IgG-negative. These results demonstrate that anti-Toxoplasma gondii-positive sera may contain antibodies to a variety of antigens in addition to those traditionally used in serological tests, and suggest the need for further investigations into the utility of anti-bradyzoite-specific antibodies to aid in diagnosis of Toxoplasma gondii infection.
Application of Lean Principles to Neurosurgical Procedures: The Case of Lumbar Spinal Fusion Surgery, a Literature Review and Pilot Series.

BACKGROUND Delivery of higher value healthcare is an ultimate government and public goal. Improving efficiency by standardization of surgical steps can improve patient outcomes, reduce costs, and lead to higher value healthcare. Lean principles and methodology have improved timeliness in perioperative medicine; however, process mapping of surgery itself has not been performed. OBJECTIVE To apply Plan/Do/Study/Act (PDSA) cycles methodology to lumbar posterior instrumented fusion (PIF) using lean principles to create a standard work flow, identify waste, remove intraoperative variability, and examine feasibility among pilot cases. METHODS Process maps for 5 PIF procedures were created by a PDSA cycle from 1 faculty neurosurgeon at 1 institution. Plan, modularize PIF into basic components; Do, map and time components; Study, analyze results; and Act, identify waste. Waste inventories, spaghetti diagrams, and chartings of time spent per step were created. Procedural steps were broadly defined in order to compare steps despite the variability in PIF and were analyzed with box and whisker plots to evaluate variability. RESULTS Temporal variabilities in duration of decompression vs closure and hardware vs closure were significantly different (P = .003). Variability in procedural step duration was smallest for closure and largest for exposure. Wastes including waiting and instrument defects accounted for 15% and 66% of all waste, respectively. CONCLUSION This pilot series demonstrates that lean principles can standardize surgical workflows and identify waste. Though time and labor intensive, lean principles and PDSA methodology can be applied to operative steps, not just the perioperative period.
Loci That Control Nonlinear, Interdependent Responses to Combinations of Drought and Nitrogen Limitation

Crop improvement must accelerate to feed an increasing human population in the face of environmental changes. Including anticipated climatic changes with genetic architecture in breeding programs could better optimize improvement strategies. Combinations of drought and nitrogen limitation already occur world-wide. We therefore analyzed the genetic architecture underlying the response of Zea mays to combinations of water and nitrogen stresses. Recombinant inbreds were subjected to nine combinations of the two stresses using an optimized response surface design, and their growth was measured. Three-dimensional response surfaces were fit globally and to each polymorphic allele to determine which genetic markers were associated with different response surfaces. Three quantitative trait loci that produced nonlinear surfaces were mapped. To better understand the physiology of the response, we developed a model that reproduced the shapes of the surfaces, their most characteristic feature. The model contains two components that each combine the nitrogen and water inputs. The relative weighting of the two components and the inputs is governed by five parameters, and each QTL affects all five parameters.We estimated the model's parameter values for the experimental surfaces using a mesh of points that covered the surfaces' most distinctive regions. Surfaces computed using these values reproduced the experimental surfaces well, as judged by three different criteria at the mesh points. The modeling and shape comparison techniques used here can be extended to other complex, high-dimensional, nonlinear phenotypes. We encourage the application of our findings and methods to experiments that mix crop protection measures, stresses, or both, on elite and landrace germplasm.
In ineffective esophageal motility, failed swallows are more functionally relevant than weak swallows.

