cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Balanced Incomplete Block Designs

Balanced incomplete block designs (BIBD) are experimental designs that can be described by a labeled, fully filled rectangular array or by a larger equivalent rectangular display with some empty cells. A cell in the rectangle identifies one treatment in a given block. The number of different treatments for a given block (individual) is less than the total number of treatments; this precludes having each treatment appear once in every block. Hence, the design is an incomplete block design. Without some constraints on the number of occurrences of certain treatments in different rows, the average performance in different parts of the design can be biased. This bias yields different averages for two treatments, for example, because of differences in the cells in which those treatments were employed. To eliminate the bias, a special form of balance is employed in which every possible pair of treatments appears in an equal number of blocks. Accordingly, there also is balance in the total number of times each treatment occurs. Analysis methods are discussed for general linear fixed, mixed, and Bayesian models. I discuss a special case of a BIBD design, Youden squares, that permits but does not require the assessment of one more independent variable than other BIBDs. In the behavioral sciences, the rows of Youden squares can be different blocks, typically different people or animals, and the columns can be different observation occasions that permit the assessment of so-called period effects. Keywords: balanced block designs; Youden squares; mixed models; efficiency; period effects; resolvable designs
Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point and other food safety systems in milk processing

Abstract: Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles are used throughout the food industry as a means to identify and control potential food safety hazards. Implemented HACCP systems have become important to dairy processors as a means to improve the safety of their products as well as for meeting customer demands and regulatory requirements. HACCP systems are based on seven established principles, or steps, and supporting prerequisite programs that include good manufacturing practices and sanitary standard operating procedures. The principles include performing a step by step hazard analysis based on a product flow diagram; determining critical control points and critical limits for controlling the identified hazards; establishing monitoring procedures for the critical control points and corrective action procedures for when monitoring determines that critical limits have not been met; developing HACCP plan verification procedures; and maintaining all appropriate records. The application of HACCP principles and related food safety systems to pasteurized fluid milkoperations, with reference to regulatory based model systems, will be discussed.
Probabilistic Verification of Discrete Event Systems Using Acceptance Sampling

We propose a model independent procedure for verifying properties of discrete event systems. The dynamics of such systems can be very complex, making them hard to analyze, so we resort to methods based on Monte Carlo simulation and statistical hypothesis testing. The verification is probabilistic in two senses. First, the properties, expressed as CSL formulas, can be probabilistic. Second, the result of the verification is probabilistic, and the probability of error is bounded by two parameters passed to the verification procedure. The verification of properties can be carried out in an anytime manner by starting off with loose error bounds, and gradually tightening these bounds.
Case Series, Case Reports †

A case report refers to a description of a person with a particular disease, and a case series refers to a series of case reports, often representing all cases with the given disease in a defined time period in a particular practice, clinic, or geographic area. Keywords: case series; case report
Modeling human behavior from simple sensors in the home

Pervasive sensors in the home have a variety of applications including energy minimization, activity monitoring for elders, and tutors for household tasks such as cooking. Many of the common sensors today are binary, e.g. IR motion sensors, door close sensors, and floor pressure pads. Predicting user behavior is one of the key enablers for applications. While we consider smart home data here, the general problem is one of predicting discrete human actions. Drawing on Activity Theory, the language as action principle, and speech understanding research, we argue that smoothed n-grams are very appropriate for this task. We built such a model and applied it to data gathered from 3 smart home installations. The data showed a classic Zipf or power-law distribution, similar to speech and language. We found that the predictive accuracy of the n-gram model ranges from 51% to 39%, which is significantly above the baseline for the deployments of 16, 76 and 70 sensors. While we cannot directly compare this result with other work (lack of shared data), by examination of high entropy zones in the datasets (e.g. the kitchen triangle) we argue that accuracies around 50% are best possible for this task.
A Correlation Framework for the CORBA Component Model

Large distributed systems, including real-time embedded systems, are increasingly being built using sophisticated middleware frameworks. Communication in such systems is often realized using in terms of asynchronous events whose propagation is implemented by an underlying publish/subscribe service that hooks components into a generic event communication channel. Event correlation – a mechanism for monitoring and filtering events – has been introduced in some of these systems as an effective technique for reducing network traffic and computation time. Unfortunately, even though event correlation is used heavily in frameworks such as ACE/TAO’s real-time event-channel and in mission critical contexts such as Boeing’s Bold Stroke avionics middleware, the industry standard CORBA Component Model (CCM) does not include a specification of event correlation. While previous proposals for event correlation usually offer sophisticated facilities to detect combinations in the stream of incoming events, they have not been constructed to fit within the CCM type system, and they offer relatively little support for transforming and rearranging filtered events into meaningful output events. In this paper, we present the design rationale, syntax, and semantics for a new and highly flexible model for event correlation that is designed for integration into the CCM type system. Our model has been integrated and tested in the Cadena development and analysis framework, which has been designed to support development of mission-control applications in the Boeing Bold Stroke framework.
BUILDING DATA WAREHOUSES USING THE ENTERPRISE MODELING FRAMEWORK

