cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Negativity Bounds for Weyl–Heisenberg Quasiprobability Representations

The appearance of negative terms in quasiprobability representations of quantum theory is known to be inevitable, and, due to its equivalence with the onset of contextuality, of central interest in quantum computation and information. Until recently, however, nothing has been known about how much negativity is necessary in a quasiprobability representation. Zhu (Phys Rev Lett 117 (12):120404, 2016) proved that the upper and lower bounds with respect to one type of negativity measure are saturated by quasiprobability representations which are in one-to-one correspondence with the elusive symmetric informationally complete quantum measurements (SICs). We define a family of negativity measures which includes Zhu’s as a special case and consider another member of the family which we call “sum negativity.” We prove a sufficient condition for local maxima in sum negativity and find exact global maxima in dimensions 3 and 4. Notably, we find that Zhu’s result on the SICs does not generally extend to sum negativity, although the analogous result does hold in dimension 4. Finally, the Hoggar lines in dimension 8 make an appearance in a conjecture on sum negativity.
New Procedure to Generate Multipliers in Complex Neumann Problem and Effective Kohn Algorithm

The purpose of this paper is threefold. (i) To explain the effective Kohn algorithm for multipliers in the complex Neumann problem and its difference with the full-real-radical Kohn algorithm, especially in the context of an example of Catlin-D’Angelo concerning the ineffectiveness of the latter. (ii) To extend the techniques of multiplier ideal sheaves for the complex Neumann problem to general systems of partial differential equations. (iii) To present a new procedure of generation of multipliers in the complex Neumann problem as a special case of the multiplier ideal sheaves techniques for general systems of partial differential equations.
Effects of an Information Sharing System on Employee Creativity, Engagement, and Performance

Many service organizations rely on information sharing systems to boost employee creativity to meet customer needs. We conducted a field experiment in a retail chain, based on a registered report accepted by JAR, to test whether an information sharing system recording employees’ creative work affected the quality of creative work, job engagement, and financial performance. We found that, on average, this system did not have a significant effect on any of these outcomes. However, it significantly improved the quality of creative work in stores that had accessed the system more frequently and in stores with fewer same‐company nearby stores. It also improved creative work and job engagement in stores in divergent markets, where customers needed more customization. We found weak evidence of better financial results where salespeople had lower creative talent before the system was introduced. Our findings shed light on those conditions in which information sharing systems affect employees’ creative work.
Fermilab Proton Accelerator Complex Status and Improvement Plans

Fermilab carries out an extensive program of accelerator-based high energy particle physics research at the Intensity Frontier that relies on the operation of 8 GeV and 120 GeV proton beamlines for a number of fixed target experiments. Routine operation with a world-record 700 kW of average 120 GeV beam power on the neutrino target was achieved in 2017 as a result of the Proton Improvement Plan (PIP) upgrade. There are plans to further increase the power from 900–1000 kW. The next major upgrade of the FNAL accelerator complex, called PIP-II, is under development. It aims at 1.2 MW beam power on target at the start of the LBNF/DUNE experiment in the middle of the next decade and assumes replacement of the existing 40 years old 400 MeV normal-conducting Linac with a modern 800 MeV superconducting RF linear accelerator. There are several concepts to further double the beam power to > 2.4 MW after replacement of the existing 8 GeV Booster synchrotron. In this review, we discuss current performance of the Fermilab proton accelerator complex, the upgrade plans for the next two decades and the accelerator R&D program to address cost and performance risks for these upgrades.
Minimally Invasive Gastric Surgery

The incidence of gastric cancer is increasing in the United States, particularly for various subtypes as well as presenting in earlier states. Such changes have allowed various centers to increasingly offer less invasive approaches to the treatment of gastric cancer, namely laparoscopic and robotic techniques. Minimally invasive gastrectomy has been suggested to have similar oncology outcomes compared to open procedures. In the last two decades, large retrospective and a series of randomized trials evaluated the role of minimally invasive gastrectomy for early gastric cancer, distal gastrectomy, total gastrectomy and advanced gastric cancer. As the experience with emerging technologies such as robotic assisted gastrectomies increases, the indications for minimally invasive surgery will likely expand.
Quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problem preprocessing: Theory and empirical analysis

The Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization problem QUBO has become a unifying model for representing a wide range of combinatorial optimization problems, and for linking a variety of disciplines that face these problems. A new class of quantum annealing computer that maps QUBO onto a physical qubit network structure with specific size and edge density restrictions is generating a growing interest in ways to transform the underlying QUBO structure into an equivalent graph having fewer nodes and edges. In this article, we present rules for reducing the size of the QUBO matrix by identifying variables whose value at optimality can be predetermined. We verify that the reductions improve both solution quality and time to solution and, in the case of metaheuristic methods where optimal solutions cannot be guaranteed, the quality of solutions obtained within reasonable time limits. We discuss the general QUBO structural characteristics that can take advantage of these reduction techniques and perform careful experimental design and analysis to identify and quantify the specific characteristics most affecting reduction. The rules make it possible to dramatically improve solution times on a new set of problems using both the exact Cplex solver and a tabu search metaheuristic. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, Vol. 702, 79-97 2017
A local algorithm for finding dense subgraphs

