cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Validation of Teleconference-based Goniometry for Measuring Elbow Joint Range of Motion.

Background Range of motion (ROM) is a critical component of a physician’s evaluation for many consultations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if teleconference goniometry could be as accurate as clinical goniometry. Methods Forty-eight volunteers participated in the study. There was a sample size of 52 elbows. Each measurement was recorded consecutively in person, through teleconference, and still-shot photography by two researchers trained in goniometry. Measurements of maximum elbow flexion and extension were taken and recorded. Results Teleconference goniometry had a high agreement with clinical goniometry (Pearson coefficient: flexion: 0.93, Extension: 0.87). Limits of agreement found from the Bland-Altman test were 7⁰ and -3⁰ for flexion and 10.4⁰ and -7.4⁰ for extension. A t-test revealed a P-value of less than 0.001 between teleconference and clinical measurements, proving the data are significant. Conclusions ROM measurements through a teleconferencing medium are comparable to clinical ROM measurements. This would allow for interactive elbow ROM assessment with the orthopedist without having to incorporate travel time and expenses.
Grey literature citations in top nursing journals: a bibliometric study

Objective: As access to information grows in tandem with the growth of the Internet, access to grey literature also increases. Because little is known about the use of grey literature in nursing journals, the authors investigated the prevalence and types of grey literature citations in top nursing journals. Methods: We analyzed all citations (n=52,116) from articles published in 2011 in 6 top nursing journals selected from the Medical Library Association’s Nursing and Allied Health Resource Section’s 2012 “Selected List of Nursing Journals.” Grey literature citations were identified and categorized by type. Results: Grey literature accounted for 10.4% of citations across all 6 journals. Publications from governments (54.3%) and corporate organizations (26.8%) were the most common types of grey literature. Conclusion: The substantial citation of grey literature in nursing journals shows that nursing scholars seek and use this category of information. These findings have implications for teaching and learning among nursing researchers and the information professionals who serve the nursing research community.
High Spatial Resolution Surface Analysis of Zeolite Catalysts in the Low-Voltage FE-SEM

High spatial resolution chemical microanalysis of heterogeneous catalysts is traditionally done in transmission electron microscopy or scanning transmission electron microscopy (TEM/STEM) instruments. A major limitation of TEM/STEM techniques is, however, the stringent requirement of samples that can be examined: useful information can be extracted from only very thin areas of a sample. The preparation of suitable TEM samples may also pose a major problem for observing certain types of commercial catalysts, for example, beads, powders, or cylinders that are frequently used in catalytic reactions. These limitations preclude the application of TEM/STEM techniques to extracting information about the surface properties of thick or bulk catalyst samples.With the recent development of high-resolution, field-emission scanning electron microscopes (FESEM), bulk samples can now be examined at a nanometer or sub-nanometer spatial resolution. At low incident beam energies, not only the emitted SE signal is more surface-sensitive but also charging of non-conducting materials is significantly reduced.
Fact or fiction?: Clarifying the relationship between reading and the improvement of social skills

Abstract Many studies have claimed to find that reading fiction leads to improvements in social cognition. But this work has left open the critical question of whether any type of narrative, fictional or nonfictional, might have similar effects. To address this question, as well as to test whether framing a narrative as fiction matters, the current studies presented participants (N = 268 in Study 1; N = 362 in Study 2) with literary fiction texts, narrative nonfiction texts, expository nonfiction texts, or no texts. We tested their theory-of-mind abilities using the picture-based Reading the Mind in the Eyes task and a text-based test of higher-order social cognition. Reading anything was associated with higher scores compared to reading nothing, but the effects of framing and text type were inconsistent. These results suggest that prior claims regarding positive effects of reading fiction on mentalizing should be seen as tenuous; other mechanisms may be driving previously published effects.
Connecting electronically with friends to cope with isolation during COVID-19 pandemic

Given that friends serve as one of the most important sources of emotional support during stress, the current study examines whether connecting electronically with friends can help alleviate loneli...
Translating Cuba: Literature, Music, Film, Politics

Cuban culture has long been available to English speakers via translation. This study examines the complex ways in which English renderings of Cuban texts from various domains—poetry, science fiction, political and military writing, music, film—have represented, reshaped, or amended original texts. Taking in a broad corpus, it becomes clear that the mental image an Anglophone audience has formed of Cuban culture since 1959 depends heavily on the decisions of translators. At times, a clear ideological agenda drives moves like strengthening the denunciatory tone of a song or excising passages from a political text. At other moments, translators’ indifference to the importance of certain facets of a work, such as a film’s onscreen text or the lyrics sung on a musical performance, impoverishes the English speaker’s experience of the rich weave of self-expression in the original Spanish. In addition to the dynamics at work in the choices translators make at the level of the text itself, this study attends to how paratexts like prefaces, footnotes, liner notes, and promotional copy shape the audience’s experience of the text.
The Toolkit of Nationalist Populism in Contemporary Hungary: Symbols, Objects, and Modalities of Circulation:

This article belongs to the special cluster, “National, European, Transnational: Far-right activism in the 20th and 21st centuries”, guest edited by Agnieszka Pasieka.Research on populism attribute...
Secret Symmetry: An Introduction to Spontaneous Symmetry Breakdown and Gauge Fields

Introduction Here are some long-standing problems in particle theory: (1) How can we understand the hierarchical structure of the fundamental interactions? Are the strong, medium strong (i.e. SU(3)-breaking), electromagnetic, and weak interactions truly independent, or is there some principle that establishes connections between them? (2) How can we construct a renormalizable theory of the weak interactions, one which reproduces the low-energy successes of the Fermi theory but predicts finite higher-order corrections? (3) How can we construct a theory of electromagnetic interactions in which electromagnetic mass differences within isotopic multiplets are finite? (4) How can we reconcile Bjorken scaling in deep inelastic electroproduction with quantum field theory? The SLAC–MIT experiments seem to be telling us that the light-cone singularities in the product of two currents are canonical in structure; ordinary perturbation theory, on the other hand, tells us that the canonical structure is spoiled by logarithmic factors, which get worse and worse as we go to higher and higher orders in the perturbation expansion. Are there any theories of the strong interactions for which we can tame the logarithms, sum them up and show they are harmless? Enormous progress has been made on all of these problems in the last few years. There now exists a large family of models of the weak and electromagnetic interactions that solve the second and third problem, and we have discovered a somewhat smaller family of models of the strong interactions that solve the fourth problem.
Coronal Cavities: Observations and Implications for the Magnetic Environment of Prominences

Dark and elliptical, coronal cavities yield important clues to the magnetic structures that cradle prominences, and to the forces that ultimately lead to their eruption. We review observational analyses of cavity morphology, thermal properties (density and temperature), line-of-sight and plane-of-sky flows, substructure including hot cores and central voids, linear polarization signatures, and observational precursors and predictors of eruption. We discuss a magnetohydrodynamic interpretation of these observations which argues that the cavity is a magnetic flux rope, and pose a set of open questions for further study.
Molecular catalysis science: Nanoparticle synthesis and instrument development for studies under reaction conditions

Abstract The synthesis of architecturally designed catalytic nanostructures and their in situ characterization under reaction conditions enable the development of catalysts with improved stability, reactivity, and product selectivity. Throughout this review paper, we will explore three recent reports that demonstrate the invaluable synergetic impact of combining synthesis, catalysis, and in situ spectroscopy for catalysts development. In the first example, product selectivity in 1,3 butadiene hydrogenation reaction was tuned by employing size-selected Pt nanoparticles as catalysts. SFG vibrational spectroscopy measurements uncovered the mechanism that induced the size-dependent selectivity. The important role of metal/metal-oxide interface during CO oxidation reaction is demonstrated in the second part of this review paper. In situ synchrotron-sourced X-ray spectroscopy correlated between the oxidation state of the metal-oxide support and its impact on the catalytic reactivity of supported Pt nanoparticles. In the third example, dendrimer-encapsulated Au nanoparticles were used as catalyst for cascade reactions, which were previously catalyzed by homogeneous catalysts. Reactants into product evolution and the oxidation state of catalytically active Au nanoparticles within the flow reactor were mapped with micrometer-sized IR and X-ray beams. These three examples demonstrate the important role of colloidal synthesis and in situ spectroscopy measurements for in-depth analysis of structure–reactivity correlations.
Effects of a Decision Support System on the Diagnostic Accuracy of Users: A Preliminary Report

Objectives: To assess the effects of incomplete data upon the output of a computerized diagnostic decision support system (DSS), to assess the effects of using the system upon the diagnostic opinions of users, and to explore if these effects vary as a function of clinical experience. Design: Experimental pilot study. Four clusters of nine cases each were constructed and equated for case difficulty. Definitive findings were omitted from the case abstracts. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of four clusters and were trained on the DSS prior to use. Subjects: The study involved 16 physicians at three levels of clinical experience (six general internists, four residents in internal medicine, and six fourth-year medical students), from three academic medical centers. Procedure: Each subject worked up nine cases, first without and then with ILIAD consultation. They were asked to offer up to six potential diagnoses and to list up to three steps that should be the next items in the diagnostic workup. Effects of DSS consultation were measured by changes in the position of the correct diagnosis in the lists of differential diagnoses, pre- and post-consultation. Results: The DSS lists of diagnostic possibilities contained the correct diagnosis in 38% of cases, about midway between the levels of accuracy of residents and attending general internists. In over 70% of cases, the DSS output had no effect on the position of the correct diagnosis in the subjects' lists. The system's diagnostic accuracy was unaffected by the clinical experience of the users.
Computing with capsules