BACKGROUND Esophageal pressure topography (EPT) diagnosis of ineffective esophageal motility (IEM) can be non-specific with unclear clinical significance. AIMS To determine whether peristaltic vigor or lower esophageal sphincter (LES) integrity is associated with poor clearance and acid reflux in IEM. METHODS Bolus clearance on high-resolution impedance manometry (HRIM) and available reflux studies in patients with IEM were retrospectively reviewed. Bolus clearance was assessed using both line tracing and colored contour methods on HRIM. EPT parameters, bolus clearance, and acid reflux variables were explored. KEY RESULTS Eighty-eight patients with IEM were included. Bolus clearance occurred in 71% of all swallows, and 55.7% of patients had complete bolus transit (CBT, bolus clearance in ≥80% of swallows). Bolus clearance was impaired in swallows with distal contractile integral (DCI) <100 mmHg•cm•s compared to DCI 100-450 (0.43 vs 0.79, P < .0001). A cutoff at DCI 100 mmHg•cm•s was associated with clearance with an accuracy of 76% compared to 49% at DCI 450 (P = .0001 for both). A median DCI <100 was associated with a higher Eckardt score (9 vs 3, P = .03), and on reflux testing available in 47 patients, with abnormal acid exposure time (P = .002). Peristaltic reserve (PR) defined as (DCI of multiple rapid swallow/median DCI of wet swallows), integrated relaxation pressure, and resting lower esophageal sphincter pressure were not associated with clearance or acid exposure. CONCLUSIONS & INFERENCES Failed peristalsis, as defined by DCI <100 mmHg•cm•s, is associated with impaired bolus clearance and more severe dysphagia in IEM, and likely abnormal acid exposure.
Functions that preserve p-randomness

We show that polynomial-time randomness (p-randomness) is preserved under a variety of familiar operations, including addition and multiplication by a nonzero polynomial-time computable real number. These results follow from a general theorem: If [email protected]?R is an open interval, f:I->R is a function, and [email protected]?I is p-random, then f(r) is p-random provided1.f is p-computable on the dyadic rational points in I, and 2.f varies sufficiently at r, i.e., there exists a real constant C>0 such that either(@[email protected]?I-{r})[f(x)-f(r)x-r>=C] or(@[email protected]?I-{r})[f(x)-f(r)x-r=<-C]. Our theorem implies in particular that any analytic function about a p-computable point whose power series has uniformly p-computable coefficients preserves p-randomness in its open interval of absolute convergence. Such functions include all the familiar functions from first-year calculus.
Kinetic Dissection of the Pre-Existing Conformational Equilibrium in the Trypsin Fold

Structural biology has recently documented the conformational plasticity of the trypsin fold for both the protease and zymogen in terms of a pre-existing equilibrium between closed (E∗) and open (E) forms of the active site region. How such plasticity is manifested in solution and affects ligand recognition by the protease and zymogen is poorly understood in quantitative terms. Here we dissect the E∗-E equilibrium with stopped-flow kinetics in the presence of excess ligand or macromolecule. Using the clotting protease thrombin and its zymogen precursor prethrombin-2 as relevant models we resolve the relative distribution of the E∗ and E forms and the underlying kinetic rates for their interconversion. In the case of thrombin, the E∗ and E forms are distributed in a 1:4 ratio and interconvert on a time scale of 45 ms. In the case of prethrombin-2, the equilibrium is shifted strongly (10:1 ratio) in favor of the closed E∗ form and unfolds over a faster time scale of 4.5 ms. The distribution of E∗ and E forms observed for thrombin and prethrombin-2 indicates that zymogen activation is linked to a significant shift in the pre-existing equilibrium between closed and open conformations that facilitates ligand binding to the active site. These findings broaden our mechanistic understanding of how conformational transitions control ligand recognition by thrombin and its zymogen precursor prethrombin-2 and have direct relevance to other members of the trypsin fold.
The Benefits of Center-Based Care and Full-Day Kindergarten for School Attendance in the Early Grades.

School absenteeism has been recognized as a growing issue in the United States, especially during the early elementary school years when it is most pervasive. Accordingly, there has been growing interest in understanding why children are absent and whether certain early educational experiences can reduce children’s rates of school absences. The objective of this investigation was to estimate the additive and multiplicative benefits of children’s early school experiences in preschool (center-based care) and kindergarten (center-based care and full day kindergarten enrollment) for patterns of school absenteeism in kindergarten and first grade. To address these objectives, data were drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2010–2011 and included 12,835 children and families. Children who attended center-based care in preschool and kindergarten had fewer missed school days and were less likely to be chronically absent in kindergarten and first grade. Children in full-day kindergarten programs had more absences by the end of kindergarten, but fewer absences by the end of the following year. No specific combination of early school arrangements was most beneficial. Instead, children who experienced more early educational arrangements were generally absent less frequently and these benefits were larger in first grade than in kindergarten. When taken together, findings underscore the importance of formal early educational programs and opportunities on longer-term school attendance.
Quantifying the impact of sulfate geoengineering on mortality from air quality and UV-B exposure

