cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Expressing intratask parallelism in discrete event simulation models

For parallel and distributed simulation, a model is usually defined to consist of independent tasks which synchronize by communicating time-stamped events/messages. In this paper, we define a discrete event simulation modeling paradigm which supports explicit expression of intratask parallelism, i.e., parallelism within a task. In this paradigm a task is defined by a set of rules whose actions are triggered based on multiple simultaneous event occurrences. New ways of expressing parallelism in a model emerges because (1) actions of multiple rules can be executed in parallel and (2) an action of a rule can be defined by data parallelism on parameter values of simultaneous event occurrences. The usefulness of the constructs of our paradigm is illustrated by an example. >
Citizen Governance: Leading American Communities into the 21st Century

(1999). Citizen Governance: Leading American Communities into the 21st Century. Administrative Theory & Praxis: Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 384-386.
Abstract 295: Microsomal Prostaglandin E Synthase 1 Deficiency Attenuates Diet-Induced Obesity and Promotes the Formation of Brite Adipose Tissue

Mice deficient in adipocyte specific phospholipases A2 have a marked reduction in prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) levels and are resistant to the development of diet-induced obesity. Clinical data suggest that obesity is a chronic low grade inflammatory disease, characterized by the influx of inflammatory cells into the adipose tissue. During a chronic inflammatory state, microsomal prostaglandin E synthase-1 (mPGES-1) is the primary source of PGE2. We have previously demonstrated that mice deficient in mPGES-1 (KO) have a marked reduction in body weight gain and adiposity compared to littermate controls (WT) fed a high fat (HF) diet with a concomitant reduction in urinary PGE2 concentrations and an increase in urinary PGI2 concentrations. The reduction in weight gain is not for accounted by alterations in food intake or locomotor activity. However, resting metabolic rate, measured by indirect calorimetry, was increased in KO mice compared to WT fed a HF diet. Moreover, body temperature was also increased in KO mice compared to WT mice (37.0 ± 0.2 vs 35.8 ± 0.2; P
The effect of transport on the physiologic stability of neonates with ductal-dependent single-ventricle lesions

AbstractObjective: To compare the status of infants with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) or pulmonary atresia-hypoplastic right heart (PA-HRH) before and following transport using the validated Transport Risk Index of Physiologic Stability (TRIPS) score.Methods: In this retrospective review of infants with HLHS or PA-HRH transported to a Children’s Hospital by a pediatric transport team, an increase in TRIPS score (temperature, blood pressure, respiratory status, and response to stimuli) following transport was defined as deterioration. Statistical analyses included t-test (paired and independent), χ2, and McNemar’s tests for comparisons between groups with and without deterioration and before and after transport.Results: Our cohort [n = 64; 39 (61%) HLHS and 25 (39%) PA-HRH] was predominantly female (61%), black (56%), and diagnosed antenatally (78%). Median transport time was 20 (10–30) min and age was <12 h in 48 (75%) infants. TRIPS scores worsened after transport in 24 (37.5%) infants, due to ...
Fine-Needle Aspiration for Thyroid Nodules

Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) is a critical component of thyroid nodule evaluation. This minimally invasive test was initially performed with palpation guidance; however, today the vast majority of these procedures are performed with ultrasound guidance. This chapter will review ultrasound-guided thyroid nodule FNA including the recommended preprocedural planning and procedure setup. Different techniques for obtaining samples will also be described. Although uncommon, the potential complications will be discussed.
Shadow and Myth: On Stranger Inside and Moonlight

This chapter addresses Cheryl Dunye’s Stranger Inside (2001), a made-for-television film about a young black lesbian prisoner seeking her own incarcerated mother by transferring to a higher security facility. It explores Stranger within the context of Dunye’s meditation on the psycho-politics of black kinship as a matrix of disinheritance. Black female masculinity here questions the relation between a state-sanctioned interdiction of black kinship and the willingness to suffer or inflict violence to undo its effects. The racialized dislocation of embodiment, gender expression, and sexual practice serves also to upset any normative striving for coherent social identity, a point explored further in Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight (2016). The book closes with a critical reading of this Oscar-winning film that draws out its philosophical, even mythical qualities.
Secondary effects of pesticides on aquatic ecosystems

If the direct, toxicological effects of pesticides1 on the growth, survival, or reproduction of organisms may be called primary, irrespective of the ecological or physiological mechanisms of exposure (e.g., absorption through cuticle, ingestion of contaminated food, etc.) and irrespective of the time interval between exposure and ultimate effect (e.g., immediate mortality on contact, egg mortality after years of gradual pesticide accumulation by parent bird, etc.), then ecosystem changes that follow and result from these primary effects are conveniently termed secondary effects. The purpose of this review is to summarize existing knowledge of these secondary effects of pesticides on aquatic ecosystems.
Correlates of Serosorting and Knowledge of Sexual Partner’s HIV Status Among Men Who have Sex with Men in Ukraine

