cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Psychosocial stress during pregnancy

Objective We sought to identify factors associated with high antenatal psychosocial stress and describe the course of psychosocial stress during pregnancy. Study Design We performed a cross-sectional analysis of data from an ongoing registry. Study participants were 1522 women receiving prenatal care at a university obstetric clinic from January 2004 through March 2008. Multiple logistic regression identified factors associated with high stress as measured by the Prenatal Psychosocial Profile stress scale. Results The majority of participants reported antenatal psychosocial stress (78% low-moderate, 6% high). Depression (odds ratios [OR], 9.6; 95% confidence interval [CI], 5.5–17.0), panic disorder (OR, 6.8; 95% CI, 2.9–16.2), drug use (OR, 3.8; 95% CI, 1.2–12.5), domestic violence (OR, 3.3; 95% CI, 1.4–8.3), and having ≥2 medical comorbidities (OR, 3.1; 95% CI, 1.8–5.5) were significantly associated with high psychosocial stress. For women who screened twice during pregnancy, mean stress scores declined during pregnancy (14.8 ± 3.9 vs 14.2 ± 3.8; P Conclusion Antenatal psychosocial stress is common, and high levels are associated with maternal factors known to contribute to poor pregnancy outcomes.
A low-voltage triggering SCR for on-chip ESD protection at output and input pads

A novel silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) structure for on-chip protection against electrostatic discharge (ESD) stress at output or input pads is presented. The SCR switches to an ON state at a trigger voltage determined by the gate length of an incorporated nMOS-like structure. Thus, the new SCR can be designed to consistently trigger at a voltage low enough to protect nMOS transistors from ESD. The capability of a protection circuit using the new SCR design is experimentally demonstrated. The tunability of the SCR trigger voltage with reference to the nMOS breakdown voltage is exploited to improve the human body model (HBM) ESD failure threshold of an output buffer from 1500 to 5000 V. >
Ornithine decarboxylase induction in rat colon: synergistic effects of intrarectal instillation of sodium deoxycholate and starvation-refeeding.

Starvation-refeeding, intrarectal instillation of the suspected colon tumor promoter sodium deoxycholate (NaDOC), and a combination of the treatments were compared for their effects on ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) activity in the colon of male Sprague-Dawley rats. Starvation (48 hours) and refeeding (12 hours) led to a fivefold increase in ODC levels compared to ad libitum-fed controls, while NaDOC instillation led to a threefold rise. The combination of the two treatments gave a synergistic 16-fold increase over controls. The synergism observed in colon may indicate that the two treatments used act via different mechanisms to induce ODC, possibly by an increase in general macromolecular synthesis after starvation- refeeding and a specific increase in ODC synthesis after NaDOC treatment. Since this starvation-refeeding regimen is quite similar to the "starve and gorge" feeding pattern exhibited by pair-fed control animals, the use of pair-fed controls may not be appro priate for examining either ODC levels or processes, such as tumor promotion, which may be linked to ODC levels. The synergistic enhancement of tumor promoter- related ODC induction by a dietary pattern (rather than a dietary component) suggests a new area for investigation of potential nutrition-cancer interactions. J. Nutr. 114: 404-410, 1984.
"The More Divergent, the Better?: Lessons on Trilemma Policies and Crises for Asia"

This paper investigates the potential impacts of the degree of divergence in open macroeconomic policies in the context of the trilemma hypothesis. Using an index that measures the extent of policy...
Committee algorithm: An easy way to construct wavelet filter banks

Given a lowpass filter, finding a dual lowpass filter is an essential step in constructing non-redundant wavelet filter banks. Obtaining dual lowpass filters is not an easy task. In this paper, we introduce a new method called committee algorithm that builds a dual filter straightforwardly from two easily-constructible lowpass filters. It allows to design a wide range of new wavelet filter banks. An example based on the family of Burt-Adelson's 1-D Laplacian filters is given.
Continuity of medication management and continuity of care: Conceptual and operational considerations:

Objective: Continuity of care is considered foundational to high-quality care. Traditional continuity of care constructs may adequately characterize care quality in general populations, but may merit reconceptualization for patients with multiple chronic conditions. Specifically, interactions between multiple chronic condition patients and providers involve complex medication management; therefore care continuity measurement may be more relevant if focused on the provider subset who prescribes essential medications for chronic conditions—a construct we call continuity of medication management. Our objective was to explore conceptual distinctions between continuity of medication management and continuity of care, survey existing evidence in this area, and discuss implications of our findings for future research and intervention development. Methods: In this topical review, we discuss conceptual distinctions between continuity of medication management and continuity of care, review the limited continuity of medication management–related empirical evidence, and discuss implications for future research and interventions. Results: Continuity of medication management represents a potential conceptual and measurement advance by reflecting interpersonal continuity and management continuity, and may provide a means of identifying patients at high-risk of adverse events. Empirical evidence also establishes support for continuity of medication management as a meaningful measure of care continuity. Finally, continuity of medication management may also be a potential target for future intervention to improve care delivery among multiple chronic condition patients. Conclusion: If continuity of medication management is validated in diverse populations, correlated with patient outcomes, and responsive to change, then it may be an important target for improving the health and health care of multiple chronic condition patients.
Infectious texts: Modeling text reuse in nineteenth-century newspapers

