cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Limestone caves and the Quaternary record of terrestrial tetrapods on islands

The potential for finding Quaternary tetrapod fossils on islands is governed by a combination of biodiversity, geology, fossil preservation, and time span of records. Islands with extensive limestone exposures are particularly well represented at low and middle latitudes, where biodiversity is potentially high, and the caves and karst fissures in these landscapes have proven to be rich reliquaries of the Quaternary fossil record. This is particularly apparent when we contrast limestone islands with volcanic islands in the Lesser Antilles; the latter present a serious deficiency in the fossil vertebrate record and an impediment to understanding the biogeography of the region. Caves and karst fissures are also ephemeral on geological time scales, and few tropical island sites are known that are older than the Last Interglacial. In Britain, important cave sites of Middle Pleistocene age are known, but are rare.
Housing Booms and Busts, Labor Market Opportunities, and College Attendance

We study how the recent housing boom and bust affected college enrollment during the 2000s. We exploit cross-city variation in local housing booms, which improved labor market opportunities for young men and women. We find that the boom lowered college enrollment, with effects concentrated at two-year colleges. The decline in enrollment during the boom was generally reversed during the bust; however, attainment remains persistently low for particular cohorts, suggesting that reduced educational attainment is an enduring effect of the recent housing cycle. The housing boom can account for approximately 25 percent of the recent slowdown in college attainment.
Recent Advances in the Synthesis of Natural 2-Deoxy-β-glycosides

This report provides an overview of the recent synthetic efforts directed toward the assembly of complex 2-deoxy-β-glycoside-containing natural products landomycin A, apoptolidin A, digitoxin, lomaiviticin A, incednine, and versipelostatin. In particular, the intention of this review is to cover the work published since the earlier reports on this topic by Lowary and Hou (2009) and Franck and Marzabadi (2000).
Reducing Subspaces on the Annulus

We study reducing subspaces for an analytic multiplication operator \({M_{z^{n}}}\) on the Bergman space \({L_{a}^{2}(A_{r})}\) of the annulus Ar, and we prove that \({M_{z^{n}}}\) has exactly 2n reducing subspaces. Furthermore, in contrast to what happens for the disk, the same is true for the Hardy space on the annulus. Finally, we extend the results to certain bilateral weighted shifts, and interpret the results in the context of complex geometry.
Railroads and American Economic Growth: A “Market Access” Approach*

This paper examines the historical impact of railroads on the American economy. Expansion of the railroad network and decreased trade costs may aect all counties directly or indirectly, an econometric challenge in many empirical settings. However, the total impact on each county can be summarized by changes in that county’s \market access," a reduced-form expression derived from general equilibrium trade theory. We measure counties’ market access by constructing a network database of railroads and waterways and calculating lowest-cost county-to-county freight routes. As the railroad network expanded from 1870 to 1890, changes in market access are capitalized in agricultural land values with an estimated elasticity of 1.5. Removing all railroads in 1890 would decrease the total value of US agricultural land by 73% and GNP by 6.3%, more than double social saving estimates (Fogel 1964). Fogel’s proposed Midwestern canals would mitigate only 8% of losses from removing railroads.
Light emission in silicon nanostructures

The many and diverse approaches to materials science problems have greatly enhanced our ability in recent times to engineer the physical properties of semiconductors. Silicon, of all semiconductors, underpins nearly all microelectronics today and will continue to do so for some time to come. However, in optoelectronics and, more recently, in photonics, the severe disadvantage of an indirect band gap has limited the application of elemental silicon. Here we review a number of diverse approaches to engineering efficient light emission in silicon nanostructures. These different approaches are placed in context and their prospects are assessed for applications in silicon-based photonics.
Auto-generation of communication benchmark traces

Benchmarks are essential for evaluating HPC hardware and software for petascale machines and beyond. But benchmark creation is a tedious manual process. As a result, benchmarks tend to lag behind the development of complex scientific codes. Our work automates the creation of communication benchmarks. Given an MPI application, we utilize ScalaTrace, a lossless and scalable framework to trace communication operations and execution time while abstracting away the computations. A single trace file that reflects the behavior of all nodes is subsequently expanded to C source code by a novel code generator. This resulting benchmark code is compact, portable, human-readable, and accurately reflects the original application's communication characteristics and performance. Experimental results demonstrate that generated source code of benchmarks preserves both the communication patterns and the run-time behavior of the original application. Such automatically generated benchmarks not only shorten the transition from application development to benchmark extraction but also facilitate code obfuscation, which is essential for benchmark extraction from commercial and restricted applications.
Limits of space-based remote sensing for methane source characterization

This analysis examines the ability of a space-based instrument to identify and quantify methane sources in the presence of temperature, humidity, and albedo uncertainty. Thus, the objective is to quantify in the context of the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) the synergistic benefit of simultaneous observation of the Earth's surface with atmospheric attributes. The analysis is illustrative of the type of examination that should inform remote sensing policy and system configuration decisions. The retrieval technique considered is linear inversion of near-IR spectral signals. The anticipated range of methane mixing ratio enhancement due to sources at the Earth's surface is compared to the detection limit of the space-based instrument. >
Is There a Future for Labor‐Management Cooperation?

