cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
An Analysis of Firms' Self-Reported Anticorruption Efforts

ABSTRACT We use Transparency International's ratings of self-reported anticorruption efforts to analyze factors underlying the ratings. Our tests examine whether these disclosures reflect firms' real efforts to combat corruption or are cheap talk. We find that the ratings are related to enforcement and monitoring, country and industry corruption risk, and governance variables. Controlling for these effects and other ratings determinants, we find that firms with lower residual ratings have higher subsequent citations in corruption news events. They also report higher future sales growth and show a negative relation between profitability change and sales growth in high corruption geographic segments, but not in low corruption segments. The net effect on valuation from sales growth and changes in profitability is close to zero. The findings are robust to a number of sensitivity tests, including analysis of disclosures for a larger sample over multiple years. We conclude that, on average, firms' disclosures s...
The Independent Invention Defence in Intellectual Property

Patents differ from other forms of intellectual property in that independent invention is not a defence to infringement. We argue that the patent rule is inferior in any industry where the cost of independently inventing a product is not too much less than (no less than half) the inventor’s cost. First, the threat of entry by independent invention would induce patent holders to license the technology, lowering the market price. Second, a defence of independent invention would reduce the wasteful duplication of R&D effort that occurs in patent races. In either case, the threat of independent invention creates a mechanism that limits patentholders’ profits to levels commensurate with their costs of R&D.
Is there a dark side to incentive compensation

Abstract We report a significant positive association between the likelihood of securities fraud allegations and a measure of executive stock option incentives. This relation is robust to the inclusion of other components of the compensation structure and to other possible determinants of fraud allegations. In addition, we find that the positive relation between the likelihood of fraud allegations and option intensity is stronger in firms with higher outside blockholder and higher institutional ownership. These findings support the view that stock options increase the incentive to engage in fraudulent activity and that this incentive is exacerbated by institutional and block ownership.
Misplaced Angst: Another Look at Consent-Search Jurisprudence

Conventional scholarship misunderstands the judicial invocation of voluntariness when evaluating a purported consensual search. The key is to nail down more precisely what we mean by the term, consent. Most commentators mistakenly entwine consent and waiver, wrongly treating the act of consenting (to a search, to questioning, etc.) as an instance where the actor is waiving a constitutional right. That conceptual error promotes the view that consent refers to a subjective condition, a psychological state, which, in turn, spurs the expectation that voluntariness refers to a person's inner experience. On this view of consent, the person's inner experience is what gives consent its moral force. From this conceptual framework, the Supreme Court's consent-search jurisprudence is, indeed, a mess (and hence, angst-producing). I explicate another conceptualization of consent, one that understands it to be an act, a speech-act which must be evaluated in terms of how we envision police-civilian encounters ought to occur. Voluntariness, then, is more a statement of approbation than a concept with its own substantive content. No one can be satisfied with the Court's consent-search jurisprudence with the expectation that voluntariness actually means more than that. But once we understand the Court to be pursuing a normative vision of what we will and will not tolerate in the cat-and-mouse game of crime fighting, we can appropriately and meaningfully critique its decisions. And so, if we are to have angst over the Court's decisions concerning consent searches, and there may well be good reasons for it, the angst will arise not from metaphysical quarrels over what is voluntary and what is not, but from what the Court is willing to accept by way of police methodology. Clarifying our terminology and modulating our expectations of what we mean to say when we use metaphysically laden terms sharpens our ability to critique the arguments of others. This article shows this to be true when it comes to critiquing the Supreme Court's consent-search jurisprudence.
Public Schooling, Indoctrination, and Totalitarianism

Governments use public education and public ownership of the media to control the information that their citizens receive. More totalitarian governments as well as those with larger wealth transfers make greater investments in publicly controlled information. This finding is borne out from cross‐sectional time‐series evidence acros countries and is confirmed when the recent fall of communism is specifically examined. My results reject the standard publicagood view linking education and democracy, and I find evidence that public educational expenditures vary in similar ways to government ownership of television stations. Country‐level data on the organization of families as well as data on South African public schools are also examined.
Pollution Offshoring and Emission Reductions in EU and US Manufacturing

Between 1995 and 2008, the European Union and the United States raised environmental standards and concurrently experienced important reductions in emissions from manufacturing despite a rise in output. Levinson (Am Econ Rev 99(5):2177–2192, 2009) finds that the offshoring of polluting industries to countries with lower environmental standards played only small role in the cleanup of US manufacturing, which was largely due to improvements in production technique. But there is no evidence of whether US patterns hold in other developed economies. I provide the first analysis of the pollution intensity of EU production and imports to examine which forces drove the EU cleanup. I find that concerns about the effect of pollution offshoring were unfounded in the European Union, not because the effect was small like in the United States, but because the patterns of specialization of EU production and imports were exactly opposite to what pollution offshoring would predict. Starting in the early 2000s, EU manufacturing increasingly produced more pollution-intensive goods while imports became progressively less pollution-intensive, especially from low-income countries. There are two notable exceptions: primary aluminum and electrometallurgical products, except steel, which do provide evidence of offshoring from the EU to lower income countries. The “brown” specialization of EU production is difficult to explain, but about a quarter can be matched by increased demand for EU exports of polluting goods. However, similar to the US cleanup, changes in production and imports were overwhelmed by improvements in production technique, which were the main drivers of the cleanup of manufacturing.
Estimating GVAR weight matrices