Abstract Sulfate geoengineering is a proposed method to partially counteract the global radiative forcing from accumulated greenhouse gases, potentially mitigating some impacts of climate change. While likely to be effective in slowing increases in average temperatures and extreme precipitation, there are known side-effects and potential unintended consequences which have not been quantified. One such consequence is the direct human health impact. Given the significant uncertainties, we take a sensitivity approach to explore the mechanisms and range of potential impacts. Using a chemistry-transport model, we quantify the steady-state response of three public health risks to 1 °C global mean surface cooling. We separate impacts into those which are “radiative forcing-driven”, associated with climate change “reversal” through modification of global radiative forcing, and those “direct impacts” associated uniquely with using sulfate geoengineering to achieve this. We find that the direct (non-radiative forcing driven) impact is a decrease in global mortality of ∼13,000 annually. Here the benefits of reduced ozone exposure exceed increases in mortality due to UV and particulate matter, as each unit of injected sulfur incurs 1/25th the particulate matter exposure of a unit of sulfur emitted from surface sources. This reduction is exceeded by radiative forcing-driven health impacts resulting from using sulfate geoengineering to offset 1 °C of surface temperature rise. Increased particulate matter formation at these lower temperatures results in ∼39,000 mortalities which would have been avoided at higher temperatures. As such we estimate that sulfate geoengineering in 2040 would cause ∼26,000 (95% interval: −30,000 to +79,000) early deaths annually relative to the same year without geoengineering, largely due to the loss of health benefits associated with CO2-induced warming. These results account only for impacts due to changes in air quality and UV-B flux. They do not account for non-mortality impacts or changes in atmospheric dynamics, and must be considered in the wider context of other climate change impacts such as heatwave frequency and sea level rise.
GraphRNN: Generating Realistic Graphs with Deep Auto-regressive Models

Modeling and generating graphs is fundamental for studying networks in biology, engineering, and social sciences. However, modeling complex distributions over graphs and then efficiently sampling from these distributions is challenging due to the non-unique, high-dimensional nature of graphs and the complex, non-local dependencies that exist between edges in a given graph. Here we propose GraphRNN, a deep autoregressive model that addresses the above challenges and approximates any distribution of graphs with minimal assumptions about their structure. GraphRNN learns to generate graphs by training on a representative set of graphs and decomposes the graph generation process into a sequence of node and edge formations, conditioned on the graph structure generated so far. In order to quantitatively evaluate the performance of GraphRNN, we introduce a benchmark suite of datasets, baselines and novel evaluation metrics based on Maximum Mean Discrepancy, which measure distances between sets of graphs. Our experiments show that GraphRNN significantly outperforms all baselines, learning to generate diverse graphs that match the structural characteristics of a target set, while also scaling to graphs 50 times larger than previous deep models.
Synchronous and asynchronous teacher electronic feedback and learner uptake in ESL composition

Abstract We know little about how teacher feedback and student revisions are influenced when feedback is given electronically. This study contributes to a better understanding of teacher electronic feedback (TEF) in second language writing by investigating its effectiveness in face-to-face and online ESL writing classes in which TEF was offered asynchronously, as Word comments and track changes in electronic drafts, as well as in synchronous text chats between teachers and students. TEF was extracted from 93 drafts written by 64 students and 93 chats in which they conferenced with their teachers. Students’ perceptions about TEF were then solicited via a survey. Additionally, the three participating teachers were interviewed about their use of TEF. Findings show that most TEF was successfully implemented or attempted, and that it was focused on content. Important conclusions are that TEF is effective, and synchronous TEF effectively reinforces asynchronous TEF.
Simulating Gaussian Stationary Processes With Unbounded Spectra