Christina Merchant dedicated her working life to promoting conflict management and labor-management cooperation. Unfortunately, the environment today does not seem hospitable to such cooperation. A massive assault is being waged against unions and collective bargaining, which begs the question of whether cooperation has a future. At the grassroots level, there is clearly a need for collaboration, where the parties can make a real difference.
Social Learning Theory and Behavioral Therapy: Considering Human Behaviors within the Social and Cultural Context of Individuals and Families

This article examines theoretical thoughts of social learning theory and behavioral therapy and their influences on human behavior within a social and cultural context. The article utilizes two case illustrations with applications for consumers. It points out the abundance of research studies concerning the effectiveness of social learning theory and the paucity of research studies regarding effectiveness and evidence-based practices with diverse groups. Providing a social and cultural context in working with diverse groups with reference to social learning theory adds to the literature for more cultural considerations in adapting the theory to women, African Americans, and diverse groups.
Relationships among tasks, collaborative inquiry processes, inquiry resolutions, and knowledge outcomes in adolescents during guided discovery-based game design in school

This research study investigates US middle school students' collaborative information-seeking, sense-making and knowledge-building practices in a guided discovery-based programme of game design learning in which students and their teachers participate in a formal, in-school class daily, for credit and a grade for an entire year. The learning is supported by information affordances including a wiki learning management system LMS housing the curriculum, organized design activities, social media features, tutorials and informational assignments. Students engage in a Constructionist blended learning setting in their classroom, and work collaboratively in teams on game design. The study draws on qualitative video data from six team cases using a coding scheme of categories for the concepts of task, collaborative information seeking CIS Modality, and inquiry resolution outcomes. The study also considers linkages between processes and learning outcomes. Variation in engagement across the categories among students was charted, and certain patterns emerged. Findings indicate that some categories of task appear related to some categories of students' chosen CIS Modality for solving problems. Further, CIS processes in support of tasks appear related to inquiry incident resolution resolved/unresolved. For student completion of advanced programming tasks in particular, we observe more frequent uses of the wiki-based LMS resources, and greater levels of challenge in fulfilling tasks. Results support existing work on these theoretical constructs in the information sciences, and lead to questions on how naturalistic emergence of CIS practices result from greater task knowledge, and whether learned CIS practices as tasks in and of themselves can yield project task knowledge gains. Findings of the study and the ongoing questions the work invites hold instructional design implications, and show how social constructivist educational contexts involving collaborative and information seeking and knowledge building among youth game designers can contribute to scholarly understanding of these processes more broadly in related project-based work contexts occurring among both youth and adults.
Synthetic Applications and Methodological Developments of Donor−Acceptor Cyclopropanes and Related Compounds

Donor-acceptor cyclopropanes are convenient precursors to reactive and versatile 1,3-dipoles, and have found application in the synthesis of a variety of carbo- and heterocyclic scaffolds. This perspective review details our laboratory’s use of donor-acceptor cyclopropanes as intermediates toward the total synthesis of various natural products. We also discuss our work in the development of novel cycloadditions and rearrangements of donor-acceptor cyclopropanes and aziridines, as well as an example of an aryne insertion proceeding via fragmentation of a transient donor-acceptor cyclobutane.
Acoustic Coupling on the Robot Motion and Control

A number of robotic publications, some of which utilize information available in acoustic signals, deal with the navigation of robots. In 1986, J. Schoenwald et al. developed a technique that utilize acoustic sensors to adapt the robot path in a changing environment [8]. G. Tesch’s work is based on analyzing echo signals produced in an unknown, unprepared environment by sound sources on the robot itself [9]. In a most recent scheme presented by [10], a robot generates acoustic signals and a microphone array determines its location by capturing these signals.
Secure outsourced garbled circuit evaluation for mobile devices