This paper proposes an enterprise modeling framework for the deployment of data warehouses. The framework provides the information roadmap coordinating source data and different data warehouses across the business enterprise. The paper introduces a solution to address data warehousing issues at the enterprise level while avoiding the pitfalls of creating enterprise data warehouses and universal data marts. It further proposes a change of paradigm from point solutions focus to a methodology driven by enterprise requirements to meet the challenges of the new economy. The proposed framework emphasizes the separation of the conceptual construct from the physical and operational constructs of an enterprise. It points out the differences and dependencies of analytic and operational processes and how data warehouses and operational data stores respectively support their information requirements. This paper will demonstrate how the enterprise modeling framework for data warehousing can produce business benefits.
Structural, energetic, electronic, bonding, and vibrational properties of Ga3O, Ga3O2, Ga3O3, Ga2O3, and GaO3 clusters.

The results of density functional theory based calculations on Ga3O, Ga3O2, Ga3O3, Ga2O3, and GaO3 clusters are reported here. A preference for planar arrangement of the constituent atoms maximizing the ionic interactions is found in the ground state of the clusters considered. The sequential oxidation of the metal-excess clusters increases the binding energy, but the sequential removal of a metal atom from the oxygen-excess clusters decreases the binding energy. The increase in the oxygen to metal ratio in these clusters is accompanied by increase in both electron affinity and ionization potential. The ionization induced structural distortions in the neutral clusters are relatively small, except those for Ga3O2. In anionic (cationic) clusters, the added (ionized) electron is shared by the Ga atoms, except in the case of GaO3. The vibrational frequencies and charge density analysis reveal the importance of the ionic Ga−O bond in stabilizing the gallium oxide clusters considered in this study.
Digital Development: Challenges and Prospects

In the fast developing digital technological revolution even the newly industrialized economies (the NIEs) have found it hard to catch up and maintain the pace required for not falling behind. The so-called developing economies are clearly at a great disadvantage in such a fast paced technological race. Thus there is a digital divide that is growing and through a cumulative causation the gap will widen further unless coordinated action is taken. This paper discusses some of the most important economic issues conceptually and offers some modest policy advice. The basic problem of adoption of a new technology system such as the ICT( information and communications technologies) is explored via the Schumpeterian concept of creative destruction in a nonlinear, path-dependent world. By investing strategically in physical, intellectual and other forms of human capital economies may be able to forge a path not only in the ICT sectors, but also create innovation systems of their own. Under the emerging globally competitive market environment this will be the best way to compete dynamically. However, creating comparative advantage in this way requires capabilities that many developing countries lack at the moment. Creative policy interventions with a mix of market promotion, good governance, relative openness, and promotion of sustainable development in an equitable manner are necessary if the developing economies are not to be left far behind.
The effect of product standards on agricultural exports from developing countries

The authors create a standards restrictiveness index using newly available data on maximum residue levels of pesticides for 61 importing countries. The paper analyzes the impact that food safety standards have on international trade of agricultural products. The findings suggest that more restrictive standards are associated, on average, with a lower probability of observing trade. However, after controlling for sample selection and the proportion of exporting firms in a gravity model, the analysis finds that the effect of standards on trade intensity is indistinguishable from zero. This is consistent with the assumption that meeting stringent standards increases primarily the fixed costs of exporting. Once firms enter the market, however, standards do not impact the level of exports. The analysis also finds a greater marginal effect of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) standards on the probability of trade, relative to other countries' standards, keeping in mind however that on average BRICS standards are less restrictive. The analysis also suggests that exporters in low-income countries are more adversely affected by stricter standards.
The effect of anisotropy on the Young's moduli and Poisson's ratios of shales