Capsules provide an algebraic representation of the state of a computation in higher-order functional and imperative languages. A capsule is essentially a finite coalgebraic representation of a regular closed λ-coterm. One can give an operational semantics based on capsules for a higher-order programming language with functional and imperative features, including mutable bindings. Static (lexical) scoping is captured purely algebraically without stacks, heaps, or closures. All operations of interest are typable with simple types, yet the language is Turing complete. Recursive functions are represented directly as capsules without the need for fixpoint combinators.
Analysis and Classification of Problem Statements in Technology Transfer

For many years, the U.S. Government has encouraged the transfer of technologies developed through taxpayer funded endeavors to the commercial sector of the U.S. economy. The Regional Technology Applications Board, based at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, is an organization with technology transfer responsibilities. The Board receives technology transfer assistance (TTA) requests from many private-sector firms. The Board relies heavily on a problem statement from the requestor of technology assistance in determining an appropriate solution to the requestor's needs. However, the problem statements contained in these requests are often vague, ambiguous, or repetitive. This study reports on a method developed to analyze and classify problem statements that have been received by the Board so that additional understanding of the nature of these problems is obtained. One thousand one hundred past problem statements were analyzed using a content analysis method. The hierarchical classification structure developed during this project includes classes, sub-classes, and sub-sub-classes, allowing for differentiation of problem statements based upon key elements contained within the statements. Previously, no method for analysis and classification of problem statements had been documented. The results of the study indicate that problem statements can be analyzed and classified. The problem statement classification structure created through this project provides a vehicle for problem statement assignment, thereby lending additional form to the problem definition process. The study also provides an understanding of the frequency and distribution of TTA problem statements received by the Board.
Cesarean section for fetal distress.

Abstract 1. 1. A series of 55 consecutive cesarean sections has been presented in which the primary indication was fetal distress. 2. 2. The various factors involved in these 55 cases have been tabulated, with evidence that parity, age, and duration of pregnancy are important as predisposing causes. 3. 3. The etiology has been analyzed, and more than half of the cases remain unexplained by any obvious cause. 4. 4. Postmaturity or prolonged pregnancy has been discussed at length, particularly as it relates to fetal hypoxia. Although true postmaturity of the fetus is rare, postmaturity as an obstetric entity must be reckoned with in any attempt to increase perinatal salvage. On the other hand, induction of labor at term to avoid postmaturity is fraught with too many fetal hazards to permit its routine use.
The High-Redshift He II Gunn-Peterson Effect: Implications and Future Prospects

Absorption due to He II Lyα has now been detected at low resolution in the spectra of four quasars between redshifts z = 2.74 and z = 3.29. We assess these observations, giving particular attention to the radiative transfer of the ionizing background radiation, cloud diffuse emission and ionization physics, and statistical fluctuations. We use high-resolution observations of H I absorption toward quasars to derive an improved model for the opacity of the intergalactic medium (IGM) from the distribution of absorbing clouds in column density and redshift. We use these models to calculate the H I and He II photoionization history, the ratio η = He II/H I in both optically thin and self-shielded clouds, and the average line-blanketing contribution of the clouds to He II absorption. The derived ionization rate, ΓH I = (1–3) × 10-12 s-1 (z = 2–4), is consistent with the ionizing background intensity inferred from the "proximity effect," but it remains larger than that inferred by N-body hydrodynamic simulations of the Lyα absorber distribution. The He II observations are consistent with line blanketing from clouds having NH ≥ 1012 cm-2, although a contribution from a more diffuse IGM would help to explain the observed opacity. We compute the expected He II optical depth, τHe I(z), and examine the implications of the sizable fluctuations that arise from variations in the cloud numbers and ionizing radiation field. We assess how He II absorption constrains the intensity and spectrum of the ionizing radiation and the fractional contributions of the dominant sources (quasars and starburst galaxies). Finally, we demonstrate how high-resolution ultraviolet observations can distinguish between absorption from the diffuse IGM and the Lyα forest clouds and determine the source of the ionizing background.
Interstellar Molecules in Meteorites