We describe a local algorithm for finding subgraphs with high density, according to a measure of density introduced by Kannan and Vinay [1999]. The algorithm takes as input a bipartite graph G, a starting vertex v, and a parameter k, and outputs an induced subgraph of G. It is local in the sense that it does not examine the entire input graph; instead, it adaptively explores a region of the graph near the starting vertex. The running time of the algorithm is bounded by O(Δ k2), which depends on the maximum degree Δ, but is otherwise independent of the graph. We prove the following approximation guarantee: for any subgraph S with k′ vertices and density θ, there exists a set S′ ⊆ S for which the algorithm outputs a subgraph with density Ω(θ/log Δ) whenever v i S′ and k ≥ k′. We prove that S′ contains at least half of the edges in S.
Evolutionary genomics of grape (Vitis vinifera ssp. vinifera) domestication.

We gathered genomic data from grapes (Vitis vinifera ssp. vinifera), a clonally propagated perennial crop, to address three ongoing mysteries about plant domestication. The first is the duration of domestication; archaeological evidence suggests that domestication occurs over millennia, but genetic evidence indicates that it can occur rapidly. We estimated that our wild and cultivated grape samples diverged ∼22,000 years ago and that the cultivated lineage experienced a steady decline in population size (Ne ) thereafter. The long decline may reflect low-intensity management by humans before domestication. The second mystery is the identification of genes that contribute to domestication phenotypes. In cultivated grapes, we identified candidate-selected genes that function in sugar metabolism, flower development, and stress responses. In contrast, candidate-selected genes in the wild sample were limited to abiotic and biotic stress responses. A genomic region of high divergence corresponded to the sex determination region and included a candidate male sterility factor and additional genes with sex-specific expression. The third mystery concerns the cost of domestication. Annual crops accumulate putatively deleterious variants, in part due to strong domestication bottlenecks. The domestication of perennial crops differs from that of annuals in several ways, including the intensity of bottlenecks, and it is not yet clear if they accumulate deleterious variants. We found that grape accessions contained 5.2% more deleterious variants than wild individuals, and these were more often in a heterozygous state. Using forward simulations, we confirm that clonal propagation leads to the accumulation of recessive deleterious mutations but without decreasing fitness.
Ethical, Environmental, Social and Governance-oriented Investments

In the aftermath of the 2008/9 World Great Recession, ethical investing blossomed as opportunity to imbue trust in the economy. The crisis aftermath offered invaluable opportunities to redefine social investment to strengthen a more sustained, inclusive and equitable society. The 2015 incepted Sustainable Development Goals spearheaded the idea of financing societal advancement. Ethical, Environmental, Social and Governance-oriented Investments are key to sustainable prosperity. In the wake of stakeholder activism and based on intrinsic socio-psychological motives, ethics, environment, social and governance roots in finance hold untapped opportunities of sustainable prosperity in the finance world and in the implementation of sustainable prosperity.
PHOTOTAXIS IN EUGLENA. VI. CORRELATIONS BETWEEN ATP PRODUCTION BY LIGHT AND PHOTOTACTIC RATES.

Using DCMU and CCP to specifically affect the photosynthetic system, the kinetics of inhibition of photophosphorylation and phototaxis inEuglena are shown to be the same. In the case of DCMU, measurements of oxygen evolution demonstrate that the delay observed between exposure to inhibitor and maximum effect is not due to the time required for the DCMU to reach its site of action, thus suggesting the presence of an endogenous pool of electron donors which can bypass photosystem II. Placing a culture in darkness causes a cessation of growth and an increase in ATP content per cell, during the same time period in which phototactic activity remains constant. The results are interpreted in terms of the utilization of photosynthetically generated ATP as an energy source for phototactic orientation and a control system which acts to maintain phototactic energy reserves during an extended period of little or no photosynthetic activity.
The Use of Antiavidin Antibody and Avidin-Biotin-Peroxidase Complex in Immunoperoxidase Technics