ABSTRACT Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio are required for geomechanics applications such as hydraulic fracture design, analysis of wellbore stability and rock failure, determination of in situ stress and assessment of the response of reservoirs and surrounding rocks to changes in pore pressure and stress. Shales are usually anisotropic and models that neglect shale anisotropy may fail to describe geomechanical behaviour correctly. Anisotropy in shales results from a partial alignment of anisotropic clay particles, kerogen inclusions, microcracks, low‐aspect ratio pores and layering. For shales, the Young's modulus measured parallel to bedding E1 is usually greater than the Young's modulus measured perpendicular to bedding E3. However, the Poisson's ratio ν31 corresponding to stress applied perpendicular to bedding and strain measured parallel to bedding can be greater than, equal to, or less than the Poisson's ratio ν12 for stress applied parallel to bedding and strain measured parallel to bedding. For transverse isotropy, the elastic anisotropy resulting from a partial alignment of clay particles can be written in terms of the coefficients W200 and W400, which describe the impact of clay particle orientation on the anisotropy of shales. Disorder in the orientation of clay particles acts to reduce W400 faster than W200, since W400 is a higher order moment of the clay particle orientation distribution function than W200. This is confirmed by analysis of measured anisotropy parameters for shales. A partial alignment of clay particles is consistent with the measured Young's moduli for shales and with values of Poisson's ratio ν31 > ν12 but not with values ν31 < ν12. These values can be explained if there exist kerogen inclusions, microcracks, or low‐aspect ratio pores aligned parallel to the bedding plane.
Margins, Shrinkage, and Boosting

This manuscript shows that AdaBoost and its immediate variants can produce approximate maximum margin classifiers simply by scaling step size choices with a fixed small constant. In this way, when the unscaled step size is an optimal choice, these results provide guarantees for Friedman's empirically successful "shrinkage" procedure for gradient boosting (Friedman, 2000). Guarantees are also provided for a variety of other step sizes, affirming the intuition that increasingly regularized line searches provide improved margin guarantees. The results hold for the exponential loss and similar losses, most notably the logistic loss.
Applying Human Rights-Based Approaches to Public Health: Lessons Learned from Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Programs

The application of human rights norms at the national policy level is largely codified, but rigorous research on the field-level application of a human rights based approach (HRBA) to health programs is still in its infancy. The paper identifies human rights norms from international law and standards that are relevant to maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) programs, and presents an example of how a HRBA has been previously applied in an MNCH project. It introduces a HRBA framework recently developed by Concern Worldwide and partners, and conducts a document analysis of a previous Concern Worldwide project in Malawi. Discussion focuses on where and how the project could have benefited from incorporation of a HRBA in project design, implementation and evaluation. The authors conclude by discussing how such inclusion could have impacted project outcomes, and how such analysis can help inform future efforts to implement a HRBA to health.
Cross-Sectional Study †

Cross-sectional studies estimate the distribution of quantities at a certain moment in time. Only one set of observations is taken from each subject in a cross-sectional study. Cross-sectional studies may be used to estimate prevalence of a disease or risk factor, make inferences about the association between variables such as an outcome and explanatory variable, or to make inferences about disease incidence. If population characteristics are constant over time, then analysis of the age distribution of a quantity of interest can describe age-specific incidence. Multiple cross-sectional studies may be used to monitor trends in the distribution of a variable. Cross-sectional prevalence of a transient state early in disease can be used to measure disease incidence. Although cross-sectional studies may reveal suggestive associations between explanatory variables and outcomes, causality cannot usually be inferred from cross-sectional data. Cross-sectional data may also be subject to sampling biases like length-biased sampling or recall bias. Keywords: target population; longitudinal study; explanatory variable; monitoring; disease incidence; retrospective study; cost
Linkage Information Content

The probability of knowing IBD sharing status of relative pairs at polymorphic genetic markers is an important factor for a model-free linkage study. Here, Linkage Information Content (LIC) value is introduced, which measures the informativeness of a marker for identity-by-descent (IBD) sharing status of relative pairs. LIC value is independent of the mode of inheritance of the disease, but is specific to the type of relative pairs used. Keywords: PIC ; marker polymorphism; model-free linkage analysis; sib pairs
Rotationally invariant family of Lévy-like random matrix ensembles

We introduce a family of rotationally invariant random matrix ensembles characterized by a parameter λ. While λ = 1 corresponds to well-known critical ensembles, we show that λ ≠ 1 describes 'Levy-like' ensembles, characterized by power-law eigenvalue densities. For λ > 1 the density is bounded, as in Gaussian ensembles, but λ < 1 describes ensembles characterized by densities with long tails. In particular, the model allows us to evaluate, in terms of a novel family of orthogonal polynomials, the eigenvalue correlations for Levy-like ensembles. These correlations differ qualitatively from those in either the Gaussian or the critical ensembles.
Do Airlines in Chapter 11 Harm Their Rivals?: Bankruptcy and Pricing Behavior in U.S. Airline Markets