Substantial enrichment of deuterium, D, in certain components of chondritic meteorites is interpreted as a record of isotopic fractionation during ion-molecule reactions at the very low temperatures characteristic of dense interstellar clouds. Whether those meteorites still contain the actual molecules that were synthesised in the presolar interstellar medium, or whether the interstellar material was recycled into a later generation of molecules within the early solar system is not known.
Modified wittig reactions using triethylamine and lithium halides: Synthesis of α,β-unsaturated esters from ketones and ethyl bis(trifluoroethyl)phosphonoacetate

Abstract A modified HWE reaction using triethylamine and lithium bromide with ethyl bis(trifluoroethyl)phosphonoacetate gives satisfactory yields of α,β-unsaturated esters from a variety of ketones.
Arthropod‐Borne Viruses

Arthropod-born viruses (arboviruses) are viruses that replicate in insects and are then transmitted by the insects to vertebrates. Arboviral diseases are very common, causing a wide variety of illnesses in humans, livestock and wildlife. Keywords: arboviruses; arthropods; fever; rash; encephalitis; haemorrhagic; mosquito
Generalized Gini Indices of Equality of Opportunity

This article considers the ranking of profiles of opportunity sets on the basis of their equality. A version of the Pigou–Dalton transfer principle that is appropriate for the measurement of opportunity inequality is introduced and used to axiomatize the class of generalized Gini equality of opportunity orderings. A characterization of the class of generalized Gini social preference orderings for opportunity profiles is also provided.
The Endangered Species Act: Static Law Meets Dynamic World

INTRODUCTION Looking back today to the origins of federal endangered species law, it is nothing short of astonishing how different the landscape of discussion was. The law that now stands as the most controversial of federal environmental mandates was utterly non-controversial when it was enacted. The ecological scientists who now play such an active role were nowhere to be seen. The issues that arouse so much conflict today were virtually ignored.
Recent Advances in Laplace Transform Analytic Element Method (LT-AEM) Theory and Application to Transient Groundwater Flow

Furman and Neuman (2003) proposed a Laplace Transform Analytic Element Method (LT-AEM) for transient groundwater flow. LT-AEM solves the modified Helmholtz equation in Laplace space and back-transforms it to the time domain using a Fourier Series numerical inverse Laplace transform method (de Hoog, et.al., 1982). We have extended the method so it can compute hydraulic head and flow velocity distributions due to any two-dimensional combination and arrangement of point, line and circular area sinks and sources, nested circular regions having different hydraulic parameters, and circular regions with specified head or flux. The strengths of all sinks and sources, and the specified head and flux values, can all vary with time in an independent and arbitrary fashion. Initial conditions may vary from one circular element to another. A solution is obtained by matching heads and normal fluxes inside and outside each circular element. The effect of each circular element on flow is expressed in terms of generalized Fourier series which converge rapidly (<10 terms) in most cases. As there are more matching points than Fourier terms, the matching is accomplished in Laplace space by least-squares. We illustrate the method by calculating head and velocity as well as representative particle flow paths through a distribution of circular inhomogeneities and transient sources and sinks. The results are compared to a MODFLOW simulation. We are presently extending the method to ellipses in two dimensions and spheroids in three dimensions.
A simple search model of money with heterogeneous agents and partial acceptability

Simple search models have equilibria where some agents accept money and others do not. We argue such equilibria should not be taken seriously. This is unfortunate if one wants a model with partial acceptability. We introduce heterogeneous agents and show partial acceptability arises naturally and robustly. There can be multiple equilibria with different degrees of acceptability. Given the type of heterogeneity we allow, the model is simple: equilibria reduce to fixed points in [0, 1]. We show that with other forms of heterogeneity equilibria are fixed points in set space, and there is no method to reduce this to a problem in R 1.
Actions of SL(n,Z) on homology spheres

Any continuous action of SL \((n, \mathbb{Z})\), where n > 2, on a r-dimensional mod 2 homology sphere factors through a finite group action if r < n −1. In particular, any continuous action of SL \((n + 2, \mathbb{Z})\) on the n-dimensional sphere factors through a finite group action.
Increasing access to credit through reforming secured transactions in the MENA Region

This paper provides a comparative summary of secured transactions systems related to the use of movable property as collateral in the MENA region vis a vis international practices in countries with modern secured transactions systems. The paper sets out the importance of introducing reforms in the area of secured transactions with the objective of increasing access to credit for businesses, particularly SMEs. The MENA region clearly lags behind all other regions in the introduction of secured transactions reforms. The paper summarizes many of the weaknesses common across the region. The two main critical areas that need urgent reforms are the creation of modern secured transactions laws and electronic movable collateral registries, and the need to improve enforcement mechanisms for security interests in movable property.
Price makers and nonclearing markets