Ukraine has among the highest rates of newly diagnosed HIV infections in the WHO European region. Men who have sex with men (MSM) is the least studied group in the context of the HIV epidemics in Ukraine. The present paper aims to estimate the prevalence and correlates of knowledge of sexual partner’s HIV status and potentially discordant anal intercourse (failure to serosort) among MSM. Data of the cross-sectional study among 8100 MSM in Ukraine in 2013 were used for this analysis. Less than half of the participants (42.5%) reported that they knew the HIV serostatus of their most recent male sexual partner, and about 13% of participants reported failure to serosort during their most recent anal sexual intercourse with a male partner. Targeted interventions can be implemented to increase knowledge about sexual partner’s HIV status, both among HIV-negative and HIV-positive MSM, to reduce the risk of HIV acquisition and transmission.
Implicit standards of public argument in presidential debates: what the 2016 debates reveal about public deliberation

ABSTRACTThe functioning of presidential debates commonly has been evaluated based on a consideration of polling and other studies testing their influence on campaigns and how well they have educated the public. What has not been recognized is that in some cases where there is agreement about the content and results of the debate, it is possible to draw inferences about public deliberation. This essay uses a close analysis of the 2016 general-election presidential debates in order to illuminate public deliberation in the 2016 campaign.
Applications of extended convex coordinates

Applications of convex coordinates are many and varied in mathematics today. Our first interest in convex coordinates grew out of their use in linear programming, e.g. [1]. That interest has remained quite lively as the study of convex coordinates continues to yield pleasing and sometimes unexpected results, e.g. [2,3]. Another name for these coordinates which may be more familiar to the reader is that of barycentric coordinates as originally given by the German mathematician Mobius. In this article we shall confine our attention to the Euclidean plane, but convex coordinates may be defined in Euclidean spaces of any dimension.
The FBI in Latin America: The Ecuador Files: Becker, Marc Durham, NC: Duke University Press 336 pp., $26.95, ISBN 978-0822369080 Publication Date: August 2017

Historian Marc Becker uncovered a treasure trove at the US National Archives of FBI documents, which derive from an extensive surveillance network primarily targeting leftist social movements, rath...
Malignant Transformation of Human Skin Fibroblasts by Two Alternative Pathways

We developed a telomerase-positive, infinite life span human fibroblast cell strain (MSU-1.0) by transfection of a v-MYC oncogene and spontaneous over-expression of transcription factors SP1/SP3. Loss of expression of p14ALT and enhanced expression of SPRY2 gave rise to the MSU-1.1 cell strain. Unlike MSU-1.0 cells, the MSU-1.1 cells can be malignantly transformed by expression of N-RASLYS61 or H-Rasv12 oncoproteins (driven by their original promoters) and expression of a SRC-family protein, v-FES. MSU-1.1 cells can also be malignantly transformed by high expression of these RAS oncogenes or the v-K-RAS oncogene. PDGF-B transformed MSU-1.1 cells give rise to benign tumors (fibromas) in athymic mice. A second route to malignant transformation of the MSU-1.1 cells involves loss of functional TP53 protein by carcinogen treatment and loss of expression of wild type p16INK. These studies indicate 6–8 “hits” are required to activate the oncogenes and inactivate the suppressor genes we identified.
ISOLATION AND PRELIMINARY AMINO ACID ANALYSES OF DOPAMINE β-HYDROXYLASE (DβH) FROM PURIFIED LARGE DENSE CORED NORADRENERGIC VESICLES (LDV)

The glycoprotein DβH has been purified from bovine splenic nerve LDV and its amino acid composition compared with the homologous enzyme from adrenomedullary chromaffin granules (AMG). Both preparations produced single peaks after Sephacryl S-200 gel filtration and single bands after electrophoresis. The LDV enzyme resembled the AMG enzyme in amino acid composition, except for a higher glycine and lower proline content. Preliminary data on a second minor glycoprotein (∼ 100,000 MW) from LDV indicated an acid:basic amino acid ratio much lower than and several amino acids which differed from either chromogranin-A or DβH.
BRN3-type POU Homeobox Genes Maintain the Identity of Mature Postmitotic Neurons in Nematodes and Mice.

