cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Geometric algorithms for optimal airspace design and air traffic controller workload balancing

The National Airspace System (NAS) is designed to accommodate a large number of flights over North America. For purposes of workload limitations for air traffic controllers, the airspace is partitioned into approximately 600 sectors; each sector is observed by one or more controllers. In order to satisfy workload limitations for controllers, it is important that sectors be designed carefully according to the traffic patterns of flights, so that no sector becomes overloaded. We formulate and study the airspace sectorization problem from an algorithmic point-of-view, modeling the problem of optimal sectorization as a geometric partition problem with constraints. The novelty of the problem is that it partitions data consisting of trajectories of moving points, rather than static point set partitioning that is commonly studied. First, we formulate and solve the 1D version of the problem, showing how to partition a line into “sectors” (intervals) according to historical trajectory data. Then, we apply the 1D solution framework to design a 2D sectorization heuristic based on binary space partitions. We also devise partitions based on balanced “pie partitions” of a convex polygon.We evaluate our 2D algorithms experimentally, applying our algorithms to actual historical flight track data for the NAS. We compare the workload balance of our methods to that of the existing set of sectors for the NAS and find that our resectorization yields competitive and improved workload balancing. In particular, our methods yield an improvement by a factor between 2 and 3 over the current sectorization in terms of the time-average and the worst-case workloads of the maximum workload sector. An even better improvement is seen in the standard deviations (over all sectors) of both time-average and worst-case workloads.
Weighted Expected Utility Hedge Ratios

We derive a new hedge ratio based on weighted expected utility. Weighted expected utility is a generalization of expected utility that permits non-linear probability weights. Generally speaking weighted expected utility hedge ratios are less than minimum variance hedge ratios and larger than expected utility hedge ratios.
Distributed Compression of Linear Functions: Partial Sum-Rate Tightness and Gap to Optimal Sum-Rate

We consider the problem of distributed compression of the difference Z = Y1 - cY2 of two jointly Gaussian sources Y1 and Y2 under an MSE distortion constraint D on Z. The rate region for this problem is unknown if the correlation coefficient ρ and the weighting factor c satisfy cρ > 0. Inspired by Ahlswede and Han's scheme for the problem of distributed compression of the modulo-2 sum of two binary sources, we first propose a hybrid random-structured coding scheme that is capable of saving the sum-rate over both the random quantize-and-bin (QB) coding scheme and Krithivasan and Pradhan's structured lattice coding scheme. The main idea is to use a random coding component in the first layer to adjust the source correlation so that the structured coding component in the second layer can be more efficient with the outputs from the first layer as decoder side information. We then provide a new sum-rate lower bound for the problem in hand by connecting it to the Gaussian two-terminal source coding problem with covariance matrix distortion constraint. Our lower bound not only improves existing bounds in many cases, but also allows us to prove sum-rate tightness of the QB scheme when c is either relatively small or large and D is larger than some threshold. Furthermore, our lower bound enables us to show that our new hybrid scheme performs within two b/s from the optimal sum-rate for all values of ρ, c, and D.
Vertical integration and optimal reimbursement policy

Health care providers may vertically integrate not only to facilitate coordination of care, but also for strategic reasons that may not be in patients’ best interests. Optimal Medicare reimbursement policy depends upon the extent to which each of these explanations is correct. To investigate, we compare the consequences of the 1997 adoption of prospective payment for skilled nursing facilities (SNF PPS) in geographic areas with high versus low levels of hospital/SNF integration. We find that SNF PPS decreased spending more in high integration areas, with no measurable consequences for patient health outcomes. Our findings suggest that integrated providers should face higher-powered reimbursement incentives, i.e., less cost-sharing. More generally, we conclude that purchasers of health services (and other services subject to agency problems) should consider the organizational form of their suppliers when choosing a reimbursement mechanism.
Streaming similarity search over one billion tweets using parallel locality-sensitive hashing

Finding nearest neighbors has become an important operation on databases, with applications to text search, multimedia indexing, and many other areas. One popular algorithm for similarity search, especially for high dimensional data (where spatial indexes like kd-trees do not perform well) is Locality Sensitive Hashing (LSH), an approximation algorithm for finding similar objects.In this paper, we describe a new variant of LSH, called Parallel LSH (PLSH) designed to be extremely efficient, capable of scaling out on multiple nodes and multiple cores, and which supports high-throughput streaming of new data. Our approach employs several novel ideas, including: cache-conscious hash table layout, using a 2-level merge algorithm for hash table construction; an efficient algorithm for duplicate elimination during hash-table querying; an insert-optimized hash table structure and efficient data expiration algorithm for streaming data; and a performance model that accurately estimates performance of the algorithm and can be used to optimize parameter settings. We show that on a workload where we perform similarity search on a dataset of > 1 Billion tweets, with hundreds of millions of new tweets per day, we can achieve query times of 1-2.5 ms. We show that this is an order of magnitude faster than existing indexing schemes, such as inverted indexes. To the best of our knowledge, this is the fastest implementation of LSH, with table construction times up to 3.7× faster and query times that are 8.3× faster than a basic implementation.
Toward High-Precision Measures of Large-Scale Structure