This article proposes a new method for simulating a Gaussian process, whose spectrum diverges at one or multiple frequencies in [0, 1/2] (not necessarily at zero). The method uses a generalization of the discrete wavelet transform, the discrete wavelet packet transform (DWPT), and requires only explicit knowledge of the spectral density function of the process—not its autocovariance sequence. An orthonormal basis is selected such that the spectrum of the wavelet coefficients is as at as possible across specific frequency intervals, thus producing approximately uncorrelated wavelet coefficients. This method is compared to a popular time-domain technique based on the Levinson–Durbin recursions. Simulations show that the DWPT-based method performs comparably to the time-domain technique for a variety of sample sizes and processes—at significantly reduced computational time. The degree of approximation and reduction in computer time may be adjusted through selection of the orthonormal basis and wavelet filter.
Insights into global planktonic diatom diversity: the importance of comparisons between phylogenetically equivalent units that account for time

Metabarcoding has offered unprecedented insights into microbial diversity. In many studies, short DNA sequences are binned into consecutively lower Linnaean ranks, and ranked groups (e.g., genera) are the units of biodiversity analyses. These analyses assume that Linnaean ranks are biologically meaningful and that identically ranked groups are comparable. We used a metabarcode dataset for marine planktonic diatoms to illustrate the limits of this approach. We found that the 20 most abundant marine planktonic diatom genera ranged in age from 4 to 134 million years, indicating the non-equivalence of genera because some have had more time to diversify than others. However, species richness was largely independent of genus age, suggesting that disparities in species richness among genera were better explained by variation in rates of speciation and extinction. Taxonomic classifications often do not reflect phylogeny, so genus-level analyses can include phylogenetically nested genera, further confounding rank-based analyses. These results underscore the indispensable role of phylogeny in understanding patterns of microbial diversity.
Robot Motion Planning in Learned Latent Spaces

This letter presents latent sampling-based motion planning (L-SBMP), a methodology toward computing motion plans for complex robotic systems by learning a plannable latent representation. Recent works in control of robotic systems have effectively leveraged local, low-dimensional embeddings of high-dimensional dynamics. In this letter, we combine these recent advances with techniques from sampling-based motion planning (SBMP) in order to design a methodology capable of planning for high-dimensional robotic systems beyond the reach of traditional approaches (e.g., humanoids, or even systems where planning occurs in the visual space). Specifically, the learned latent space is constructed through an autoencoding network, a dynamics network, and a collision checking network, which mirror the three main algorithmic primitives of SBMP, namely state sampling, local steering, and collision checking. Notably, these networks can be trained through only raw data of the system's states and actions along with a supervising collision checker. Building upon these networks, an RRT-based algorithm is used to plan motions directly in the latent space —we refer to this exploration algorithm as learned latent RRT. This algorithm globally explores the latent space and is capable of generalizing to new environments. The overall methodology is demonstrated on two planning problems, namely a visual planning problem, whereby planning happens in the visual (pixel) space, and a humanoid robot planning problem.
Posterior Fusiform and Midfusiform Contribute to Distinct Stages of Facial Expression Processing

Though the fusiform is well-established as a key node in the face perception network, its role in facial expression processing remains unclear, due to competing models and discrepant findings. To help resolve this debate, we recorded from 17 subjects with intracranial electrodes implanted in face sensitive patches of the fusiform. Multivariate classification analysis showed that facial expression information is represented in fusiform activity and in the same regions that represent identity, though with a smaller effect size. Examination of the spatiotemporal dynamics revealed a functional distinction between posterior fusiform and midfusiform expression coding, with posterior fusiform showing an early peak of facial expression sensitivity at around 180 ms after subjects viewed a face and midfusiform showing a later and extended peak between 230 and 460 ms. These results support the hypothesis that the fusiform plays a role in facial expression perception and highlight a qualitative functional distinction between processing in posterior fusiform and midfusiform, with each contributing to temporally segregated stages of expression perception.
ID Preserving Generative Adversarial Network for Partial Latent Fingerprint Reconstruction