ABSTRACTThe objective of this paper is to illustrate how the weights that are needed to construct foreign variable vectors in global vector autoregressive (GVAR) models can be estimated jointly wit...
Bayesian analysis of nested logit model by Markov chain Monte Carlo

Abstract We develop a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for estimating nested logit models in a Bayesian framework. Appropriate “heating target” and reparameterization techniques are adopted for fast mixing. For illustrative purposes, we have implemented the algorithm on two real-life examples involving 3-level structures. The first example involves social security's disability determination process (Soc. Security Bull. 58 (1995) 3). The second one is taken from Amemiya and Shimono's (Econ. Stud. Q. 40 (1989) 14) model of labor supply behavior of the aged. We applied a combination of various convergence criteria to ensure that the chain has converged to its target distribution.
War of the Words: Aliens, Immigrants, Citizens, and the Language of Exclusion

Words communicate more than their ordinary dictionary meaning. Words tell us about individuals' and communities' conscious and subconscious perceptions. The words we use are evidence of how we think, which, in turn, ultimately determines what we do. In this paper, I examine and compare the usage of the words "immigrant," "alien," and "citizen" to make observations on the nature of membership and belonging in the United States. While it is perhaps intuitive that these words carry very different connotations, here I use corpus linguistics to explore those connotations. I rely on the Corpus of Contemporary American English, a database of natural spoken and written American English from a variety of sources, including newspapers, television programs, literary magazines, and movie scripts, to examine these terms' usage. By comparing the words most exclusively and closely associated with "immigrant," "alien," and "citizen," I highlight the connotations of these terms in modern American usage. Ultimately, I conclude that current usage of these terms suggests a hierarchical and status-based narrative of membership in which "aliens are criminals and outsiders," "immigrants are weak and vulnerable," and "citizens are noble and contributing." This narrative, I argue, contributes to a stratified notion of membership that engenders discriminatory perceptions of and facilitates the denial of rights to noncitizens.
Predicting R&D investment with ex ante productivity

In this article I demonstrate the relationship between research and development expenditure and firm productivity. Using data envelopment, I construct a measure of the firm-level distance from the industry-wide productivity frontier. Firms ex ante further from the productivity frontier invest more in R&D. On average, a 1% larger distance from the frontier causes a 0.6% to 1.2% increase in the R&D intensity next quarter. The effect is statistically and economically significant.
Exploiting the Salience Bias in Designing Taxes

In making decisions, individuals rely on certain heuristics or cognitive biases. One of these is salience, which generally refers to visibility or prominence. Individuals are likely to focus on items or information that are prominent or salient and ignore those that are less visible. This paper develops an argument for exploiting this cognitive bias in designing or changing taxes. Most commentary assumes that the intentional use of low-salience taxes by the government is undesirable and that increased salience is always required; to do otherwise is to take advantage of the cognitive bias that causes individuals to ignore taxes that are not prominent or salient. Although increasing salience is often desirable, there is a political economy argument for intentionally exploiting this bias by incorporating low-salience provisions into tax design. In developing the argument that utilizing this bias may be an appropriate fiscal tool, the paper begins by setting out the differences between transparency, complexity, and salience, which are often confused in the literature. The paper then makes a normative case that it is appropriate for legislators to design a tax by intentionally exploiting the cognitive bias that causes individuals to ignore information that is not prominent. The paper differs in two ways from past literature discussing salience. First it considers salience with respect to federal income taxes. Most commentators have explored salience in connection with consumption or commodity taxes. Second it considers the salience of discrete provisions, rather than merely the salience of the tax itself. It concludes with a case study where the use of low-salience tax provisions are justified and effective, i.e. where Congress finds it necessary to minimize the prominence of the tax because politically it cannot increase marginal tax rates.
The Implications of Using Stock‐Split Adjusted I/B/E/S Data in Empirical Research

The purpose of this study is to highlight issues of interest to researchers employing the I/B/E/S earnings and forecast data. I/B/E/S has traditionally provided per share data on a split‐adjusted basis, rounded to the nearest penny. In doing so, per share amounts are comparable over time. However, because not all prior forecasts and earnings per share amounts divide precisely to a penny, adjusting for stock splits and rounding to the nearest penny can cause a loss of information. Researchers are prohibited in many cases from determining the amounts actually reported in prior years, leading to misclassified observations. We obtain actual (unadjusted) earnings and forecast data from I/B/E/S and compare results to those generated using the a djusted I/B/E/S data. We replicate prior studies and find that conclusions are affected when using the actual I/B/E/S data.
Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Cyclical Investment