I review some results of estimation of the power spectrum of density fluctuations from galaxy redshift surveys and discuss advances that may be possible with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I then examine the realities of power spectrum estimation in the presence of Galactic extinction, photometric errors, galaxy evolution, clustering evolution, and uncertainty about the background cosmology.
Comparative genomics in acid mine drainage biofilm communities reveals metabolic and structural differentiation of co-occurring archaea

Metal sulfide mineral dissolution during bioleaching and acid mine drainage (AMD) formation creates an environment that is inhospitable to most life. Despite dominance by a small number of bacteria, AMD microbial biofilm communities contain a notable variety of coexisting and closely related Euryarchaea, most of which have defied cultivation efforts. For this reason, we used metagenomics to analyze variation in gene content that may contribute to niche differentiation among co-occurring AMD archaea. Our analyses targeted members of the Thermoplasmatales and related archaea. These results greatly expand genomic information available for this archaeal order. We reconstructed near-complete genomes for uncultivated, relatively low abundance organisms A-, E-, and Gplasma, members of Thermoplasmatales order, and for a novel organism, Iplasma. Genomic analyses of these organisms, as well as Ferroplasma type I and II, reveal that all are facultative aerobic heterotrophs with the ability to use many of the same carbon substrates, including methanol. Most of the genomes share genes for toxic metal resistance and surface-layer production. Only Aplasma and Eplasma have a full suite of flagellar genes whereas all but the Ferroplasma spp. have genes for pili production. Cryogenic-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and tomography (cryo-ET) strengthen these metagenomics-based ultrastructural predictions. Notably, only Aplasma, Gplasma and the Ferroplasma spp. have predicted iron oxidation genes and Eplasma and Iplasma lack most genes for cobalamin, valine, (iso)leucine and histidine synthesis. The Thermoplasmatales AMD archaea share a large number of metabolic capabilities. All of the uncultivated organisms studied here (A-, E-, G-, and Iplasma) are metabolically very similar to characterized Ferroplasma spp., differentiating themselves mainly in their genetic capabilities for biosynthesis, motility, and possibly iron oxidation. These results indicate that subtle, but important genomic differences, coupled with unknown differences in gene expression, distinguish these organisms enough to allow for co-existence. Overall this study reveals shared features of organisms from the Thermoplasmatales lineage and provides new insights into the functioning of AMD communities.
M theory and p-branes

Ten dimensional type IIA and IIB theories with p-branes are compactified to 8-dimensions. It is shown that resulting branes can be classified according to the representations of SL(3, Z) × SL(2, Z). These p-branes can also be obtained by compactification of M theory on three torus and various wrappings of membrane and five brane of the eleven dimensional theory. It is argued that there is evidence for bound states of the branes in eight dimensions as is the case in the interpretation of SL(2, Z) family of string solutions obtained by Schwarz.
Structures of Planar Defects in ZnO Nanobelts and Nanowires

Quasi-one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures, such as nanowires, nanobelts and nanorods, are the forefront materials for nanotechnology. To date, such nanostructures have been synthesized for a wide range of semiconductors and oxides, and they are potential building blocks for fabricating numerous nano-scale devices. 1D ZnO nanostructures, due to its unique semiconducting, piezoelectric, and bio-safe properties, have received wide attention. From structure point of view, a common characteristic of ZnO nanostructures is that they are mostly dislocation-free. However, planar and point defects do frequently exist in such nanostructures. The objective of this paper is to present detailed electron microscopy study about the structures of planar defects, such as stacking faults, twins, inversion domain walls that existed in 1D ZnO nanostructures. These planar defects are important for understanding the growth mechanism and relevant physical and possibly chemical properties of 1D ZnO nanostructures.
Annular Bragg defect mode resonators

We propose and analyze a new type of a resonator in an annular geometry that is based on a single defect surrounded by radial Bragg reflectors on both sides. We show that the conditions for efficient mode confinement are different from those of the conventional Bragg waveguiding in a rectangular geometry. A simple and intuitive approach to the design of optimal radial Bragg reflectors is proposed and employed, yielding chirped gratings. Small bending radii and strong control over the resonator dispersion are possible by the Bragg confinement. A design compromise between large free-spectral-range requirements and fabrication tolerances is suggested.
INTEGRATING USER INTERFACE DEVELOPMENT AND MODERN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