Garbled circuits provide a powerful tool for jointly evaluating functions while preserving the privacy of each user's inputs. While recent research has made the use of this primitive more practical, such solutions generally assume that participants are symmetrically provisioned with massive computing resources. In reality, most people on the planet only have access to the comparatively sparse computational resources associated with their mobile phones, and those willing and able to pay for access to public cloud computing infrastructure cannot be assured that their data will remain unexposed. We address this problem by creating a new SFE protocol that allows mobile devices to securely outsource the majority of computation required to evaluate a garbled circuit. Our protocol, which builds on the most efficient garbled circuit evaluation techniques, includes a new out-sourced oblivious transfer primitive that requires significantly less bandwidth and computation than standard OT primitives and outsourced input validation techniques that force the cloud to prove that it is executing all protocols correctly. After showing that our extensions are secure in the malicious model, we conduct an extensive performance evaluation for a number of standard SFE test applications as well as a privacy-preserving navigation application designed specifically for the mobile usecase. Our system reduces execution time by 98.92% and bandwidth by 99.95% for the edit distance problem of size 128 compared to non-outsourced evaluation. These results show that even the least capable devices are capable of evaluating some of the largest garbled circuits generated for any platform.
Problems with residual and additive elements and their control through specifications

Abstract Circumstances responsible for a specification approach to the control of residual elements are reviewed. For deleterious elements, response varies from insistence on 100% use of virgin materials, to setting maximum limits on a large number of residual elements, to specifying the relative quantities of two or more interactive species. For beneficial elements, minima must be set and testing techniques must assure that the desired element is present, not only in the proper amount but also in a state and location where its meliorating effects can be realized. Examples from both the alloy and ceramic fields are discussed.
The Construction of Governance

This chapter offers a theoretical critique of existing approaches to the new governance for their neglect of culture and agency. In doing so, it proposes that we conceive of the new governance as the social construct of situated agents. The chapter begins by examining what still remain the leading accounts of the new governance — the neoliberal account, often inspired by rational choice theory, of the rise of markets, and the institutionalist account (associated with the Anglo-governance school) of the rise of networks. Both these accounts rely tacitly on positivist assumptions about the appropriateness of our reading-off people’s beliefs from objective social facts about them. Hence they neglect meanings and culture. Next the chapter goes on to examine the prospects for a post-positivist or social constructivist approach to the new governance. It challenges the popular idea that all constructivists are anti-realists. It suggests, to the contrary, that constructivists share a concern with exploring social practices through bottom-up studies of meanings that emphasize contingency. Yet, social constructivists remain ambiguous or confused about the question of agency. Sometimes they even imply that individuals are the passive bearers of discourses, which, in turn, are defined by the relations among semiotic units.
Spectral Gap and Edge Excitations of d-Dimensional PVBS Models on Half-Spaces

We analyze a class of quantum spin models defined on half-spaces in the d-dimensional hypercubic lattice bounded by a hyperplane with inward unit normal vector $$m\in \mathbb {R}^d$$ . The family of models was previously introduced as the single species Product Vacua with Boundary States (PVBS) model, which is a spin-1/2 model with a XXZ-type nearest neighbor interactions depending on parameters $$\lambda _j\in (0,\infty )$$ , one for each coordinate direction. For any given values of the parameters, we prove an upper bound for the spectral gap above the unique ground state of these models, which vanishes for exactly one direction of the normal vector m. For all other choices of m we derive a positive lower bound of the spectral gap, except for the case $$\lambda _1 =\cdots =\lambda _d=1$$ , which is known to have gapless excitations in the bulk.
Integration of experiments across diverse environments identifies the genetic determinants of variation in Sorghum bicolor seed element composition

Seedling establishment and seed nutritional quality require the sequestration of sufficient element nutrients. The identification of genes and alleles that modify element content in the grains of cereals, including sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), is fundamental to developing breeding and selection methods aimed at increasing bioavailable element content and improving crop growth. We have developed a high-throughput work flow for the simultaneous measurement of multiple elements in sorghum seeds. We measured seed element levels in the genotyped Sorghum Association Panel, representing all major cultivated sorghum races from diverse geographic and climatic regions, and mapped alleles contributing to seed element variation across three environments by genome-wide association. We observed significant phenotypic and genetic correlation between several elements across multiple years and diverse environments. The power of combining high-precision measurements with genome-wide association was demonstrated by implementing rank transformation and a multilocus mixed model to map alleles controlling 20 element traits, identifying 255 loci affecting the sorghum seed ionome. Sequence similarity to genes characterized in previous studies identified likely causative genes for the accumulation of zinc, manganese, nickel, calcium, and cadmium in sorghum seeds. In addition to strong candidates for these five elements, we provide a list of candidate loci for several other elements. Our approach enabled the identification of single-nucleotide polymorphisms in strong linkage disequilibrium with causative polymorphisms that can be evaluated in targeted selection strategies for plant breeding and improvement.
A Causal Exploration of Food Price Shocks and Conflict in Sudan

