cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
From J.C. Bach to Hip Hop: Musical Borrowing, Copyright, and Cultural Context

Tremendous controversy exists today about legal treatment of hip hop music. Having just reached its thirtieth birthday, hip hop is now the second most popular type of music in the United States and an important musical and cultural force globally. The advent of hip hop has raised serious copyright law concerns. At the core of such concerns is the issue of sampling, or the use of pieces of existing recorded music within hip hop works, which has been deemed in some instances to constitute copyright infringement. Professor Arewa discusses issues that arise in the application of copyright to music generally as well as historical and cultural aspects of the hip hop debate. In discussions of music, particularly in the legal field, hip hop is considered within a tradition that values independent and autonomous authorship of musical works and that consequently reflects pervasive romantic author discourse. Within such discussions, the manner of music production of great masters of the European classical tradition may be seen as a model of musical production against which musical forms such as hip hop are often at least implicitly measured. The image of the classical tradition embedded in such discussions is, however, inaccurate and distorted. The classical music tradition is an invented tradition that was largely constructed in the nineteenth century and that no longer operates as an active tradition to which new works are being added in any quantity. Actual practice within the classical tradition varies significantly from the idealized imagery of this tradition evident in legal discourse about music. The image of the classical tradition is important because through characterizations of this tradition, hip hop musical production is distinguished from other methods of making music in a number of ways through the use of a series of implicit and explicit dichotomies. In looking at this classical tradition historically, however, it is clear that much continuity underlies the production of music generally, particularly in relation to musical borrowing, which was common in the European classical tradition in actuality as opposed to its constructed history. The varied uses of musical borrowing suggest that more careful consideration needs to be given to the extent to which copying and borrowing have been and can be a source of innovation within music and by extension elsewhere. Recognition of such borrowing needs to be incorporated into existing copyright frameworks as a basis for the development of commercial practices and liability rule based legal structures for treatment of music, including hip hop, which uses existing works in its creation.
Causal Forces: Structuring Knowledge for Time Series Extrapolation

This paper examines a strategy for structuring one type of domain knowledge for use in extrapolation. It does so by representing information about causality and using this domain knowledge to select and combine forecasts. We use five categories to express causal impacts upon trends: growth, decay, supporting, opposing, and regressing. An identification of causal forces aided in the determination of weights for combining extrapolation forecasts. These weights improved average ex ante forecast accuracy when tested on 104 annual economic and demographic time series. Gains in accuracy were greatest when (1) the causal forces were clearly specified and (2) stronger causal effects were expected, as in longer- range forecasts. One rule suggested by this analysis was: “Do not extrapolate trends if they are contrary to causal forces.” We tested this rule by comparing forecasts from a method that implicitly assumes supporting trends (Holt’s exponential smoothing) with forecasts from the random walk. Use of the rule improved accuracy for 20 series where the trends were contrary; the MdAPE (Median Absolute Percentage Error) was 18% less for the random walk on 20 one-year ahead forecasts and 40% less for 20 six-year-ahead forecasts. We then applied the rule to four other data sets. Here, the MdAPE for the random walk forecasts was 17% less than Holt’s error for 943 short-range forecasts and 43% less for 723 long-range forecasts. Our study suggests that the causal assumptions implicit in traditional extrapolation methods are inappropriate for many applications.
The Court's Divide

The Supreme Court decision in Verizon et al v. FCC et al has finally settled the legality of the FCC’s methodology for setting prices for wholesale services that are “based on cost”, as required by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Court’s decision reveals unanimous agreement that forward-looking costs may be used as the measure of cost. It also reveals agreement that the FCC’s leeway in establishing a methodology for measuring these costs is limited by the need for the methodology to bear a “rational connection” to the goals of the Act. The majority and Justice Breyer differ in whether this limitation was binding in this case. This paper examines the theoretical and empirical evidence that could have shed light on the Court’s disagreement – evidence that was not part of the case presented to the Court. While the evidence casts considerable doubt on the wisdom of the public policy approach adopted by the FCC, it does not lead to the conclusion that the Court should have ruled differently.
Monetary Policy And Not Monetary Control: A Rethinking

