cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Graphene–dielectric composite metamaterials: evolution from elliptic to hyperbolic wavevector dispersion and the transverse epsilon-near-zero condition

We investigated a multilayer graphene-dielectric composite material, comprising graphene sheets separated by subwavelength-thick dielectric spacer, and found it to exhibit hyperbolic isofrequency wavevector dispersion at far- and mid-infrared frequencies, allowing propagation of waves that would be otherwise evanescent in an isotropic dielectric. Electrostatic biasing was considered for tunable and controllable transition from hyperbolic to elliptic dispersion. We explored the validity and limitation of the effective medium approxi- mation (EMA) for modeling wave propagation and cutoff of the propagating spatial spectrum due to the Brillouin zone edge. We reported that EMA is capable of predicting the transition of the isofrequency dispersion diagram under certain conditions. The graphene-based composite material allows propagation of backward waves under the hyperbolic dispersion regime and of forward waves under the elliptic regime. Transition from hyperbolic to elliptic dispersion regimes is governed by the transverse epsilon-near-zero (TENZ) condition, which implies a flatter and wider propagating spectrum with higher attenuation, when compared to the hyper- bolic regime. We also investigated the wide-angle tunable transparency of the multilayer at that condition in contrast to other materials exhibiting ENZ phenomena. © 2013 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) (DOI: 10.1117/1.JNP.7.073089)
On the Intersection Algebra of Principal Ideals

We study the finite generation of the intersection algebra of two principal ideals I and J in a unique factorization domain R. We provide an algorithm that produces a list of generators of this algebra over R. In the special case that R is a polynomial ring, this algorithm has been implemented in the commutative algebra software system Macaulay2. A new class of algebras, called fan algebras, is introduced.
Peak Electric Load Relief in Northern Manhattan: An Exploratory Data Analysis

The aphorism “Think globally, act locally,” attributed to Rene Dubos, reflects the vision that the solution to global environmental problems must begin with efforts within our communities. PlaNYC 2030, the New York City sustainability plan, is the starting point for this study. Results include (a) a case study based on the City College of New York (CCNY) energy audit, in which we model the impacts of green roofs on campus energy demand and (b) a case study of energy use at the neighborhood scale. We find that reducing the urban heat island effect can reduce building cooling requirements, peak electricity loads stress on the local electricity grid and improve urban livability.
Getting to the Top of Mind: How Reminders Increase Saving

We provide evidence from field experiments with three different banks that reminder messages increase commitment attainment for clients who recently opened commitment savings accounts. Messages that mention both savings goals and financial incentives are particularly effective, whereas other content variations such as gain versus loss framing do not have significantly different effects. Nor do we find evidence that receiving additional late reminders has an additive effect. These empirical results do not map neatly into existing models, so we provide a simple model where limited attention to exceptional expenses can generate undersaving that is in turn mitigated by reminders. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2015.2296. This paper was accepted by Teck-Hua Ho, behavioral economics.
Gradient Optimization of Structural Weight for Specified Flutter Speed

A method for optimizing structures to satisfy flutter requirements is presented. The specific algorithm employs a gradient of total weight with respect to variable structural parameters as the specified flutter speed remains constant. Equations are derived for direct calculation of the gradient. In applications thus far, the method has been efficient in reducing structural weight while retaining flutter speed without frequent recalculation of normal modes of vibration. An all-movable horizontal tail application is cited in which the skin alone and then the entire structure is resized. Applications using 2 and 6 modes of vibration are also compared.
Palladium(II)- and platinum(II)-catalyzed addition of stabilized carbon nucleophiles to ethylene and propylene.

PdCl2(CH3CN)2 and [PtCl2(H2CCH2)]2 catalyze the addition of β-dicarbonyl compounds to ethylene and propylene.
Importing skill-biased technology

Capital equipment - such as computers and industrial machinery - embodies skill-biased technology, in the sense that it is complementary to skilled labor. Most countries import a large share of their capital equipment, and by doing so import skill-biased technology. In this paper we develop a model of international trade in capital goods to quantify the extent to which trade, through capital-skill complementarity, raises the relative demand for skill and hence increases the skill premium. In one counterfactual, we find that moving from the trade levels observed in the year 2000 to autarky would decrease the skill premium by 16% in the median country in our sample, by 5% in the U.S., and by a much larger magnitude in countries that heavily rely on imported capital equipment.
Solvolytic routes to new nonabismuth hydroxy- and alkoxy-oxo complexes: synthesis, characterization and solid-state structures of novel nonabismuth polyoxo cations Bi9(μ3-O)8(μ3-OR)65+(R = H, Et)