This paper builds on the theory of irreversible choice under uncertainty to give an explanation of cyclical investment fluctuations. The key observation is that, when individual projects are irreversible, agents must make investment timing decisions that trade off the extra returns from early commitment against the benefits of increased information gained by waiting. In an environment in which the underlying stochastic structure is itself subject to random change, events whose long-run implications are uncertain can create an investment cycle by temporarily increasing the returns to waiting for information.
The Impact of Asymmetry on Expected Stock Returns: An Investigation of Alternative Risk Measures

We investigate the relation between various alternative risk measures and future daily returns using a sample of firms over the 1988-2009 time period. Previous research indicates that returns are not normally distributed and that investors seem to care more about downside risk than total risk. Motivated by these findings and mixed empirical evidence supporting theoretical positive risk-return relationship, we model the relation between future returns and risk measures and investigate the following questions: (1) Are investors compensated for total risk and/or asymmetric measures of risk? (2) How does the degree of risk aversion in the lower tail of the return distribution impact the predictability of future returns? (3) Is upside risk or downside risk a better predictor of future returns? We find that, although investors seem to be compensated for total risk, measures of downside risk, such as the lower partial moment, are better at explaining future returns. Further, when comparing downside risk to upside risk, we find that investors are more concerned about downside risk. That is, downside risk is a better predictor of future returns. Our results are robust to the addition of traditional control variables, including size, book-to-market ratio of equity (B/M), leverage, and market risk measures, including beta, downside beta and co-skewness. Our findings are an important contribution to the literature as we document a positive risk-return relationship, using both total and asymmetric measures of risk.
Reconceptualizing Consent for Direct-to-Consumer Health Services:

The market for direct-to-consumer (DTC) health services continues to grow rapidly with former patients converting to customers for the opportunity to purchase varied diagnostic tests without the involvement of their clinician. For the first time a DTC genetic testing company is advertising health-related reports "that meet [Food and Drug Administration] standards for being clinically and scientifically valid." Ethicists and regulatory agencies alike have recognized the need for a more informed transaction in the DTC context, but how should we classify a commercial transaction for something normally protected by a duty of care? How can we assure informed agreements in an industry with terms and conditions as varied as the services performed? The doctrine of "informed consent" began as an ethical construct building on the promise of beneficence in the clinical relationship and elevating the principle of autonomy--but in the DTC context should we hold providers to legal standards of informed consent and associated medical malpractice liability, or contractual obligations where consumers would seek remedy for breach? This Article analyzes the fine balance that must be struck in an industry where companies are selling services for entertainment or non-medical purposes that possess the capacity to produce serious and disquieting medical information. It begins by reviewing current standards of consent in the clinical setting from both a legal and ethical perspective and then lays forth current standards for DTC consent using two currently controversial case studies: that of keepsake fetal ultrasound and genetic testing. DTC keepsake ultrasound and genetic testing providers attempt to de-medicalize the devices used for these procedures from their intended medical uses to non-medical uses. But while keepsake ultrasound is marketed as "intended for entertainment purposes only," it can provide medical information as an incidental finding. 23andMe currently purports to be the only DTC genetics service that "includes" reports that meet FDA qualifications, despite disclaimers of intent to "provide medical advice." The attempted de-medicalization of these devices, therefore, has not been fully transformative, and DTC providers should have more robust ethical and legal duties than the average goods and services seller. This Article delineates these responsibilities, beginning with ethical duties surrounding marketing, entering into, and providing DTC services. It then turns to the legal paradigms necessary to enable, or at least allow for, DTC providers to meet these ethical obligations. While it argues that contractual, as opposed to fiduciary, requirements are most appropriate and that waivers of liability will likely be upheld, it also advocates for a heightened expectation of disclosure during contracting.
Aid and Growth: What Does the Cross-Country Evidence Really Show?

Abstract We examine the effects of aid on growth in cross-sectional and panel data—after correcting for the possible bias that poorer (or stronger) growth may draw aid contributions to recipient co...
The Allocation of Control Rights in Pharmaceutical Alliances

Abstract This paper uses alliances in the biopharmaceutical industry to test contractual theories of the firm. I find that the allocation of control rights between pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms is sensitive to the bargaining position of both parties. Pharmaceutical firms engaging in more costly, later stage alliances tend, on average, to relinquish more rights. Additionally, biotechnology firms entering their first alliance tend, on average, to relinquish more rights. Finally, I explore if and when alliances begin to impact pharmaceutical firm shareholder value. Overall, my findings indicate the importance of considering both parties to a contract when studying contractual design.
Unrecognized States: A Theory of Self-Determination and Foreign Influence