Avidin has an extraordinary affinity for the small-molecule vitamin biotin. Covalently coupling biotin or avidin to peroxidase molecules does not interfere with their normal biochemical functions. The avidin or biotin molecules, either peroxidase conjugated or unconjugated, can be brought to the antigen sites by means of an antiavidin antibody. Several immunohistochemical staining technics based on this principal have been described. The method utilizing an avidin-biotin-peroxidase complex was found to be more sensitive than the unlabeled antibody (PAP) method. This method involved four sequential staining procedures: (1) primary antibody (goat anti-human antigen); (2) secondary antibody (rabbit antigoat IgG) added in relative excess; (3) goat antiavidin antibody; (4) avidin-biotin-peroxidase complex. The applications of this technic are discussed.
Adrenal Masses in Oncologic Patients: Functional and Morphologic Evaluation

The role of adrenocortical scintigraphy in the evaluation of unilateral adrenal masses detected with computed tomography (CT) in 28 oncologic patients with normal adrenal function was studied prospectively with the use of NP-59 (iodine-131-6-iodomethyl-19-norcholesterol). The diagnosis was proved by means of percutaneous fine-needle aspiration cytologic examination in 20 patients, surgical biopsy in one, and clinical and CT follow-up in seven. In 14 of the 28 patients, there was increased uptake of the NP-59 on the side of the adrenal mass detected at CT (concordant uptake). Thirteen of the 14 masses with concordant uptake were greater than 2 cm in diameter, and one was 1.5 cm; all were found to be adenomas. In 11 of 28 patients there was decreased uptake on the side of the mass detected at CT (discordant uptake). None of these 11 masses were adenomas; nine were metastases and two were adrenal cysts. Uptake was indeterminate (symmetric) in three patients, two of whom had adrenal adenomas and one an adrena...
CT Diagnosis of Renal Angiomyolipoma: The Importance of Detecting Small Amounts of Fat

Six patients were reviewed who had renal angiomyolipoma (1.2-4.0 cm) in which only minimal amounts of fat were evident on CT. The fat content of the lesion was appreciated because tissue attenuation measurements of small areas of low attenuation within the tumors were performed and because thin-section (5-mm) and nonenhanced CT scans were used. The fat content of the lesions could be identified on 10-mm sections in three cases but only on 5-mm sections in three others. In two cases, fat was seen only on the nonenhanced 5-mm thin sections. Careful sampling of low-density regions within the mass must be performed because a single region of interest over the entire tumor will produce an average attenuation in the soft-tissue range. The use of 5-mm thin sections and thin, nonenhanced CT sections increases spatial and density resolution and decreases susceptibility to partial-volume effects. In a correlative study, no areas of fat were detected in a review of 100 well-circumscribed (4.0 cm or smaller) renal cell carcinomas. Detecting the existence of fat in a renal lesion will establish the diagnosis of angiomyolipoma and is the only radiologic finding that can differentiate it from renal cell carcinoma. Thus, unnecessary surgery will be avoided in these cases.
Mott Transition and Magnetism in Rare Earth Nickelates and its Fingerprint on the X-ray Scattering.

The metal-insulator transition (MIT) remains among the most thoroughly studied phenomena in solid state physics, but the complexity of the phenomena, which usually involves cooperation of many degrees of freedom including orbitals, fluctuating local moments, magnetism, and the crystal structure, have resisted predictive ab-initio treatment. Here we develop ab-initio theoretical method for correlated electron materials, based on Dynamical Mean Field Theory, which can predict the change of the crystal structure across the MIT at finite temperature. This allows us to study the coupling between electronic, magnetic and orbital degrees of freedom with the crystal structure across the MIT in rare-earth nickelates. We predict the electronic free energy profile of the competing states, and the theoretical magnetic ground state configuration, which is in agreement with neutron scattering data, but is different from the magnetic models proposed before. The resonant elastic X-ray response at the K-edge, which was argued to be a probe of the charge order, is theoretically modelled within the Dynamical Mean Field Theory, including the core-hole interaction. We show that the line-shape of the measured resonant elastic X-ray response can be explained with the “site-selective” Mott scenario without real charge order on Ni sites.
Percutaneous Renal Biopsy in Infants and Young Children

Records of 55 percutaneous renal biopsies performed in 53 children aged 5 days to two years were reviewed. Radiographic or ultrasound imaging techniques were not utilized during the biopsy procedure. Forty-nine of 55 biopsy attempts yielded sufficient tissue for histologic evaluation (89.1%). Transient gross hematuria not requiring intervention was the sole complication and was noted in 6 of 55 biopsy attempts (10.9%). Percutaneous renal biopsy can be performed safely in very young children and the success of the procedure is comparable to that in older children.
Asymptotic existence of fair divisions for groups