A long-term goal for software engineers is integrating the separate processes of user interface development and modern software development. With emergent CASE technology, software engineers can begin to explore ways to achieve this integration. Exploration involves investigating candidate methodologies that let developers apply different development strategies to different parts of an interactive system. Disciplined long-term investigation requires that the fundamental principles governing each process be fixed and that evolving development methods comprising each process be accommodated. This paper proposes a computer-based process model that fixes the principles and accommodates evolving methods. Model features include a collection of software engineering and knowledge engineering techniques that supports a development organization of human and computer-based agents, a coordination activity that supports opportunistic behavior of developers, a unifying representation that leads to mutually consistent results from developers, and an extendable topology that enhances collaboration among developers while reducing their communications burden.
PAPER MILLIONAIRES: HOW VALUABLE IS STOCK TO A STOCKHOLDER WHO IS RESTRICTED FROM SELLING IT?

Abstract Many firms have stockholders who face severe restrictions on their ability to sell their shares and diversify the risk of their personal wealth. We study the costs of these liquidity restrictions on stockholders using a continuous-time portfolio choice framework. These restrictions have major effects on the optimal investment and consumption strategies because of the need to hedge the illiquid stock position and smooth consumption in anticipation of the eventual lapse of the restrictions. These results provide a number of important insights about the effects of illiquidity in financial markets.
SUBJECTIVE COGNITIVE COMPLAINTS CONTRIBUTE TO MISDIAGNOSIS OF MILD COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT

Subjective cognitive complaints are a criterion for the diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), despite their uncertain relationship to objective memory performance in MCI. We aimed to examine self-reported cognitive complaints in subgroups of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) MCI cohort to determine whether they are a valuable inclusion in the diagnosis of MCI or, alternatively, if they contribute to misdiagnosis. Subgroups of MCI were derived using cluster analysis of baseline neuropsychological test data from 448 ADNI MCI participants. Cognitive complaints were assessed via the Everyday Cognition (ECog) questionnaire, and discrepancy scores were calculated between self- and informant-report. Cluster analysis revealed Amnestic and Mixed cognitive phenotypes as well as a third Cluster-Derived Normal subgroup (41.3%), whose neuropsychological and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarker profiles did not differ from a "robust" normal control group. This cognitively intact phenotype of MCI participants overestimated their cognitive problems relative to their informant, whereas Amnestic MCI participants with objective memory impairment underestimated their cognitive problems. Underestimation of cognitive problems was associated with positive CSF AD biomarkers and progression to dementia. Overall, there was no relationship between self-reported cognitive complaints and objective cognitive functioning, but significant correlations were observed with depressive symptoms. The inclusion of self-reported complaints in MCI diagnostic criteria may cloud rather than clarify diagnosis and result in high rates of misclassification of MCI. Discrepancies between self- and informant-report demonstrate that overestimation of cognitive problems is characteristic of normal aging while underestimation may reflect greater risk for cognitive decline.
Tactile array sensor for object identification using complex moments

This article explores object identification by complex moment features obtained using a tactile array sensor. Some complex moment invariants have been derived and implemented eliminating the effects of lateral displacement and rotation from the tactile images. The generation of a decision tree and use of the complex moment features, allow easy identification of object shapes from the tactile array sensor.
Momentum dependent dark matter scattering

It is usually assumed that WIMPs interact through spin-independent and spin-dependent interactions. Interactions which carry additional powers of the momentum transfer, q2, are assumed to be too small to be relevant. In theories with new particles at the ~ GeV scale, however, these q2-dependent interactions can be large, and, in some cases dominate over the standard interactions. This leads to new phenomenology in direct detection experiments. Recoil spectra peak at non-zero energies, and the relative strengths of different experiments can be significantly altered. We present a simple parameterization for models of this type which captures much of the interesting phenomenology and allows a comparison between experiments. As an application, we find that dark matter with momentum dependent interactions coupling to the spin of the proton can reconcile the DAMA annual modulation result with other experiments.
Capturing specific abilities as a window into human individuality: the example of face recognition.

Proper characterization of each individual’s unique pattern of strengths and weaknesses requires good measures of diverse abilities. Here, we advocate combining our growing understanding of neural and cognitive mechanisms with modern psychometric methods in a renewed effort to capture human individuality through a consideration of specific abilities. We articulate five criteria for the isolation and measurement of specific abilities, then apply these criteria to face recognition. We cleanly dissociate face recognition from more general visual and verbal recognition. This dissociation stretches across ability as well as disability, suggesting that specific developmental face recognition deficits are a special case of a broader specificity that spans the entire spectrum of human face recognition performance. Item-by-item results from 1,471 web-tested participants, included as supplementary information, fuel item analyses, validation, norming, and item response theory (IRT) analyses of our three tests: (a) the widely used Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT); (b) an Abstract Art Memory Test (AAMT), and (c) a Verbal Paired-Associates Memory Test (VPMT). The availability of this data set provides a solid foundation for interpreting future scores on these tests. We argue that the allied fields of experimental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and vision science could fuel the discovery of additional specific abilities to add to face recognition, thereby providing new perspectives on human individuality.
Relevance of in vivo models in melanoma skin cancer.