Unrecognized states are characterized by stagnant or crumbling economies and political instability, often serve as havens for illicit trade, and challenge the territorial sovereignty of recognized states. Their persistence is both intellectually puzzling and normatively problematic, but unrecognized statehood can be a remarkably stable outcome, persisting for decades. Our dynamic four-player model reveals that unrecognized statehood emerges as an equilibrium outcome when a patron state is willing and able to persistently invest resources to sustain it. We assess options available to actors in the international community who seek to impose their preferred outcomes in these disputes and find that, although sanctions are the most frequently employed, they can often lead to renewed conflict instead of the intended resolution.
The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes’ Steadfast Factual Adherence

Can citizens heed factual information, even when such information challenges their partisan and ideological attachments? The “backfire effect,” described by Nyhan and Reifler (Polit Behav 32(2):303–330. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9112-2 , 2010), says no: rather than simply ignoring factual information, presenting respondents with facts can compound their ignorance. In their study, conservatives presented with factual information about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq became more convinced that such weapons had been found. The present paper presents results from five experiments in which we enrolled more than 10,100 subjects and tested 52 issues of potential backfire. Across all experiments, we found no corrections capable of triggering backfire, despite testing precisely the kinds of polarized issues where backfire should be expected. Evidence of factual backfire is far more tenuous than prior research suggests. By and large, citizens heed factual information, even when such information challenges their ideological commitments.
Aggregation, Partiality, and the Strong Beneficence Principle

Consider the Strong Beneficence Principle (SBP): Persons of affluent means ought to give to those who might fail basic human subsistence until the point at which they must give up something of comparable moral importance. This principle has been the subject of much recent discussion. In this paper, I argue that no coherent interpretation of SBP can be found. SBP faces an interpretive trilemma, each horn of which should be unacceptable to fans of SBP; SBP is either (a) so strong as to be patently absurd; (b) implausible given its acceptance of a form of numbers skepticism; (c) drained of all its demanding force. In the conclusion, I show how the problems with SBP generalize to all similarly demanding principles of beneficence.
Virtual (Br)others and (Re)sisters Authentic Black Fraternity and Sorority Identity on the Internet

Recently, the Internet has become the focus of immense speculation regarding the social construction of identity and cultural “authenticity.” However, examinations of virtual communities such as blogs, multiuser domains, and chat rooms have largely ignored nonwhite, especially African American, virtual communities (VCs). Through participant observation, content analysis, and personal interviews, this article analyzes a VC dedicated to members of African American fraternities and sororities, generally referred to as black Greek letter organizations (BGLOs). Findings show that BGLO virtual authenticity is accomplished via (1) the making of “brothers” and “others” based on symbolic boundaries of exclusion and inclusion and (2) the deployment of themes of resistance based on emotions of both sufferance and success. Implications suggest that interrogations of how virtuality constrains and enables processes of “authentic” racial identity formation as well as configurations of racist narratives and ideologies ca...
An iterative formula for the Kostka–Foulkes polynomials

An iterative formula for the Kostka–Foulkes polynomials is given using the vertex operator realization of the Hall–Littlewood polynomials. The operational formula can handle large Kostka–Foulkes polynomials, and a stability property for the Kostka–Foulkes polynomials is shown. We also use our algorithm to give a formula of $$K_{\lambda \mu }(t)$$ for $$\mu $$ being hook-shaped.
Measurement Matters: Changing Penalty Calculations under the Hospital Acquired Condition Reduction Program (HACRP) Cost Hospitals Millions

Since October 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has penalized 25% of U.S. hospitals with the highest rates of hospital-acquired conditions under the Hospital Acquired Conditions Reduction Program (HACRP). While early evaluations of the HACRP program reported cumulative reductions in hospital-acquired conditions, more recent studies have not found a clear association between receipt of the HACRP penalty and hospital quality of care. We posit that some of this disconnect may be driven by frequent scoring updates. The sensitivity of the HACRP penalties to updates in the program’s scoring methodology has not been independently evaluated. We used hospital discharge records from 14 states to evaluate the association between changes in HACRP scoring methodology and corresponding shifts in penalty status. To isolate the impact of changes in scoring methods over time, we used FY2018 hospital performance data to calculate total HAC scores using FY2015 through FY2018 CMS scoring methodologies. Comparing hospital penalty status based on various HACRP scoring methodologies over time, we found a significant overlap between penalized hospitals when using FY 2015 and 2016 scoring methodologies (95%) and between FY 2017 and 2018 methodologies (46%), but substantial differences across early vs later years. Only 15% of hospitals were eligible for penalties across all four years. We also found significant changes in a hospital’s (relative) ranking across the various years, indicating that shifts in penalty status were not driven by small changes in HAC scores clustered around the penalty threshold. HACRP penalties have been highly sensitive to program updates, which are generally announced after performance periods are concluded. This disconnect between performance and penalties calls into question the ability of the HACRP to improve patient safety as intended.
Entrenchment or efficiency? CEO‐to‐employee pay ratio and the cost of debt