Though recent literature uncovers linkages between commodity prices and conflict, the causal direction of the relationship remains ambiguous. We attempt to contribute in this strand of research by studying the dynamic relationship of commodity prices and the onsets of conflict events in Sudan. Using monthly data ranging from January 2001 through December 2012, we identify a structural breakpoint in the multivariate time series model of prices of the three staple foods (sorghum, millet, and wheat) and conflict measure (number of conflict events) in September of 2011. Applying Structure Vector Autoregression (SVAR) and Linear Non-Gaussian Acyclic Model (LiNGAM), we find that wheat price is a cause of conflict events in Sudan. We find no feedback from conflict to commodity prices.
PATIENT SPECIFIC INSTRUMENTATION: IMPROVING OUTCOMES

A primary goal of shoulder arthroplasty is to place the components in anatomic version. However, traditional instrumentation does not accommodate glenoid wear patterns. Therefore, many investigators have attempted to use computer modeling or CT-based algorithms to create custom targeting guides to achieve this goal. There are some recent studies investigating the use of custom guides. Iannotti et al. published in JBJS-American in 2012 on the use of patient specific instrumentation. There were 31 patients included in the study. The authors found that the planning software and patient specific instrumentation were helpful overall, but particularly of benefit in patients with retroversion in excess of 16 degrees. In this group of patients, the mean deviation was 10 degrees in the standard surgical group and 1.2 degrees in the patient specific instrumentation group. Throckmorton presented a study at the AAOS in 2014 on 70 cadaveric shoulders. There was one high volume surgeon (>100 shoulder arthroplasties a year), two middle volume surgeons (20–50 shoulder arthroplasties a year), and two low volume surgeons (less than 20 shoulder arthroplasties per year). Overall, the custom guide was significantly more accurate than standard instrumentation. The custom guides were found to be especially more accurate among specimens with associated glenoid wear. There were no strong trends to indicate consistent differences between high, medium, and low volume surgeons. The authors concluded that custom guides have narrower standard deviation and fewer significant errors than standard instrumentation. Custom guides continue to evolve for use in shoulder arthroplasty including some guides that allow the surgeon to decide intra-operatively between anatomic shoulder arthroplasty and reverse arthroplasty. Additional studies will be necessary to further define the role of patient specific instrumentation in practice.
Understanding Language, Hearing Status, and Visual-Spatial Skills

It is frequently assumed that deaf individuals have superior visual-spatial abilities relative to hearing peers and thus, in educational settings, they are often considered visual learners. There is some empirical evidence to support the former assumption, although it is inconsistent, and apparently none to support the latter. Three experiments examined visual-spatial and related cognitive abilities among deaf individuals who varied in their preferred language modality and use of cochlear implants (CIs) and hearing individuals who varied in their sign language skills. Sign language and spoken language assessments accompanied tasks involving visual-spatial processing, working memory, nonverbal logical reasoning, and executive function. Results were consistent with other recent studies indicating no generalized visual-spatial advantage for deaf individuals and suggested that their performance in that domain may be linked to the strength of their preferred language skills regardless of modality. Hearing individuals performed more strongly than deaf individuals on several visual-spatial and self-reported executive functioning measures, regardless of sign language skills or use of CIs. Findings are inconsistent with assumptions that deaf individuals are visual learners or are superior to hearing individuals across a broad range of visual-spatial tasks. Further, performance of deaf and hearing individuals on the same visual-spatial tasks was associated with differing cognitive abilities, suggesting that different cognitive processes may be involved in visual-spatial processing in these groups.
Blood biomarkers associated with cognitive decline in early stage and drug-naive Parkinson's disease patients

Early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease (PD) continues to be a major challenge in the field. The lack of a robust biomarker to detect early stage PD patients has considerably slowed the progress toward the development of potential therapeutic agents. We have previously evaluated several RNA biomarkers in whole blood from participants enrolled in two independent clinical studies. In these studies, PD patients were medicated, thus, expression of these biomarkers in de novo patients remains unknown. To this end, we tested ten RNA biomarkers in blood samples from 99 untreated PD patients and 101 HC nested in the cross-sectional Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative by quantitative real-time PCR. One biomarker out of ten, COPZ1 trended toward significance (nominal p = 0.009) when adjusting for age, sex, and educational level. Further, COPZ1, EFTUD2 and PTBP1 mRNAs correlated with clinical features in PD patients including the Hoehn and Yahr scale, Movement Disorder Society revision of Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score. Levels of EFTUD2 and PTBP1 were significantly higher in cognitively normal PD patients (PD-CN) compared to cognitively impaired PD patients (PD-MCI). Interestingly, blood glucose levels were significantly higher in PD and PD-MCI patients (≥ 100 mg/dL, pre-diabetes) compared to HC. Collectively, we report the association of three RNA biomarkers, COPZ1, EFTUD2 and PTBP1 with clinical features including cognitive decline in early drug-naive PD patients. Further, our results show that drug-naive PD and PD-MCI patients have glucose levels characteristic of pre-diabetes patients, suggesting that impaired glucose metabolism is an early event in PD. Evaluation of these potential biomarkers in a larger longitudinal study is warranted.
Sustainable competitive advantage and stock performance: the case for wide moat stocks