The view that prediction is the only important concern when policy is to be developed has led to the strict adherence to a money supply rule via the Quantity Theory of Money with its debilitating consequences. The monetarists place the emphasis on the level of the money supply in the determination of price level changes and monetary control is exercised. Along with this line of thinking, statistical elegance transcends empirical reality. Thus, the ensuing consequences of monetary control are not surprising. There are continuous increases in the general level of pries and increasing problems of unemployment, which fuel the flames of business downsizing. In this paper, an alternative to the monetarist explanation of the determination of the price level is advanced. The alternative explanation does not rely on changes in the supply of money but on changes in the composition of aggregate demand and supply. Absent monetary dislocation or revaluation of the currency, change in the general price level is attributed to the net effect of the realignment of relative prices. It is argued that a rethinking of the situation would results in monetary policy that is compatible with the economic setting and not monetary control which crowds out fiscal policy.
The urban density premium across establishments

Abstract We use longitudinal establishment data to estimate the urban density premium for U.S. establishments, controlling for observed establishment characteristics and dynamic establishment behavior. Consistent with previous studies, we find an elasticity of average establishment earnings with respect to metropolitan area population of 0.03, controlling for the endogeneity of location and establishment and metropolitan area characteristics. More importantly, we find that the estimated density premium is realized almost entirely at entry and is constant over an establishment's life. We find little evidence that the endogenous entry or exit of establishments can account for any of the estimated density premium. We interpret our results as implying that the returns to agglomeration diffuse within a city through a reallocation channel rather than through an increase in the productivity of existing firms.
Optimal exercise of executive stock options and implications for firm cost

This paper conducts a comprehensive study of the optimal exercise policy for an executive stock option and its implications for option cost, average life, and alternative valuation concepts. The paper is the first to provide analytical results for an executive with general concave utility. Wealthier or less risk-averse executives exercise later and create greater option cost. However, option cost can decline with volatility. We show when there exists a single exercise boundary, yet demonstrate the possibility of a split continuation region. We also show that, for constant relative risk averse utility, the option value does not converge to the Black and Scholes value as the correlation between the stock and the market portfolio converges to one. We compare our model’s option cost with the modified Black and Scholes approximation typically used in practice and show that the approximation error can be large or small, positive or negative, depending on firm characteristics.
Big Data Investment, Skills, and Firm Value

This paper analyzes how labor market factors have shaped early returns on big data investment using a new data source---the LinkedIn skills database. The data source enables firm-level measurement of the employment of workers with technical skills such as Hadoop, MapReduce, and Apache Pig. From 2006 to 2011, Hadoop investments were associated with 3% faster productivity growth, but only for firms a with significant data assets and b in labor markets where similar investments by other firms helped to facilitate the development of a cadre of workers with complementary technical skills. The benefits of labor market concentration decline for investments in mature data technologies, such as Structured Query Language-based databases, for which the complementary skills can be acquired by workers through universities or other channels. These findings underscore the importance of geography, corporate investment, and skill acquisition channels for explaining productivity growth differences during the spread of new information technology innovations. This paper was accepted by Alok Gupta, special issue on business analytics.
Lon Fuller and Substantive Natural Law