Using new data on S&P 1500 firms’ CEO-to-employee pay ratios disclosed by mandate of Section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Act, we examine the effect of within-firm pay inequality on bond yield spreads. We find a significant negative relation between industry-adjusted CEO-to-employee pay ratio and yield spreads while controlling for covariates and endogeneity. This result is the strongest in financially constrained, labor intensive, and small-to-medium sized firms. The evidence supports the incentive-provision explanation of CEO-to-employee pay disparity, reflecting efficient CEO compensation rather than rent extraction. We also document selection bias in self-reported pay ratios, highlighting the efficacy of the Dodd-Frank provisions.
Distinct Spiking Patterns of Excitatory and Inhibitory Neurons and LFP Oscillations in Prefrontal Cortex During Sensory Discrimination

Prefrontal cortex (PFC) are broadly linked to various aspects of behavior. During sensory discrimination, PFC neurons can encode a range of task related information, including the identity of sensory stimuli and related behavioral outcome. However, it remains largely unclear how different neuron subtypes and local field potential (LFP) oscillation features in the mouse PFC are modulated during sensory discrimination. To understand how excitatory and inhibitory PFC neurons are selectively engaged during sensory discrimination and how their activity relates to LFP oscillations, we used tetrode recordings to probe well-isolated individual neurons, and LFP oscillations, in mice performing a three-choice auditory discrimination task. We found that a majority of PFC neurons, 78% of the 711 recorded individual neurons, exhibited sensory discrimination related responses that are context and task dependent. Using spike waveforms, we classified these responsive neurons into putative excitatory neurons with broad waveforms or putative inhibitory neurons with narrow waveforms, and found that both neuron subtypes were transiently modulated, with individual neurons' responses peaking throughout the entire duration of the trial. While the number of responsive excitatory neurons remain largely constant throughout the trial, an increasing fraction of inhibitory neurons were gradually recruited as the trial progressed. Further examination of the coherence between individual neurons and LFPs revealed that inhibitory neurons exhibit higher spike-field coherence with LFP oscillations than excitatory neurons during all aspects of the trial and across multiple frequency bands. Together, our results demonstrate that PFC excitatory neurons are continuously engaged during sensory discrimination, whereas PFC inhibitory neurons are increasingly recruited as the trial progresses and preferentially coordinated with LFP oscillations. These results demonstrate increasing involvement of inhibitory neurons in shaping the overall PFC dynamics toward the completion of the sensory discrimination task.
Coded trace reconstruction in a constant number of traces

The coded trace reconstruction problem asks to construct a code $C \subset \{0,1\}^{n}$ such that any $x\in C$ is recoverable from independent outputs (“traces”) of $x$ from a binary deletion channel (BDC). We present binary codes of rate $1-\varepsilon$ that are efficiently recoverable from $\exp(O_{q}(\log^{1/3}(\frac{1}{\varepsilon})))$ (a constant independent of $n$ ) traces of a $\text{BDC}_{q}$ for any constant deletion probability $q\in(0,1)$ . We also show that, for rate $1 -\varepsilon$ binary codes, $\tilde{\Omega}(\log^{5/2}(1/\varepsilon))$ traces are required. The results follow from a pair of black-box reductions that show that average-case trace reconstruction is essentially equivalent to coded trace reconstruction. We also show that there exist codes of rate $1 -\varepsilon$ over an $O_{\varepsilon}(1)$ -sized alphabet that are recoverable from $O(\log(1/\varepsilon))$ traces, and that this is tight.
A model of endogenous risk intolerance and LSAPs: asset prices and aggregate demand in a COVID-19" shock"

In this paper we: (i) provide a model of the endogenous risk intolerance and severe asset price and aggregate demand contractions following an adverse real (non-financial) shock; and (ii) demonstrate the effectiveness of Large Scale Asset Purchases (LSAPs) in addressing these contractions. The key mechanism stems from heterogeneous risk tolerance: as a recessionary shock hits the economy and brings down asset prices, risk-tolerant agents’ wealth share declines and their leverage rises endogenously. This reduces the market’s risk tolerance and generates downward pressure on asset prices and aggregate demand. When monetary policy is unconstrained, it can offset the decline in risk tolerance with an interest rate cut that boosts the market’s Sharpe ratio. However, if the interest rate policy is constrained, new contractionary feedbacks arise: recessionary shocks lead to further asset price and output drops, which feed the risk-o¤ episode and trigger a downward loop. In this context, LSAPs improve asset prices and aggregate demand by transferring risk to the government’s balance sheet, which reduces the market’s required Sharpe ratio and reverses the contractionary feedbacks. Quantitatively, we show that aggregate shocks and LSAPs have large impacts on asset prices when the model is calibrated to fit the inelastic demand for aggregate assets uncovered in recent literature. We also show that heterogeneity in risk tolerance explains part of the demand inelasticity in normal times, and further reduces the elasticity after a recessionary shock. The Covid-19 shock and the large response by all major central banks provide a vivid illustration of the environment we seek to capture.
Phase transformations, microstructural refinement and defect evolution mechanisms in Al-Si alloys under non-hydrostatic diamond anvil cell compression