Texts propagate through many social networks and provide evidence for their structure. We present efficient algorithms for detecting clusters of reused passages embedded within longer documents in large collections. We apply these techniques to analyzing the culture of reprinting in the United States before the Civil War. Without substantial copyright enforcement, stories, poems, news, and anecdotes circulated freely among newspapers, magazines, and books. From a collection of OCR'd newspapers, we extract a new corpus of reprinted texts, explore the geographic spread and network connections of different publications, and analyze the time dynamics of different genres.
ARE EXCHANGE RATES REALLY RANDOM WALKS? SOME EVIDENCE ROBUST TO PARAMETER INSTABILITY

Many authors have documented that it is challenging to explain exchange rate fluctuations with macroeconomic fundamentals: a random walk forecasts future exchange rates better than existing macroeconomic models. This paper applies newly developed tests for nested model that are robust to the presence of parameter instability. The empirical evidence shows that for some countries we can reject the hypothesis that exchange rates are random walks. This raises the possibility that economic models were previously rejected not because the fundamentals are completely unrelated to exchange rate fluctuations, but because the relationship is unstable over time and, thus, difficult to capture by Granger Causality tests or by forecast comparisons. We also analyze forecasts that exploit the time variation in the parameters and find that, in some cases, they can improve over the random walk.
Development policies, resource constraints, and agricultural expansion on the Philippine land frontier

This paper examines ways in which development policies interact and influence incentives for agricultural expansion in frontier areas. We develop a model of household response to economic and technical stimuli, conditional on agronomic and household characteristics. We evaluate the model empirically using survey data gathered from low-income corn and vegetable farms near a national park in the southern Philippines. We find that within farms, land allocation is responsive to relative crop prices and yields. However, different crops elicit different responses. In particular, some crop expansion takes place primarily through land substitution and intensified input use, while changes in prices or yields of other crops induce an expansion of total farm area. Land and family labor constraint bind at different points for different crops. These results suggest that because multiple policies interact, environmental policies must have multiple strands in order to replace incentives to further land expansion.JEL codes: Q12, Q24, O13.
Passionate Comparison: The Intensification of Affect in Interreligious Reading of Hindu and Christian Texts

we learn, what we think, how we feel, and how we choose to act. Optimism is not necessarily justified since it may be that due to the strictures of logic and religious commitment, religious reasoning and affective religious engagement diverge and even work at cross purposes. What is obviously and powerfully felt may not translate into explanations that observers, including theologians and scholars of religion, can understand or affirm. Conversely, the emotionally engaged practitioner who learns, feels, and acts in accord with what is learned across religious boundaries may not know what to say about this engagement, and often may not have mastered the appropriate technical language by which to explain and justify complex and extraordinary emotional engagements. Scholars who are attentive comparativists may feel the tension with particular force. They may readily admit that there are boundaries dividing religions, boundaries that can be defended with good reasons, on intellectual grounds and for the sake of the well-being of a religious community as a whole. But they may also recognize that many people, themselves included, are already engaged in closer, more intensely configured exchanges to which settled meanings cannot be easily assigned or denied. Properly or not, such people have crossed religious boundaries so as to form affective attachments that are intelligent, liable to affirmation, and provocative of changes in their way of living. This affective connection rooted in practice is enormously important and convincing, even if in theory the comparative process is flawed, the learning incomplete, and the consequences illogical
A Critical Review of Theory in Breast Cancer Screening Promotion across Cultures

This article reviews the contribution and potential of widely used health behavior theories in research designed to understand and redress the disproportionate burden of breast cancer borne by diverse race/ethnic, immigrant, and low-income groups associated with unequal use of mammography. We review the strengths and limitations of widely used theories and the extent to which theory contributes to the understanding of screening disparities and informs effective intervention. The dominant focus of most theories on individual cognition is critically assessed as the abstraction of behavior from its social context. Proposed alternatives emphasize multilevel ecological approaches and the use of anthropologic theory and methods for more culturally grounded understandings of screening behavior. Common and alternative treatments of fatalism exemplify this approach, and descriptive and intervention research exemplars further highlight the integration of screening behavior and sociocultural context.
Information acquisition in auctions