Performing recognition tasks using latent fingerprint samples is often challenging for automated identification systems due to poor quality, distortion, and partially missing information from the input samples. We propose a direct latentfingerprint reconstruction model based on conditional generative adversarial networks $(cGANs)$.Two modifications are applied to the cGANto adapt itfor the task of latent fingerprint reconstruction. First, the model is forced to generate three additional maps to the ridge map to ensure that the orientation and frequency information are considered in the generation process, and prevent the model from filling large missing areas and generating erroneous minutiae. Second, a perceptual IDpreservation approach is developed to force the generator to preserve the IDinformation during the reconstruction process. Using a synthetically generated database of latent fingerprints, the deep network learns to predict missing information from the input latent samples. We evaluate the proposed method in combination with two different fingerprint matching algorithms on several publicly available latent fingerprint datasets. Weachieved rank-10 accuracy of 88.02% on the IIIT-Delhi latent fingerprint database for the task of latent-to-latent matching and rank-50accuracy of 70.89% on the IIIT-Delhi MOLF database for the task of latent-to-sensor matching. Experimental results of matching reconstructed samples in both latent-to-sensor and latent-to-latent frameworks indicate that the proposed method significantly increases the matching accuracy of the fingerprint recognition systems for the latent samples.
Mapping History: Orienting Museum Visitors across Time and Space

At historic open-air museums, many of the “objects” under investigation are buildings and landscapes that could tell multiple, overlapping narratives: i.e., they were built/manipulated over the course of years by different peoples and groups who used them for varying purposes. In this article, we address this challenge by proposing the use of interactive maps to orient visitors in time, space, and both time and space. We conducted a series of collaborative-design workshops to elicit recommendations. From the analysis of the transcripts, we identified four design elements and two functionalities that could be used for these purposes. We then conducted a study at an open-air museum to compare the extent to which these design elements and functionalities (and a prototype that integrates them) allow visitors to orient themselves in time and space, and to notice change over time.
Robust Model Predictive Control with Adjustable Uncertainty Sets

We present Robust Model Predictive Control (MPC) problems with adjustable uncertainty sets. In contrast to standard Robust MPC problems with known uncertainty sets, we treat the uncertainty sets in our problems as additional decision variables. In particular, given a metric for adjusting the uncertainty sets, we address the question of determining the optimal size of those uncertainty sets, while ensuring robust constraint satisfaction. The focus of this paper is to ensure constraint satisfaction over an infinite horizon, also known as persistent feasibility. We show that, similar as in standard Robust MPC, persistent feasibility can be guaranteed if the terminal set is an invariant set with respect to both the state of the system and the adjustable uncertainty set. We also present an algorithm for computing such invariant sets, and illustrate the effectiveness of our approach in a cooperative adaptive cruise control application.
Complex Evolution Recurrent Neural Networks (ceRNNs)

Unitary Evolution Recurrent Neural Networks (uRNNs) have three attractive properties: (a) the unitary property, (b) the complex-valued nature, and (c) their efficient linear operators [1]. The literature so far does not address - how critical is the unitary property of the model? Furthermore, uRNNs have not been evaluated on large tasks. To study these shortcomings, we propose the complex evolution Recurrent Neural Networks (ceRNNs), which is similar to uRNNs but drops the unitary property selectively. On a simple multivariate linear regression task, we illustrate that dropping the constraints improves the learning trajectory. In copy memory task, ceRNNs and uRNNs perform identically, demonstrating that their superior performance over LSTMs is due to complex-valued nature and their linear operators. In a large scale real-world speech recognition, we find that pre-pending a uRNN degrades the performance of our baseline LSTM acoustic models, while pre-pending a ceRNN improves the performance over the baseline by 0.8% absolute WER.
Weather modification: a controversial issue on the Texas High Plains