ABSTRACT‘In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable “Moats”’. Warren Buffett Companies that have sustainable competitive advantages should be able to create a barrier (Moat) to prevent or lessen competition from other firms. The wider the Moat the greater the barrier and the more secure the company’s profitability. Using the Morningstar classification of ‘Wide Moat’ stocks, we construct annually rebalanced equal- and value-weighted portfolios to analyse their performance in order to determine if they deliver superior performance relative to standard benchmark portfolios. The period for our analysis extends from June 2002 through May 2014. We find that the ‘Wide Moat’ portfolios outperform both the S&P 500 and Russell 3000 indices generating higher average monthly and annualized returns, Sharpe Ratio, Sortino Ratio, Treynor Ratio, Omega Ratio, Upside Potential Ratio, M2, M2 Alpha, and cumulative returns. When we compute alpha using Carhart four-factor and Fama–French five-factor mod...
The Effect of Low-Molecular-Weight Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) Plasticizers on the Transport Properties of Lithium Fluorosulfonimide Ionic Melt Electrolytes

The influence of low-molecular-weight poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG, Mw ≈ 550 Da) plasticizers on the rheology and ion-transport properties of fluorosulfonimide-based polyether ionic melt (IM) electrolytes has been investigated experimentally and via molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Addition of PEG plasticizer to samples of IM electrolytes caused a decrease in electrolyte viscosity coupled to an increase in ionic conductivity. MD simulations revealed that addition of plasticizer increased self-diffusion coefficients for both cations and anions with the plasticizer being the fastest diffusing species. Application of a VTF model to fit variable-temperature conductivity and fluidity data shows that plasticization decreases the apparent activation energy (Ea) and pre-exponential factor A for ion transport and also for viscous flow. Increased ionic conductivity with plasticization is thought to reflect a combination of factors including lower viscosity and faster polyether chain segmental dynamics in the elec...
Oil and entrepreneurship

Economic theory predicts that rents produced from natural resources, especially oil and gas, can increase opportunities for entrepreneurship, but they may also reduce engagement in entrepreneurial activities as they change incentives towards rent-seeking. Using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) annual surveys, this study provides empirical evidence that more per capita profit from oil and gas reduces entrepreneurship only in corrupt environments. The more the corruption is, the larger is the impact. The results have important implications for policy makers, especially in resource rich developing countries.
Pediatric Positional Sitting Dermatitis: A New Form of Pediatric Contact Dermatitis

We report on four pediatric patients who presented with localized dermatitis in areas subject to repetitive friction due to their sitting positions. We propose that the cause of the eruption was irritant contact dermatitis due to frequently sitting in a crossed-leg sitting position, an entity for which we have coined the term pediatric positional sitting dermatitis (PPSD). The goal of this report is to raise clinicians' awareness of PPSD, which to our knowledge has not been previously described, and to discuss management of these patients.
Dienamine-Catalyzed Nitrone Formation via Redox Reaction

The first catalytic method to directly introduce nitrone functionality onto aldehyde substrates is described. This reaction proceeds by an unprecedented organocatalytic redox mechanism in which an enal is oxidized to the γ-nitrone via dienamine catalysis, thereby reducing an equivalent of nitrosobenzene. This reaction is a unique example of divergent reactivity of an enal, which represents a novel strategy for rapidly accessing small libraries of N,O-heterocycles. Alternatively, divergent reactivity can be suppressed simply by changing solvents.
Tandem Olefin Metathesis/Oxidative Cyclization: Synthesis of Tetrahydrofuran Diols from Simple Olefins

A tandem olefin metathesis/oxidative cyclization has been developed to synthesize 2,5-disubstituted tetrahydrofuran (THF) diols in a stereocontrolled fashion from simple olefin precursors. The ruthenium metathesis catalyst is converted into an oxidation catalyst in the second step and is thus responsible for both catalytic steps. The stereochemistry of the 1,5-diene intermediate can be controlled through the choice of catalyst and the type of metathesis conducted. This olefin stereochemistry then controls the THF diol stereochemistry through a highly stereospecific oxidative cyclization.
Public school teacher management in Sri Lanka: issues and options

Sri Lanka is increasingly seeking to ensure that its public school system not only delivers greater shares of students who have completed higher secondary and tertiary education, but also that all students obtain a much better education. Raising teacher effectiveness is considered as crucial for achieving these aims. This paper reviews the literature on teacher management in Sri Lanka, and points to what may be critical teacher management issues. The paper also outlines considerations and options for addressing these issues, informed by international evidence on approaches to improve teacher effectiveness.
Abrogating cholesterol esterification suppresses growth and metastasis of pancreatic cancer