I will contend that Fuller's secular or "procedural" natural law, as described by Moffat, does not cover the theoretical position that could be occupied by a substantive natural lawyer, that such a theoretical position is viable today, and that there are some key elements in Fuller's theory that actually conflict with substantive natural law and might therefore be criticized from that perspective. Tags: Jurisprudence, Natural Law, Fuller (Lon), Hart, Dworkin, Cicero, Bentham, Austin, Aquinas [pg202]** Since Lon Fuller was the efficient, sufficient, and necessary cause of my entering the field of jurisprudence, it is with some trepidation that I venture here to criticize his work. However, I take a little comfort from the fact that he always welcomed criticism, even from, and sometimes particularly from, the converted. I will contend that Fuller's secular or "procedural" natural law, as described by Professor Moffat, does not cover the theoretical position that could be occupied by a substantive natural lawyer, that such a theoretical position is viable today, and that there are some key elements in Fuller's theory that actually conflict with substantive natural law and might therefore be criticized from that perspective. The following chart indicates that my criticism will come from the "right wing." For the most part, Fuller's critics have come from the left, and I remember the rather bemused-amused look on his face when he talked about how hospitable various Catholic theologians and Jesuits were to his writings—the point was that maybe their hospitality grew out of some misconceptions about what he was actually saying. (Interestingly enough, though it is a point I will not pursue here, I have an impression that in the past decade leading Catholic thought has moved leftward towards Fuller's actual position!) A CRUDE TABULAR VIEW OF SOME SELECTED LEGAL THEORISTS Extreme Positivism Center Extreme Natural Law Bentham, Austin Hart Dworkin Fuller Aquinas Cicero No necessary connection between law and morality. No necessary connection but morality influences law over a period of time. A kind of morality in the concepts of freedom and equal respect for persons, which are connected to law (or perhaps to the U.S. Constitution) Order, coherence and clarity have an affinity with goodness and morality. Law and morality are parallel to each other. They are two ways of looking at the same rules. There is a necessary connection between law and morality.
Exchange Rates and Cohesion: Historical Perspectives and Political‐Economy Considerations

We consider the political economy of exchange rate choice and its implications for economic growth from an historical perspective. Previous studies have tended to find only a weak association between the choice of exchange rate regime on the one hand and growth and cohesion on the other. Our findings confirm this negative result, but then go on to explain it by showing that the implications of the exchange rate regime for growth and cohesion are context-specific. They show that the choice of entry rate is important and that when the global monetary regime operates as an engine of deflation it is inadvisable for countries to link up to it. We draw out the implications of these findings for the debate over Britain and the euro.
Discount rate heterogeneity and social security reform

Abstract As many countries consider the privatization of existing pay-as-you-go Social Security systems, the option to make participation in the new system voluntary may appeal to policy makers who need to obtain the political support of their workers. A critical issue in evaluating such a reform and its economic consequences is the unobserved heterogeneity in households' preferences for consumption. This paper estimates the distribution of rates of time preference from the wealth data in the Survey of Consumer Finances 1992 and a flexible life-cycle model of consumption under income uncertainty. The estimated distribution is then applied to a variety of reform proposals that incorporate a voluntary choice of how much to contribute to a dedicated retirement account and a rebate of the existing payroll tax that increases with the magnitude of the contribution. The main finding is that an appropriate menu of reform plans can induce the voluntary buy out of 84% of existing payroll taxes at an immediate cost to national saving of less than 0.25 percentage point.
On completeness and consistency in nonparametric instrumental variable models

This paper provides positive testability results for the identification condition in a nonparametric instrumental variable model, known as completeness, and it links the outcome of the test to properties of an estimator of the structural function. In particular, I show that the data can provide empirical evidence in favor of both an arbitrarily small identified set as well as an arbitrarily small asymptotic bias of the estimator. This is the case for a large class of complete distributions as well as certain incomplete distributions. As a byproduct, the results can be used to estimate an upper bound of the diameter of the identified set and to obtain an easy to report estimator of the identified set itself.
Incentive-Compatible Matching Mechanisms: Consistency with Various Stability Notions

I study the consistency of incentive compatibility with several stability notions for a one-to-one matching market with transfers. Ex post stability, studied in the matching literature, is too strong to be satisfied together with incentive compatibility. Therefore, I introduce weaker stability notions: ex ante stability and interim stability. Although ex ante stability is consistent with incentive compatibility when agents are ex ante identical or when the market is balanced, interim stability can only be satisfied when there is one agent on the short side of the market, as in auctions. Which stability is appropriate depends on when agents can block. (JEL C78, D44, D83)
Lessons from the East Asian NICS: A contrarian view☆