Base hydrolysis of BiO(ClO4) yields ClO4− salts of the novel nonabismuth polyoxo cation Bi9(μ3-O)8(μ3-OH)65+ (1); ethanolysis converts 1 to the ethoxide Bi9(μ3-O)8(μ3-OEt)65+ (2).
Transfer of Neuroevolved Controllers in Unstable Domains

In recent years, the evolution of artificial neural networks or neuroevolution has brought promising results in solving difficult reinforcement learning problems. But, like standard RL methods, it requires that solutions be discovered in simulation and then be transferred to the real world. To date, transfer has been studied primarily in mobile robot problems that exhibit stability. This paper presents the first study of transfer in an unstable environment. Using the double pole balancing task, we simulate the process of transferring controllers from simulation to the real-world, and show that the appropriate use of noise during evolution can improve transfer significantly by compensating for inaccuracy in the simulator.
Texture and Cofactor Zeros of the Neutrino Mass Matrix

We study Majorana neutrino mass matrices that have two texture zeros, or two cofactor zeros, or one texture zero and one cofactor zero. The two texture/cofactor zero conditions give four constraints, which in conjunction with the five measured oscillation parameters completely determine the nine independent real parameters of the neutrino mass matrix. We also study the implications that future measurements of neutrinoless double beta decay and the Dirac CP phase will have on these cases.
Novel Syntheses of Indolizines and Pyrrolo[2,1-a]isoquinolines via Benzotriazole Methodology

Indolizines and pyrrolo[2,1-a]isoquinolines are synthesized by 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions of pyridinium benzotriazolylmethylides or isoquinolinium benzotriazolylmethylides with ethylenes and acetylenes.
On the Nature of Critical Heat Flux in Microchannels

The critical heat flux (CHF) limit is an important consideration in the design of most flow boiling systems. Before the use of microchannels under saturated flow boiling conditions becomes widely accepted in cooling of high-heat-flux devices, such as electronics and laser diodes, it is essential to have a clear understanding of the CHF mechanism. This must be coupled with an extensive database covering a wide range of fluids, channel configurations, and operating conditions. The experiments required to obtain this information pose unique challenges. Among other issues, flow distribution among parallel channels, conjugate effects, and instrumentation need to be considered. An examination of the limited CHF data indicates that CHF in parallel microchannels seems to be the result of either an upstream compressible volume instability or an excursive instability rather than the conventional dryout mechanism. It is expected that the CHF in parallel microchannels would be higher if the flow is stabilized by an orifice at the entrance of each channel. The nature of CHF in microchannels is thus different than anticipated, but recent advances in microelectronic fabrication may make it possible to realize the higher power levels.
Modeling residential sorting effects to understand the impact of the built environment on commute mode choice

This paper presents an examination of the significance of residential sorting or self selection effects in understanding the impacts of the built environment on travel choices. Land use and transportation system attributes are often treated as exogenous variables in models of travel behavior. Such models ignore the potential self selection processes that may be at play wherein households and individuals choose to locate in areas or built environments that are consistent with their lifestyle and transportation preferences, attitudes, and values. In this paper, a simultaneous model of residential location choice and commute mode choice that accounts for both observed and unobserved taste variations that may contribute to residential self selection is estimated on a survey sample extracted from the 2000 San Francisco Bay Area household travel survey. Model results show that both observed and unobserved residential self selection effects do exist; however, even after accounting for these effects, it is found that built environment attributes can indeed significantly impact commute mode choice behavior. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the model findings for policy planning.
DESIGN FOR EXISTING LINES: PART AND PROCESS PLAN OPTIMIZATION TO BEST UTILIZE EXISTING PRODUCTION LINES

This paper presents a method for modifying the design of the new part for the maximum utilization of existing production lines dedicated to other products. The method takes as inputs a nominal part design and the process information of the (potentially multiple) existing line(s), and produces a modified part design and a process sequence of the new part that maximizes the utilization of available manufacturing processes in the existing lines or equivalently minimizes the addition of new processes dedicated to the new product. The problem is formulated as mixed discrete-continuous multiobjective optimization. A multiobjective genetic algorithm is used to generate Pareto optimal designs for the optimization analysis. A case study on the production of a new machine bracket considering two available production lines is presented.
An Experimental Approach to Merger Evaluation

The 2010 Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission Horizontal Merger Guidelines lay out a new standard for assessing proposed mergers in markets with dierentiated products. This new standard is based on a measure of \upward pricing pressure," (UPP) and the calculation of a \gross upward pricing pressure index" (GUPPI) in turn relies on a \diversion ratio," which measures the fraction of consumers of one product that switch to another product when the price of the rst product in
Black hole jet power from impedance matching