Summary Many distinct regulatory factors have been shown to be required for the proper initiation of neuron-type-specific differentiation programs, but much less is known about the regulatory programs that maintain the differentiated state in the adult [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. One possibility is that regulatory factors that initiate a terminal differentiation program during development are continuously required to maintain the differentiated state. Here, we test this hypothesis by investigating the function of two orthologous POU homeobox genes in nematodes and mice. The C. elegans POU homeobox gene unc-86 is a terminal selector that is required during development to initiate the terminal differentiation program of several distinct neuron classes [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Through post-developmental removal of unc-86 activity, we show here that unc-86 is also continuously required throughout the life of many neuron classes to maintain neuron-class-specific identity features. Similarly, the mouse unc-86 ortholog Brn3a/POU4F1 has been shown to control the initiation of the terminal differentiation program of distinct neuron types across the mouse brain, such as the medial habenular neurons [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. By conditionally removing Brn3a in the adult mouse central nervous system, we show that, like its invertebrate ortholog unc-86, Brn3a is also required for the maintenance of terminal identity features of medial habenular neurons. In addition, Brn3a is required for the survival of these neurons, indicating that identity maintenance and survival are genetically linked. We conclude that the continuous expression of transcription factors is essential for the active maintenance of the differentiated state of a neuron across phylogeny.
Why There is no General Solution to the Problem of Software Verification

How can we be certain that software is reliable? Is there any method that can verify the correctness of software for all cases of interest? Computer scientists and software engineers have informally assumed that there is no fully general solution to the verification problem. In this paper, we survey approaches to the problem of software verification and offer a new proof for why there can be no general solution.
Content validation of a quantitative stakeholder engagement measure.

Aim Using a stakeholder-engaged approach, this study conducted content validation and item reduction of a quantitative measure of research engagement. Methods A five-round modified Delphi process was used to reach consensus on items. Rounds 1-3 and 5 were conducted using web-based surveys. Round 4 consisted of a 2-day, in-person meeting. Delphi panelists received individualized reports outlining individual and aggregate group responses after rounds 1-3. Results Over the five-round process, items were added, dropped, modified, and moved from one engagement principle to another. The number of items was reduced from 48 to 32, with three to five items corresponding to eight engagement principles. Conclusions Research that develops standardized, reliable, and accurate measures to assess stakeholder engagement is essential to understanding the impact of engagement on scientific discovery and the scientific process. Valid quantitative measures to assess stakeholder engagement in research are necessary to assess associations between engagement and research outcomes.
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Varicocele Repair and Assisted Reproductive Technology

The association between varicocele and male infertility is well-established, although the exact mechanism by which varicoceles cause infertility in men is debated. Surgical correction of varicoceles in men with infertility and abnormal semen parameters has been shown to improve semen parameters in most men. Over the last few decades, assisted reproductive technology (ART), most notably, intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), has become a highly utilized approach to achieve pregnancy for couples with infertility. With ART options available to many couples, one must consider the most cost-effective mode of achieving pregnancy in infertile couples. This chapter examines the relationship of varicocelectomy and ART from the cost perspective. Infertile men who undergo varicocelectomy are often candidates for less invasive and less costly forms of ART. Moreover, for those men who still require ICSI after varicocele repair, the pregnancy and live birth rates are improved compared to men who use ICSI without varicocele repair. Lastly, varicocelectomy in men with varicocele-associated infertility is more cost-effective than proceeding directly to ART for infertility management.
SmokingOpp: Detecting the Smoking 'Opportunity' Context Using Mobile Sensors

Context plays a key role in impulsive adverse behaviors such as fights, suicide attempts, binge-drinking, and smoking lapse. Several contexts dissuade such behaviors, but some may trigger adverse impulsive behaviors. We define these latter contexts as 'opportunity' contexts, as their passive detection from sensors can be used to deliver context-sensitive interventions. In this paper, we define the general concept of 'opportunity' contexts and apply it to the case of smoking cessation. We operationalize the smoking 'opportunity' context, using self-reported smoking allowance and cigarette availability. We show its clinical utility by establishing its association with smoking occurrences using Granger causality. Next, we mine several informative features from GPS traces, including the novel location context of smoking spots, to develop the SmokingOpp model for automatically detecting the smoking 'opportunity' context. Finally, we train and evaluate the SmokingOpp model using 15 million GPS points and 3,432 self-reports from 90 newly abstinent smokers in a smoking cessation study.
Meniere's Disease

Meniere's disease is a chronic disorder of the inner ear first described in 1861 by the French physician Meniere. The disease, which is associated with a change in fluid volume inside the membranous labyrinth, is clinically characterized by episodic vertigo, tinnitus, transient hearing loss, and a sense of fullness in the affected ear. Patients with Meniere's disease may be mildly symptomatic or severally affected. There is no cure for Meniere's disease and current management strategies are designed to control and minimize recurrent vestibular dysfunction.
Hierarchy Theory: An Overview