A discussion of possible wavelength dependence of induction of cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM) is provided. Strengths and weaknesses of various experimental approaches to better understanding of the prevalence of CMM in different human populations including latitude effects are compared. Further the advantages and limitations of the use of the laboratory opossum (Monodelphis domestic), transgenic mice containing SV40 ongogene sequences under tyrosinase promoter control, and a backcross hybrid fish of the genus Xenophorus are contrasted.
Shock-induced defects in bulk materials

In this paper examples of the shock-induced defects produced during shock compression which correlate with microstructure / mechanical property changes induced in materials due to shock prestraining are discussed. The characteristics of the shock impulse(peak shock pressure, pulse duration, and rarefaction rate) imparted to the material under investigation and the shock-induced defects produced in numerous metals and alloys are compared with their deformation behavior at ordinary rates of deformation. Examples of the range of defects observed in shock-recovered metals and alloys, include: dislocations, deformation twins, point defects, and residual metastable remnants from pressure-induced phase transformations. Results concerning the influence of interstitial content on the propensity of ω-phase formation and its structure in high-purity and A-70 Ti are presented. The influence of shock-wave deformation on the phase stability and substructure evolution of high-purity (low-interstitial) titanium and A-70 (3700 ppm oxygen) titanium were probed utilizing real-time velocity interferometry (VISAR) and "soft" shock-recovery techniques. Suppression of the 6h-ω pressure-induced phase transformation in A-70 Ti, containing a high interstitial oxygen content, is seen to simultaneously correspond with the suppression of deformation twinning.
Instabilities of one-dimensional stationary solutions of the cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation

The two-dimensional cubic nonlinear Schrodinger equation admits a large family of one-dimensional bounded travelling-wave solutions. All such solutions may be written in terms of an amplitude and a phase. Solutions with piecewise constant phase have been well studied previously. Some of these solutions were found to be stable with respect to one-dimensional perturbations. No such solutions are stable with respect to two-dimensional perturbations. We consider stability of the larger class of solutions whose phase is dependent on the spatial dimension of the one-dimensional wave form. We study the spectral stability of such nontrivial-phase solutions numerically, using Hill's method. We present evidence which suggests that all such nontrivial-phase solutions are unstable with respect to both one- and two-dimensional perturbations. Instability occurs in all cases: for both the elliptic and hyperbolic nonlinear Schrodinger equations, and in the focusing and defocusing cases.
Patients with Complex Chronic Diseases: Perspectives on Supporting Self-Management

A Complex Chronic Disease (CCD) is a condition involving multiple morbidities that requires the attention of multiple health care providers or facilities and possibly community (home)-based care. A patient with CCD presents to the health care system with unique needs, disabilities, or functional limitations. The literature on how to best support self-management efforts in those with CCD is lacking. With this paper, the authors present the case of an individual with diabetes and end-stage renal disease who is having difficulty with self-management. The case is discussed in terms of intervention effectiveness in the areas of prevention, addiction, and self-management of single diseases. Implications for research are discussed.
Pre-clinical studies of plasmin: Superior benefit-to-risk ratio of plasmin compared to tissue plasminogen activator

Currently-used thrombolytic agents are plasminogen activators (PA). While effective for treating thrombotic disease, PA use is associated with unavoidable hemorrhagic complications in susceptible individuals. Thus, there is an urgent need for new agents or approaches that provide greater hemostatic safety without sacrificing thrombolytic efficacy. Evidence now strongly indicates that 'direct-acting' thrombolytics, which do not require conversion of the precursor plasminogen to the active form plasmin, offer such a potential. The biochemical properties of plasmin provide a theoretical foundation for safe and effective therapy, based on thrombolytic efficacy upon local catheter delivery of agent and neutralization of circulating agent by its inhibitor (alpha-2 antiplasmin) to prevent bleeding complications. In vitro and animal studies support these predictions. In comparison with tissue-plasminogen activator (t-PA), plasmin shows a distinct benefit-to-risk advantage. First, plasmin is equally effective as t-PA in thrombolysis and may be superior for treating thrombi in totally-occluded vessels. Second, whereas t-PA causes bleeding from vascular trauma sites in animals when infused at dosages used for thrombolysis (0.5-1 mg/kg), plasmin exhibits safety at therapeutic dosages. In fact, plasmin can be used at several fold higher concentrations than is needed for thrombolysis, thereby providing a significant safety margin that is not attainable for t-PA or other PAs. Phase I trials with plasmin in hemodialysis graft occlusion and peripheral arterial occlusion have thus far confirmed the hemostatic safety of plasmin.
Skew in parallel query processing