Black hole jet power depends on the angular velocity of magnetic field lines, ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{F}$. Force-free black hole magnetospheres typically have ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{F}/{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{H}\ensuremath{\approx}0.5$, where ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{H}$ is the angular velocity of the horizon. We give a streamlined proof of this result using an extension of the classical black hole membrane paradigm. The proof is based on an impedance-matching argument between membranes at the horizon and infinity. Then we consider a general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulation of an accreting, spinning black hole and jet. We find that the theory correctly describes the simulation in the jet region. However, the field lines threading the horizon near the equator have much smaller ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{F}/{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{H}$ because the force-free approximation breaks down in the accretion flow.
Measuring Trends in Racial/Ethnic Health Care Disparities

Monitoring disparities over time is complicated by the varying disparity definitions applied in the literature. This study used data from the 1996-2005 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) to compare trends in disparities by three definitions of racial/ethnic disparities and to assess the influence of changes in socioeconomic status (SES) among racial/ethnic minorities on disparity trends. This study prefers the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) definition, which adjusts for health status but allows for mediation of racial/ethnic disparities through SES factors. Black-White disparities in having an office-based or outpatient visit and medical expenditure were roughly constant and Hispanic-White disparities increased for office-based or outpatient visits and for medical expenditure between 1996-1997 and 2004-2005. Estimates based on the independent effect of race/ethnicity were the most conservative accounting of disparities and disparity trends, underlining the importance of the role of SES mediation in the study of trends in disparities.
The Velocity of the Ions Produced in Gases by Rontgen Rays

The electrical conductivity which is imparted to gases by their exposure to Rontgen rays has been explained by J. J. Thomson and E. Rutherford on the hypothesis of a formation of oppositely charged carriers throughout the volume of the gas. The motion of these carriers or ions when in an electric field constitutes the observed conductivity, and the recovery of the insulating property of a gas after an exposure to the rays is due partly to the recombination of the oppositely charged ions and partly to their impact with the boundaries. An estimate of the sum of the velocities with which the positive and negative ions move in air when in a unit electric field was first obtained by J. J. Thomson and E. Rutherford, and later E. Rutherford, by the same indirect method, determined the sum of the velocities of the ions in a number of gases. This method involved the determination of the rate of recombination of the ions, the saturation current obtained through the gas by the use of a strong electric field, and the current obtained with some small non-saturating electric force. E. Rutherford also describes an experiment in which the velocities of the two ions in air were obtained separately by a direct method, and found to be approximately equal. The writer has since shown that in general the two velocities are not equal, and for those gases for which the ratio of the two velocities was determined the negative ion moved the faster in nearly all cases.
Inverse stochastic dominance constraints and rank dependent expected utility theory

We consider optimization problems with second order stochastic dominance constraints formulated as a relation of Lorenz curves. We characterize the relation in terms of rank dependent utility functions, which generalize Yaari's utility functions. We develop optimality conditions and duality theory for problems with Lorenz dominance constraints. We prove that Lagrange multipliers associated with these constraints can be identified with rank dependent utility functions. The problem is numerically tractable in the case of discrete distributions with equally probable realizations.
Iridium(III)-catalyzed tandem Claisen rearrangement–intramolecular hydroaryloxylation of aryl allyl ethers to form dihydrobenzofurans

Iridium(III)-catalyzed tandem Claisen rearrangement and intramolecular hydroaryloxylation of ally aryl ethers is described, which provides a mild method to prepare dihydrobenzofurans.
Alternating time versus deterministic time: A separation

Paulet al. [12] proved that deterministic Turing machines can be speeded up by a factor of log*t (n) using four alternations; that is, DTIME(t(n) log*t(n)) $$ \subseteq $$ σ4(t(n)). Balcazaret al. [1] noted that two alternations are sufficient to achieve this speed-up of deterministic Turing machines; that is, DTIME(t(n) log*t(n)) $$ \subseteq $$ Σ2(t (n)). We supply a proof of this speed-up and using that show that for each time-constructible functiont(n), DTIME(t(n)) ⊂ Σ2(t(n)); that is, two alternations are strictly more powerful than deterministic time. An important corollary is that at least one (or both) of the immediate generalizations of the result DTIME(n) ⊂ NTIME(n) [12] must be true: NTIME(n) ≠ co-NTIME(n) or, for each time-constructible functiont(n), DTIME(t (n)) ⊂ NTIME(t (n)).
Measurement and Evaluation of ENUM Server Performance