OUR AIM IN THIS PAPER is to study the incentives to acquire information. We consider decision problems where the payoff has the single-crossing property and signals are affiliated with the unknown parameter. We introduce the notion of risk-sensitiity, and establish that the value of information is higher in decision problems that are more risk-sensitive. We apply this result to auctions: we are able to show that a first price auction induces more information acquisition than a second price auction. Consider a decision maker choosing an action a to maximize the expected value of a Ž. payoff function u , a . The decision maker does not observe , which he regards as a random variable V. Instead, he observes the realization of a random variable X ,a signal which conveys information about .W eassume that the decision maker can make X more informative, at a cost. Making X more informative increases the expected payoff. We analyze the returns to making X more informative. Ž. We focus on problems where X and V are affiliated, and u , a has the weak Ž. Ž .
Random polynomials with prescribed Newton polytope

The Newton polytope Pf of a polynomial f is well known to have a strong impact on its zeros, as in the Kouchnirenko-Bernstein theorem on the number of simultaneous zeros of m polynomials with given Newton polytopes. In this article, we show that Pf also has a strong impact on the distribution of zeros of one or several polynomials. We equip the space of (holomorphic) polynomials of degreeN in m complex variables with its usual SU(m + 1)-invariant Gaussian measure and then consider the conditional measures |NP induced on the subspace of polynomials whose Newton polytope PfNP. When P = �, the unit simplex, then it is obvious and well-known that the expected distribution of zeros Zf1,...,fk (regarded as a current) of k polynomials f1,...,fk of degree N is uniform relative to the Fubini-Study form. Our main results concern the conditional expectation E|NP(Zf1,...,fk ) of zeros of k polynomials with Newton polytope NPNp� (where p = deg P); these results are asymptotic as the scaling factor N ! 1. We show that E|NP(Zf1,...,fk ) is asymptotically uniform on the inverse image AP of the open scaled polytope 1 P ◦ via the moment map µ : CP m ! � for projective space. However, the zeros have an exotic distribution outside of AP and when k = m (the case of the Kouchnirenko-Bernstein theorem) the percentage of zeros outside AP approaches 0 as N ! 1.
A coalgebraic approach to Kleene algebra with tests

Kleene algebra with tests is an extension of Kleene algebra, the algebra of regular expressions, which can be used to reason about programs. We develop a coalgebraic theory of Kleene algebra with Tests, along the lines of the coalgebraic theory of regular expressions based on deterministic automata. Since the known automata-theoretic presentation of Kleene algebra with tests does not lend itself to a coalgebraic theory, we define a new interpretation of Kleene algebra with tests expressions and a corresponding automata-theoretic presentation. One outcome of the theory is a coinductive proof principle, that can be used to establish equivalence of our Kleene algebra with tests expressions.
A comparative study of control techniques for PWM rectifiers in AC adjustable speed drives

Four control techniques for pulse-width modulation (PWM) rectifiers in AC adjustable speed drives are presented. In particular, the so-called virtual-flux oriented control (VFOC) and virtual-flux based direct power control (VF-DPC) schemes are described and compared with their voltage based counterparts. These are the voltage oriented control (VOC) and voltage-based direct power control (V-DPC) techniques. Theoretical background is provided, and results of computer simulations and laboratory experiments are given, documenting advantages and disadvantages of the individual control strategies.
Self-employment in OECD countries

Abstract The paper examines the role and influence of self-employment across the OECD. The overall trend in self-employment, at the economy level in the years since 1966, has been down in most countries. The main exceptions to this are Portugal, New Zealand and the United Kingdom where the trend has been upward. For most countries there is a negative relationship between the self-employment rate and the unemployment rate. The probability of being self-employed is higher among men than women and rises with age. The least educated have the highest probability of being self-employed, however, evidence is found that the most highly educated also have relatively high probabilities. The self-employed have higher levels of job satisfaction than employees. I could find no evidence that increases in the self-employment rate increased the real growth rate of the economy; in fact there was even evidence of the opposite. The self-employed are less willing to move from their neighborhoods, towns and regions than are employees, presumably because of the pull of their customers. I developed a flexibility index based on information provided by individuals in 1995. According to this index the US economy was the most flexible, followed by Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. Latvia, Russia and Hungary were found to be the least flexible countries. Of the OECD countries examined, Austria and Ireland were ranked lowest.
Implications of the measured image size for the radio afterglow of GRB 030329

We use data on the image size of the radio afterglow of GRB 030329 to constrain the physical parameters of this explosion. Together with the observed broadband spectrum, this data overconstrains the physical parameters, thus enabling us to test different GRB jet models for consistency. We consider two extreme models for the lateral spreading of the jet: model 1, with relativistic expansion in the local rest frame, and model 2, with little lateral expansion as long as the jet is highly relativistic. We find that both models are consistent with the data for a uniform external medium, while for a stellar wind environment model 1 is consistent with the data but model 2 is disfavored by the data. Our derivations can be used to place tighter constraints on the dynamics and structure of GRB jets in future afterglows, following a denser monitoring campaign for the temporal evolution of their image size.
Premixed flame response to unsteady strain-rate and curvature