The behavior of firms in financial distress has attracted considerable academic and policy interest in recent years. The turmoil in the U.S. airline industry has triggered much of the public policy discussion, as some observers have argued that airlines in financial distress, particularly those operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, reduce prices to the point of harming themselves and their competitors. This study investigates the pricing strategies of bankrupt airlines and their rivals. The data suggest that an airline's prices typically decline somewhat before it files for bankruptcy protection and remain slightly depressed over the subsequent two or three quarters. We find no evidence that competitors of the bankrupt airline lower their prices, however, nor that they lose passengers to their bankrupt rival. These results indicate that bankrupt carriers do not harm the financial health of their competitors.
Fast Bundle-Level Type Methods for Unconstrained and Ball-Constrained Convex Optimization

It has been shown in (14) that the accelerated prox-level (APL) method and its variant, the uniform smoothing level (USL) method, have optimal iteration complexity for solving black-box and structured convex programming problems without requiring the input of any smoothness information. However, these algorithms require the assumption on the boundedness of the feasible set and their eciency relies on the solutions of two involved subproblems. These hindered the applicability of these algorithms in solving large-scale and unconstrained optimization problems. In this paper, we rst present a generic algorithmic framework to extend these uniformly optimal level methods for solving unconstrained problems. Moreover, we introduce two new variants of level methods, i.e., the fast APL (FAPL) method and the fast USL (FUSL) method, for solving large scale black-box and structured convex programming problems respectively. Both FAPL and FUSL enjoy the same optimal iteration complexity as APL and USL, while the number of subproblems in each iteration is reduced from two to one. Moreover, we present an exact method to solve the only subproblem for these algorithms. As a result, the proposed FAPL and FUSL methods have improved the performance of the APL and USL in practice signicantly in terms of both computational time and solution quality. Our numerical results on solving some large-scale least square problems and total variation based image reconstruction have shown great advantages of these new bundle-level type methods over APL, USL, and some other state-of-the-art rst-order methods.
How to Correct for Dust Absorption in Starbursts

We review new and published results to examine how well the bolometric flux of starbursts can be recovered from ultraviolet (UV) and optical observations. We show that the effective absorption of starbursts can be substantial, up to ~ 10 mag in the far UV, and ~ 5 mag in Hα, but apparently not as high as some claims in the literature (several tens to a thousand mag). The bolometric fluxes of an IUE sample of starbursts can be recovered to 0.14 dex accuracy using the UV flux and spectral slope. However, this relationship breaks down for Ultra Luminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIGs). The Hα flux combined with the Balmer decrement can be used to predict the bolometric flux to 0.5 dex accuracy for starbursts including most ULIGs. These results imply a foreground screen component to the dust distribution.
The political economy of wage and price controls: evidence from the Nixon tapes

In late July, 1971, Nixon reiterated his adamant opposition to wage and price controls calling them a scheme to socialize America. Yet, less than a month later, in a stunning reversal, he imposed the first and only peacetime wage and price controls in U.S. history. The Nixon tapes, personal tape recordings made during the presidency of Richard Nixon, provide a unique body of evidence to investigate the motivations for Nixon’s stunning reversal. We uncover and report in this paper evidence that Nixon manipulated his New Economic Policy to help secure his reelection victory in 1972. He became convinced that wage and price controls were necessary to grab the headlines away from the defeatist abandonment of the Bretton Woods Agreement and the closing of the U.S. gold window. Nixon understood the impact of his wage and price controls, but chose to trade off longer-term economic costs to the economy for his own short-term political gain.
Lagrange Discrete Ordinates: A New Angular Discretization for the Three-Dimensional Linear Boltzmann Equation

AbstractThe classical Sn equations of Carlson and Lee have been a mainstay in multidimensional radiation transport calculations. In this paper, an alternative to the Sn equations, the “Lagrange Discrete Ordinates” (LDO) equations, are derived. These equations are based on an interpolatory framework for functions on the unit sphere in three dimensions. While the LDO equations retain the formal structure of the classical Sn equations, they have a number of important differences. The LDO equations naturally allow the angular flux to be evaluated in directions other than those found in the quadrature set. To calculate the scattering source in the LDO equations, no spherical harmonic moments are needed—only values of the angular flux. Moreover, the LDO scattering source preserves the eigenstructure of the continuous scattering operator. The formal similarity of the LDO equations with the Sn equations should allow easy modification of mature three-dimensional Sn codes such as PARTISN or PENTRAN to solve the LDO...
Nitric oxide stress and activation of AMP-activated protein kinase impair β-cell sarcoendoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPase 2b activity and protein stability

The sarcoendoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase 2b (SERCA2b) pump maintains a steep Ca2+ concentration gradient between the cytosol and ER lumen in the pancreatic β-cell, and the integrity of this gradient has a central role in regulated insulin production and secretion, maintenance of ER function and β-cell survival. We have previously demonstrated loss of β-cell SERCA2b expression under diabetic conditions. To define the mechanisms underlying this, INS-1 cells and rat islets were treated with the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-1β (IL-1β) combined with or without cycloheximide or actinomycin D. IL-1β treatment led to increased inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) gene and protein expression, which occurred concurrently with the activation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). IL-1β led to decreased SERCA2b mRNA and protein expression, whereas time-course experiments revealed a reduction in protein half-life with no change in mRNA stability. Moreover, SERCA2b protein but not mRNA levels were rescued by treatment with the NOS inhibitor l-NMMA (NG-monomethyl l-arginine), whereas the NO donor SNAP (S-nitroso-N-acetyl-d,l-penicillamine) and the AMPK activator AICAR (5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide ribonucleotide) recapitulated the effects of IL-1β on SERCA2b protein stability. Similarly, IL-1β-induced reductions in SERCA2b expression were rescued by pharmacological inhibition of AMPK with compound C or by transduction of a dominant-negative form of AMPK, whereas β-cell death was prevented in parallel. Finally, to determine a functional relationship between NO and AMPK signaling and SERCA2b activity, fura-2/AM (fura-2-acetoxymethylester) Ca2+ imaging experiments were performed in INS-1 cells. Consistent with observed changes in SERCA2b expression, IL-1β, SNAP and AICAR increased cytosolic Ca2+ and decreased ER Ca2+ levels, suggesting congruent modulation of SERCA activity under these conditions. In aggregate, these results show that SERCA2b protein stability is decreased under inflammatory conditions through NO- and AMPK-dependent pathways and provide novel insight into pathways leading to altered β-cell calcium homeostasis and reduced β-cell survival in diabetes.
Effects of social security policies on benefit claiming, retirement and saving

Abstract An enhanced version of a structural model jointly explains benefit claiming, wealth and retirement, including reversals from states of lesser to greater work. The model is estimated with Health and Retirement Study data. Alternative beliefs about the future of Social Security affect claiming behavior. Effects of three potential policies are also examined: increasing the early entitlement age, increasing the full retirement age, and eliminating the payroll tax for seniors. Predicted responses to increasing the full entitlement age are sensitive to beliefs.
Colonial New Jersey's Paper Money Regime, 1709-1775: A Forensic Accounting Reconstruction of the Data

Abstract. Forensic accounting is used to reconstruct the data on emissions, redemptions, and bills outstanding for colonial New Jersey paper money. These components are further separated into the amounts initially legislated and the amounts actually executed. These data are substantial improvements over what currently exists in the literature. They also provide a more complete and nuanced accounting of colonial New Jersey's paper money regime than what has been done previously for any British North American colony. Enough detail of the forensic accounting exercise is given for scholars to reproduce the data series from the original sources.
Parallel algorithms for shared-memory machines

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses parallel algorithms for shared-memory machines. Parallel computation is rapidly becoming a dominant theme in all areas of computer science and its applications. It is estimated that, within a decade, virtually all developments in computer architecture, systems programming, computer applications and the design of algorithms will be taking place within the context of parallel computation. In preparation for this revolution, theoretical computer scientists have begun to develop a body of theory centered on parallel algorithms and parallel architectures. As there is no consensus yet on the appropriate logical organization of a massively parallel computer, and as the speed of parallel algorithms is constrained as much by limits on interprocessor communication as it is by purely computational issues, it is not surprising that a variety of abstract models of parallel computation have been pursued. Closest to the hardware level are the VLSI models, which focus on the technological limits of today's chips, in which gates and wires are packed into a small number of planar layers.
Reproductive Outcome After Sterilization Reversal in Women of Advanced Reproductive Age

Objective: Our objective was to assess the clinical outcome of tubal reversal in women of advanced reproductive age. Methods: A multicenter retrospective chart review of 153 patients who underwent a tubal ligation reversal was carried out. Patients were evaluated according to age. All patients had documented ovulation and a partner with a normal semen analysis by WHO criteria. Outcome measures included rates of clinical pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous abortion, and live birth, and the time to conception. Results: Clinical pregnancy rates were significantly lower in women ≥40 compared to younger groups. The time to conception was significantly shorter for women <30 compared to women ≥35. No pregnancies occurred in women ≥42. Conclusions: Our data support the judicious use of sterilization reversal for infertile women with no male factor through their early forties. Women ≥42 years should be especially counseled as to the very low success rates.
Near-Optimal Distributed Approximation of Minimum-Weight Connected Dominating Set