The unusually rapid and prolonged growth of both output and exports in the Newly Industrializing Countries of East Asia has led many economists to believe that productivity growth in these economies, particularly in their manufacturing sectors, has been extraordinarily high. This view has, in turn, led to a growing belief in the ‘dynamic’ (i.e. total factor productivity) gains from an outward orientation. This view fails to take into account the equally unusual rapid growth of both capital and labour input in these economies. Using the Summers & Heston and OECD data sets, this paper uses simple back of the envelope calculations to show that, as regards productivity growth in the aggregate economy and in manufacturing in particular, the East Asian NICs are not, in general, substantial outliers. The principal lessons to be drawn from the NICs are likely to be those concerning the potential gains from factor accumulation and the sectoral reallocation of resources, i.e. ‘static’ neoclassical gains which have fueled the dynamic growth of these economies for more than 20 years.
Justification and Legitimacy

Etude de la relation entre la justification et la legitimite d'un etat dans le domaine de la philosophie politique et de la philosophie du droit. Deplorant la confusion entre les deux notions dans la pensee contemporaine, ainsi que ses consequences au regard de la question pratique de l'obligation morale liee a la loi, l'A. compare les approches lockienne et kantienne du probleme, d'une part, et montre que la minorite lockienne, representee par Nozick, realise une evaluation institutionnelle plus pertinente, parce que fondee sur le volontarisme politique, que la majorite kantienne, rerpesentee par C. Taylor et J. Rawls, fondee sur les notions de devoir et obligation, d'autre part
The Value Premium

Value premiums, which we define as value portfolio returns in excess of market portfolio returns, are on average much lower in the second half of the July 1963-June 2019 period. But the high volatility of monthly premiums prevents us from rejecting the hypothesis that expected premiums are the same in both halves of the sample. Regressions that forecast value premiums with book-to-market ratios in excess of market (BM-BM_M) produce more reliable evidence of second-half declines in expected value premiums, but only if we assume the regression coefficients are constant during the sample period.
Revenue Diversification: Fiscal Illusion or Flexible Financial Management

This study examines the trends in revenue diversification in approximately 240 suburban municipalities in the Chicago metropolitan region between 1988 and 1997. It then tests a model of revenue diversification’s impact on tax effort using data from 1993 to 1997, and separated by home rule and non–home rule municipalities. Trends show that suburbs with higher increases in diversification tend to be home rule, younger, less residential, experiencing more growth, less reliant on property taxes, and more reliant on sales taxes. Model estimates show that communities with more revenue diversification have lower tax effort when controlling for other determinants of tax effort, and this effect is stronger in non–home rule municipalities.
Signaling through corporate accountability reporting

Abstract We document that corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) expenditures are not a form of corporate charity nor do they improve future financial performance. Rather, firms undertake CSR expenditures in the current period when they anticipate stronger future financial performance. We show that the causality of the positive association between CSR expenditures and future firm performance differs from what is claimed in the vast majority of the literature and that corporate accountability reporting is another channel through which outsiders may infer insiders’ private information about firms’ future financial prospects.
Auction Quotas with a Foreign Duopoly

This paper uses a partial equilibrium framework to compare the welfare consequences of different methods of quota administration relative to free trade under imperfect competition. It shows that a country importing a good from foreign duopolists may improve its welfare by setting a quota at the free trade quantity and giving a fraction of the quota licenses to the duopolists while auctioning off the rest.
Strategic alliances, equity stakes, and entry deterrence