The interaction of a premixed stoichiometric methane-air flame with a counter-rotating vortex-pair is studied using a skeletal C{sub 1} chemical description of the reaction process. The focus is on the modification to flame structure and dynamics due to unsteady strain-rate and curvature. The detailed description of flame structure and dynamics in response to unsteady flow is necessary to establish relevant extinction criteria in unsteady multi-dimensional flow, which, based on recent experimental evidence, may be significantly different from those of steady one-dimensional counterflow stagnation flames. Present results suggest that the increasing unsteady tangential strain-rate causes modification of flame structure that leads to reduced reaction rates of key chain-branching reactions which are active on the products side of the flame. This causes a reduction in the concentrations of active radicals, such as H, OH, and O, which are necessary for the breakdown of hydrocarbons on the reactants side of the flame.
Informality Trends and Cycles

This paper studies the trends and cycles of informal employment. It first presents a theoretical model where the size of informal employment is determined by the relative costs and benefits of informality and the distribution of workers' skills. In the long run, informal employment varies with the trends in these variables, and in the short run it reacts to accommodate transient shocks and to close the gap that separates it from its trend level. The paper then uses an error-correction framework to examine empirically informality's long- and short-run relationships. For this purpose, it uses country-level data at annual frequency for a sample of industrial and developing countries, with the share of self-employment in the labor force as the proxy for informal employment. The paper finds that, in the long run, informality is larger in countries that have lower GDP per capita and impose more costs to formal firms in the form of more rigid business regulations, less valuable police and judicial services, and weaker monitoring of informality. In the short run, informal employment is found to be counter-cyclical for the majority of countries, with the degree of counter-cyclicality being lower in countries with larger informal employment and better police and judicial services. Moreover, informal employment follows a stable, trend-reverting process. These results are robust to changes in the sample and to the influence of outliers, even when only developing countries are considered in the analysis.
Agility Metric Robustness Using Linear Error Theory

The robustness of agility metrics has been studied to determine the sensitivity of selected metrics to variations in initial conditions and uncertainties in physical characteristics and coefe cients. The selected metrics are time to roll through bank angle metric, time-averaged integral of pitch rate metric, and power onset/loss parameter. Each metric was evaluated with initial condition errors and parametric uncertainties of physical constants using linear error theory to validate the use of linear approximations to propagate the errors.
The Public Good Value of Information from Agribusinesses on Genetically Modified Foods

Some people hail using biotechnology to create genetically modified (GM) food products as a major revolution in product innovation. Some, however, do not view these products favorably. International environmental groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have become the main antagonists against the use of genetic engineering for developing new products. Through press releases, websites, and protests, these environmental groups publicize their views on GM foods and how these products affect consumers and producers. They demonstrate and disseminate information, with the goal of affecting consumer (and possibly producer) behavior. Greenpeace, for example, argues that the unknown effects of using GM products could be disastrous to the environment and human health, that multinational agribusiness companies control genetic modification, and that GM foods pose a risk of allergens spreading to food products other than those that normally carry allergens (Greenpeace International 2001a,b,c; Friends of the Earth).
Laws of Attraction Regulatory Arbitrage in the Face of Activism in Right-to-Work States

Past research recognizes that firms exploit regulatory variations to their advantage but depicts such regulatory arbitrage as a dyadic process between firms and regulators. We extend this account b...
Rapid modelling of cooperating genetic events in cancer through somatic genome editing

Cancer is a multistep process that involves mutations and other alterations in oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes. Genome sequencing studies have identified a large collection of genetic alterations that occur in human cancers. However, the determination of which mutations are causally related to tumorigenesis remains a major challenge. Here we describe a novel CRISPR/Cas9-based approach for rapid functional investigation of candidate genes in well-established autochthonous mouse models of cancer. Using a Kras(G12D)-driven lung cancer model, we performed functional characterization of a panel of tumour suppressor genes with known loss-of-function alterations in human lung cancer. Cre-dependent somatic activation of oncogenic Kras(G12D) combined with CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing of tumour suppressor genes resulted in lung adenocarcinomas with distinct histopathological and molecular features. This rapid somatic genome engineering approach enables functional characterization of putative cancer genes in the lung and other tissues using autochthonous mouse models. We anticipate that this approach can be used to systematically dissect the complex catalogue of mutations identified in cancer genome sequencing studies.
A Semantic Grid Oriented to E-Tourism