In a recent survey article, Benassy argues that fixprice theory holds the key to incorporating monopoly and monopolistic competition into general equilibrium theory. This paper argues that the opposite is true. Fixprice theory is an impediment to incorporating monopoly into general equilibrium theory. The reason for this is that fixprice theory virtually jettisons Walras's law. It is demonstrated that Walras's law makes the general equilibrium analysis of monopoly very tractable, although it was long thought that monopoly and general equilibrium were incompatible.
COMPUTATION OF AMPLIFICATION FOR SYSTEMS ARISING FROM CELLULAR SIGNALING PATHWAYS

Abstract A commonly employed measure of the signal amplification properties of an input/output system is its induced L 2 norm, sometimes also known as H ∞ gain. In general, however, it is extremely difficult to compute the numerical value for this norm, or even to check that it is finite, unless the system being studied is linear. This paper describes a class of systems for which it is possible to reduce this computation to that of finding the norm of an associated linear system. In contrast to linearization approaches, a precise value, not an estimate, is obtained for the full nonlinear model. The class of systems that we study arose from the modeling of certain biological intracellular signaling cascades, but the results should be of wider applicability.
Voluntary Pollution Abatement and Regulation

We consider private provision of an environmental public good and the link between voluntary pollution-abatement markets and the optimal level of mandatory environmental regulation. We show that voluntary abatement markets react to the level of mandatory abatement imposed and that an optimal regulatory policy must account for that reaction. We consider several assumptions about consumer behavior and ϐind that the voluntary market’s reaction to regul ation depends on the motivating behavior of consumers. Whether the optimal level of mandatory abatement is higher than the level provided by traditional settings depends on the direction and magnitude of the voluntary market’s reaction to changes in mandatory abatement.
Automated discovery of mimicry attacks

Model-based anomaly detection systems restrict program execution by a predefined model of allowed system call sequences. These systems are useful only if they detect actual attacks. Previous research developed manually-constructed mimicry and evasion attacks that avoided detection by hiding a malicious series of system calls within a valid sequence allowed by the model. Our work helps to automate the discovery of such attacks. We start with two models: a program model of the application's system call behavior and a model of security-critical operating system state. Given unsafe OS state configurations that describe the goals of an attack, we then find system call sequences allowed as valid execution by the program model that produce the unsafe configurations. Our experiments show that we can automatically find attack sequences in models of programs such as wu-ftpd and passwd that previously have only been discovered manually. When undetected attacks are present, we frequently find the sequences with less than 2 seconds of computation.
Some Applications of the Ultrapower Theorem to the Theory of Compacta

The ultrapower theorem of Keisler and Shelah allows such model-theoretic notions as elementary equivalence, elementary embedding and existential embedding to be couched in the language of categories (limits, morphism diagrams). This in turn allows analogs of these (and related) notions to be transported into unusual settings, chiefly those of Banach spaces and of compacta. Our interest here is the enrichment of the theory of compacta, especially the theory of continua, brought about by the importation of model-theoretic ideas and techniques.
Fast Universalization of Investment Strategies with Provably Good Relative Returns

A universalization of a parameterized investment strategy is an online algorithm whose average daily performance approaches that of the strategy operating with the optimal parameters determined offline in hindsight. We present a general framework for universalizing investment strategies and discuss conditions under which investment strategies are universalizable. We present examples of common investment strategies that fit into our framework. The examples include both trading strategies that decide positions in individual stocks, and portfolio strategies that allocate wealth among multiple stocks. This work extends Cover's universal portfolio work. We also discuss the runtime efficiency of universalization algorithms. While a straightforward implementation of our algorithms runs in time exponential in the number of parameters, we show that the efficient universal portfolio computation technique of Kalai and Vempala involving the sampling of log-concave functions can be generalized to other classes of investment strategies.
Shape analysis by predicate abstraction

The paper presents an approach for shape analysis based on predicate abstraction. Using a predicate base that involves reachability relations between program variables pointing into the heap, we are able to analyze functional properties of programs with destructive heap updates, such as list reversal and various in-place list sorts. The approach allows verification of both safety and liveness properties. The abstraction we use does not require any abstract representation of the heap nodes (e.g. abstract shapes), only reachability relations between the program variables.The computation of the abstract transition relation is precise and automatic yet does not require the use of a theorem prover. Instead, we use a small model theorem to identify a truncated (small) finite-state version of the program whose abstraction is identical to the abstraction of the unbounded-heap version of the same program. The abstraction of the finite-state version is then computed by BDD techniques.For proving liveness properties, we augment the original system by a well-founded ranking function, which is abstracted together with the system. Well-foundedness is then abstracted into strong fairness (compassion). We show that, for a restricted class of programs that still includes many interesting cases, the small model theorem can be applied to this joint abstraction.Independently of the application to shape-analysis examples, we demonstrate the utility of the ranking abstraction method and its advantages over the direct use of ranking functions in a deductive verification of the same property.
Professionals' tax liability assessments and ethical evaluations in an equitable relief innocent spouse case