Abstract I study how strategic alliances and their impact on future competitive incentives can motivate interfirm equity sales. In the model, an alliance between an entrepreneurial firm and an established firm improves efficiency for both. However, the requisite knowledge transfer heightens the established firm's incentive to enter one of its partner's markets. I show that equity can eliminate the entry incentive, but accommodation is sometimes chosen to encourage entrepreneurial effort on future growth options. I analyze stake sizes, block pricing, and welfare effects. The results have implications for equity alliances, corporate venture capital, and the organization of research activities.
Cognitive tools shape thought: diagrams in design

Thinking often entails interacting with cognitive tools. In many cases, notably design, the predominant tool is the page. The page allows externalizing, organizing, and reorganizing thought. Yet, the page has its own properties that by expressing thought affect it: path, proximity, place, and permanence. The effects of these properties were evident in designs of information systems created by students Paths were interpreted as routes through components. Proximity was used to group subsystems. Horizontal position on the page was used to express temporal sequence and vertical position to reflect real-world spatial position. The permanence of designs on the page guided but also constrained generation of alternative designs. Cognitive tools both reflect and affect thought.
Does the Voluntary Adoption of Corporate Governance Mechanisms Improve Environmental Risk Disclosures? Evidence from Greenhouse Gas Emission Accounting

Prior research suggests that voluntary environmental governance mechanisms operate to enhance a firm’s environmental legitimacy as opposed to being a driver of proactive environmental performance activities. To understand how these mechanisms contribute to the firm’s environmental legitimacy, we investigate whether environmental corporate governance characteristics are associated with voluntary environmental disclosure. We examine an increasingly important attribute of a firm’s disclosure setting, namely the disclosure of greenhouse gas (GHG) information. GHG information represents proprietary non-financial information about the firm’s exposure to environmental concerns and is related to the firm’s operations and future profitability. Thus, we expect governance participants would view such information as a potentially important strategic device for managing stakeholders’ demands for information concerning environmental risks. We find that the presence of an environmental committee and a Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) is positively associated with the likelihood of GHG disclosure and that CSOs are associated with disclosure transparency. Further analysis reveals that the likelihood of disclosure is associated with committee size, number of committee meetings, expertise of committee members and CSO, and overlap between the environmental committee and audit committee. Only expertise of the environmental committee members and the CSO are associated with GHG disclosure transparency, while larger committees tend to be associated with lower transparency. Our results are particularly important to those with interests in evaluating the potential role that corporate governance mechanisms play in responding to stakeholder concerns about environmental risks. Directors and officers who are considering appointment to similar governance positions, may wish to consider what attributes would make such governance positions more influential.
The Value-Relevance Of Stock-Based Employee Compensation Disclosures

This study employs pro-forma company footnote disclosures to assess the value-relevance of employee stock option compensation expense using the fair value method as stipulated by Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 123. The study is motivated by the controversy surrounding the issue of accounting for employee stock options and the countervailing effects of issuing stock options on firm value. Although accounting regulators and the business community agree that employee stock options have value and therefore, are a form of compensation, critics of the FASB’s proposed fair value method of accounting for employee stock options argue that measuring the compensation expense using contemporary models will result in unreliable and meaningless measures. Moreover, the expected future benefits from granting stock options suggest that this form of employee compensation is not a typical expense. We find a significant association between the disclosed compensation expense using the fair value method and firm value that is in the opposite direction from other income statement expenses. This result implies that the disclosed employee stock option expense is a value-relevant measure and the incentives derived from employee stock option plans provide value-increasing benefits to the firm. In addition, we find the positive association between the employee stock option expense and firm value is greater for firms with more growth opportunities.
Can Self-Defense Justify Punishment?