Abstract The problem of dividing resources fairly occurs in many practical situations and is therefore an important topic of study in economics. In this paper, we investigate envy-free divisions in the setting where there are multiple players in each interested party. While all players in a party share the same set of resources, each player has her own preferences. Under additive valuations drawn randomly from probability distributions, we show that when all groups contain an equal number of players, a welfare-maximizing allocation is likely to be envy-free if the number of items exceeds the total number of players by a logarithmic factor. On the other hand, an envy-free allocation is unlikely to exist if the number of items is less than the total number of players. In addition, we show that a simple truthful mechanism, namely the random assignment mechanism, yields an allocation that satisfies the weaker notion of approximate envy-freeness with high probability.
Urine Screening Strategy Employing Dipstick Analysis and Selective Culture: An Evaluation

A cost-effective urinalysis test strategy, employing screening dipstick analysis with sediment microscopy performed on urines positive for leukocyte esterase, nitrite, protein, or blood, is evaluated. Screening urine culture is done when greater than or equal to 5 WBC/HPF, greater than 10 bacteria/HPF, or yeasts are found on sediment microscopy. Predictive value, sensitivity, and specificity of the test strategy in predicting significant bacteriuria is compared with sediment microscopy, Gram staining of uncentrifuged urine and leukocyte chamber counting. Employment of the test protocol for routine urine specimens would decrease sediment microscopy by 49%, while effectively screening for significant bacteriuria with a sensitivity of 88.9% and predictive value of a negative result of 98.8%.
Effects of Abstinence on the Ability of Clinical Laboratory Tests to Identify Male Alcoholics

Quadratic discriminant analysis of 25 commonly ordered clinical laboratory tests resulted in correct classification of 100% of nonalcoholic inpatients (n = 41), 100% of medical ward alcoholics as alcoholic (n = 63), and 95% of alcoholism treatment program participants as alcoholic (n = 274). Admission laboratory values for a random sample of 138 additional alcoholism treatment program participants were used to correctly classify 96% of them as alcoholics. Repeat analysis of these same laboratory tests after some 27 days of hospitalization resulted in 94% of the 138 patients still being classified as alcoholic, even though significant improvements in individual hepatic and hematologic laboratory values were noted. Classification was not changed with reanalysis after long-term abstinence (7 or 24 months), suggesting widespread and persistent alcohol-related alterations in organ system functioning with chronic alcohol abuse. Quadratic discriminant analysis of laboratory tests is an effective means of identifying people with present or past alcohol abuse but is not yet of value in detecting compliance with a treatment goal of abstinence.
Identification and Model Testing in Linear Structural Equation Models using Auxiliary Variables

We developed a novel approach to identification and model testing in linear structural equation models (SEMs) based on auxiliary variables (AVs), which generalizes a widely-used family of methods known as instrumental variables. The identification problem is concerned with the conditions under which causal parameters can be uniquely estimated from an observational, non-causal covariance matrix. In this paper, we provide an algorithm for the identification of causal parameters in linear structural models that subsumes previous state-of-the-art methods. In other words, our algorithm identifies strictly more coefficients and models than methods previously known in the literature. Our algorithm builds on a graph-theoretic characterization of conditional independence relations between auxiliary and model variables, which is developed in this paper. Further, we leverage this new characterization for allowing identification when limited experimental data or new substantive knowledge about the domain is available. Lastly, we develop a new procedure for model testing using AVs.
Mechanism for the Coupled Photochemistry of Ammonia and Acetylene: Implications for Giant Planets, Comets and Interstellar Organic Synthesis

Laboratory studies provide a fundamental understanding of photochemical processes in planetary atmospheres. Photochemical reactions taking place on giant planets like Jupiter and possibly comets and the interstellar medium are the subject of this research. Reaction pathways are proposed for the coupled photochemistry of NH3 (ammonia) and C2H2 (acetylene) within the context Jupiter’s atmosphere. We then extend the discussion to the Great Red Spot, Extra-Solar Giant Planets, Comets and Interstellar Organic Synthesis. Reaction rates in the form of quantum yields were measured for the decomposition of reactants and the formation of products and stable intermediates: HCN (hydrogen cyanide), CH3CN (acetonitrile), CH3CH = N-N = CHCH3 (acetaldazine), CH3CH = N-NH2 (acetaldehyde hydrazone), C2H5NH2 (ethylamine), CH3NH2 (methylamine) and C2H4 (ethene) in the photolysis of NH3/C2H2 mixtures. Some of these compounds, formed in our investigation of pathways for HCN synthesis, were not encountered previously in observational, theoretical or laboratory photochemical studies. The quantum yields obtained allowed for the formulation of a reaction mechanism that attempts to explain the observed results under varying experimental conditions. In general, the results of this work are consistent with the initial observations of Ferris and Ishikawa (1988). However, their proposed reaction pathway which centers on the photolysis of CH3CH = N-N = CHCH3 does not explain all of the results obtained in this study. The formation of CH3CH = N-N = CHCH3 by a radical combination reaction of CH3CH = N• was shown in this work to be inconsistent with other experiments where the CH3CH = N• radical is thought to form but where no CH3CH = N-N = CHCH3 was detected. The importance of the role of H atom abstraction reactions was demonstrated and an alternative pathway for CH3CH = N-N = CHCH3 formation involving nucleophilic reaction between N2H4 and CH3CH = NH is advanced.
Innovation and technology diffusion in competitive supply chains