Abstract Non-hydrostatic compression of materials using a diamond anvil cell (DAC) can transform the equilibrium microstructure of an alloy to novel, potentially metastable states. In this study, in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) during compression up to 24 GPa and subsequent ex-situ, high resolution analytical electron microscopy (AEM) after decompression of an Al-Si alloy provided insight into the crystallographic changes during the compression as well as microstructural refinement, and defect structures caused by such a high pressure compression-decompression process. Pressure resolved in-situ synchrotron XRD was used to detail the phase transformation pathway of the eutectic Si phase in Al-Si alloy, from Si-I → Si-XI → Si-V during compression, and a final transformation predominantly to Si-III after decompression. Using scanning and transmission electron microscopy (S/TEM), site specific analysis of the alloy immediately underneath the anvil contact surface demonstrated a highly complex microstructure. A narrow region of thick amorphous Al oxide interspersed with nanocrystalline grains was found at the top surface. Underneath this Al oxide, while the majority of the eutectic Si was transformed into highly-deformed, polycrystalline (PC) Si-III, a complex intermediate layer was discovered at the interface between Al and Si, comprised of a small fraction of Al nanocrystals and a majority of nanocrystalline Si-I. This combination of pressure resolved in-situ synchrotron XRD coupled with subsequent high resolution, electron microscopy resolved the phase transformation as well as non-equilibrium microstructures in a metallic alloy induced by a non-hydrostatic high pressure compression followed by decompression.
Evaluation of deep convolutional neural networks in classifying human embryo images based on their morphological quality

A critical factor that influences the success of an in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment cycle is the quality of the transferred embryo. Embryo morphology assessments, conventionally performed through manual microscopic analysis suffer from disparities in practice, selection criteria, and subjectivity due to the experience of the embryologist. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are powerful, promising algorithms with significant potential for accurate classifications across many object categories. Network architectures and hyper-parameters affect the efficiency of CNNs for any given task. Here, we evaluate multi-layered CNNs developed from scratch and popular deep-learning architectures such as Inception v3, ResNET-50, Inception-ResNET-v2, NASNetLarge, ResNeXt-101, ResNeXt-50, and Xception in differentiating between embryos based on their morphological quality at 113 h post insemination (hpi). Xception performed the best in differentiating between the embryos based on their morphological quality.
Insulin-like growth factor 1 signaling in the placenta requires endothelial nitric oxide synthase to support trophoblast function and normal fetal growth

Currently, there is no effective treatment for placental dysfunction in utero. In a ligated mouse model of fetal growth restriction (FGR), nanoparticle-mediated human insulin-like 1 growth factor (hIGF1) gene delivery (NP-Plac1-hIGF1) increased hIGF1 expression and maintained fetal growth. However, whether it can restore fetal growth remains to be determined. Using the endothelial nitric oxide synthase knockout (eNOS-/-) mouse model, a genetic model of FGR, we found that despite inducing expression of hIGF1 in the placentas treated with NP-Plac1-hIGF1 (P = 0.0425), FGR did not resolve. This was associated with no change to the number of fetal capillaries in the placental labyrinth; an outcome which was increased with NP-Plac1-hIGF1 treatment in the ligated mouse model, despite increased expression of angiopoietin 1 (P = 0.05), and suggested IGF1 signaling in the placenta requires eNOS to modulate placenta angiogenesis. To further assess this hypothesis, BeWo choriocarcinoma cell line and human placental explant cultures were treated with NP-Plac1-hIGF1, oxidative stress was induced with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and NOS activity was inhibited using the inhibitor NG-monomethyl-l-arginine (l-NMMA). In both BeWo cells and explants, the protective effect of NP-Plac1-hIGF1 treatment against H2O2-induced cell death/lactate dehydrogenase release was prevented by eNOS inhibition (P = 0.003 and P < 0.0001, respectively). This was associated with an increase in mRNA expression of oxidative stress markers hypoxia inducing factor 1α (HIF1α; P < 0.0001) and ADAM10 (P = 0.0002) in the NP-Plac1-hIGF1 + H2O2 + l-NMMA-treated BeWo cells. These findings show for the first time the requirement of eNOS/NOS in IGF1 signaling in placenta cells that may have implications for placental angiogenesis and fetal growth.
Improved Lower Bounds for Permutation Arrays Using Permutation Rational Functions