In both the natural and the artificial worlds, complex systems are often hierarchically organized. In other words, they tend to be structured in layers or levels. The rates of interaction within components at any hierarchical level are much faster than the rates of interaction among components. Also, higher levels tend to be larger and slower whereas lower levels tend to be smaller and faster. This fundamental property of complex systems is called near-decomposability. Hierarchy theory is a general theory that aims to simplify the description, and thus improve the comprehensibility, of complexity by taking advantage of near-decomposability. In this chapter, I provide an overview of the theory, focusing on its core concepts and tenets. These include the following topics: definitions of hierarchy, hierarchical levels, ordering of hierarchical levels, vertical and horizontal structures, near-decomposability and the empty world hypothesis, the basic triadic structure, hierarchy and scale, the observer’s role. I also discuss some common criticisms on hierarchy theory, and conclude with some comments on the nature and future of the theory.
Repurposing Inflatable Packaging Pillows as Bioreactors: a Convenient Synthesis of Glucosone by Whole-Cell Catalysis Under Oxygen

Biocatalysis using molecular oxygen as the electron acceptor has significant potential for selective oxidations at low cost. However, oxygen is poorly soluble in water, and its slow rate of mass transfer in the aqueous phase is a major obstacle, even for laboratory-scale syntheses. Oxygen transfer can be accelerated by vigorous mechanical methods, but these are often incompatible with biological catalysts. Gentler conditions can be achieved with shallow, high surface area bag reactors that are designed for single use and generally for specialized cell culture applications. As a less-expensive alternative to these high-end bioreactors, we describe repurposing inflatable shipping pillows with resealable valves to provide high surface area mixing under oxygen for preparative synthesis of glucosone (D-arabino-hexos-2-ulose) from D-glucose using non-growing Escherichia coli whole cells containing recombinant pyranose 2-oxidase (POX) as catalyst. Parallel reactions permitted systematic study of the effects of headspace composition (i.e., air vs 100% oxygen), cell density, exogenous catalase, and reaction volume in the oxidation of 10% glucose. Importantly, only a single charge of 100% oxygen is required for stoichiometric conversion on a multi-gram scale in 18 h with resting cells, and the conversion was successfully repeated with recycled cells.
Can organizational efforts lead to less secondary traumatic stress? A longitudinal investigation of change.

Objectives: Current best practice approaches suggest that to address secondary traumatic stress (STS) a two-pronged perspective that considers individual and organizational factors over time is warranted. However, research documenting the impact of organizational efforts on individual experience with STS is lacking. In this study, it was hypothesized that as an organization becomes more STS informed, there would be decreases in reported levels of STS and burnout (BO) in individuals over time; and these changes would be associated with higher levels of implementation activity and increased use of interventions to improve physical and psychological safety. Methods: This study uses data from 2,345 responses, representing 7 groups involved in an organizational change process aimed at creating STS informed organizations in a department of health and human services. The Secondary Traumatic Stress Informed Organizational Assessment (STSI-OA), the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (STSS), and the Professional Quality of Life-5 BO subscales measured variables of interest. Using a longitudinal design, baseline, post, and follow-up data were collected. Results: One-way ANOVAs revealed significant improvements in STSI-OA, STSS, and BO scores across time (p-value < .05). Linear mixed models reveal that significant declines in STSS scores were associated with improved STSI-OA scores (p = <.001), after adjusting for age, gender, time, and level of implementation activity. Implications: These results support the hypothesis that organizational efforts can improve an individual's perceived level of distress, and that focused attention to the issue of secondary trauma in an organization can improve organizational and individual outcomes using a data-driven change approach. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Willingness to Pay for Attributes of Location Efficiency

This paper examines U.S. residential consumer willingness to pay for location efficiency, a normative advancement of new urbanism. Drawing on a national sample of multi-family housing data joined to measures of urban form and spatial structure, empirical models suggest three contributions to the literature. First, renters are willing to pay for greater location efficiency and for individual attributes of more efficient locations. Second, renters’ tastes and preferences for location efficiency are spatially heterogeneous. Third, location efficiency data appears to provide a meaningful level of control for locational quality. These contributions extend prior research efforts related to bid rent and urban amenities.
Task Offloading with Uncertain Processing Cycles

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) has emerged to be an integral component of 5G infrastructure due to its potential to speed up task processing and reduce energy consumption for mobile devices. However, a major technical challenge in making offloading decisions is that the number of required processing cycles of a task is usually unknown in advance. Due to this processing uncertainty, it is difficult to make offloading decisions while providing any guarantee on task deadlines. To address this challenge, we propose EPD---Energy-minimized solution with Probabilistic Deadline guarantee to task offloading problem. The mathematical foundation of EPD is Exact Conic Reformulation (ECR), which is a powerful tool that reformulates a probabilistic constraint for task deadline into a deterministic one. In the absence of distribution knowledge of processing cycles, we use the estimated mean and variance of processing cycles and exploit ECR to the fullest extent in the design of EPD. Simulation results show that EPD successfully guarantees the probabilistic deadlines while minimizing the energy consumption of mobile users, and can achieve significant improvement in energy saving when compared to a state-of-the-art approach.
An observational case series of targeted virtual geriatric medicine and palliative care consults for hospitalized older adults with COVID-19.