We study the problem of computing a conjunctive query q in parallel, using p of servers, on a large database. We consider algorithms with one round of communication, and study the complexity of the communication. We are especially interested in the case where the data is skewed, which is a major challenge for scalable parallel query processing. We establish a tight connection between the fractional edge packing of the query and the amount of communication in two cases. First, in the case when the only statistics on the database are the cardinalities of the input relations, and the data is skew-free, we provide matching upper and lower bounds (up to a polylogarithmic factor of p) expressed in terms of fractional edge packings of the query q. Second, in the case when the relations are skewed and the heavy hitters and their frequencies are known, we provide upper and lower bounds expressed in terms of packings of residual queries obtained by specializing the query to a heavy hitter. All our lower bounds are expressed in the strongest form, as number of bits needed to be communicated between processors with unlimited computational power. Our results generalize prior results on uniform databases (where each relation is a matching) [4], and lower bounds for the MapReduce model [1].
The Old‐Boy Network and the Young‐Gun Effect

A model of an exclusive group or class whose membership is governed by personal contact and interaction is studied. Members of this old-boy network attempt to shield themselves from transacting with opportunistic or incompetent individuals by dealing only infrequently with unproven nonmembers. This injures the unproven but qualified agents not in the network. Moreover, because recruitment of a new member creates a public good for network members, too little recruiting is performed in equilibrium. A person's attraction to a group stimulates his desire to become a member, but only if he proves himself attractive to its other members can he realize this desire and gain social acceptance.2
Energy, environment, and advances in power electronics

The technology of power electronics has gone through rapid technological advancement during the last four decades, and its applications are quickly expanding in industrial, commercial, residential, military and utility environments. In the global industrial automation, energy conservation and environmental pollution control trends of the 21st century, the widespread impact of power electronics is inevitable. The paper begins with a discussion on a global energy generation scenario and the corresponding environmental pollution problem. The mitigation of this problem is then discussed with particular emphasis on energy saving with the help of power electronics. A brief but comprehensive review of the advances of power electronics that includes power semiconductor devices, converter, machines, drives and control is incorporated in the paper. Finally, a prognosis for the 21st century has been outlined.
Corner-cube retro-reflector instrument for advanced lunar laser ranging

Lunar laser ranging (LLR) has made major contributions to our understanding of the Moon’s internal structure and the dynamics of the Earth–Moon system. Because of the recent improvements of the ground-based laser ranging facilities, the present LLR measurement accuracy is limited by the retro-reflectors currently on the lunar surface, which are arrays of small corner-cubes. Because of lunar librations, the surfaces of these arrays do not, in general, point directly at the Earth. This effect results in a spread of arrival times, because each cube that comprises the retroreflector is at a slightly different distance from the Earth, leading to the reduced ranging accuracy. Thus, a single, wide aperture corner-cube could have a clear advantage. In addition, after nearly four decades of successful operations the retro-reflectors arrays currently on the Moon started to show performance degradation; as a result, they yield still useful, but much weaker return signals. Thus, fresh and bright instruments on the lunar surface are needed to continue precision LLR measurements. We have developed a new retro-reflector design to enable advanced LLR operations. It is based on a single, hollow corner cube with a large aperture for which preliminary thermal, mechanical, and optical design and analysis have been performed. The new instrument will be able to reach an Earth–Moon range precision of 1-mm in a single pulse while being subjected to significant thermal variations present on the lunar surface, and will have low mass to allow robotic deployment. Here we report on our design results and instrument development effort.
The value of useless information

There are a number of cases in which individuals do not expect to find out which outcome occurs. The standard von Neumann-Morgenstern Expected Utility model cannot be used in these cases, since it does not distinguish between lotteries for which the outcomes are observed by the agent and lotteries for which they are not. This paper provides an axiomatic model that makes this distinction. A representation theorem is then obtained. This framework admits preferences for observing the outcome, and preferences for remaining in doubt. Doubt-proneness and doubt-aversion are defined, and the relation between risk-aversion, caution and doubt-attitude is explored. The model builds on the standard vNM framework, but other frameworks can also be extended to allow for preferences for observing the outcomes and preferences for remaining in doubt. A methodology for this extension is also provided. This framework can accommodate behavioral patterns that are inconsistent with the vNM model, and which have let to significantly different models. In particular, this framework accommodates self-handicapping, in which an agent chooses to impair his own performance. It also admits a status-quo bias, even though it does not allow for framing effects. In a political economy setting, voters have incentive to remain ignorant even if information is costless.
An asymptotically correct model for initially curved and twisted thin-walled composite beams