Cancer cells are known to execute reprogramed metabolism of glucose, amino acids and lipids. Here, we report a significant role of cholesterol metabolism in cancer metastasis. By using label-free Raman spectromicroscopy, we found an aberrant accumulation of cholesteryl ester in human pancreatic cancer specimens and cell lines, mediated by acyl-CoA cholesterol acyltransferase-1 (ACAT-1) enzyme. Expression of ACAT-1 showed a correlation with poor patient survival. Abrogation of cholesterol esterification, either by an ACAT-1 inhibitor or by shRNA knockdown, significantly suppressed tumor growth and metastasis in an orthotopic mouse model of pancreatic cancer. Mechanically, ACAT-1 inhibition increased intracellular free cholesterol level, which was associated with elevated endoplasmic reticulum stress and caused apoptosis. Collectively, our results demonstrate a new strategy for treating metastatic pancreatic cancer by inhibiting cholesterol esterification.
There and back again: the synthetic travels of Gary H. Posner

Abstract For the past 50 years, Professor Gary H. Posner has made a significant impact on the field of synthetic organic chemistry. This short review aims to briefly highlight just some of his major contributions, including: (1) early work in the development of organocopper chemistry, specifically cross coupling reactions and the synthesis of non-symmetrical ketones; (2) chiral transfer reactions using both chiral sulfoxides and selenides for the construction of complex products; (3) [4+2]-reactions exploiting 3-substituted pyrones; and (4) novel domino reaction cascades for the synthesis of carbocycles and ring expanded lactones.
View Synthesis by Appearance Flow

We address the problem of novel view synthesis: given an input image, synthesizing new images of the same object or scene observed from arbitrary viewpoints. We approach this as a learning task but, critically, instead of learning to synthesize pixels from scratch, we learn to copy them from the input image. Our approach exploits the observation that the visual appearance of different views of the same instance is highly correlated, and such correlation could be explicitly learned by training a convolutional neural network (CNN) to predict appearance flows – 2-D coordinate vectors specifying which pixels in the input view could be used to reconstruct the target view. Furthermore, the proposed framework easily generalizes to multiple input views by learning how to optimally combine single-view predictions. We show that for both objects and scenes, our approach is able to synthesize novel views of higher perceptual quality than previous CNN-based techniques.
Cerebral NMR Imaging: Early Results with a 0.12 T Resistive System

Over a 6-month period, 157 patients, 89 of whom had central nervous system tumors, were examined on a prototype 0.12 T resistive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging unit. All of the patients had computed tomography (CT), which was used as a standard to which the NMR findings were compared. Studies were done primarily by saturation-recovery technique with short repetition times. The signal intensity with saturation-recovery technique did not allow differentiation among most tumor types. Location, extent, and morphology helped to some extent in attempts at differentiation. In the multiplanar mode, NMR compared favorably to CT with regard to lesion detection. Limited early experience suggests that NMR also may detect some lesions when the CT is negative and may detect additional lesions when one or more are present. The NMR examination was well tolerated by selected patients.
Estimating Chinese Trade Relationships with the Silk Road Countries

In this paper we discuss the extent to which countries in the former Silk Road regions are either reaching or failing to reach their trading potential with China. We estimate a gravity model of trade using a Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimator, and estimate trade potential using in-sample, out-of-sample and counterfactual approaches. We compare trade potential using these three methods for Silk Road country trades with China. Next, we compare the estimated trade potential to actual trade, and find that most Silk Road countries are underperforming in their trade with China. However, trade performance against potential improved for most countries over the years 1990–2013. Our results suggest that China's former Silk Road trading partners have yet to realize the full potential benefits of China's economic growth but that the gap may be narrowing.
Explaining Rules‐Based Characteristics in U.S. GAAP: Theories and Evidence

Despite debate on the desirability of rules-based standards, no studies provide evidence on why accounting standards take on rules-based characteristics. We identify and test five theories from prior research (litigation risk, constraining opportunism, complexity, transaction frequency, and age) that could explain why some U.S. accounting standards contain rules-based characteristics. Litigation risk and complexity are most consistently related to cross-sectional and time-series variation in rules-based characteristics. We find more limited evidence that frequent transactions, age, and desires by regulators to constrain opportunistic reporting are related to rules-based standards. We note, however, that our findings are necessarily descriptive because standards arise endogenously from market and political forces, limiting causal interpretation. Further, it is difficult to perfectly separate rules-based characteristics of the standard from both the complexity of the standard and the characteristics of the underlying transaction, including the complexity of the transaction.
"CERD-ain" Reform: Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline through More Thorough Coordination of the Departments of Justice and Education