With increasing complexity of tourism business models and tasks, there is a clear need of the next generation e-Tourism infrastructure to support flexible automation, integration, computation, storage, and collaboration. Currently several enabling technologies such as semantic Web, Web service, agent and grid computing have been applied in the different e-Tourism applications, however there is no a unified framework to be able to integrate all of them. So this paper presents a promising e-Tourism framework based on emerging semantic grid, in which a number of key design issues are discussed including architecture, ontologies structure, semantic reconciliation, service and resource discovery, role based authorization and intelligent agent. The paper finally provides the implementation of the framework.
Complexes with sterically bulky allyl ligands: Insights into structure and bonding

The allyl anion [C 3 H 5 ] - is often found in combination with other ligands in organometallic complexes. Compounds in which allyl groups are the only or principal type of ligand, however, are often coordinatively unsaturated and prone to decomposition. It is possible to increase the thermal and sometimes oxidative stability of such complexes by adding sterically bulky substituents (e.g., -SiMe 3 ) to the allyl group. Main group, transition metal, and f-element compounds constructed with bulky allyl ligands display a wide range of monomeric, oligomeric, and polymeric structures. Some of these complexes have no counterparts with unsubstituted allyl groups, and others are active polymerization catalysts. Research in this area has served to expand the range of structural types and bonding that can be incorporated into metal allyl chemistry.
The Higgs mechanism in non-commutative gauge theories☆

This paper investigates the non-commutative version of the Abelian Higgs model at the one loop level. We find that the BRST invariance of the theory is maintained at this order in perturbation theory, rendering the theory one-loop renormalizable. Upon removing the gauge field from the theory we also obtain a consistent continuum renormalization of the broken O(2) linear sigma model, contradicting results found in the literature. The beta functions for the various couplings of the gauged U(1) theory are presented, as are the divergent contributions to every one particle irreducible (1PI) function. We find that all physical couplings and masses are gauge independent. A brief discussion concerning the symmetries P, C, and T in this theory is also given.
Deadlock-free oblivious wormhole routing with cyclic dependencies

A great deal of work has been done recently on developing techniques for proving deadlock freedom for wormhole routing algorithms. One approach has been to restrict the class of routing algorithms for which the proof technique applies. The other approach is to provide a generic method that can be applied to all routing algorithms. Although this latter approach offers clear advantages, a general technique must deal with many complications. Foremost among these is the issue of irreducible cyclic dependencies that cannot result in deadlock. Such dependencies have been referred to alternatively as unreachable configurations and false resource cycles. In this paper, we apply the notion of unreachable cyclic configurations to oblivious routing algorithms. An oblivious routing algorithm is thus constructed that is deadlock-free, even though there are cycles in the channel dependency graph. The idea of unreachable configurations is then further developed to show various restrictions on when such configurations cart exist with oblivious routing algorithms. Finally, the example is generalized to allow the construction of larger networks with unreachable cycles. One benefit of characterizing when unreachable cyclic configurations can occur is that proving deadlock freedom is simplified for networks in which unreachable cycles cannot exist. Another contribution of this work is a first step toward a more formal model of unreachable cycles in wormhole-routed networks.
Internal rotation and kerr effect in polymer molecules

A theory of the Kerr effect (the electro‐optical birefringence) of dilute polymer solutions is developed. If interactions between polymer molecules are neglected, the molar Kerr constant of polymer molecules is expressed as Km=(2πNA/45kT){(3〈utrγu〉−Tr〈u2γ〉)(kT)−1+[3Tr〈γγ′〉−〈(Trγ)(Trγ′)〉]}, where NA is the Avogadro number; k is the Boltzmann constant; T is the absolute temperature; u, γ, and γ′ are the dipole‐moment vector and the optical and static polarizability tensors of a polymer molecule, respectively; utr is the transpose of u; Tr denotes the trace of a matrix; and the averages refer to those about a free polymer molecule. In addition to Km, the two quantities 〈r2〉F/〈r2〉 and 〈x2〉F/〈y2〉F are calculated, which, respectively, are considered to be measures of the degrees of deformation and orientation of a polymer molecule by an electric field of strength F. Here r is the absolute value of the end‐to‐end vector r = (x y z)tr, the field being assumed along the x axis; the averages with and without subscr...
Surface Roughness Effects on Flow Boiling in Microchannels