Abstract Innovations in consumer products frequently rely on technological advances across multiple tiers in a supply chain. Considering the consumer market demand and downstream investment conditions as input, we model a game in a two-tier supply chain where downstream firms choose to adopt different levels of an upstream technology and an upstream technology leader determines its pricing policy. We identify two necessary but distinct elements for the successful development, adoption, and diffusion of upstream technologies that are sold to lower tiers as components within final products. (1) The level of technology demanded by the market: We develop a measure, Technological Potential, which describes the highest level of an upstream technology demanded by consumer markets. (2) A sufficiently rich return to an upstream innovator, as a function of different levels of technology. From these two elements, we show that the relative magnitudes of two competing sets of consumer market factors determine the Technological Potential whereas the overall magnitude of the factors in both sets determines the return to the upstream developer. We discuss how this difference in consumer market factors’ influence on these two elements may determine how different technologies fare in the supply chain. Our results have managerial implications for: investors in research and development project selection in identifying profitable technologies that are also demanded at higher capability levels; and for governments in defining more targeted public policies – for example in choosing the right tier of a supply chain to provide subsidies – to encourage market support for certain technologies.
A Polynomial-Time Algorithm for Pliable Index Coding

In pliable index coding, we consider a server with $m$ messages and $n$ clients, where each client has as side information a subset of the messages. We seek to minimize the number of broadcast transmissions, so that each client can recover any one unknown message she does not already have. Previous work has shown that the pliable index coding problem is NP-hard and requires at most $\mathcal {O}(\log ^{2}(n))$ broadcast transmissions, which indicates exponential savings over the conventional index coding that requires in the worst case $\mathcal {O}(n)$ transmissions. In this paper, building on a decoding criterion that we propose, we first design a deterministic polynomial-time algorithm that can realize the exponential benefits, by achieving, in the worst case, a performance upper bounded by $\mathcal {O}(\log ^{2}(n))$ broadcast transmissions. We extend our algorithm to the $t$ -requests case, where each client requires $t$ unknown messages that she does not have, and show that our algorithm requires at most $\mathcal {O}(t\log (n)+\log ^{2}(n))$ broadcast transmissions. We construct lower bound instances that require at least $\Omega (\log (n))$ transmissions for linear pliable index coding and at least $\Omega (t+\log (n))$ transmissions for the $t$ -requests case, indicating that both our upper and lower bounds are polynomials of $\log (n)$ and differ within a factor of $\mathcal {O}(\log (n))$ . We provide a probabilistic analysis over random instances and show that the required number of transmissions is almost surely $\Theta (\log (n))$ , as compared with the $\Theta (n/\log (n))$ for index coding. In addition, we show that these upper and lower bounds also hold for vector pliable index coding in the worst case instances and the random graph instances, implying that vector coding does not provide benefits in terms of these bounds. Our numerical experiments show that our algorithm outperforms existing algorithms for pliable index coding by up to 50% less transmissions.
Camera Based Two Factor Authentication Through Mobile and Wearable Devices

We introduce Pixie, a novel, camera based two factor authentication solution for mobile and wearable devices. A quick and familiar user action of snapping a photo is sufficient for Pixie to simultaneously perform a graphical password authentication and a physical token based authentication, yet it does not require any expensive, uncommon hardware. Pixie establishes trust based on both the knowledge and possession of an arbitrary physical object readily accessible to the user, called trinket. Users choose their trinkets similar to setting a password, and authenticate by presenting the same trinket to the camera. The fact that the object is the trinket, is secret to the user. Pixie extracts robust, novel features from trinket images, and leverages a supervised learning classifier to effectively address inconsistencies between images of the same trinket captured in different circumstances. Pixie achieved a false accept rate below 0.09% in a brute force attack with 14.3 million authentication attempts, generated with 40,000 trinket images that we captured and collected from public datasets. We identify master images, that match multiple trinkets, and study techniques to reduce their impact. In a user study with 42 participants over 8 days in 3 sessions we found that Pixie outperforms text based passwords on memorability, speed, and user preference. Furthermore, Pixie was easily discoverable by new users and accurate under field use. Users were able to remember their trinkets 2 and 7 days after registering them, without any practice between the 3 test dates.
Effect of Microbial-Induced Calcite Precipitation on Surface Erosion and Scour of Granular Soils: Proof of Concept