Abstract The variational–asymptotic method has been applied to develop an asymptotically correct model for initially curved and twisted, thin-walled, composite beams of arbitrary cross-sectional shapes and arbitrary anisotropic materials. In a two-step asymptotic reduction procedure, the three-dimensional strain energy is asymptotically reduced first to a two-dimensional shell strain energy and then to a one-dimensional beam strain energy. This is a new attempt where initially curved and twisted, thin-walled, composite beams, with open or closed sections, have been modeled in an asymptotically correct unified framework.
A second order algebraic knot concordance group

First published in Algebraic & Geometric Topology in 12(2), published by Mathematical Sciences Publishers.
Experimental study of the thermal–acoustic efficiency in a long turbulent diffusion‐flame burner

A two-year study of noise production in a long tubular burner is described. The research was motivated by an interest in understanding and eventually reducing core noise in gas turbine engines. The general approach is to employ an acoustic source/propagation model to interpret the sound pressure spectrum in the acoustic far field of the burner in terms of the source spectrum that must have produced it. In the model the sources are assumed to be due uniquely to the unsteady component of combustion heat release; thus only direct combustion-noise is considered. The source spectrum is then the variation with frequency of the thermal-acoustic efficiency, defined as the fraction of combustion heat release which is converted into acoustic energy at a given frequency. The thrust of the research was to study the variation of the source spectrum with the design and operating parameters of the burner.
Things fall apart: topology change from winding tachyons

We argue that closed string tachyons drive two spacetime topology changing transitions--loss of genus in a Riemann surface and separation of a Riemann surface into two components. The tachyons of interest are localized versions of Scherk-Schwarz winding string tachyons arising on Riemann surfaces in regions of moduli space where string-scale tubes develop. Spacetime and world-sheet renormalization group analyses provide strong evidence that the decay of these tachyons removes a portion of the spacetime, splitting the tube into two pieces. We address the fate of the gauge fields and charges lost in the process, generalize it to situations with weak flux backgrounds, and use this process to study the type 0 tachyon, providing further evidence that its decay drives the theory sub-critical. Finally, we discuss the time-dependent dynamics of this topology-changing transition and find that it can occur more efficiently than analogous transitions on extended supersymmetric moduli spaces, which are limited by moduli trapping.
Evaluation of Semantic Clusters

Semantic clusters of a domain form an important feature that can be useful for performing syntactic and semantic disambiguation. Several attempts have been made to extract the semantic clusters of a domain by probabilistic or taxonomic techniques. However, not much progress has been made in evaluating the obtained semantic clusters. This paper focuses on an evaluation mechanism that can be used to evaluate semantic clusters produced by a system against those provided by human experts.
Solitons in Seiberg-Witten theory and D branes in the derived category

We analyze the ``geometric engineering'' limit of a type II string on a suitable Calabi-Yau threefold to obtain an N = 2 pure SU(2) gauge theory. The derived category picture together with Π-stability of B-branes beautifully reproduces the known spectrum of BPS solitons in this case in a very explicit way. Much of the analysis is particularly easy since it can be reduced to questions about the derived category of 1.
Efficiency-risk tradeoffs in dynamic oligopoly markets - with application to electricity markets

In this paper, we examine in an abstract framework, how a tradeoff between efficiency and risk arises in different dynamic oligopolistic market architectures. We consider a market in which there is a monopolistic resource provider and agents that enter and exit the market following a random process. Self-interested and fully rational agents dynamically update their resource consumption decisions over a finite time horizon, under the constraint that the total resource consumption requirements are met before each individual's deadline. We then compare the statistics of the stationary aggregate demand processes induced by the non-cooperative and cooperative load scheduling schemes. We show that although the non-cooperative load scheduling scheme leads to an efficiency loss - widely known as the “price of anarchy” - the stationary distribution of the corresponding aggregate demand process has a smaller tail. This tail, which corresponds to rare and undesirable demand spikes, is important in many applications of interest. On the other hand, when the agents can cooperate with each other in optimizing their total cost, a higher market efficiency is achieved at the cost of a higher probability of demand spikes. We thus posit that the origins of endogenous risk in such systems may lie in the market architecture, which is an inherent characteristic of the system.
Pricing Services Subject to Congestion: Charge Per-Use Fees or Sell Subscriptions?