The influence of surface roughness on flow boiling heat transfer and pressure drop in microchannels is experimentally explored. The microchannel heat sink employed in the study consists of ten parallel, 25.4 mm long channels with nominal dimensions of 500 × 500 μm 2 . The channels were produced by saw-cutting. Two of the test piece surfaces were roughened to varying degrees with electrical discharge machining (EDM). The roughness average R a varied from 1.4 μm for the as-fabricated, saw-cut surface to 3.9 μm and 6.7 μm for the two roughened EDM surfaces. Deionized water was used as the working fluid. The experiments indicate that the surface roughness has little influence on boiling incipience and only a minor impact on saturated boiling heat transfer coefficients at lower heat fluxes. For wall heat fluxes above 1500 kW/m 2 , the two EDM surfaces (3.9 μm and 6.7 μm) have similar heat transfer coefficients that were 20―35% higher than those measured for the saw-cut surface (1.4 μm). A modified Bertsch et al. [2009, "A Composite Heat Transfer Correlation for Saturated Flow Boiling in Small Channels, " Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 52, pp. 2110―2118] correlation was found to provide acceptable predictions of the flow boiling heat transfer coefficient over the range of eonditions tested. Analysis of the pressure drop measurements indicates that only the roughest surface (6.7 μm) has an adverse effect on the two-phase pressure drop.
Do You Have a Voting Plan? Implementation Intentions, Voter Turnout, and Organic Plan Making

Phone calls encouraging citizens to vote are staples of modern campaigns. Insights from psychological science can make these calls dramatically more potent while also generating opportunities to expand psychological theory. We present a field experiment conducted during the 2008 presidential election (N = 287,228) showing that facilitating the formation of a voting plan (i.e., implementation intentions) can increase turnout by 4.1 percentage points among those contacted, but a standard encouragement call and self-prediction have no significant impact. Among single-eligible-voter households, the formation of a voting plan increased turnout among persons contacted by 9.1 percentage points, whereas those in multiple-eligible-voter households were unaffected by all scripts. Some situational factors may organically facilitate implementation-intentions formation more readily than others; we present data suggesting that this could explain the differential treatment effect that we found. We discuss implications for psychological and political science, and public interventions involving implementation-intentions formation.
Particle amplitude growth due to single or repetitive resonance crossing

A study is made of the problem of the growth of the amplitude of a particle executing betatron oscillations in a synchrotron or storage ring, due to the crossing of a resonance line. The resonance can be crossed either only once, or repeatedly. The authors treat only one degree of freedom and assume the particles in the beam are independent. They consider some simple models of amplitude-dependent tunes, to discern the effects of detuning away from the resonance as the particle amplitude grows. The basic equation of motion treated is the harmonic oscillator equation. >
Managing the infected knee: as good as it gets.

The clinical presentation is a useful guide for selecting the treatment of an infected total knee arthroplasty. Prosthesis retention is indicated in patients with infections that occur within 30 days after arthroplasty and in patients with well-functioning prostheses who develop an acute late hematogenous infection. Debridement attempts should be open and not arthroscopic. When prosthesis removal is required, the preferred approach is a delayed reconstructive technique, the 2-staged reimplantation, rather than a direct-exchange procedure. The use of block spacers or mobile articulating devices to deliver high-dose local antibiotics is recommended between implant removal and delayed revision surgery. The use of antibiotic-loaded acrylic cement for cemented prostheses or antibiotic-soaked bone-graft with cementless prostheses is helpful in the overall cure rate of infection.
Synthesis of Polycyclic Aromatics and Heteroaromatics via Electrophilic Cyclization

A variety of substituted polycyclic aromatics are readily prepared in good to excellent yields under very mild reaction conditions by the reaction of 2-(1-alkynyl)biphenyls with ICl, I2, NBS, and p-O2NC6H4SCl. This methodology readily accommodates various functional groups and has been successfully extended to systems containing a variety of polycyclic and heterocyclic rings.
How sets of coherent probabilities may serve as models for degrees of incoherence

We introduce two indices for the degree of incoherence in a set of lower and upper previsions: maximizing the rate of loss the incoherent bookmaker experiences in a Dutch Book, or maximizing the rate of profit the gambler achieves who makes Dutch Book against the incoherent bookmaker. We report how efficient bookmaking is achieved against these two indices in the case of incoherent previsions for events on a finite partition, and for incoherent previsions that include also a simple random variable. We relate the epsilon-contamination model to efficient bookmaking in the case of the rate of profit.
Engineering Software Correctness

Design and quality are fundamental themes in engineering education. Functional programming builds software from small components, a central element of good design, and facilitates reasoning about correctness, an important aspect of quality. Software engineering courses that employ functional programming provide a platform for educating students in the design of quality software. This pearl describes experiments in the use of ACL2, a purely functional subset of Common Lisp with an embedded mechanical logic, to focus on design and correctness in software engineering courses. Students find the courses challenging and interesting. A few acquire enough skill to use an automated theorem prover on the job without additional training. Many students, but not quite a majority, find enough success to suggest that additional experience would make them effective users of mechanized logic in commercial software development. Nearly all gain a new perspective on what it means for software to be correct and acquire a good understanding of functional programming.
Analysing Misleading Discrete Responses: A Logit Model Based on Misclassified Data