Background COVID-19 presents unique challenges to the care of hospitalized older adults, including fractured lines of communication and uncertainty surrounding long term trajectories in cognition and function. Geriatric medicine and palliative care clinicians bring specialized training in facilitating communication in the face of uncertainty. Insurance expansion of virtual visits enabled inpatient virtual consultation, which can preserve personal protective equipment and minimize exposure to clinicians. We examined changes in goals of care and code status following an inpatient virtual consultation with geriatric medicine and palliative care clinicians. Methods This was an observational case series study performed at a large tertiary Academic Hospital. The study population included 78 patients aged 65 years and older, hospitalized with COVID-19 who had an inpatient consultation completed by geriatric medicine or palliative care clinicians between April 9, 2020 through May 9, 2020. The intervention was targeted, virtual geriatric medicine or palliative care consultation. All patients admitted to a medical floor with COVID-19 were screened four days a week and if a patient was over the age of 65, the medical team was offered a consultation by geriatric medicine (ages 80 and above) or palliative care (ages 65-79). Consultation included medical record review, telephone conversations with clinicians and nurses, telephone or video conversations with patients and/or surrogate decision-makers and collaborative case review on daily virtual huddles with an interprofessional team of geriatric medicine and palliative care clinicians. Descriptive statistics were applied to categorize outcomes after chart abstraction. Results Following consultation, 24 patients (31%) patients changed their code status to less invasive interventions. Of patients who were FULL CODE at the time of consultation (n=42), 2 (4.8%) transitioned to DNR only and 16 (38.1%) transitioned to DNR/DNI after consultation. While 8 patients (10.3%) utilized intensive care unit (ICU) level of care prior to consultation, 6 (7.6%) patients utilized ICU after consultation. After consultation, 11 (14.1%) patients were referred to hospice. Conclusions Given uncertain trajectories in older adults hospitalized with COVID-19 and variability in patient preferences, virtual goals of care geriatric medicine and palliative care consultations should be considered as a key component of COVID-19 hospital protocols.
WiFiMod: Transformer-based Indoor Human Mobility Modeling using Passive Sensing

Modeling human mobility has a wide range of applications from urban planning to simulations of disease spread. It is well known that humans spend 80% of their time indoors but modeling indoor human mobility is challenging due to three main reasons: (i) the absence of easily acquirable, reliable, low-cost indoor mobility datasets, (ii) high prediction space in modeling the frequent indoor mobility, and (iii) multi-scalar periodicity and correlations in mobility. To deal with all these challenges, we propose WiFiMod, a Transformer-based, data-driven approach that models indoor human mobility at multiple spatial scales using WiFi system logs. WiFiMod takes as input enterprise WiFi system logs to extract human mobility trajectories from smartphone digital traces. Next, for each extracted trajectory, we identify the mobility features at multiple spatial scales, macro and micro, to design a multi-modal embedding Transformer that predicts user mobility for several hours to an entire day across multiple spatial granularities. Multi-modal embedding captures the mobility periodicity and correlations across various scales while Transformers capture long term mobility dependencies boosting model prediction performance. This approach significantly reduces the prediction space by first predicting macro mobility, then modeling indoor scale mobility, micro mobility, conditioned on the estimated macro mobility distribution, thereby using the topological constraint of the macro-scale. Experimental results show that WiFiMod achieves a prediction accuracy of at least 10% points higher than the current state-of-art models. Additionally, we present 3 real-world applications of WiFiMod - (i) predict high density hot pockets and space utilization for policy making decisions for COVID19 or ILI, (ii) generate a realistic simulation of indoor mobility data to simulate spread of diseases, (iii) design personal assistants.
Infant presenting with Autoimmune NMDA Positive encephalitis secondary to Herpes Simplex Encephalitis: A Case Report (1103)

Objective: To validate the causative role of Herpes simplex virus (HSV) in triggering the autoimmune event leading to anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor encephalitis. Background: We describe an infant with a recent history of HSV encephalitis leading to generalized choreiform movements,who was positive for anti-N methyl-D-aspartate receptor antibodies. Design/Methods: Case report obtained from a pediatric patient referred to University of Kentucky. Results: A 7-month-old girl presented with fever and seizures in April 2019 and was diagnosed with HSV encephalitis. She was treated with 21-day course of acyclovir, and was discharged home on levetiracetam and lacosamide. In August 2019, she was readmitted with abnormal movements of upper extremities. On examination choreiform movements of left arm and spasticity on right side of the body is noted. The EEG showed frequent spike and wave activity in the left anterior, mid-temporal and right temporal regions in addition to irregular generalized spike activity. Movements are predominantly choreiform type and less frequently dystonic. On further testing, NMDA receptor antibody levels are significantly elevated, and a diagnosis of autoimmune encephalitis following herpes encephalitis was established. Family was not interested in immunotherapy, nonetheless, in the following weeks post discharge, she experienced spontaneous resolution of her symptoms. Conclusions: This pediatric case serves as an evidence in proving HSV infection as one of the triggers for autoimmune encephalitis. Movement disorders in infants are difficult to diagnose, overlapping symptoms from seizures or cerebral palsy can make it further difficult. Relapsing symptoms post herpes simplex virus encephalitis should raise a high clinical suspicion of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis and clinicians should be cautious as this condition can often be misdiagnosed in infants. Current treatment options are limited to immunotherapy and there is an unmet need for more research in pediatric population to improve the diagnosis and treatment. Disclosure: Dr. Vasireddy has nothing to disclose. Dr. Guduru has nothing to disclose. Dr. Khan has nothing to disclose.
Modeling the Welfare Effects of Advertising: Preference-Shifting Deadweight Loss