Though weather modification has a long history in Texas, dating back to the early 1890s, major efforts did not begin until the post-WW II era, continuing sporadically to the present, with most operations centered in arid and semi-arid West Texas. Weather modification technology, despite limited scientific knowledge of the direct and indirect consequences, has evolved faster than law on the subject. Poorly-defined rights to atmospheric moisture and problems of proving causation are among the many unresolved legal issues. In Texas, though weather modification has been under increasingly strict state regulation since 1967 and public hearings and elections may be held in affected areas, disputes between proponents and opponents have not diminished. This paper examines the legal, political and social aspects of this continuing controversy, especially as they relate to rainfall augmentation and hail suppression on the Texas High Plains.
Reinforced Temporal Attention and Split-Rate Transfer for Depth-Based Person Re-identification

We address the problem of person re-identification from commodity depth sensors. One challenge for depth-based recognition is data scarcity. Our first contribution addresses this problem by introducing split-rate RGB-to-Depth transfer, which leverages large RGB datasets more effectively than popular fine-tuning approaches. Our transfer scheme is based on the observation that the model parameters at the bottom layers of a deep convolutional neural network can be directly shared between RGB and depth data while the remaining layers need to be fine-tuned rapidly. Our second contribution enhances re-identification for video by implementing temporal attention as a Bernoulli-Sigmoid unit acting upon frame-level features. Since this unit is stochastic, the temporal attention parameters are trained using reinforcement learning. Extensive experiments validate the accuracy of our method in person re-identification from depth sequences. Finally, in a scenario where subjects wear unseen clothes, we show large performance gains compared to a state-of-the-art model which relies on RGB data.
Fractional Chern insulator edges and layer-resolved lattice contacts

Fractional Chern insulators (FCIs) realized in fractional quantum Hall systems subject to a periodic potential are topological phases of matter for which space group symmetries play an important role. In particular, lattice dislocations in an FCI can host non-Abelian topological defects, known as genons. Genons can increase the ground-state degeneracy of the system and are thus potentially useful for topological quantum computing. In this work, we study FCI edges and how they can be used to detect genons. We find that translation symmetry can impose a quantized momentum difference between the edge electrons of a partially filled Chern band. We propose layer-resolved lattice contacts, which utilize this momentum difference to selectively contact a particular FCI edge electron. The relative current between FCI edge electrons can then be used to detect the presence of genons in the bulk FCI. Recent experiments have demonstrated graphene is a viable platform to study FCI physics. We describe how the lattice contacts proposed here could be implemented in graphene subject to an artificial lattice, thereby outlining a path forward for experimental dectection of non-Abelian topological defects.
Science and applications of wafer-scale crystalline carbon nanotube films prepared through controlled vacuum filtration.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) make an ideal one-dimensional (1D) material platform for the exploration of novel physical phenomena under extremely strong quantum confinement. The 1D character of electron...
Operationalizing Humility: A Model of Situational Humility for Christian College Student Leaders

This research study explored how college student leaders operationalize humility in their actions and what leads individuals to act with situational humility. Using a grounded theory approach, the ...
Robotic Process Automation in Public Accounting

SYNOPSIS We investigate the implementation of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software in public accounting by interviewing RPA leaders at Big 4 firms. RPA software automates the input, processing...
Brush-First and ROMP-Out with Functional (Macro)monomers: Method Development, Structural Investigations, and Applications of an Expanded Brush-Arm Star Polymer Platform.

The efficient synthesis of complex functional polymeric nanomaterials is often challenging. Ru-initiated ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) of multivalent macromonomers followed by cross-linking to form brush-arm star (BASP) polymers enables access to well-defined nanostructures with diverse functionality. This “brush-first” method leaves active Ru in the BASP microgel core, which could potentially be used in a subsequent “ROMP-out” (RO) step to introduce further modifications to the BASP structure via the addition of (macro)monomers. Here, we study this RO approach in depth. The efficiency of RO is assessed for a variety of BASP compositions using a combination of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and gel permeation chromatography. To demonstrate the modularity of the RO process, arylboronic acid-functionalized BASPs were prepared; uptake of these RO-BASPs into hypersialylated cancer cells was enhanced relative to non-functionalized BASPs as determined by flow cytometry and fluoresc...
Debt Relief and Slow Recovery: A Decade after Lehman