ENUM is a DNS-based protocol standard for mapping E.164 telephone numbers to Internet Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). It places unique requirements on the existing DNS infrastructure, such as data scalability, query throughput, response time, and database update rates. This paper measures and evaluates the performance of existing name server implementation as ENUM servers. We compared PowerDNS (PDNS), BIND and Navitas. Results show that BIND is not suitable for ENUM due to its poor scaling property. Both PDNS and Navitas can serve ENUM. However, Navitas turns out to be highly optimized and clearly outperforms PDNS in all aspects we have tested. We also instrumented the PDNS server to identify its performance bottleneck and investigated ways to improve it.
Eigenvalues of large sample covariance matrices of spiked population models

We consider a spiked population model, proposed by Johnstone, in which all the population eigenvalues are one except for a few fixed eigenvalues. The question is to determine how the sample eigenvalues depend on the non-unit population ones when both sample size and population size become large. This paper completely determines the almost sure limits of the sample eigenvalues in a spiked model for a general class of samples.
Functional genetics in the post-genomics era: Building a better roadmap in Drosophila

In this commentary, Rob Kulathinal describes two papers from the Perrimon laboratory, each describing a new online resource that can assist geneticists with the design of their RNAi experiments. Hu et al.’s “UP-TORR: online tool for accurate and up-to-date annotation of RNAi reagents” and “FlyPrimerBank: An online database for Drosophila melanogaster gene expression analysis and knockdown evaluation of RNAi reagents” are published, respectively, in this month’s issue of GENETICS and G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics.
Spin blockade and lifetime-enhanced transport in a few-electron Si/SiGe double quantum dot

The observation of spin blockade and lifetime-enhanced transport effects in Si/SiGe double quantum dots represents a promising step in the development of silicon-based quantum devices.
High Current and High Current Density Pulse Tests of Brushes and Collectors for Homopolar Energy Stores

The incentive exists to use high collector current densities in pulsed duty homopolar generators, the current densities of interest being in the range of 15--45 MA/m2. Tests have been conducted in which current pulses of up to 0.25 MA with an equivalent pulsewidth of 0.3 s have been passed between pancake brush assemblies and fiat plate collectors with collector current densities of up to 78 MA/m2and current densities in the brush fingers of 570 MA/m2. The currents carried per brush have been a comparatively low 800 A. These tests have been successful and are providing the data necessary for the design of the all-iron-rotating homopolar pulse generators.
A remark on global existence for small initial data of the minimal surface equation in Minkowskian space time

We show that the nonlinear wave equation corresponding to the minimal surface equation in Minkowski space time has a global solution for sufficiently small initial data.
From datalog rules to efficient programs with time and space guarantees

This article describes a method for transforming any given set of Datalog rules into an efficient specialized implementation with guaranteed worst-case time and space complexities, and for computing the complexities from the rules. The running time is optimal in the sense that only useful combinations of facts that lead to all hypotheses of a rule being simultaneously true are considered, and each such combination is considered exactly once in constant time. The associated space usage may sometimes be reduced using scheduling optimizations to eliminate some summands in the space usage formula. The transformation is based on a general method for algorithm design that exploits fixed-point computation, incremental maintenance of invariants, and combinations of indexed and linked data structures. We apply the method to a number of analysis problems, some with improved algorithm complexities and all with greatly improved algorithm understanding and greatly simplified complexity analysis.
Regularity of Wave-Maps in Dimension 2 + 1

In this article we prove a Sacks-Uhlenbeck/Struwe type global regularity result for wave-maps $${\Phi:\mathbb{R}^{2+1} \to\mathcal{M} }$$ into general compact target manifolds $${\mathcal{M} }$$ .
Norm Manipulation, Norm Evasion: Experimental Evidence

Using an economic bargaining game, we tested for the existence of two phenomena related to social norms, namely norm manipulation – the selection of an interpretation of the norm that best suits an individual – and norm evasion – the deliberate, private violation of a social norm. We found that the manipulation of a norm of fairness was characterized by a self-serving bias in beliefs about what constituted normatively acceptable behaviour, so that an individual who made an uneven bargaining offer not only genuinely believed it was fair, but also believed that recipients found it fair, even though recipients of the offer considered it to be unfair. In contrast, norm evasion operated as a highly explicit process. When they could do so without the recipient’s knowledge, individuals made uneven offers despite knowing that their behaviour was unfair.
The weighted maximum-mean subtree and other bicriterion subtree problems

We consider problems where we are given a rooted tree as input, and must find a subtree with the same root, optimizing some objective function of the nodes in the subtree. When the objective is the sum of linear function weights of a parameter, we show how to list all optima for all parameter values in O(nlogn) time. This can be used to solve many bicriterion optimizations problems in which each node has two values xi and yi associated with it, and the objective function is a bivariate function f(∑xi,∑yi) of the sums of these two values. When f is the ratio of the two sums, we have the Weighted Maximum-Mean Subtree Problem, or equivalently the Fractional Prize-Collecting Steiner Tree Problem on Trees; we provide a linear time algorithm when all values are positive, improving a previous O(nlogn) solution, and prove NP-completeness when certain negative values are allowed
Approximate common knowledge revisited