This paper explores one of normative economic theory’s most nagging omissions: its failure to model the welfare effects of advertising and other forms of marketing – central features of all modern market economies. Technically, the paper relaxes the standard welfarist assumption that preferences are fixed and exogenous and reflect welfare. Although this assumption is not widely accepted in other social sciences, economics generally treats situations in which it does not hold as deviations from the general rule, and therefore of lesser interest. This paper offers an approach to incorporating within the standard model itself the possibility that marketing can change observed behaviors, and perhaps preferences, in non-welfare-enhancing ways. It then explores the consequences of this expanded model for one of the most canonical assertions of optimal tax theory: that taxes produce deadweight loss.
Preparation of (±)-α-alkylated amino acid derivatives via imidazoles

Abstract Photooxidatlon of N-methoxy-2,4-disubstituted imidazoles, readily available by way of a three component cyclization followed by O-alkylation, leads to stable acyl Imines which react with various organometallics to afford α,α-disubstituted amino acid bis-amides in good yields.
Mechanical states in wound capacitors: Part 1, Prediction

The problem of determining the mechanical states inside wound capacitor rolls is addressed through the application of two dimensional, linear elasticity. Allowances are made for heterogeneous wound construction of the capacitor, orthotropic material behavior of the capacitor constituents, and arbitrary winding tension. A key element in the formulation is the derivation of material properties for a wound, orthotropic layer which is equivalent in behavior to a stack of dissimilar plies such as are actually wound on the capacitor simultaneously during one turn of the mandrel. The dissimilar plies are necessary by virtue of the conductor and dielectric materials which must be present in a capacitor. The derivation of predictive equations is based on winding the equivalent layer on an appropriate mandrel, followed by a recovery of the individual ply responses. The capability to explicitly calculate the winding tensions which would be necessary to produce a required wound tension dependence upon capacitor radius is also developed. Numerical results for typical capacitor design and construction are presented, and justification for the application of optimization theory in capacitor development is demonstrated. 4 refs., 5 figs.
When is a Search Not a Search? When it's a Quarter: The Third Amendment, Originalism, and NSA Wiretapping

For over two-hundred years, the Third Amendment has been mocked and neglected. Scholars of all political stripes have assumed that quartering was such an obvious, yet such an obscure violation that it need not be discussed or addressed. The scholarly culture of benign neglect towards the Third Amendment means that no one has ever seriously looked at the debates surrounding the quartering amendment to determine what the Founders' meant when they used the term and what they sought to ban in the amendment.A comprehensive look at the Constitutional Debates and the American quartering experience illustrates that when the Founders used the term quartering, the used it to refer to an expansive violation for the social contract by the British Army: the military enforcement of law. By banning quartering during peacetime, they barred soldiers from enforcing the law in almost all areas of civilian life. Conversely, by allowing quartering during time of war in a manner prescribed by law, the Founders allowed soldiers to take over civilian law enforcement during wartime, so long as it was approved by Congress.This revelation has profound implications for our understanding of military powers. Particularly, it questions the validity of using the Fourth Amendment to analyze military searches and seizures - particularly because the same debates illustrate that the Fourth Amendment was never meant to apply to the military - and suggests that current national security law enforcement policies, including NSA wiretapping, should be analyzed under a Third Amendment standard.
Women managers and the gender-based gap in access to education : evidence from firm-level data in developing countries

Several studies explore the differences in men’s and women’s labor market participation rates and wages. Some of these differences have been linked to gender disparities in education attainment and access. The present paper contributes to this literature by analyzing the relationship between the proclivity of a firm to have a female top manager and access to education among women relative to men in the country. The paper combines the literature on women’s careers in management, which has mostly focused on developed countries, with the development literature that has emphasized the importance of access to education. Using firm-level data for 73 developing countries, the analysis finds strong evidence that countries with a higher proportion of female top managers also have higher enrollment rates for women relative to men in primary, secondary, and tertiary education.
NMR quantum computing: lessons for the future

Future physical implementations of large-scale quantum computers will face significant practical challenges. Many useful lessons can be drawn from present results with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance realizations of controllable two, three, five, and seven qubit quantum systems. We summarize various experimental methods and theoretical procedures learned in this work which will be of considerable value in building and testing quantum processors with a wide variety of physical systems.
SMART Money: Do Financial Incentives Encourage College Students to Study Science?.