In the last year of his presidency, President Barack Obama and his administration have undertaken many initiatives to ensure that formerly incarcerated individuals have more opportunities to successfully reenter society. At the same time, the administration has been working on education policy that closes the achievement gap and slows the endless flow of juveniles into the school-to-prison pipeline. While certainly laudable, there is much more that can be undertaken collaboratively among executive branch agencies to end the school-to-prison pipeline and the endless cycle of people re-entering the criminal justice system. This paper examines the rise of the school-to-prison pipeline through the international lens of the United Nations Committee to End All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which has repeatedly raised humanitarian concerns about the criminal justice system in the United States and its detrimental impact on underserved communities. The paper examines recommendations made by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights to the Committee and recommends that policymakers work harder to implement those recommendations so that the United States is in compliance with its treaty requirements.
Distinctive Reaction Pathways at Base Metals in High-Spin Organometallic Catalysts.

ConspectusInexpensive “base” metals are more affordable and sustainable than precious metals and also offer opportunities to discover new mechanisms for selective catalytic reactions. Base metal complexes can have high-spin electronic configurations that are rare in precious metal complexes. This Account describes some concepts relevant to high-spin organometallic complexes, focusing on our recent work with β-diketiminate complexes of iron and cobalt. Even though high-spin organometallic complexes have some unfamiliar spectroscopic properties, they can be studied using NMR spectroscopy as well as techniques that focus on the magnetism brought about by the unpaired electrons. Understanding the mechanisms of reactions using these complexes can be complicated, because complexes with a high-spin electronic configuration may need to change spin states to avoid high barriers for reaction. These spin-state changes can be rapid, and the ability of an excited spin state to “cut through” the barrier for a reaction ...
Multiplayer Reach-Avoid Games via Pairwise Outcomes

A multiplayer reach-avoid game is a differential game between an attacking team with $N_{A}$ attackers and a defending team with $N_{D}$ defenders playing on a compact domain with obstacles. The attacking team aims to send $M$ of the $N_{A}$ attackers to some target location, while the defending team aims to prevent that by capturing attackers or indefinitely delaying attackers from reaching the target. Although the analysis of this game plays an important role in many applications, the optimal solution to this game is computationally intractable when $N_{A} > 1$ or $N_{D} > 1$ . In this technical note, we present two approaches for the $N_{A}=N_{D}=1$ case to determine pairwise outcomes, and a graph theoretic maximum matching approach to merge these pairwise outcomes for an $N_{A},N_{D} > 1$ solution that provides guarantees on the performance of the defending team. We will show that the four-dimensional Hamilton–Jacobi–Isaacs approach allows for real-time updates to the maximum matching, and that the two-dimensional “path defense” approach is considerably more scalable with the number of players while maintaining defender performance guarantees.
Static and dynamic acoustic cues in distinctive tones.

It is conventional to classify phonemic tones into dynamic or contour tones and static or level tones. The perceptual relevance of this impressionistic dichotomy is considered here for Central Thai...
Declining nitrate-N yields in the Upper Potomac River Basin: What is really driving progress under the Chesapeake Bay restoration?

Abstract Reducing nutrient pollution of surface and coastal waters in the U.S. and elsewhere remains a major environmental and engineering challenge for the 21st century. In the case of the Chesapeake Bay restoration, we still lack scientific proof that watershed-based management actions have been effective at reducing nonpoint-source nutrient loads from the land to this estuary in accordance with restoration goals. While the conventional wisdom is that implementation of best management practices (BMP’s) and wastewater treatment have turned the tide against nutrient pollution, we examined long-term (1986-present) nitrate-N trends in streams and major tributaries of the Upper Potomac River Basin (UPRB) and found that: 1) dramatic reductions in annual discharge-weighted mean nitrate-N concentrations and yields across the UPRB can be almost universally attributed to reductions in atmospheric N deposition as opposed to on-the-ground management actions such as implementation of BMP’s; 2) observed water quality changes generally comport with a modified kinetic N saturation model (MKNSM); 3) the MKNSM can separate the nitrate-N yield that is responsive to atmospheric deposition from a “non-responsive” yield; and 4) N saturation from atmospheric N deposition appears to be an inherently reversible process across most of the landscape. These unanticipated region-wide water quality benefits can be attributed to NOx emission controls brought about by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (and subsequent U.S. NOX control programs) and reflect a water quality “success story” in the Chesapeake Bay restoration.
Large vessel vasculitis.