Should a firm charge on a per-use basis or sell subscriptions when its service experiences congestion? Queueing-based models of pricing primarily focus on charging a fee per use for the service, in part because per-use pricing enables the firm to regulate congestion---raising the per-use price naturally reduces how frequently customers use a service. The firm has less control over usage with subscription pricing (by definition, with subscription pricing customers are not charged proportional to their actual usage), and this is a disadvantage when customers dislike congestion. However, we show that subscription pricing is more effective at earning revenue. Consequently, the firm may be better off with subscription pricing, even, surprisingly, when congestion is intuitively most problematic for the firm: e.g., as congestion becomes more disliked by consumers. We show that the absolute advantage of subscription pricing relative to per-use pricing can be substantial, whereas the potential advantage of per-use pricing is generally modest. Subscription pricing becomes relatively more attractive if consumers become more heterogeneous in their service rates (e.g., some know they are “heavy” users and others know they are “light” users) as long as capacity is fixed, the potential utilization is high, and the two segments have substantially different usage rates. Otherwise, heterogeneity in usage rates makes subscription pricing less attractive relative to per-use pricing. We conclude that subscription pricing can be effective even if congestion is relevant for the overall quality of a service.
Stochastic Modeling and Fair Valuation of Drawdown Insurance

Abstract This paper studies the stochastic modeling of market drawdown events and the fair valuation of insurance contracts based on drawdowns. We model the asset drawdown process as the current relative distance from the historical maximum of the asset value. We first consider a vanilla insurance contract whereby the protection buyer pays a constant premium over time to insure against a drawdown of a pre-specified level. This leads to the analysis of the conditional Laplace transform of the drawdown time, which will serve as the building block for drawdown insurance with early cancellation or drawup contingency. For the cancellable drawdown insurance, we derive the investor’s optimal cancellation timing in terms of a two-sided first passage time of the underlying drawdown process. Our model can also be applied to insure against a drawdown by a defaultable stock. We provide analytic formulas for the fair premium and illustrate the impact of default risk.
Power-bandwidth tradeoff in multiuser relay channels with opportunistic scheduling

The goal of this paper is to understand the key merits of multihop relaying techniques jointly in terms of their energy efficiency and spectral efficiency advantages in the presence of multiuser diversity gains from opportunistic (i.e., channel-aware) scheduling and identify the regimes and conditions in which relay-assisted multiuser communication provides a clear advantage over direct multiuser communication. For this purpose, we use Shannon-theoretic tools to analyze the tradeoff between energy efficiency and spectral efficiency (known as the power-bandwidth tradeoff) over a fading multiuser relay channel with K users in the asymptotic regime of large (but finite) number of users (i.e., dense network). Benefiting from the extreme-value theoretic results of [1], we characterize the power-bandwidth tradeoff and the associated energy and spectral efficiency measures of the bandwidth-limited high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and power-limited low SNR regimes, and utilize them in investigating the large system behavior of the multiuser relay channel as a function of the number of users and physical channel SNRs. Our analysis results in very accurate closed-form formulas in the large (but finite) K regime that quantify energy and spectral efficiency performance, and provides insights on the impact of multihop relaying and multiuser diversity techniques on the power-bandwidth tradeoff.
How far can client-only solutions go for mobile browser speed?

Mobile browser is known to be slow because of the bottleneck in resource loading. Client-only solutions to improve resource loading are attractive because they are immediately deployable, scalable, and secure. We present the first publicly known treatment of client-only solutions to understand how much they can improve mobile browser speed without infrastructure support. Leveraging an unprecedented set of web usage data collected from 24 iPhone users continuously over one year, we examine the three fundamental, orthogonal approaches a client-only solution can take: caching, prefetching, and speculative loading. Speculative loading, as is firstly proposed and studied in this work, predicts and speculatively loads the subresources needed to open a webpage once its URL is given. We show that while caching and prefetching are highly limited for mobile browsing, speculative loading can be significantly more effective. Empirically, we show that client-only solutions can improve the browser speed by about 1.4 second on average for websites visited by the 24 iPhone users. We also report the design, realization, and evaluation of speculative loading in a WebKit-based browser called Tempo. On average, Tempo can reduce browser delay by 1 second (~20%).
Beyond Nyquist: Efficient Sampling of Sparse Bandlimited Signals

Wideband analog signals push contemporary analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) systems to their performance limits. In many applications, however, sampling at the Nyquist rate is inefficient because the signals of interest contain only a small number of significant frequencies relative to the band limit, although the locations of the frequencies may not be known a priori. For this type of sparse signal, other sampling strategies are possible. This paper describes a new type of data acquisition system, called a random demodulator, that is constructed from robust, readily available components. Let K denote the total number of frequencies in the signal, and let W denote its band limit in hertz. Simulations suggest that the random demodulator requires just O(K log(W/K)) samples per second to stably reconstruct the signal. This sampling rate is exponentially lower than the Nyquist rate of W hertz. In contrast to Nyquist sampling, one must use nonlinear methods, such as convex programming, to recover the signal from the samples taken by the random demodulator. This paper provides a detailed theoretical analysis of the system's performance that supports the empirical observations.
The globular cluster system of the young elliptical NGC 6702