Increasing the number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees is a major federal education priority. I investigate whether providing a $4,000 financial incentive to low-income students in their junior and senior years of college induces them to major in a STEM field. Using administrative data from Ohio public colleges, I exploit a discontinuity in income eligibility for the National SMART Grant on the pursuit of science majors. Regression discontinuity results indicate financial incentives do not encourage students at the threshold of eligibility to choose STEM majors in their junior year. The null findings are fairly precise, ruling out modest, policy relevant effects for students near the Pell Grant eligibility threshold. I examine several potential explanations of this null result and argue that federal policy makers could improve the design of the program by creating the financial incentive earlier in students’ educational careers.
Can Elected Minority Representatives Affect Health Worker Visits? Evidence from India

This paper examines the relationship between elected minority representatives, i.e. Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) and health worker visits in rural India. We estimate the effect of minority representation on the frequency of visits to villages by health workers by exploiting the state variation in the share of seats reserved for the two minority groups in state legislative assemblies mandated by the Constitution of India. Using data from state and village level surveys on 15 major Indian states, we find that ST representatives increase the frequency of visits by both doctors and mobile medical units. In contrast, SC representatives have a tendency to decrease the frequency of visits by mobile medical units. Potential explanations for the differential impact of SC and ST representatives are also explored, including geographic isolation, support for the Congress Party, a shift in power, and relative population shares.
Mutual causality in road network growth and economic development

This paper investigates the relationship between the growth of roads and economic development. We test for mutual causality between the growth of road networks (which are divided functionally into local roads and highways) and changes in county-level population and employment. We employ a panel data set containing observations of road mileage by type for all Minnesota counties over the period 1988 to 2007 to fit a model describing changes in road networks, population and employment. Results indicate that causality runs in both directions between population and local road networks, while no evidence of causality in either direction is found for networks and local employment. We interpret the findings as evidence of a weakening influence of road networks (and transportation more generally) on location, and suggest methods for refining the empirical approach described herein.
INDIFFERENCE PRICES AND IMPLIED VOLATILITIES

We consider a general local-stochastic volatility model and an investor with exponential utility. For a European-style contingent claim, whose payoff may depend on either a traded or nontraded asset, we derive an explicit approximation for both the buyer's and seller's indifference prices. For European calls on a traded asset, we translate indifference prices into an explicit approximation of the buyer's and seller's implied volatility surfaces. For European claims on a nontraded asset, we establish rigorous error bounds for the indifference price approximation. Finally, we implement our indifference price and implied volatility approximations in two examples.
A Statistical Model of GA Dynamics for the OneMax Problem

A model of the dynamics of solving the counting-ones (OneMax) problem using a simple genetic algorithm (GA) is developed. It uses statistics of the early generations of GA runs to describe the dynamics of the problem for all time, using a variety of crossover and mutation rates. The model is very practical and can be generalized to cover other cases of the OneMax, such as weighted OneMax, as well as the deceptive function problem, for high enough crossover rates. Proportional selection with and without Boltzmann scaling have been modeled; however the Boltzmann extensions are not described here. In the development of the model, we introduce a new quantity that measures the effect of the crossover operation in the counting-ones problem and is independent of generation, for practical purposes.
Using an Ecological Perspective to Study Organizational Founding Rates

Moving away from a “traits” approach to a “rates” approach, using an ecological perspective, highlights the salience of organizations as the key component of environments. Foundings of new organiza...
How much does an increase in oil prices affect the global economy ? some insights from a general equilibrium analysis

A global computable general equilibrium model is used to analyze the economic impacts of rising oil prices with endogenously determined availability of biofuels to mitigate those impacts. The negative effects on the global economy are comparable to those found in other studies, but the impacts are unevenly distributed across countries/regions or sectors. The agricultural sectors of high-income countries, which are relatively energy intensive, would suffer more from rising oil prices than would those in lower-income countries, whereas the reverse is true for the impacts across manufacturing sectors. The impacts are especially strong for oil importers with relatively energy-intensive manufacturing and trade, such as India and China. Although the availability of biofuels does mitigate some of the negative impacts of rising oil prices, the benefit is small because the capacity of biofuels to economically substitute for fossil fuels on a large scale remains limited.
Wealth composition, endogenous fertility and the dynamics of income inequality