Erosion is relevant to a variety of infrastructure problems such as bridge scour, roadway shoulder erosion, coastal erosion, and riverbank and slope stability. This research investigated the feasibility of using microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) as an erosion countermeasure. MICP is a natural phenomenon in which calcite precipitation occurs as a consequence of microbial metabolic activity. The precipitated calcite modifies the soil fabric and provides an additional bonding force between soil particles. In this paper, a preliminary experimental study on the erosional behavior of MICP-treated sand is presented. A standard soil, Ottawa graded sand, was treated with a bacterium (Sporosarcina pasteurii) in a full-contact reactor—one in which the soil in a fabric mold was fully immersed in the bacteria and cementation solution. The morphologies and crystalline structures of the precipitated calcite in porous sediments were characterized using microscopic imaging techniques. The treated soil samples...
Computing experience and good practices in undergraduate education: Does the degree of campus "wiredness" matter?

Responses to the College Student Experience Questionnaire Fourth Edition (C. Pace and G. Kuh, 1998) from 18,844 students at 71 colleges and universities were analyzed to determine if the presence of computing and information technology influenced the frequency of use of various forms of technology and other educational resources and the exposure to good educational practices. Undergraduates attending "more wired" campuses as determined by the 1998 and 1999 Yahoo Most Wired Campus survey more frequently used computing and information technology and reported higher levels of engagement in good educational practices than their counterparts at less wired institutions. Nontraditional students benefited less than traditional students, but both women and men students benefited considerably from campus wiredness. An appendix contains the survey items that represent good educational practices. (Contains 4 tables and 45 references.) (Author/SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Computing Experience and Good Practices in Undergraduate Education: Does the Degree of Campus Wiredness Matter? PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY S. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Shouping Hu, Assistant Professor Department of Educational Administration and Supervision College of Education and Human Services Seton Hall University 400 South Orange Avenue U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement South Orange, NJ 07079 EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Tel: 973-275-2324 elris document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization Fax: 973-761-7642 originating it. Minor changes have been made to Internet: hushoupi@shu.edu improve reproduction quality. George D. Kuh, Professor Center for Postsecondary Research and Planning School of Education Indiana University 201 N. Rose Avenue Bloomington, IN 47405 Tel: 812-856-8383 Fax: 812-856-8394 Internet: kuh@indiana.edu Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. Prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle, April 2001 2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE //c
Is the kidney donor profile index (KDPI) universal or UNOS-specific?

With the introduction of the KDPI scoring system on June 2013, allocation of kidney allografts and predicted outcomes in the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) have changed. Although the hope was to reduce the discard rate of ‘marginal’ or ‘extended criteria donor (ECD)’ kidneys allocating them in a better way, the discard rate did not differ compared to the ECD era [1]. The transplantation community continues to seek ways to improve kidney allocation in order to provide acceptable (or even better) outcomes using the most possible deceased donor kidneys reducing the discard rate. One way to boost the use of higher risk kidneys is allocating them as dual kidney transplantation (DKT) [2]. DKT could provide increased nephron mass and therefore better expected outcomes compared to single use of ECD kidneys. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Exploring completeness in clinical data research networks with DQe-c.

Objective To provide an open source, interoperable, and scalable data quality assessment tool for evaluation and visualization of completeness and conformance in electronic health record (EHR) data repositories. Materials and methods This article describes the tool's design and architecture and gives an overview of its outputs using a sample dataset of 200 000 randomly selected patient records with an encounter since January 1, 2010, extracted from the Research Patient Data Registry (RPDR) at Partners HealthCare. All the code and instructions to run the tool and interpret its results are provided in the Supplementary Appendix. Results DQe-c produces a web-based report that summarizes data completeness and conformance in a given EHR data repository through descriptive graphics and tables. Results from running the tool on the sample RPDR data are organized into 4 sections: load and test details, completeness test, data model conformance test, and test of missingness in key clinical indicators. Discussion Open science, interoperability across major clinical informatics platforms, and scalability to large databases are key design considerations for DQe-c. Iterative implementation of the tool across different institutions directed us to improve the scalability and interoperability of the tool and find ways to facilitate local setup. Conclusion EHR data quality assessment has been hampered by implementation of ad hoc processes. The architecture and implementation of DQe-c offer valuable insights for developing reproducible and scalable data science tools to assess, manage, and process data in clinical data repositories.
Heritable plant phenotypes track light and herbivory levels at fine spatial scales