We study the globular cluster (GC) system of the dust-lane elliptical galaxy NGC 6702, using B-, V- and I-band imaging observations carried out at the Keck telescope. This galaxy has a spectroscopic age of ≈2 Gyr suggesting recent star formation. We find strong evidence for a bimodal GC colour distribution, with the blue peak having a colour similar to that of the Galactic halo GCs. Assuming that the blue GCs are indeed old and metal-poor, we estimate an age of 2–5 Gyr and supersolar metallicity for the red GC subpopulation. Despite the large uncertainties, this is in reasonable agreement with the spectroscopic galaxy age. Additionally, we estimate a specific frequency of SN=2.3±1.1 for NGC 6702. We predict that passive evolution of NGC 6702 will further increase its specific frequency to SN≈2.7 within 10 Gyr, in closer agreement to that of typical present-day ellipticals. We also discuss evidence that the merger/accretion event that took place a few Gyr ago involved a high gas fraction.
Predictive value of cathepsin-D for cervical lymph node metastasis in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Background Prognosis of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is strongly associated with cervical lymph node metastasis. Cathepsin-D is a lysosomal protease expressed in all cells. Its role in extracellular matrix degradation is postulated to promote tumor invasion and metastasis. Increased cathepsin-D has been demonstrated in cervical lymph node metastasis in HNSCC. Methods Formalin fixed tumor biopsy samples from 34 patients with HNSCC of the oral cavity, oropharynx, or hypopharynx were analyzed for the presence of cathepsin-D by immunohistochemistry (1:8000, Calbiochem, Cambridge, MA). Tumors were considered positive if >50% of cells showed strong cytoplasmic staining. Results All patients had T1 or T2 lesions ranging in size from 1–4 cm and 19 (56%) had cervical metastasis. Eight (24%) were well differentiated and 26 (76%) were moderately or poorly differentiated. Thirteen tumors (38%) had high cathepsin-D expression that was strongly associated with cervical lymph node metastasis (p = 0.008). When adjusted for tumor stage and grade, cathepsin-D positivity was nearly twice as likely to be associated with node metastasis (p = 0.011). Conclusions We demonstrated cathepsin-D expression in biopsies from a subset of patients with HNSCC and a strong association between this protease and cervical lymph node metastases. Cathepsin-D is a potential independent predictor of cervical lymph node metastasis in HNSCC and merits additional study. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Head Neck 21: 718–722, 1999.
FUNCTORS EXTENDING THE KAUFFMAN BRACKET

In this article we extend evaluations of the Kauffman bracket on regular isotopy classes of knots and links to a variety of functors defined on the category $\mathcal{F}r\mathcal{T}ang$ of framed tangles. We show that many such functors exist, and that they correspond up to equivalence to bilinear forms on free, finitely-generated modules over commutative rings R.
Microwave-assisted preparation of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrachlorogallate and its catalytic use in acetal formation under mild conditions

1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrachlorogallate, [bmim][GaCl4], prepared via microwave-assisted protocol, is found to be an active catalyst for the efficient acetalization of aldehydes under mild conditions.
Toward a Reliable Synthesis of Strontium Ruthenate: Parameter Control and Property Investigation of Submicrometer-Sized Structures

SrRuO3 (SRO) has been studied extensively at the bulk and thin film scales for a variety of applications, such as multilayer devices, field-effect devices, multiferroics, and even ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM). Conversely, the exploration of SRO nanoscale and submicrometer scale structures in terms of both synthesis and applications has been significantly limited. Herein, we are the first to report on the synthesis of SRO submicrometer-sized particles via a molten-salt method. We have accomplished this by systematically probing experimental parameters such as precursors, type of salt, annealing time, annealing temperature, surfactant, cooling rate, and reaction atmosphere in an effort to predictably control the resulting size, shape, and morphology of the SRO product particles. In particular, by quenching the reaction at a cooling rate of 100 °C/min, we can produce rounded SRO particles averaging 149 ± 100 nm in size. Moreover, with the addition of a mixture of mineral oil in Triton X-100, th...
Energy Bounds for Fault-Tolerant Nanoscale Designs

The problem of determining lower bounds for the energy cost of a given nanoscale design is addressed via a complexity theory-based approach. This paper provides a theoretical framework that is able to assess the trade-offs existing in nanoscale designs between the amount of redundancy needed for a given level of resilience to errors and the associated energy cost. Circuit size, logic depth and error resilience are analyzed and brought together in a theoretical framework that can be seamlessly integrated with automated synthesis tools and can guide the design process of nanoscale systems comprised of failure prone devices. The impact of redundancy addition on the switching energy and its relationship with leakage energy is modeled in detail. Results show that 99% error resilience is possible for fault-tolerant designs, but at the expense of at least 40% more energy if individual gates fail independently with probability of 1%.