This paper analyzes how differences in the composition of wealth between human and physical capital among families affect fertility choices. These in turn influence the dynamics of wealth and income inequality across generations through a tradeoff between quantity and quality of children. Wealth composition affects fertility because physical capital has only a wealth effect on number of children, whereas human capital increases the time cost of child-rearing in addition to the wealth effect. I construct a model combining endogenous fertility with borrowing constraints in human capital investments, in which wealth composition is determined endogenously. The model is calibrated to the PNAD, a Brazilian household survey, and the main findings of the paper can be summarized as follows. First, the model implies that the cross-section relationship between fertility and wealth typically displays a U-shaped pattern, reflecting differences in wealth composition between poor and rich families. Also, the quantity-quality tradeoff implies a concave cross-section relationship between investments per child and wealth. Second, as the economy develops and families overcome their borrowing constraints, the negative effect of wealth on fertility becomes smaller, and persistence of inequality declines accordingly. The empirical evidence presented in this paper is consistent with both implications.
Sucrose as an analgesic for newborn infants.

The effectiveness of sucrose as an analgesic agent for newborn infants was assessed during two standard painful hospital procedures: blood collection via heel lance and circumcision. Infants who drank 2 mL of a 12% sucrose solution prior to blood collection cried 50% less during the blood collection procedure than did control infants who had received 2 mL of sterile water. Crying of infants who ingested sucrose returned to baseline levels within 30 to 60 seconds after blood collection whereas control infants required 2.5 to 3.0 minutes to return to baseline. Like findings were obtained for infants who received sucrose on a pacifier prior to and during circumcision. Specifically, control infants who underwent a standard circumcision procedure without intervention cried 67% of the time. A water-moistened pacifier reduced crying to 49% (P less than .01). Crying was reduced further to 31% (P less than .05) by providing infants with a sucrose-flavored pacifier to suck. These findings, which parallel results obtained in studies of pain in infant rats, provide a potent yet simple, benign intervention to help alleviate stress and pain routinely experienced by human infants.
Macular vasculopathy and its evolution in incontinentia pigmenti.

Purpose: To describe macular vasculopathy in inconti- nentia pigmenti. Methods: Twelve baby girls with incontinentia pig- menti were evaluated under general anesthesia by fluorescein angio- graphy of the macula. Nine eyes of nine patients had sufficient detail to allow evaluation of capillary changes. Angiography was initiated as early as three months of age, and was repeated in seven eyes at 3-12 month intervals. Changes in capillary patterns were identified. Results: Irregularly enlarged or distorted foveal avascular zones were noted in all nine maculas. Sparseness of the perifoveolar capillary bed was a characteristic finding. Sequential macular angiography demonstrated nonprogressive (stable) capillary closure in two eyes; progressive clo- sure was noted in another macula; progressive closure plus addition or reopening of macular capillaries occurred in three eyes; and central retinal artery occlusion, with cherry red spot formation, was observed in one eye at 12 days of age. In addition, progressive tractional detach- ment of the macula, associated with bleeding pre-retinal neovascular- ization, occurred in two of these eyes, and progressive macular neovas- cularization also occurred in one eye. Conclusions: Macular ischemia is characteristic of incontinentia pigmenti and is often progressive. It is the initiating event of a typical vasculopathy, characterized by capillary remodelling and, occasionally, by neovascularization and tractional detachment of the retina.
Beyond the CPI: An Augmented Cost of Living Index (ACOLI)

This note examines an augmented cost of living index (ACOLI) for the purpose of accounting for “augmented consumption” in real-income measures. Well-being includes not only conventional consumer purchases but also goods and services provided by employers, by mandated social regulations, and by tax-financed public goods. Because augmented consumption is often provided in ways that raise prices but not market incomes, deflating with conventional price indexes may understate real income growth. An exploratory application of the ACOLI approach to the United States during the 1960 - 1997 period suggests that the consumer price index (CPI) has grown about 19 percent faster than the ACOLI. This correction would reduce the estimated cost of living increase by 0.47 percent per year over the last 37 years.
The Effects of Public Debt on Labor Demand in the United States

Abstract The relationship between appreciation of the exchange rate and employment is investigated in the period 1980-2008 for the United States. Previous literature has found a negative relationship, studying as channels of transmission the role of exports, substitution of factors of production, terms of trade, openness, and productivity. This study endeavors to shed some light on the role of government debt on determining the level of employment through the exchange rate. The mechanism of transmission is defined. The model is derived from a standard Cobb Douglas production function having government debt affecting the growth of productivity. Exchange rate appreciations and increasing public debt were found to be detrimental to employment. JEL classification : F31, J01, E24, E62 Keywords : Unemployment rate, government, budget deficit, exchange rate, trade deficit, FDI Introduction The United States of America is increasingly relying on debt to promote growth in employment and put the economy out of a recessionary path. The new administration lead by President Barack Obama has sponsored new bills that will make this economy more reliant on public debt and government spending; in addition, the economic stimulus package cuts taxes.