The vasculitides affecting large and medium-sized vessels are heterogeneous. This group includes such disorders as giant cell arteritis, Takayasu’s disease, and sarcoidosis. There are several challenges that may arise in the care of patients with these disorders. Diagnosis may be elusive when initially evaluating patients with large-vessel vasculitis. Most serologic markers are not specific, and tissue biopsy is often impractical. We will present data emphasizing the most common disease manifestations, to aid in recognition of a clinical picture suggestive of large-vessel vasculitis. We will also focus on the more common pulmonary manifestations and minimize the inclusion of case reports, which may not reflect the usual course of disease. Large cohort studies and randomized controlled trials to provide an evidencebased approach to therapy in these disorders are uncommon. We have included in this review discussion of those studies that we judged to be most rigorously conducted and clinically relevant. We provide guidelines for initial therapy, with caveats to assist in minimizing potential treatment-related complications and toxicities. Although monitoring of disease activity is often difficult, this is a most crucial element in minimizing disease and treatment-associated morbidity and mortality.
Endoscopic posterior cricoid split with costal cartilage graft: A fifteen-year experience.

Objective To evaluate outcomes of the endoscopic posterior cricoid split with rib graft (EPCS/RG) procedure in the treatment of subglottic stenosis (SGS), posterior glottic stenosis (PGS), and bilateral vocal fold immobility (BVFI). Study Design Retrospective chart review. Methods Chart review of all patients who underwent EPCS/RG at a single tertiary-care facility between 1999 and 2014. Patients were grouped based on the primary indication for the procedure. Decannulation was the primary endpoint. Secondary endpoints were the number of subsequent airway procedures and length of hospitalization. Results Thirty-three patients were identified; 32 had tracheotomy. Overall decannulation rate was 65.6%. Subgroup analysis demonstrated the following decannulation rates: 53.8% for SGS, 100% for PGS, and 28.6% for BVFI. Fisher exact test found a significant difference in overall decannulation rates between groups (P = 0.002). Operation-specific decannulation rates for patients who never required an open procedure were 23% for SGS, 91.6% for PGS, and 28.6% for BVFI. This difference was also statistically significant (P = 0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis found prematurity had a positive correlation with decannulation that approached statistical significance (P < 0.051; odds ratio 6.1; 95% confidence interval 0.99, 37.6). The percentage of patients who underwent repeat airway procedures for the groups was 61.5% for SGS, 16.6 % for PGS, and 14.3% for BVFI. The median length of hospitalization after EPCS/RG was 3 days. Conclusion This represents the largest series of patients who have undergone EPCS/RG and demonstrates that the majority of patients can be decannulated after this procedure. Patients with PGS had the highest operation-specific decannulation rates. Level of Evidence 4. Laryngoscope, 2016
Physicians in Postgraduate Training Characteristics and Support of Palliative Sedation for Existential Distress.

Introduction:Palliative sedation for refractory existential distress (PS-ED) is ethically troubling but potentially critical to quality end-of-life (EOL) care. Physicians’ in postgraduate training support toward PS-ED is unknown nor is it known how empathy, hope, optimism, or intrinsic religious motivation (IRM) affect their support. These knowledge gaps hinder efforts to support physicians who struggle with patients’ EOL care preferences.Methods:One hundred thirty-four postgraduate physicians rated their support of PS for refractory physical pain (PS-PP) or PS-ED, ranked the importance of patient preferences in ethically challenging situations, and completed measures of empathy, hope, optimism, and IRM. Predictors of PS-ED and PS-PP support were examined using binary and multinomial logistic regression.Results:Only 22.7% of residents were very supportive of PS-ED, and 82.0% were very supportive of PS-PP. Support for PS-PP or PS-ED did not correlate with levels of empathy, hope, optimism, or IRM; however,...
Conceptualizing Essential Components of Effective High Schools

ABSTRACTThree decades of reform aimed at improving disadvantaged student achievement have not substantially narrowed achievement and graduation gaps. This article reviews the research around eight essential components of effective high schools emerging from a review of the effective schools and high school reform literature, and provides a framework for how these components are implemented and integrated. We submit that far-reaching high school improvement is rooted in these components: schools succeed because they are woven into the school’s organizational fabric to create internally consistent and mutually reinforcing reforms; their success is explained by more than the simple sum of their parts.
On One Class of Quaternionic Mappings

We consider a new class of quaternionic mappings associated with three-dimensional partial differential equations and propose a description of all mappings from this class by using four analytic functions of complex variable.
Process implanting: a new active introspection framework for virtualization

Previous research on virtual machine introspection proposed "out-of-box" approach by moving out security tools from the guest operating system. However, compared to the traditional "in-the-box" approach, it remains a challenge to obtain a complete semantic view due to the semantic gap between the guest VM and the hypervisor. In this paper, we present Process Implanting, a new active VM introspection framework, to narrow the semantic gap by implanting a process from the host into the guest VM and executing it under the cover of an existing running process. With the protection and coordination from the hypervisor, the implanted process can run with a degree of stealthiness and exit gracefully without leaving negative impact on the guest operating system. We have designed and implemented a proof-of-concept prototype on KVM which leverages hardware virtualization. We also propose and demonstrate application scenarios for Process Implanting in the area of VM security