Organismal phenotypes often co-vary with environmental variables across broad geographic ranges. Less is known about the extent to which phenotypes match local conditions when multiple biotic and abiotic stressors vary at fine spatial scales. Bittercress (Brassicaceae: Cardamine cordifolia), a perennial forb, grows across a microgeographic mosaic of two contrasting herbivory regimes: high herbivory in meadows (sun habitats) and low herbivory in deeply shaded forest understories (shade habitats). We tested for local phenotypic differentiation in plant size, leaf morphology, and anti-herbivore defense (realized resistance and defensive chemicals, i.e., glucosinolates) across this habitat mosaic through reciprocal transplant-common garden experiments with clonally propagated rhizomes. We found habitat-specific divergence in morphological and defensive phenotypes that manifested as contrasting responses to growth in shade common gardens: weak petiole elongation and attenuated defenses in populations from shade habitats, and strong petiole elongation and elevated defenses in populations from sun habitats. These divergent phenotypes are generally consistent with reciprocal local adaptation: plants from shade habitats that naturally experience low herbivory show reduced investment in defense and an attenuated shade avoidance response, owing to its ineffectiveness within forest understories. By contrast, plants from sun habitats with high herbivory show shade-induced elongation, but no evidence of attenuated defenses canonically associated with elongation in shade-intolerant plant species. Finally, we observed differences in flowering phenology between habitat types that could potentially contribute to inter-habitat divergence by reducing gene flow. This study illuminates how clonally heritable plant phenotypes track a fine-grained mosaic of herbivore pressure and light availability in a native plant.
The 2016 US Presidential Election and Its Chinese Audience

Motivated by the question of how the public in an authoritarian political environment may perceive democratic elections, we analyze the underlying interests and sentiments of the Chinese audience regarding the 2016 US Presidential Election with the social media data collected from a large Chinese online community. We extract several latent topics of interest to the community from the text corpus by applying the unsupervised learning method of Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), and explore the amount of interests received by each topic by applying the supervised learning methods, including the Bayesian Additive Regression Trees and the Bayesian LASSO model. Results reveal much more attentions paid by the audience to the sensational news, especially the controversies related to Hillary Clinton’s email leakage and Donald Trump’s anti-political-correctness and anti-globalization remarks, than to the substantive issues, e.g., regarding the candidates’ policy agendas or the democratic process.
The state economic modernity index: an index of state building, state size and scope, and state economic power

One line of thought in development economics and political science emphasizes the need for state building to achieve economic growth and better outcomes throughout the developing world. Conventionally, this has been conceptualized in terms of “state capacity,” sometimes operationalized via the Worldwide Governance Indicators report. This paper proposes a simple alternative, using two of the five components of the Economic Freedom of the World report, with a greater emphasis placed on state power within an economy, as opposed to its capacity. This alternative measure, here called the “State Economic Modernity” index (SEM) is a combination of various measures of a state’s willingness and ability to perform its core public goods functions, and the state’s size relative to the economy. It is shown that the SEM index, in combination with the Economic Freedom of the World report, creates intuitive categorizations of economic institutions across countries. The SEM index is shown to relate to various measures of social capital and may be determined by them. Finally, while the SEM index is closely related to economic growth and output as seen in raw correlations, it appears to cause neither upon the inclusion of country fixed effects.
Susan Howe’s Historical Ethics of Space and Puritan Spirituality: An Ecofeminist Reading of Souls of the Labadie Tract

This essay explores ecofeminist perspectives in Susan Howe’s Souls of the Labadie Tract (2007) by examining the relationship between the ethics of space and the Puritan faith of the Labadists, Wall...
The performance of a consumption augmented asset index in ranking Households and Identifying the Poor

Asset ownership indices are widely used as inexpensive proxies for consumption. This paper shows that these indices can be augmented using dichotomous indicators for consumption, which are equally easy to obtain. The paper uses multiple rounds of Living Standards Measurement Study surveys from Malawi, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Ghana to construct indices with different item subcategories and performs a meta-analysis comparing the indices to per capita consumption. The results show that the standard asset indices, which are derived from durable ownership and housing characteristic indicators, perform well in urban settings. Yet, in rural samples and when identifying the extreme poor, household rankings and poverty classification accuracy can be meaningfully improved by adding indicators of food and semi-durable consumption. The study finds small improvement from using national weights in urban samples but no improvement from using alternative construction methods. With most of Africa’s poor concentrated in rural areas, these are important insights.
Federal Sentencing of Hispanic Defendants in Changing Immigrant Destinations

Research shows that federal punishment disparity between Hispanic and white defendants varies according to federal district court contexts. Recent sociological scholarship has also drawn distinctio...
RON-Gauss: Enhancing Utility in Non-Interactive Private Data Release