Suppose we replace “knowledge” by “belief with probability p” in standard definitions of common knowledge. Very different notions arise depending on the exact definition of common knowledge used in the substitution. This paper demonstrates those differences and identifies which notion is relevant in each of three contexts: equilibrium analysis in incomplete information games, best response dynamics in incomplete information games, and agreeing to disagree/no trade results.
Robust Nonlinear Model Predictive Control With Partial State Information

A nonlinear controller methodology is developed based on nonlinear model predictive control and set-membership estimation, resulting in a controller which is robust to model uncertainties and bounded noise sources. The model predictive control makes direct use of the estimated bounds of the states and model parameters through integration as constraints in the optimization problem. This results in lower computation times and the ability to satisfy constraints with partial state information. Stability of the integrated estimation and control algorithm is guaranteed through the use of a contractive terminal cost. Real time implementation is developed through a unique sequential quadratic programming solver, which develops an initial feasible solution very quickly, and continues to optimize as time allows. The estimation and control algorithm is demonstrated in software simulation, hardware simulation, and in uninhabited aircraft flight tests. A formation flight example consisting of two aircraft is presented, showing how the controller can maintain a formation within given constraints and avoid collisions while in the presence of noise. Real time flight control results for an autonomous airplane demonstrate the capability of the algorithms to control a nonlinear aircraft in real time around a suddenly appearing threat, thus avoiding collisions.
Lower bounds for algebraic computation trees with integer inputs

Let $W \subseteq R^n $ be scale-invariant and rationally dispersed, i.e., $\tilde x \in W$ implies $\lambda \tilde x \in W$ for all real $\lambda > 0$; and the rationale are dense in both W and $R^n - W$. It is shown that, in the algebraic computation tree model, the problem of deciding whether an input $\tilde x \in R^n $ with integer coordinates is a member of W has complexity $\Omega (\log _2 \hat \beta (W) - 2n)$, where $\hat \beta (W)$ is the number of connected components of W that are not of measure 0. This theorem can be used to prove tight lower bounds for the integral-constrained form of many basic problems, such as Element Distinctness, Set Disjointness, Finding Convex Hull, etc. Through further transformations, it leads to lower bounds for problems such as Integer Max Gap and Closest Pair of a simple polygon. The proof involves a nontrivial extension of the Milnor–Thorn techniques for finding upper bounds on the Betti numbers of algebraic varieties.
Some geometric properties of the Bakry-Émery-Ricci tensor

The Bakry-Emery tensor gives an analog of the Ricci tensor for a Riemannian manifold with a smooth measure. We show that some of the topological consequences of having a positive or nonnegative Ricci tensor are also valid for the Bakry-Emery tensor. We show that the Bakry-Emery tensor is nondecreasing under a Riemannian submersion whose fiber transport preserves measures up to constants. We give some relations between the Bakry-Emery tensor and measured Gromov-Hausdorff limits.
The intergenerational transmission of height: evidence from rural Vietnam

A growing body of work suggests that health may be transferred across generations. The aim of this paper is to examine the mechanisms that might account for observed intergenerational associations in health outcomes. Using data from Vietnam, this study analyzes intergenerational correlations in height, a measure of long-run health status, between parents and their children. Insights from biology and economics are used to motivate several strategies that collectively provide insight on the role and importance of different mechanisms. The results illustrate strong intergenerational associations in height, which remain stable with the inclusion of controls for parent and household characteristics. Maternal height is more strongly associated with the heights of boys than girls, while the associations with paternal height are similar across genders. The use of conditions faced by parents early in life as instruments for their height yields significantly larger estimates of the mother-child height association relative to OLS, while the estimated father-child associations move to zero. These results, in conjunction with those from several other tests, illustrate that non-genetic factors are important in determining parent-child associations in height, and more speculatively, that epigenetic mechanisms may play an important role. These findings illustrate the value of investments in early childhood, as these may confer intergenerational benefits.
Timing of Mergers and Acquisitions: Evidence from the Canadian Stock Market

This paper provides evidence of merger timing induced by investors’ overoptimism. We distinguish between hot and cold merger markets and examine the movements of bidding firms’ stock prices, around, before and after mergers announcements. Our results provide strong evidence that mergers are driven by stock market valuation and that these events occur during periods when investors are highly overoptimistic and react irrationally to a merger announcement. We find evidence that bidders’ managers are aware of the overvaluation of their firms and act rationally by timing their mergers and paying with stock. The market can however, correct itself when merger results start to appear.
Discovery of isotopes of the transuranium elements with 93≤Z≤98