Abstract We follow a representative panel of millions of consumers in the United States from 2007 to 2017 and document new facts on the long-term effects of the Great Recession. There were about six million foreclosures over this period. Only a quarter of foreclosed households regained homeownership, taking an average four years to do so. This persistent loss of homeownership accounts for most of the decline in the U.S. homeownership rate. Despite massive stimulus and debt relief policies, house prices, consumption, and unemployment remained below precrisis levels in about half of the zip codes in the United States Regions that recovered to precrisis levels took on average four to five years. Regional variation in the extent and speed of recovery is strongly and persistently associated with frictions affecting the pass-through of lower interest rates and debt relief to households.
Decoding Calcium Signaling Dynamics during Drosophila Wing Disc Development.

Abstract The robust specification of organ development depends on coordinated cell-cell communication. This process requires signal integration among multiple pathways, relying on second messengers such as calcium ions. Calcium signaling encodes a significant portion of the cellular state by regulating transcription factors, enzymes, and cytoskeletal proteins. However, the relationships between the inputs specifying cell and organ development, calcium signaling dynamics, and final organ morphology are poorly understood. Here, we have designed a quantitative image-analysis pipeline for decoding organ-level calcium signaling. With this pipeline, we extracted spatiotemporal features of calcium signaling dynamics during the development of the Drosophila larval wing disc, a genetic model for organogenesis. We identified specific classes of wing phenotypes that resulted from calcium signaling pathway perturbations, including defects in gross morphology, vein differentiation, and overall size. We found four qualitative classes of calcium signaling activity. These classes can be ordered based on agonist stimulation strength Gαq-mediated signaling. In vivo calcium signaling dynamics depend on both receptor tyrosine kinase/phospholipase C γ and G protein-coupled receptor/phospholipase C β activities. We found that spatially patterned calcium dynamics correlate with known differential growth rates between anterior and posterior compartments. Integrated calcium signaling activity decreases with increasing tissue size, and it responds to morphogenetic perturbations that impact organ growth. Together, these findings define how calcium signaling dynamics integrate upstream inputs to mediate multiple response outputs in developing epithelial organs.
Endothelial Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Mitigate Radiation-Induced Hematopoietic Injury

Purpose Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are shed vesicles that bear a combination of nucleic acids and proteins. EVs are becoming recognized as a mode of cell-to-cell communication. Because hematopoietic stem cells reside in proximity to endothelial cells (ECs), we investigated whether EC-derived EVs could regulate hematopoietic stem cell regeneration after ionizing radiation. Methods and Materials We generated EVs derived from primary murine marrow ECs. We sought to determine the response of irradiated hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells to syngeneic or allogeneic EVs in culture assays. Starting 24 hours after either sublethal or lethal irradiation, mice were treated with EVs or saline or cultured primary marrow endothelial cells to determine the hematopoietic response in vivo. Results We demonstrate that EVs bear nuclear material and express EC-specific markers. Treatment with EVs promoted cell expansion and increased the number of colony-forming units compared to irradiated, hematopoietic cell cultures treated with cytokines alone. After total body irradiation, EV-treated mice displayed preserved marrow cellularity, marrow vessel integrity, and prolonged overall survival compared with controls treated with saline. Treatment of irradiated hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs) with EVs from different genetic strains showed results similar to treatment of HSPCs from syngeneic EVs. Mechanistically, treatment of irradiated HSPCs with EVs resulted in decreased levels of annexin V+ apoptotic cell death, which is mediated in part by tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1. Conclusions Our findings show that syngeneic or allogeneic EVs could serve as cell-derived therapy to deliver physiologic doses of nucleic acids and growth factors to hematopoietic cells to accelerate hematopoietic regeneration.
Chapter 4 – Planning: Developing Business and Acquisition Plans: Phases 1 and 2 of the Acquisition Process

This chapter focuses on the first two phases of the acquisition process—building the business and acquisition plans—and on tools commonly used to evaluate, display, and communicate information to key constituencies both inside (e.g., board of directors and management) and outside (e.g., lenders and stockholders) of the corporation.