This piece is a review essay on Victor Tadros’s The Ends of Harm. Tadros rejects retributive desert but believes punishment can be justified instrumentally without succumbing to the problems of thoroughgoing consequentialism and endorsing using people as means. He believes he can achieve these results through extension of the right of self-defense. I argue that Tadros fails in this endeavor: he has a defective account of the means principle; his rejection of desert leads to gross mismatches of punishment and culpability; and he cannot account for punishment of inchoate crimes.
Managing power system flexibility in India via coal plants

Abstract The Government of India plans to install 175 GW of renewable energy projects by 2022, and 275 GW by 2027. In meeting these goals, the Indian power sector faces twin challenges: first, managing renewable energy will require increased flexibility in the system; second, there will be under-utilization of existing coal-based plants, which would stress the economics of not only individual plants but also the overall power sector. This creates a need to explore the conversion of existing baseload coal plants as flexible resources. Our analysis shows the following: first, the incremental costs for converting baseload coal plants to flexible ones would be only 5%–10% of the total costs of baseload plants in net present value terms or 8%–22% in levelized terms; second, flexible coal may be the most cost-effective flexible solution in the near-term, by a factor of approximately 4–22, when compared to lithium ion batteries or pumped hydro. Finally, while we have provided an indicative analysis of additional costs of converting baseload coal plants into flexible ones, we recommend that flexible coal be procured cost-effectively using appropriate market mechanisms, such as capacity auctions.
MSPP: A Highly Efficient and Scalable Algorithm for Mining Similar Pairs of Points

The closest pair of points problem or closest pair problem (CPP) is an important problem in computational geometry where we have to find a pair of points from a set of points in a metric space with the smallest distance between them. This problem arises in a number of applications, such as but not limited to clustering, graph partitioning, image processing, patterns identification, and intrusion detection. Numerous algorithms have been presented for solving the CPP. The algorithms that are employed in practice have a worst case quadratic run time complexity. In this article, we present an elegant approximation algorithm for the CPP called “MSPP: Mining Similar Pairs of Points.” It is faster than currently best known algorithms while maintaining a very good accuracy. The proposed algorithm also detects a set of closely similar pairs of points in Euclidean and Pearson’s metric spaces, and can be adapted in numerous real world applications, such as clustering, dimension reduction, constructing and analyzing gene/transcript co-expression network, intrusion detection, and so forth.
Christian Nationalism and Views of Immigrants in the United States: Is the Relationship Stronger for the Religiously Inactive?:

Previous research has shown that Christian nationalism is linked to nativism and immigrant animus, while religious service attendance is associated with pro-immigrant views. The findings highlight ...
GAN based unsupervised segmentation: should we match the exact number of objects

The unsupervised segmentation is an increasingly popular topic in biomedical image analysis. The basic idea is to approach the supervised segmentation task as an unsupervised synthesis problem, where the intensity images can be transferred to the annotation domain using cycle-consistent adversarial learning. The previous studies have shown that the macro-level (global distribution level) matching on the number of the objects (e.g., cells, tissues, protrusions etc.) between two domains resulted in better segmentation performance. However, no prior studies have exploited whether the unsupervised segmentation performance would be further improved when matching the exact number of objects at micro-level (mini-batch level). In this paper, we propose a deep learning based unsupervised segmentation method for segmenting highly overlapped and dynamic sub-cellular microvilli. With this challenging task, both micro-level and macro-level matching strategies were evaluated. To match the number of objects at the micro-level, the novel uorescence-based micro-level matching approach was presented. From the experimental results, the micro-level matching did not improve the segmentation performance, compared with the simpler macro-level matching.
Right and left, partisanship predicts (asymmetric) vulnerability to misinformation

We analyze the relationship between partisanship, echo chambers, and vulnerability to online misinformation by studying news sharing behavior on Twitter. While our results confirm prior findings that online misinformation sharing is strongly correlated with right-leaning partisanship, we also uncover a similar, though weaker trend among left-leaning users. Because of the correlation between a user's partisanship and their position within a partisan echo chamber, these types of influence are confounded. To disentangle their effects, we perform a regression analysis and find that vulnerability to misinformation is most strongly influenced by partisanship for both left- and right-leaning users.
Better Together?: How Externalities of Size Complicate Notions of Solidarity and Actuarial Fairness