One hundred and five isotopes of the transuranium elements neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, and californium have been observed so far; the discovery of these isotopes is described. For each isotope a brief summary of the first refereed publication, including the production and identification method, is presented.
Cosmological Constraints from Galaxy Cluster Velocity Statistics

Future microwave sky surveys will have the sensitivity to detect the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich signal from moving galaxy clusters, thus providing a direct measurement of their line-of-sight peculiar velocity. We show that cluster peculiar velocity statistics applied to foreseeable surveys will put significant constraints on fundamental cosmological parameters. We consider three statistical quantities that can be constructed from a cluster peculiar velocity catalog: the probability density function, the mean pairwise streaming velocity, and the pairwise velocity dispersion. These quantities are applied to an envisioned data set that measures line-of-sight cluster velocities with normal errors of 100 km s-1 for all clusters with masses larger than 1014 M☉ over a sky area of up to 5000 deg2. A simple Fisher matrix analysis of this survey shows that the normalization of the matter power spectrum and the dark energy equation of state can be constrained to better than 10%, and that the Hubble constant and the primordial power spectrum index can be constrained to a few percent, independent of any other cosmological observations. We also find that the current constraint on the power spectrum normalization can be improved by more than a factor of 2 using data from a 400 deg2 survey and WMAP third-year priors. We also show how the constraints on cosmological parameters change if cluster velocities are measured with normal errors of 300 km s-1.
Beyond Open-endedness: Quantifying Impressiveness

This paper seeks to illuminate and quantify a feature of natural evolution that correlates to our sense of its intuitive greatness: Natural evolution evolves impressive artifacts. Within artificial life, abstractions aiming to capture what makes natural evolution so powerful often focus on the idea of openendedness, which relates to boundless diversity, complexity, or adaptation. However, creative systems that have passed tests of open-endedness raise the possibility that openendedness does not always correlate to impressiveness in artificial life simulations. In other words, while natural evolution is both open-ended and demonstrates a drive towards evolving impressive artifacts, it may be a mistake to assume the two properties are always linked. Thus to begin to investigate impressiveness independently in artificial systems, a novel definition is proposed: Impressive artifacts readily exhibit significant design effort. That is, the difficulty of creating them is easy to recognize. Two heuristics, rarity and re-creation effort, are derived from this definition and applied to the products of an open-ended image evolution system. An important result is that that the heuristics intuitively separate different reward schemes and provide evidence for why each evolved picture is or is not impressive. The conclusion is that impressiveness may help to distinguish open-ended systems and their products, and potentially untangles an aspect of natural evolution’s mystique that is masked by its co-occurrence with open-endedness.
Global antidumping database version 1.0

This paper describes a newly collected, detailed database on national governments' use of the antidumping trade policy instrument. The data collection project was funded by the Development Research Group of the World Bank and Brandeis University. While still preliminary, it goes beyond existing, publicly-used sets of antidumping data in a number of fundamental ways. It is a first attempt to use original source national government documentation to organize information on products, firms, the investigative procedure and outcomes of the historical use (since the 1980s) of the antidumping policy instrument across large importing country users. The paper also reports more and recent data on a number of smaller users of antidumping, as well as some limited information on the use of countervailing measures from national governments that are users of countervailing duty laws.
Providing Intersection Decision Support under Challenging Conditions

Results of simulation studies are described: the studies were designed to determine how effectively left-turning drivers can be alerted to imminent conflicts with opposing traffic under difficult operating conditions and with limited detector capabilities. These conditions include approaching vehicles changing speed in locations not covered by detectors and detectors that may be able to detect only vehicle presence, but not speed. In cases without direct speed detection, one may try to rely on historical speed statistics to estimate the speed of approaching traffic, but unless the approach speeds are confined to a narrow range, the system is vulnerable to both false positive and false negative alerts in the respective cases of the real vehicle speeds being less than and greater than the assumed historical value.
Board Monitoring and Antitakeover Amendments