This study presents an alternative to direct questioning and randomized response approaches to obtain survey information about sensitive issues. The approach used here is based on a logit model that can be used when survey data on the dependent variable are misclassified. The method is applied to a direct survey of undergraduate cheating behaviour. Student responses may not always be truthful. In particular, a student claiming to be a non-cheater may actually be a cheater. The results indicate that the incidence of cheating in our sample is approximately 70% rather than the self-reported value of 51%.
HELP: a question answering system

HELP---A Question Answering System---enables a user, sitting at a console of a time-shared computer, to obtain information based on questions typed in. This information might concern the operating system itself, the format of commands to the user interface executive program, the use of a selected subsystem, or an area totally separate from the computer. The content of the data base in HELP is completely arbitrary, and determined by the creator of each individual HELP system. Questions are presented to HELP in standard English and elicit one or more separate responses, depending upon the nature of the question. If HELP cannot generate an appropriate response, a standard "I don't know" message is output. A second system, called QAS, was developed to enable a user to conveniently generate a HELP program. This paper will discuss the structure of both programs. All of the work discussed in this paper was performed on a modified SDS 930 computer, developed at Project Genie at the University of California, Berkeley.
Modeling of the silicon integrated-circuit design and manufacturing process

The evolution of process modeling is traced starting with bipolar technology in the 1960's through recent processing concerns for oxide-isolated MOS devices. The kinetics of diffusion and oxidation are used to illustrate both physical and numerical effects. The interaction of device effects with process modeling is discussed as well as the statistical implications of process variables. The nature of computer-aided design tools for process and device modeling are discussed. This includes tools that bridge gaps between technology and system design with potential application for manufacturing.
A statistical approach towards robust progress estimation

The need for accurate SQL progress estimation in the context of decision support administration has led to a number of techniques proposed for this task. Unfortunately, no single one of these progress estimators behaves robustly across the variety of SQL queries encountered in practice, meaning that each technique performs poorly for a significant fraction of queries. This paper proposes a novel estimator selection framework that uses a statistical model to characterize the sets of conditions under which certain estimators outperform others, leading to a significant increase in estimation robustness. The generality of this framework also enables us to add a number of novel "special purpose" estimators which increase accuracy further. Most importantly, the resulting model generalizes well to queries very different from the ones used to train it. We validate our findings using a large number of industrial real-life and benchmark workloads.
Soft timers: efficient microsecond software timer support for network processing

This paper proposes and evaluates soft timers, a new operating system facility that allows the efficient scheduling of software events at agranularity down to tens of microseconds. Soft timers can be used to avoid interrupts and reduce context switches associated with network processing, without sacrificing low communication delays. More specifically, soft timers enable transport protocols like TCP to efficiently perform rate-based clocking of packet transmissions. Experiments indicate that soft timers allow a server to employ rate-based clocking with little CPU overhead (2-6%) at high aggregate bandwidths. Soft timers can also be used to perform network polling, which eliminates network interrupts and increases the memory access locality of the network subsystem without sacrificing delay. Experiments show that this technique can improve the throughput of a Web server by up to 25%.
Energy levels in polarization superlattices: a comparison of continuum strain models

A theoretical model for the energy levels in polarization superlattices is presented. The model includes the effect of strain on the local polarization-induced electric fields and the subsequent effect on the energy levels. Two continuum strain models are contrasted. One is the standard strain model derived from Hooke's law that is typically used to calculate energy levels in polarization superlattices and quantum wells. The other is a fully coupled strain model derived from the thermodynamic equation of state for piezoelectric materials. The latter is more complete and applicable to strongly piezoelectric materials where corrections to the standard model are significant. The underlying theory has been applied to AlGaN/GaN superlattices and quantum wells. It is found that the fully coupled strain model yields very different electric fields from the standard model. The calculated intersubband transition energies are shifted by approximately 5–19 meV, depending on the structure. Thus from a device standpoint, the effect of applying the fully coupled model produces a very measurable shift in the peak wavelength. This result has implications for the design of AlGaN/GaN optical switches.
Small rational model of subspace complement

This paper concerns the rational cohomology ring of the complement M of a complex subspace arrangement. We start with the De Concini-Procesi differential graded algebra that is a rational model for M. Inside it we find a much smaller subalgebra D quasi-isomorphic to the whole algebra. D is described by defining a natural multiplication on a chain complex whose homology is the local homology of the intersection lattice L whence connecting the De Concini-Procesi model with the Goresky-MacPherson formula for the additive structure of H * (M). The algebra D has a natural integral version that is a good candidate for an integral model of M. If the rational local homology of L can be computed explicitly we obtain an explicit presentation of the ring H * (M,Q). For example, this is done for the cases where L is a geometric lattice and where M is a k-equal manifold.
A Heterobivalent Ligand Inhibits Mast Cell Degranulation via Selective Inhibition of Allergen–IgE Interactions In Vivo