This paper presents a near-optimal distributed approximation algorithm for the minimum-weight connected dominating set (MCDS) problem. We use the standard distributed message passing model called the CONGEST model in which in each round each node can send \(\mathcal{O}(\log n)\) bits to each neighbor. The presented algorithm finds an \(\mathcal{O}(\log n)\) approximation in \(\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(D+\sqrt{n})\) rounds, where D is the network diameter and n is the number of nodes. MCDS is a classical NP-hard problem and the achieved approximation factor \(\mathcal{O}(\log n)\) is known to be optimal up to a constant factor, unless P = NP. Furthermore, the \(\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(D+\sqrt{n})\) round complexity is known to be optimal modulo logarithmic factors (for any approximation), following [Das Sarma et al.—STOC’11].
On Quantum Computation, Anyons, and Categories

We explain the use of category theory in describing certain sorts of anyons . Yoneda’s lemma leads to a simplification of that description. For the particular case of Fibonacci anyons , we also exhibit some calculations that seem to be known to the experts but not explicit in the literature.
Econometric Analysis of Rising Body Mass Index in the U.S.: 1996 versus 2002

Currently over 30% of American adults are obese, more than twice the percentage prevalent in 1980 (American Obesity Association). At the same time, almost 65% adult Americans are said to be overweight. Such high prevalence levels are a major public health concern. Both overweight and obesity are associated with increased health risk for chronic diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, fatty liver disease and some forms of cancer. In this paper we explore the factors that contribute to increasing rates of obesity and overweight, and study the differences in years 1996 and 2002. We use a multilevel econometric approach to model the four classifications of body mass index (BMI) obese, overweight, healthy and underweight - as a function of individual characteristics, lifestyle indicators and external environment. The results are reasonably consistent within the two years and with findings from previous studies. However, three significant differences are found between the two years at the state-level. Two of them are completely new findings. Higher urban residency is associated with lower rates of overweight and obesity. On the other hand, higher participation in food-stamp programs in the more recent year is associated with increasing prevalence of obesity. Excise tax on cigarettes also has a positive association with obesity only. Previous studies have uses either per-capita sales of restaurants, or price of meals available in fast-food and full-service restaurants. We explored a new variable density of fast-food and full-service restaurants serving meals over a wide price range. Such a variable is used to not only capture the importance of difference between fast-food restaurants and full-service restaurants, but to also distinguish between the effects of lower-priced and higher-priced meals. We find that lower-priced food from fast-food restaurants has positive effect, and higher-priced food from full-service restaurants has negative effect. Three new individual-level lifestyle predictors have been added, and they all seem to be significant in explaining the weight outcomes. Inadequate consumption of fruits and vegetables, irregular or no exercise, and poor self-reported health status are all significantly associated with increasing rates of overweight and obesity.
A Theory of Transition to a Better Technology

This paper builds a model of transition following economic reforms and analyzes the different experiences of two Central European economies after 1990. East Germany started its transition with rapid growth in output per working-age person and experienced a dramatic increase in its very low initial capital income share of output. Poland experienced low growth in output per working-age person while maintaining a fairly constant capital income share. Reform is modeled as gaining access to a higher productivity technology, emb odied in new plants. As new, high productivity plants are built, the existing low productivity plants decrease their production and eventually shut down. During this process, the capital income share varies. Two policies are incorporated in the model: transfers from the rest of the world and wage increases due to political pressure. The model quantitatively captures both the East German and Polish experience.
Arsenic chemistry in soils and sediments

Publisher Summary This chapter explores and describes the biological and chemical processes that control the partitioning of As between the solid and aqueous phase. Strong partitioning of As on soil solids is mostly disrupted by the onset of anaerobic conditions (anaerobiosis), leading to increased aqueous concentrations of As. Variations in As chemistry, compounded by biogeochemical transformations of the soil matrix, upon the onset of anaerobic conditions transpire to produce a convolution of reactions that have varying impacts on As retention. Arsenic desorption upon anaerobiosis is ascribed to both the reduction of As, from arsenate to arsenite, and iron(III)—the latter leading to the reductive dissolution of ferric (hydr)oxides that act as principal sinks of As. The two modes of As reduction, respiratory or detoxification, both require As to be released from the solid phase. The primary reductases for respiratory reduction, ArrA and ArrB, both reside interior to the outer membrane of bacteria, and thus it is likely that As(V) must desorb from the surface, cross the outer membrane, and then undergo reduction.
Near‐lunar proton velocity distribution explained by electrostatic acceleration

[1] The observation of parallel ion velocity in the near-lunar wake approximately equal to external solar wind velocity can be explained within uncertainties by an analytic electrostatic expansion model. The one-dimensional model frequently used is inadequate because it does not account for the moon's spherical shape. However, application of a more recent generalization to three dimensions of the solution along characteristics predicts higher velocities and is probably sufficient to account for the SARA observations on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.
Coriolis Effect on Dynamic Stall in a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