This study used a national sample of professionals and a questionnaire containing equitable relief vignettes to explore whether the new equitable relief subset of the revised innocent spouse rules is helpful to the IRS when making relief decisions. The study also addressed the ethical and gender issues associated with equitable relief innocent spouse cases. The results suggested that several equitable relief factors are useful as discriminators in the relief decision. The results also demonstrated that the recognition of an ethical issue and perceptions of moral intensity affected the decision to grant relief in innocent spouse situations. Finally, women subjects were more ethical and more sympathetic toward the victim in an innocent spouse situation than were their male counterparts. These findings have numerous personal and societal implications for businesses, IRS agents, CPAs, and attorneys, as well as other nations wishing to reform their tax structures while assessing the tradeoff between equity and tax revenue generation.
Infrastructure governance and corruption : where next ?

Governance is central to development outcomes in infrastructure, not least because corruption (a symptom of failed governance) can have significantly negative impact on returns to infrastructure investment. This conclusion holds whether infrastructure is in private or public hands. This paper looks at what has been learned about the role of governance in infrastructure, provides some recent examples of reform efforts and project approaches, and suggests an agenda for greater engagement - primarily at the sector level - to improve governance and reduce the development impact of corruption. The discussion covers market structure, regulation, state-owned enterprise reform, planning and budgeting, and project design.
A Ramsey Theorem for Indecomposable Matchings

A matching is indecomposable if it does not contain a nontrivial contiguous segment of vertices whose neighbors are entirely contained in the segment. We prove a Ramsey-like result for indecomposable matchings, showing that every sufficiently long indecomposable matching contains a long indecomposable matching of one of three types: interleavings, broken nestings, and proper pin sequences.
Loopy belief propagation for approximate inference: an empirical study

Recently, researchers have demonstrated that "loopy belief propagation" -- the use of Pearl's polytree algorithm in a Bayesian network with loops -- can perform well in the context of error-correcting codes. The most dramatic instance of this is the near Shannon-limit performance of "Turbo Codes" -- codes whose decoding algorithm is equivalent to loopy belief propagation in a chain-structured Bayesian network. In this paper we ask: is there something special about the error-correcting code context, or does loopy propagation work as an approximate inference scheme in a more general setting? We compare the marginals computed using loopy propagation to the exact ones in four Bayesian network architectures, including two real-world networks: ALARM and QMR. We find that the loopy beliefs often converge and when they do, they give a good approximation to the correct marginals. However, on the QMR network, the loopy beliefs oscillated and had no obvious relationship to the correct posteriors. We present some initial investigations into the cause of these oscillations, and show that some simple methods of preventing them lead to the wrong results.
OPTIMAL TRADE EXECUTION IN ILLIQUID MARKETS

We study optimal trade execution strategies in financial markets with discrete order flow. The agent has a finite liquidation horizon and must minimize price impact given a random number of incoming trade counterparties. Assuming that the order flow N is given by a Poisson process, we give a full analysis of the properties and computation of the optimal dynamic execution strategy. Extensions, whereby N is a Markov-modulated compound Poisson process are also considered. We derive and compare the properties of the various cases and illustrate our results with computational examples.
Optimal static pricing for a tree network

We study the static pricing problem for a network service provider in a loss system with a tree structure. In the network, multiple classes share a common inbound link and then have dedicated outbound links. The motivation is from a company that sells phone cards and needs to price calls to different destinations. We characterize the optimal static prices in order to maximize the steady-state revenue. We report new structural findings as well as alternative proofs for some known results. We compare the optimal static prices versus prices that are asymptotically optimal, and through a set of illustrative numerical examples we show that in certain cases the loss in revenue can be significant. Finally, we show that static prices obtained using the reduced load approximation of the blocking probabilities can be easily obtained and have near-optimal performance, which makes them more attractive for applications.
Sign Language Phonology