We consider rational functions of the form V(x)/U(x), where both V(x) and U(x) are relatively prime polynomials over the finite field \(\mathbb {F}_q\). Polynomials that permute the elements of a field, called permutation polynomials (PPs), have been the subject of research for decades. Let \({\mathcal {P}}^1(\mathbb {F}_q)\) denote \(\mathbb {F}_q\cup \{\infty \}\). If the rational function, V(x)/U(x), permutes the elements of \({\mathcal {P}}^1(\mathbb {F}_q)\), it is called a permutation rational function (PRF). Let \(N_d(q)\) denote the number of PPs of degree d over \(\mathbb {F}_q\), and let \(N_{v,u}(q)\) denote the number of PRFs with a numerator of degree v and a denominator of degree u. It follows that \(N_{d,0}(q) = N_d(q)\), so PRFs are a generalization of PPs. The number of monic degree 3 PRFs is known [11]. We develop efficient computational techniques for \(N_{v,u}(q)\), and use them to show \(N_{4,3}(q) = (q+1)q^2(q-1)^2/3\), for all prime powers \(q \le 307\), \(N_{5,4}(q) > (q+1)q^3(q-1)^2/2\), for all prime powers \(q \le 97\), and give a formula for \(N_{4,4}(q)\). We conjecture that these are true for all prime powers q. Let M(n, D) denote the maximum number of permutations on n symbols with pairwise Hamming distance D. Computing improved lower bounds for M(n, D) is the subject of much current research with applications in error correcting codes. Using PRFs, we obtain significantly improved lower bounds on \(M(q,q-d)\) and \(M(q+1,q-d)\), for \(d \in \{5,7,9\}\).
Energy Component Analysis of Electric Field-Induced Shape Change in Water Nanodroplets

We present a comprehensive classical molecular dynamics study of water nanodroplets under the influence of an externally applied electric field. Our simulations cover a wide range of droplet sizes ...
Imaging the transmembrane and transendothelial sodium gradients in gliomas.

Under normal conditions, high sodium (Na+) in extracellular (Na+e) and blood (Na+b) compartments and low Na+ in intracellular milieu (Na+i) produce strong transmembrane (ΔNa+mem) and weak transendothelial (ΔNa+end) gradients respectively, and these manifest the cell membrane potential (Vm) as well as blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity. We developed a sodium (23Na) magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) method using an intravenously-administered paramagnetic polyanionic agent to measure ΔNa+mem and ΔNa+end. In vitro 23Na-MRSI established that the 23Na signal is intensely shifted by the agent compared to other biological factors (e.g., pH and temperature). In vivo 23Na-MRSI showed Na+i remained unshifted and Na+b was more shifted than Na+e, and these together revealed weakened ΔNa+mem and enhanced ΔNa+end in rat gliomas (vs. normal tissue). Compared to normal tissue, RG2 and U87 tumors maintained weakened ΔNa+mem (i.e., depolarized Vm) implying an aggressive state for proliferation, whereas RG2 tumors displayed elevated ∆Na+end suggesting altered BBB integrity. We anticipate that 23Na-MRSI will allow biomedical explorations of perturbed Na+ homeostasis in vivo.
Rank-2 attractors and Deligne’s conjecture

In this paper, we will study the arithmetic geometry of rank-2 attractors, which are Calabi-Yau threefolds whose Hodge structures admit interesting splits. We will develop methods to analyze the algebraic de Rham cohomologies of rank-2 attractors, and we will illustrate how our methods work by focusing on an example in a recent paper by Candelas, de la Ossa, Elmi and van Straten. We will look at the interesting connections between rank-2 attractors in string theory and Deligne’s conjecture on the special values of L-functions. We will also formulate several open questions concerning the potential connections between attractors in string theory and number theory.
WNOS: Enabling Principled Software-Defined Wireless Networking

This article investigates the basic design principles for a new Wireless Network Operating System (WNOS), a radically different approach to software-defined networking (SDN) for infrastructure-less wireless networks. Departing from well-understood approaches inspired by OpenFlow, WNOS provides the network designer with an abstraction hiding (i) the lower-level details of the wireless protocol stack and (ii) the distributed nature of the network operations. Based on this abstract representation, the WNOS takes network control programs written on a centralized, high-level view of the network and automatically generates distributed cross-layer control programs based on distributed optimization theory that are executed by each individual node on an abstract representation of the radio hardware. We first discuss the main architectural principles of WNOS. Then, we discuss a new approach to automatically generate solution algorithms for each of the resulting subproblems in an automated fashion. Finally, we illustrate a prototype implementation of WNOS on software-defined radio devices and test its effectiveness by considering specific cross-layer control problems. Experimental results indicate that, based on the automatically generated distributed control programs, WNOS achieves 18%, 56% and 80.4% utility gain in networks with low, medium and high levels of interference; maybe more importantly, we illustrate how the global network behavior can be controlled by modifying a few lines of code on a centralized abstraction.
The MLE of Aigner, Amemiya, and Poirier is not the expectile MLE

This article compares two asymmetric Gaussian likelihood models and their corresponding estimators. Recently, there has been confusion in the literature regarding these models and (1) whether they ...
Does Client Cyber-Breach Have Reputational Consequences for the Local Audit Office?