This study examines the joint influence of board composition, leadership structure, and board ownership structure on the market's reaction to corporate antitakeover amendment proposals. The stock price reaction to antitakeover amendments is more negative when the board is dominated by inside and affiliated outside board members. Further, for firms in which the CEO also chairs the board, the reaction becomes increasingly negative as inside and affiliated outside board members increase their ownership stake in the firm and proportional representation on the board. In contrast, board composition and ownership structure have little power to explain the stock price reaction when the CEO does not chair the board. We conclude that monitoring by outside independent board members is important particularly when the CEO is also the board chair. The separation of ownership and control in the corporate form of business creates potential conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders. These conflicts can be mitigated by such internal governance characteristics as the compo? sition, ownership structure, and leadership structure ofthe firm's board of directors. In this study, we analyze the joint effect of these board monitoring characteristics on the stock market response to antitakeover amendment proposals. The study of antitakeover amendments is of particular importance because of the unresolved nature of the theoretical debate surrounding the amendments and the conflicting empirical evidence. Various types of antitakeover amendments exist, but all ostensibly make the takeover of a target firm more difficult with? out the cooperation of incumbent management. The amendments can be either beneficial or detrimental, depending on how managers use them. Managers can use the amendments to extract a higher takeover bid or to entrench themselves at shareholders' expense. The empirical evidence on the market's reaction to amend? ment announcements is also mixed. For example, Linn and McConnell (1983) and
Bank liabilities channel

Abstract The financial intermediation sector is important not only for channeling resources from agents in excess of funds to agents in need of funds (lending channel). By issuing liabilities it also creates financial assets held by other sectors of the economy for insurance or liquidity purpose. When the intermediation sector creates less liabilities or their value falls, agents are less willing to engage in activities that are individually risky but desirable in aggregate (bank liabilities channel). The paper shows how financial crises driven by self-fulfilling expectations about the liquidity of the banking sector are transmitted to the real sector of the economy. Since the government could also create financial assets by borrowing, the paper analyzes how public debt affects the issuance of liabilities by the financial intermediation sector.
Edward H. Bloch, M.D., Ph.D. Pioneer in the Microscopic Study of, and the Microcirculation of, Living Tissues and Organs

Edward H. Bloch, M.D., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, died 3 November 2000 in Cleveland, Ohio at the age of 86. Known to his friends as "Maxl," he will be greatly missed by his friends, colleagues and former students.
Power Spectrum Covariance of Weak Gravitational Lensing

Weak gravitational lensing observations probe the spectrum and evolution of density fluctuations and the cosmological parameters that govern them. At low redshifts, the nonlinear gravitational evolution of large-scale structure produces a non-Gaussian covariance in the shear power spectrum measurements that affects their translation into cosmological parameters. Using the dark matter halo approach, we study the covariance of binned band power spectrum estimates and the four-point function of the dark matter density field that underlies it. We compare this semianalytic estimate to results from N-body numerical simulations and find good agreement. We find that for a survey out to z ~ 1, the power spectrum covariance increases the errors on cosmological parameters determined under the Gaussian assumption by about 15%.
PATH INTEGRALS ON A COMPACT MANIFOLD WITH NON-NEGATIVE CURVATURE

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Path Integrals on a Compact Manifold with Non-negative Curvature A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics by Poon Chuan Adrian Lim Committee in charge: Professor Professor Professor Professor Professor Bruce K. Driver, Chair Patrick J. Fitzsimmons George M. Fuller J. William Helton Kenneth A. Intriligator
Non-LTE Treatment of Molecules in the Photospheres of Cool Stars

We present a technique to treat systems with very many levels, such as molecules, in non-LTE. This method is based on a superlevel formalism coupled with rate operator splitting. Superlevels consist of many individual levels that are assumed to be in LTE relative to each other. The usage of superlevels reduces the dimensionality of the rate equations dramatically and, thereby, makes the problem computationally more easily treatable. Our superlevel formalism retains maximum accuracy by using direct opacity sampling (dOS) when calculating the radiative transitions and the opacities. We developed this method in order to treat molecules in cool dwarf model calculations in non-LTE. Cool dwarfs have low electron densities and radiation fields that are far from blackbody radiation fields; both properties may disqualify them from the common LTE approximation. Therefore, the most important opacity sources, the molecules, need to be treated in non-LTE. As a case study we applied our method to carbon monoxide. We find that our method gives accurate results since the conditions for the superlevel method are very well met for molecules. Because of very high collisional cross sections with hydrogen and the high densities of H2, the population of CO itself shows no significant deviation from LTE.
Low-temperature synthetic method for size-controlled CdSe nanocrystals: utilization of boron selenide

By employing B2Se3 as a selenium source, we demonstrate that at reaction temperatures as low as 60 °C, relatively monodisperse, fluorescent CdSe nanocrystals can be conveniently prepared in various sizes selected from 2 to 13 nm.
Body-pillar vision obstructions and lane-change crashes.