A concise overview of key findings and ideas in sign language phonology and its contributions to related fields, including historical linguistics, morphology, prosody, language acquisition and language creation. Working on sign languages not only provides important new insights on familiar issues, but also poses a whole new set of questions about phonology, because of the use of the visual communication modality. This book lays out the properties needed to recognize a phonological system regardless of its modality. Written by a leading expert in sign language research, the book describes the current state of the field and addresses a range of issues that students and researchers will encounter in their work, as well as highlighting the significant impact that the study of sign languages has had on the field of phonology as a whole. It includes lists of further reading materials, and a full glossary, as well as helpful illustrations that demonstrate the important aspects of sign language structure, even to the most unfamiliar of readers. A text that will be useful to both specialists and general linguists, this book provides the first comprehension overview of the field.
Techniques for Executing and Reasoning about Specification Diagrams

Specification Diagrams (SD) [19] are a graphical notation for specifying the message passing behavior of open distributed object systems. SDs facilitate specification of system behaviors at various levels of abstraction, ranging from high-level specifications to concrete diagrams with low-level implementation details. We investigate the theory of may testing equivalence [15] on SDs, which is a notion of process equivalence that is useful for relating diagrams at different levels of abstraction. We present a semantic characterization of the may equivalence on SDs which provides a powerful technique to relate abstract specifications and refined implementations. We also describe our prototypical implementation of SDs and of a procedure that exploits the characterization of may testing to establish equivalences between finitary diagrams (without recursion).
Economic Efficiency Adjusted for Risk Preferences

ABSTRACTThis study investigates the impact of risk preferences on cost and revenue efficiency for a sample of farms. Risk preference scores were used to measure risk aversion. Cost and revenue efficiency were estimated using traditional input and output measures, and then re-estimated including each farm’s risk preference score. Comparisons were made between farms with and without a change in efficiency when each farm’s risk preference was included in the analysis. As expected, risk preference plays an important role in explaining farm inefficiency. Failure to account for risk preferences overstates inefficiency, particularly for slightly risk averse and risk neutral farms.
Trade, Foreign Investment, and Industrial Policy for Developing Countries*

Abstract In this chapter we explore the popular but controversial idea that developing countries benefit from abandoning policy neutrality vis-a-vis trade, FDI and resource allocation across industries. Are developing countries justified in imposing tariffs, subsidies, and tax breaks that imply distortions beyond the ones associated with optimal taxes or revenue constraints? We refer to this set of government interventions as “industrial policy.” We explore the theoretical foundation for industrial policy and then review the related empirical literature. We follow this with a broader look at the empirical work on the relationship between trade and FDI and growth. In this review we find no support for “hard” interventions that distort prices to deal with Marshallian externalities, learning by exporting, and knowledge spillovers from FDI. Nevertheless, we still envision an important role for what we refer to as “soft” industrial policy. The goal is to develop a process whereby government, industry and cluster-level private organizations can collaborate on interventions to increase productivity. We suggest programs and grants to help particular clusters by improving the formation of skilled workers, technology adoption, regulation and infrastructure.
Mandatory Sentencing Laws: Undermining the Effectiveness of Determinate Sentencing Reform

Recent years have seen significant changes in sentencing law: determinate sentencing schemes and mandatory enhanced sentences have largely displaced discretionary sentencing regimes operating within broad sentencing constraints. Commentators have variously lamented and applauded the advent of both determinate sentencing and mandatory penalties, yet the interaction of these two innovations has been left largely unexamined. Professor Lowenthal provides an analysis of the perverse consequences that ensue when sentencing, guidelines are paired with mandatory sentencing: the very consistency and proportionality that these changes were supposed to engender can be undercut when the two sentencing approaches are combined. Mandatory sentencing emphasizes a single aggravating factor, contrary to determinate sentencing, which directs judges to a whole complex of factors. Mandatory sentencing also is applied unevenly, with those exercising their right to trial often receiving harsher penalties. Thus, a factor that should not be detrimental under determinate sentencing, such as exercising one's constitutional right to trial, is detrimental under mandatory sentencing. In sum, the goals of determinate sentencing-consistent punishment for like crimes and proportional punishment for different crimes-are greatly undermined by mandatory sentencing. Professor Lowenthal concludes by arguing for legislative changes to ameliorate the harsh and undesired effects of mandatory sentencing measures.
Selection Study (Mouse Genetics)

Artificial selection for the high and low expression of behavioral traits has long been successful. The apparent simplicity of selection experiments belies the fact that unless the effective breeding size of each parental generation is very large, genetic drift can add complications to genetic interpretations. Without replicate lines to estimate genetic variance due to random drift, the effects of drift on heritability estimates and as a possible source of spurious associations between the selected trait and other traits cannot be readily assessed. Keywords: artificial selection; heritability; selection differential; replicate lines; inbreeding; genetic drift; effective breeding N
Discriminative topological features reveal biological network mechanisms