We examine whether the public disclosure of a client cyber-breach hurts the reputation of the local engagement office of the incumbent auditor. Prior research suggests that alleged client misconduct (even if unrelated to accounting) can hurt the auditor’s reputation and bargaining position vis-a-vis other clients. By contrast, in a client cyberbreach the client is the victim of misconduct rather than perpetrator of the misconduct (SEC 2018). Consistent with a loss in the perceived value of the audit and a decline in the bargaining position of the incumbent auditor’s local audit office, during 2005-2018 following a client cyber-breach we find a decline in the stock price as well as audit fees for non -breach clients of the local audit office. We contribute to the literature by documenting that the negative effects of a cyber-breach are not limited to the breached client but spillover to the local audit office.
Hot dry days increase perceived experience with global warming

Abstract Public perceptions of climate change in the United States are deeply rooted in cultural values and political identities. Yet, as the public experiences extreme weather and other climate change-related impacts, their perceptions of the issue may shift. Here, we explore whether, when, and where local climate trends have already influenced perceived experiences of global warming in the United States. Using a large national survey dataset (n = 13,607), we compare Americans’ experiences of climate with corresponding trends in seven different high-resolution climate indicators for the period 2008 to 2015. We find that increases in hot dry day exposure significantly increases individuals’ perceptions that they have personally experienced global warming. We do not find robust evidence that other precipitation and temperature anomalies have had a similar effect. We also use multilevel modeling to explore county-level patterns of perceived experiences with climate change. Whereas the individual-level analysis describes a likely causal relationship between a changing climate and individuals’ perceived experience, the multilevel model depicts county-level changes in perceived experience resulting from particular climate trends. Overall, we find that exposure to hot dry days, has a modest influence on perceived experience, independent of the political and socio-demographic factors that dominate U.S. climate opinions today.
Creative Dynamics and Entangled Political Economy

This paper explores the relationship between two recently advanced research programs: the Creative Dynamics and the Entangled Political Economy. The two frameworks share some significant commonalities: both approach coordination as a process and not as a state, both focus on explanation as opposed to prediction, both work with open-ended models, and both follow the Hayekian tradition of treating knowledge as subjective, dispersed, and in need of discovery. However, the connection between the two approaches is not always clear as they seem to be created for different goals. Creative Dynamics is focused primarily on explaining novelty. Entangled Political Economy seeks to offer a uniform approach to understanding social coordination, treating political and economic activities as more similar than different. My paper serves three purposes. First, I provide a primer on the two distinct theories. Second, I explore their shared origins and common features. Third, I sketch three possible directions for future research.
Sunflowers in set systems of bounded dimension

Given a family F of k-element sets, S₁,…,S_r ∈ F form an r-sunflower if S_i ∩ S_j = S_{i'} ∩ S_{j'} for all i ≠ j and i' ≠ j'. According to a famous conjecture of Erdős and Rado (1960), there is a constant c = c(r) such that if |F| ≥ c^k, then F contains an r-sunflower. We come close to proving this conjecture for families of bounded Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension, VC-dim(F) ≤ d. In this case, we show that r-sunflowers exist under the slightly stronger assumption |F| ≥ 2^{10k(dr)^{2log^{*} k}}. Here, log^* denotes the iterated logarithm function. We also verify the Erdős-Rado conjecture for families F of bounded Littlestone dimension and for some geometrically defined set systems.
Non-crossing Trees, Quadrangular Dissections, Ternary Trees, and Duality-Preserving Bijections

Using the theory of Properly Embedded Graphs developed in an earlier work we define an involutory duality on the set of labeled non-crossing trees that lifts the obvious duality in the set of unlabeled non-crossing trees. The set of non-crossing trees is a free ternary magma with one generator and this duality is an instance of a duality that is defined in any such magma. Any two free ternary magmas with one generator are isomorphic via a unique isomorphism that we call the structural bijection. Besides the set of non-crossing trees we also consider as free ternary magmas with one generator the set of ternary trees, the set of quadrangular dissections, and the set of flagged Perfectly Chain Decomposed Ditrees, and we give topological and/or combinatorial interpretations of the structural bijections between them. In particular the bijection from the set of quadrangular dissections to the set of non-crossing trees seems to be new. Further we give explicit formulas for the number of self-dual labeled and unlabeled non-crossing trees and the set of quadrangular dissections up to rotations and up to rotations and reflections.
Multi-Objective Optimization Approach to Pure Strategy Equilibria in Games With Imperfect Information

Without the expected utility hypothesis, games with imperfect information can be understood as coupled multi-objective optimizations. Within this framework, equilibria of non-dominated responses are defined and their existence is studied. One class of these equilibria is formulated as Nash equilibria of normal-form games. Another class of these equilibria is formulated with payoff constraints interpreted as robustness of the games. A concrete example is presented and solution methodologies are discussed.