The immersed boundary method is used to simulate the flow around a two-dimensional cross section of a rotating NACA 0018 airfoil in order to investigate the dynamic stall occurring on a vertical axis wind turbine. The influence of dynamic stall on the force is characterized as a function of tip-speed ratio and Rossby number. The influence of the Coriolis effect is isolated by comparing the rotating airfoil to one undergoing an equivalent planar motion that is composed of surging and pitching motions that produce an equivalent speed and angle-of-attack variation over the cycle. Planar motions consisting of sinusoidally varying pitch and surge are also examined. At lower tip-speed ratios, the Coriolis force leads to the capture of a vortex pair when the angle of attack of a rotating airfoil begins to decrease in the upwind half cycle. This wake-capturing phenomenon leads to a significant decrease in lift during the downstroke phase. The appearance of this feature depends subtly on the tip-speed ratio. On the one hand, it is strengthened due to the intensifying Coriolis force, but on the other hand, it is attenuated because of the comitant decrease in angle of attack. While the present results are restricted to two-dimensional flow at low Reynolds numbers, they compare favorably with experimental observations at much higher Reynolds numbers. Moreover, the wake-capturing is observed only when the combination of surging, pitching, and Coriolis force is present.
Evidence as opinions of experts

We describe a viewpoint on the Dempster/Shafer "Theory of Evidence", and provide an interpretation which regards the combination formulas as statistics of the opinions of "experts". This is done by introducing spaces with binary operations that arc simpler to interpret or simpler to implement than the standard combination formula, and showing that these spaces can be mapped homomorphically onto the Dempster/Shafer theory of evidence space. The experts in the space of "opinions of experts" combine information in a Bayesian fashion. We present alternative spaces for the combination of evidence suggested by this viewpoint.
Dynamic Mode Decomposition for Financial Trading Strategies

We demonstrate the application of an algorithmic trading strategy based upon the recently developed dynamic mode decomposition on portfolios of financial data. The method is capable of characterizing complex dynamical systems, in this case financial market dynamics, in an equation-free manner by decomposing the state of the system into low-rank terms whose temporal coefficients in time are known. By extracting key temporal coherent structures (portfolios) in its sampling window, it provides a regression to a best fit linear dynamical system, allowing for a predictive assessment of the market dynamics and informing an investment strategy. The data-driven analytics capitalizes on stock market patterns, either real or perceived, to inform buy/sell/hold investment decisions. Critical to the method is an associated learning algorithm that optimizes the sampling and prediction windows of the algorithm by discovering trading hot-spots. The underlying mathematical structure of the algorithms is rooted in methods ...
Smoothly Compactifiable Shear-Free Hyperboloidal Data is Dense in the Physical Topology

We show that any polyhomogeneous asymptotically hyperbolic constant-mean-curvature solution to the vacuum Einstein constraint equations can be approximated, arbitrarily closely in Holder norms determined by the physical metric, by shear-free smoothly conformally compact vacuum initial data.
Required information release

Many computer systems have a functional requirement to release information. Such requirements are an important part of a system's information security requirements. Current information-flow control techniques are able to reason about permitted information flows, but not required information flows.In this paper, we introduce and explore the specification and enforcement of required information release in a language-based setting. We define semantic security conditions that express both what information a program is required to release, and how an observer is able to learn this information. We also consider the relationship between permitted and required information release, and define bounded release, which provides upper-and lower-bounds on the information a program releases. We show that both required information release and bounded release can be enforced using a security-type system.
Bootstrap bias corrections for ensemble methods

This paper examines the use of a residual bootstrap for bias correction in machine learning regression methods. Accounting for bias is an important obstacle in recent efforts to develop statistical inference for machine learning. We demonstrate empirically that the proposed bootstrap bias correction can lead to substantial improvements in both bias and predictive accuracy. In the context of ensembles of trees, we show that this correction can be approximated at only double the cost of training the original ensemble. Our method is shown to improve test set accuracy over random forests by up to 70% on example problems from the UCI repository.
Sequential item pricing for unlimited supply

We study prior-free revenue maximization for a seller with unlimited supply of n item types facing m myopic buyers present for k < log n days. We show that a certain randomized schedule of posted prices has an approximation factor of O(log m+log n/k). This algorithm relies on buyer valuations having hereditary maximizers, a novel natural property satisfied for example by gross substitutes valuations. We obtain a matching lower bound with multi-unit valuations. In light of existing results [2], k days can thus improve the approximation by a Θ(k) factor. We also provide a posted price schedule with the same factor for positive affine allocative externalities, despite an increase in the optimal revenue.
Spectral library generating function for assessing spectrum-spectrum match significance

Tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) continues to be the technology of choice for high-throughput analysis of complex proteomics samples. While MS/MS spectra are commonly identified by matching against a database of known protein sequences, the complementary approach of spectral library searching [1,2,3] against collections of reference spectra consistently outperforms sequence-based searches by resulting in significantly more identified spectra. But despite this demonstrated superior sensitivity, the development of methods to determine the statistical significance of Spectrum-Spectrum Matches (SSMs) in peptide spectral library searches is still in its early stages.
Big bang baryogenesis

An overview of baryogenesis in the early Universe is presented. The standard big bang model including big bang nucleosynthesis and inflation is breifly reviewed. Three basic models for baryogenesis will be developed: The ``standard" out-of-equilibrium decay model; the decay of scalar consensates along flat directions in supersymmetric models; and lepto-baryogenesis, which is the conversion of a lepton asymmetry into a baryon asymmetry via non-perturbative electroweak interactions.
Ab Initio Methods for Electron-Molecule Collisions

If we take the strict definition of “ab initio”- from first principles, our review is at an end since no methods currently exist for treating the entire electron-molecule collisional process exactly. However, if we relax this definition to include those techniques that give the most accurate treatment of the various interactions, then we can discuss numerous prescriptions. In this sense, “ab initio” takes on a time-dependent character. The earliest treatments had to rely upon crude models for the interactions and scattering process. By the mid-1960’s with the advent of electronic computers, the static or direct electrostatic interaction could be treated accurately while in the next decade, full treatments of the nonlocal exchange effects, at least for scattering from the ground state, began to be successfully applied. The last few years have witnessed a vast expansion of our ability to treat electron-scattering processes with correlation and multi-channel coupling effects being included for a variety of small molecular targets. These new methods allow us to handle such mechanisms as polarization, channel and resonance interference, and autoionization in a systematic and consistent fashion.
MIKI: a speech enabled intelligent kiosk

We introduce MIKI, a three-dimensional, directory assistance-type digital persona displayed on a prominently-positioned 50 inch plasma unit housed at the FedEx Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis. MIKI, which stands for Memphis Intelligent Kiosk Initiative, guides students, faculty and visitors through the Institute’s maze of classrooms, labs, lecture halls and offices through graphically-rich, multidimensional, interactive, touch and voice sensitive digital content. MIKI differs from other intelligent kiosk systems by its advanced natural language understanding capabilities that provide it with the ability to answer informal verbal queries without the need for rigorous phraseology. This paper describes, in general, the design, implementation, and observations of visitor reactions to the Intelligent Kiosk.
Polarization Spectroscopy of Defect-Based Single Photon Sources in ZnO

Point defects in wide bandgap semiconductors are promising candidates for future applications that necessitate quantum light sources. Recently, defect-based single photon sources have been observed in ZnO that are very bright and remain photoactive from 4.5 K to room temperature. Despite several investigations, the structure and electronic states of these emitters remain unknown. In this work, we establish a procedure to distinguish a Z dipole from an XY dipole when studying quantum emitters that are randomly oriented. Our cryogenic and room temperature polarization measurements collectively establish that these unidentified ZnO quantum emitters have a Z dipole. We show that the associated absorption and emission dipoles are parallel within experimental uncertainty for all 32 individuals studied. Additionally, we apply group theory and find that, assuming the defect symmetry belongs to a point group relevant to the ZnO wurtzite lattice, the ground and excited states are orbital singlets. These results are...
Ellipsoid partition function from Seiberg-Witten monopoles

We study Higgs branch localization of $$ \mathcal{N}=2 $$ supersymmetric theories placed on compact Euclidean manifolds. We analyze the resulting localization equations in detail on the four-sphere and find that in this case the path integral is dominated by vortex-like configurations as well as singular Seiberg-Witten monopoles located at the north and south pole. The partition function is written accordingly.
Decomposition of Head-Related Transfer Functions into Multiple Damped and Delayed Sinusoidals

There are currently two options to achieve binaural sound spatialization using Head-Related Impulse Responses (HRIRs): measure every intended listener’s HRIR or use generic HRIRs. However, measuring HRIRs requires expensive and specialized equipment, which removes its availability to the general public. In contrast, use of generic HRIRs results in higher localization errors. Another possibility that researchers, including our group, are pursuing is the customization of HRIRs. Our group is pursuing this by developing a structural model in which the physical measurements of a new intended listener could be used to synthesize his/her custom-fitted HRIRs, to achieve spatialization equivalent to measured HRIRs. However, this approach requires that HRIRs from multiple subjects be initially broken down in order to reveal the parameters of the corresponding structural models. This paper presents a new method for decomposing HRIRs and tests its performance on simulated examples and actual HRIRs.