Recent genomic and bioinformatic advances have motivated the development of numerous network models intending to describe graphs of biological, technological, and sociological origin. In most cases the success of a model has been evaluated by how well it reproduces a few key features of the real-world data, such as degree distributions, mean geodesic lengths, and clustering coefficients. Often pairs of models can reproduce these features with indistinguishable fidelity despite being generated by vastly different mechanisms. In such cases, these few target features are insufficient to distinguish which of the different models best describes real world networks of interest; moreover, it is not clear a priori that any of the presently-existing algorithms for network generation offers a predictive description of the networks inspiring them. We present a method to assess systematically which of a set of proposed network generation algorithms gives the most accurate description of a given biological network. To derive discriminative classifiers, we construct a mapping from the set of all graphs to a high-dimensional (in principle infinite-dimensional) "word space". This map defines an input space for classification schemes which allow us to state unambiguously which models are most descriptive of a given network of interest. Our training sets include networks generated from 17 models either drawn from the literature or introduced in this work. We show that different duplication-mutation schemes best describe the E. coli genetic network, the S. cerevisiae protein interaction network, and the C. elegans neuronal network, out of a set of network models including a linear preferential attachment model and a small-world model. Our method is a first step towards systematizing network models and assessing their predictability, and we anticipate its usefulness for a number of communities.
Using width‐based rating curves from spatially discontinuous satellite imagery to monitor river discharge

Remote estimation of river discharge from river width variations is an intriguing method for gauging rivers without conventional measurements. Entirely cloud-free imagery of an entire river reach is often rare, but partial coverage is more frequent. Discharge is estimated from spatially discontinuous imagery via construction of multiple width–discharge rating curves within a 62-km reach of the Tanana River, Alaska. The resulting discharge error is as low as 6.7% root mean squared error. Imagery covering <20% of the study reach can be used. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Elston–Stewart Algorithm

The Elston–Stewart algorithm is a recursive algorithm that allows one to calculate the pedigree likelihood of an oligogenic model as a function of founder genotypic probabilities, penetrance functions, and genetic transition probabilities. The amount of time required for the computation increases linearly with the size of the pedigree, but exponentially with the number of loci in the genotype. In contrast, the Lander & Green algorithm has computational time that increases exponentially with the size of the pedigree, but linearly with the number of loci. An analogous algorithm allows the likelihood to be calculated for a pedigree of n individuals under polygenic inheritance without needing the inversion of an n × n symmetric matrix. Keywords: Elston–Stewart algorithm; pedigree likelihood; founder; nonfounder; genetic transition probability; penetrance function
A Review of Some Normative and Conceptual Issues in Occupational Safety and Health

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was established in 1971, setting off political, legal, and economic conflicts over the existence and nature of rights to safety and health on the job, the use of economic criteria in setting safety and health standards, and the principles that should guide public policy in this area. This article identifies and describes the major philosophical issues raised by policies to reduce occupational safety and health risks. It begins with a discussion of the nature of occupational risk that emphasizes the crucial distinction between individual health risks and group outcomes, draws attention to some features of occupational health risks that separate them from other threats to health, and notes the unequal distribution of these risks. In the next section, the discussion turns to the ethical basis for public control of occupational risk, focusing on the need to protect workers' rights, to ensure a more equitable distribution of occupational risks, and to implement the shared public values that lie behind the concern for workplace safety. The following section argues that using the economic techniques of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis to set occupational health and safety policy would neglect vital normative considerations, and can incorporate them only in inappropriate and misleading ways. Their use as the sole or principal rules for policy in this area would tend to undermine the convictions that motivate public concern about occupational safety and health. The final section surveys alternative public policy principles, including cost containment approaches, risk-averse strategies, and the current official OSHA policy of feasibility analysis. The incompleteness of these approaches suggests the need for the development of a decision framework that would more adequately integrate health and economic information while allowing concerns over workers' rights, distributive justice, and public values to influence public policy materially.
Double layer effects on the enthalpy of activation of heterogeneous electron transfer reactions

Abstract The contributions to the experimental enthalpy of activation due to temperature variation in the double layer effect and the pre-exponential factor of the rate constant are considered in detail for heterogeneous electron transfer reactions. It is shown that the magnitude of the double layer correction depends significantly on the electrical variable held constant when the temperature is varied. Correction of real enthalpies of activation, the quantity most often reported, requires a knowledge of the temperature dependence of the standard potential, and of the electrode charge density and the differential capacity at the standard potential. Data in the literature for the enthalpies of activation for simple one electron redox reactions involving organic molecules and triply charged metal ions are reviewed and the double layer effects analyzed. It is emphasized that the simplest way to determine the enthalpy of activation corrected for double layer effects is by examining the temperature dependence of the double layer corrected rate constant.