A key challenge facing the design of differential privacy in the non-interactive setting is to maintain the utility of the released data. To overcome this challenge, we utilize the Diaconis-Freedman-Meckes (DFM) effect, which states that most projections of high-dimensional data are nearly Gaussian. Hence, we propose the RON-Gauss model that leverages the novel combination of dimensionality reduction via random orthonormal (RON) projection and the Gaussian generative model for synthesizing differentially-private data. We analyze how RON-Gauss benefits from the DFM effect, and present multiple algorithms for a range of machine learning applications, including both unsupervised and supervised learning. Furthermore, we rigorously prove that (a) our algorithms satisfy the strong $\epsilon$-differential privacy guarantee, and (b) RON projection can lower the level of perturbation required for differential privacy. Finally, we illustrate the effectiveness of RON-Gauss under three common machine learning applications -- clustering, classification, and regression -- on three large real-world datasets. Our empirical results show that (a) RON-Gauss outperforms previous approaches by up to an order of magnitude, and (b) loss in utility compared to the non-private real data is small. Thus, RON-Gauss can serve as a key enabler for real-world deployment of privacy-preserving data release.
Distributable Consistent Multi-object Matching

In this paper we propose an optimization-based framework to multiple object matching. The framework takes maps computed between pairs of objects as input, and outputs maps that are consistent among all pairs of objects. The central idea of our approach is to divide the input object collection into overlapping sub-collections and enforce map consistency among each sub-collection. This leads to a distributed formulation, which is scalable to large-scale datasets. We also present an equivalence condition between this decoupled scheme and the original scheme. Experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets show that our framework is competitive against state-of-the-art multi-object matching techniques.
Neurosurgical Management of Self-Inflicted Cranial Crossbow Injury.

Background Although gun-related penetrating traumatic brain injuries make up the majority of cranial missile injuries, low-velocity penetrating injuries present significant clinical difficulties that cannot necessarily be identically managed. Bow hunting is an increasingly popular pastime, and a crossbow allows a unique mechanism to cause a self-inflicted cranial injury with a large, low-velocity projectile. Historically, arrow removal is described in an operating room setting, which provides limited knowledge of the location of vascular injury in the setting of postremoval hemorrhage, and may represent an inefficient use of operating room availability. Case Description Two patients presented after self-inflicted cranial crossbow injuries. Both were neurologically salvageable. Initial assessment with computed tomography angiography allowed triage into likely or unlikely vascular injury. Arrow removal was performed in a radiology setting rather than in the operating room to allow immediate postremoval imaging to localize hemorrhage. While an operating room was on standby, neither patient required neurosurgical operative intervention. Both patients made a good recovery with no further injury caused by arrow removal. Conclusions We describe a novel approach to retained cranial arrow removal in a radiologic, rather than operative, setting and describe its relative benefits over traditional removal in the operating room.
Localization-driven correlated states of two isolated interacting helical edges

We study the localization-driven correlated states among two isolated dirty interacting helical edges as realized at the boundaries of two-dimensional ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ topological insulators. We show that an interplay of time-reversal symmetric disorder and strong interedge interactions generically drives the entire system to a gapless localized state, preempting all other intraedge instabilities. For weaker interactions, an antisymmetric interlocked fluid, causing a negative perfect drag, can emerge from dirty edges with different densities. We also find that the interlocked fluid states of helical edges are stable against the leading intraedge perturbation down to zero temperature. The corresponding experimental signatures including zero-temperature and finite-temperature transport are discussed.
Practical Policy Evaluation

Abstract In the wake of the Lucas (1976), the study of appropriate macroeconomic policy has largely focused on the comparison of different regimes/rules. In practice, few policymakers are faced with making those kinds of choices. I examine the problem of a policymaker making but one in a sequence of similar decisions. My main result is that the policymaker’s optimal response to the current state can be found by applying regression methods to past macroeconomic data. I argue that macroeconomic policy evaluation intended to be of practical value should rely less on putatively structural macroeconomic models and more on regression-based approaches.
Relaxed-rigidity constraints: kinematic trajectory optimization and collision avoidance for in-grasp manipulation

This paper proposes a novel approach to performing in-grasp manipulation: the problem of moving an object with reference to the palm from an initial pose to a goal pose without breaking or making contacts. Our method to perform in-grasp manipulation uses kinematic trajectory optimization which requires no knowledge of dynamic properties of the object. We implement our approach on an Allegro robot hand and perform thorough experiments on ten objects from the YCB dataset. The proposed method is general enough to generate motions for most objects the robot can grasp. Experimental results support the feasibillty of its application across a variety of object shapes. We explore the adaptability of our approach to additional task requirements by including collision avoidance and joint space smoothness costs. The grasped object avoids collisions with the environment by the use of a signed distance cost function. We reduce the effects of unmodeled object dynamics by requiring smooth joint trajectories. We additionally compensate for errors encountered during trajectory execution by formulating an object pose feedback controller.