Current treatments for allergies include epinephrine and antihistamines, which treat the symptoms after an allergic response has taken place; steroids, which result in local and systemic immune suppression; and IgE-depleting therapies, which can be used only for a narrow range of clinical IgE titers. The limitations of current treatments motivated the design of a heterobivalent inhibitor (HBI) of IgE-mediated allergic responses that selectively inhibits allergen–IgE interactions, thereby preventing IgE clustering and mast cell degranulation. The HBI was designed to simultaneously target the allergen binding site and the adjacent conserved nucleotide binding site (NBS) found on the Fab of IgE Abs. The bivalent targeting was accomplished by linking a hapten to an NBS ligand with an ethylene glycol linker. The hapten moiety of HBI enables selective targeting of a specific IgE, whereas the NBS ligand enhances avidity for the IgE. Simultaneous bivalent binding to both sites provided HBI with 120-fold enhancement in avidity for the target IgE compared with the monovalent hapten. The increased avidity for IgE made HBI a potent inhibitor of mast cell degranulation in the rat basophilic leukemia mast cell model, in the passive cutaneous anaphylaxis mouse model of allergy, and in mice sensitized to the model allergen. In addition, HBI did not have any observable systemic toxic effects even at elevated doses. Taken together, these results establish the HBI design as a broadly applicable platform with therapeutic potential for the targeted and selective inhibition of IgE-mediated allergic responses, including food, environmental, and drug allergies.
Parametric Resonance of Hopf Bifurcation

We investigate the dynamics of a system consisting of a simple harmonic oscillator with small nonlinearity, small damping and small parametric forcing in the neighborhood of 2:1 resonance. We assume that the unforced system exhibits the birth of a stable limit cycle as the damping changes sign from positive to negative (a supercritical Hopf bifurcation). Using perturbation methods and numerical integration, we investigate the changes which occur in long-time behavior as the damping parameter is varied. We show that for large positive damping, the origin is stable, whereas for large negative damping a quasi-periodic behavior occurs. These two steady states are connected by a complicated series of bifurcations which occur as the damping is varied.
Modifiable combining functions

MODIFIABLE COMBINING FUNCTIONS ARE A SYNTHESIS OF TWO COMMON APPROACHES TO COMBINING EVIDENCE. THEY OFFER MANY OF THE ADVANTAGES OF THESE APPROACH- ES AND AVOID SOME DISADVANTAGES. BECAUSE THEY FACILITATE THE ACQUISITION, REPRESENTATION, EXPLANATION, AND MODIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT COMBINA- TIONS OF EVIDENCE, THEY ARE PROPOSED AS A TOOL FOR KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERS WHO BUILD SYSTEMS THAT REASON UNDER UNCERTAINTY, NOT AS A NORMATIVE THEORY OF EVIDENCE.
Decision boundary feature extraction for neural networks

In this paper, we propose a new feature extraction method for feedforward neural networks. The method is based on the recently published decision boundary feature extraction algorithm which is based on the fact that all the necessary features for classification can be extracted from the decision boundary. The decision boundary feature extraction algorithm can take advantage of characteristics of neural networks which can solve complex problems with arbitrary decision boundaries without assuming underlying probability distribution functions of the data. To apply the decision boundary feature extraction method, we first give a specific definition for the decision boundary in a neural network. Then, we propose a procedure for extracting all the necessary features for classification from the decision boundary. Experiments show promising results.
Ferreting out Tunneling: An Application to Indian Business Groups

Owners of business groups are often accused of expropriating minority shareholders by tunneling resources from e rms where they have low cash e ow rights to e rms where they have high cash e ow rights. In this paper we propose a general methodology to measure the extent of tunneling activities. The methodology rests on isolating and then testing the distinctive implications of the tunneling hypothesis for the propagation of earnings shocks across e rms within a group. When we apply our methodology to data on Indian business groups, we e nd a signie cant amount of tunneling, much of it occurring via nonoperating components of proe t. I. INTRODUCTION Weak corporate law and lax enforcement mechanisms raise fears of expropriation for minority shareholders around the world. These fears seem especially warranted in the presence of business groups, a common organizational form in many developed and developing countries. In a business group, a single shareholder (or a family) completely controls several independently traded e rms and yet has signie cant cash e ow rights in only a few of them. 1 This discrepancy in cash e ow rights between the different e rms he controls creates strong incentives to expropriate. The controlling shareholder will want to transfer, or tunnel, proe ts across e rms, moving them from e rms where he has