Abstract Introduction This exploratory study investigated the relationship between vision obstructions from body pillars and lane-change crashes. Methods The vision obstructions were quantified by measuring, from the driver's perspective, the horizontal angular sizes and locations of the driver-side A-, B-, and C-pillars. The sample consisted of 21 vehicle models, including 13 passenger cars, 6 SUVs, 1 minivan, and 1 pickup truck. To control for driver differences, going-straight crashes were used for comparison, with the dependent variable being the ratio of lane-change crashes to going-straight crashes. The analysis used North Carolina crash data. Results The results of a multiple regression indicate that the relative frequency of lane-change crashes tended to increase with both wider A-pillars and with A-pillars located farther away from straight ahead. Impact on Industry The finding supports the hypothesis that visibility obstructions due to A-pillars have safety implications.
Oligonucleotide Sequence Motifs as Nucleosome Positioning Signals

To gain a better understanding of the sequence patterns that characterize positioned nucleosomes, we first performed an analysis of the periodicities of the 256 tetranucleotides in a yeast genome-wide library of nucleosomal DNA sequences that was prepared by in vitro reconstitution. The approach entailed the identification and analysis of 24 unique tetranucleotides that were defined by 8 consensus sequences. These consensus sequences were shown to be responsible for most if not all of the tetranucleotide and dinucleotide periodicities displayed by the entire library, demonstrating that the periodicities of dinucleotides that characterize the yeast genome are, in actuality, due primarily to the 8 consensus sequences. A novel combination of experimental and bioinformatic approaches was then used to show that these tetranucleotides are important for preferred formation of nucleosomes at specific sites along DNA in vitro. These results were then compared to tetranucleotide patterns in genome-wide in vivo libraries from yeast and C. elegans in order to assess the contributions of DNA sequence in the control of nucleosome residency in the cell. These comparisons revealed striking similarities in the tetranucleotide occurrence profiles that are likely to be involved in nucleosome positioning in both in vitro and in vivo libraries, suggesting that DNA sequence is an important factor in the control of nucleosome placement in vivo. However, the strengths of the tetranucleotide periodicities were 3–4 fold higher in the in vitro as compared to the in vivo libraries, which implies that DNA sequence plays less of a role in dictating nucleosome positions in vivo. The results of this study have important implications for models of sequence-dependent positioning since they suggest that a defined subset of tetranucleotides is involved in preferred nucleosome occupancy and that these tetranucleotides are the major source of the dinucleotide periodicities that are characteristic of positioned nucleosomes.
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE IMAGING OF BRIGHT LYMAN BREAK GALAXY CANDIDATES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY: NOT LBGS AFTER ALL

We present deep Hubble Space Telescope ACS and NICMOS images of six bright Lyman break galaxy candidates that were previously discovered in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find that five of the objects are consistent with unresolved point sources. Although somewhat atypical of the class, they are most likely LoBAL quasars, perhaps FeLoBALs. The sixth object, J1147, has a faint companion galaxy located ~0.8 arcsec to the southwest. The companion contributes ~8% of the flux in the observed-frame optical and infrared. It is unknown whether this companion is located at the same redshift as J1147.
Modeling 3d objects from stereo views and recognizing them in photographs

Local appearance models in the neighborhood of salient image features, together with local and/or global geometric constraints, serve as the basis for several recent and effective approaches to 3D object recognition from photographs. However, these techniques typically either fail to explicitly account for the strong geometric constraints associated with multiple images of the same 3D object, or require a large set of training images with much overlap to construct relatively sparse object models. This paper proposes a simple new method for automatically constructing 3D object models consisting of dense assemblies of small surface patches and affine-invariant descriptions of the corresponding texture patterns from a few (7 to 12) stereo pairs. Similar constraints are used to effectively identify instances of these models in highly cluttered photographs taken from arbitrary and unknown viewpoints. Experiments with a dataset consisting of 80 test images of 9 objects, including comparisons with a number of baseline algorithms, demonstrate the promise of the proposed approach.
An intelligent wireless mesh network backbone

In this paper, we report on a work-in-progress of an intelligent wireless mesh network backbone. We give a list of guidelines that should be considered for the design of such a network, and analyze them in the context of different application scenarios. We propose a backbone for these networks with the following characteristics: self-formation and maintenance, adaptability, and resiliency. A model for the backbone and a topology control scheme are proposed based on an analysis of the traffic flows generated by final users.
Virtual Corrections to Bremsstrahlung in High-Energy Collider Physics: LHC and e+e− Colliders☆

We describe radiative corrections to bremsstrahlung and their application to high energy collider physics, focusing on the applications to luminosity measurement, fermion pair production and radiative return. We review the status of one loop radiative corrections in BHLUMI and the KK MC , including cross checks with newer results developed independently for radiative return. We outline a YFS-exponentiated approach to the Drell-Yan process for LHC physics, including a discussion of the relevant radiative corrections.