Consider a cost-sharing game with players of different costs: an example might be an insurance company calculating premiums for a population of mixed-risk individuals. Two natural and competing notions of fairness might be to a) charge each individual the same or b) charge each individual according to the cost that they bring to the pool. In the insurance literature, these approaches are referred to as "solidarity" and "actuarial fairness" and are commonly viewed as opposites. However, in insurance (and many other natural settings), the cost-sharing game also exhibits externalities of size: all else being equal, larger groups have lower average cost. In the insurance case, we analyze model where costs strictly decreases with pooling due to a reduction in the variability of losses. In this paper, we explore how this complicates traditional understandings of fairness, drawing on literature in cooperative game theory. First, we explore solidarity: we show that it is possible for both groups (high risk and low risk) to strictly benefit by joining an insurance pool where costs are evenly split, as opposed to being in separate risk pools. We build on this by producing a pricing scheme that maximally subsidizes the high risk group, while maintaining an incentive for lower risk people to stay in the insurance pool. Next, we demonstrate that with this new model, the price charged to each individual has to depend on the risk of other participants, making naive actuarial fairness inefficient. Furthermore, we prove that stable pricing schemes must be ones where players have the antisocial incentive desiring riskier partners, contradicting motivations for using actuarial fairness. Finally, we describe how these results relate to debates about fairness in machine learning and potential avenues for future research.
Tip of the Tongue Known-Item Retrieval: A Case Study in Movie Identification

While current information retrieval systems are effective for known-item retrieval where the searcher provides a precise name or identifier for the item being sought, systems tend to be much less effective for cases where the searcher is unable to express a precise name or identifier. We refer to this as tip of the tongue (TOT) known-item retrieval, named after the cognitive state of not being able to retrieve an item from memory. Using movie search as a case study, we explore the characteristics of questions posed by searchers in TOT states in a community question answering website. We analyze how searchers express their information needs during TOT states in the movie domain. Specifically, what information do searchers remember about the item being sought and how do they convey this information? Our results suggest that searchers use a combination of information about: (1) the content of the item sought, (2) the context in which they previously engaged with the item, and (3) previous attempts to find the item using other resources (e.g., search engines). Additionally, searchers convey information by sometimes expressing uncertainty (i.e., hedging), opinions, emotions, and by performing relative (vs. absolute) comparisons with attributes of the item. As a result of our analysis, we believe that searchers in TOT states may require specialized query understanding methods or document representations. Finally, our preliminary retrieval experiments show the impact of each information type presented in information requests on retrieval performance.
GraphSMOTE: Imbalanced Node Classification on Graphs with Graph Neural Networks

Node classification is an important research topic in graph learning. Graph neural networks (GNNs) have achieved state-of-the-art performance of node classification. However, existing GNNs address the problem where node samples for different classes are balanced; while for many real-world scenarios, some classes may have much fewer instances than others. Directly training a GNN classifier in this case would under-represent samples from those minority classes and result in sub-optimal performance. Therefore, it is very important to develop GNNs for imbalanced node classification. However, the work on this is rather limited. Hence, we seek to extend previous imbalanced learning techniques for i.i.d data to the imbalanced node classification task to facilitate GNN classifiers. In particular, we choose to adopt synthetic minority over-sampling algorithms, as they are found to be the most effective and stable. This task is non-trivial, as previous synthetic minority over-sampling algorithms fail to provide relation information for newly synthesized samples, which is vital for learning on graphs. Moreover, node attributes are high-dimensional. Directly over-sampling in the original input domain could generates out-of-domain samples, which may impair the accuracy of the classifier. We propose a novel framework, \method, in which an embedding space is constructed to encode the similarity among the nodes. New samples are synthesize in this space to assure genuineness. In addition, an edge generator is trained simultaneously to model the relation information, and provide it for those new samples. This framework is general and can be easily extended into different variations. The proposed framework is evaluated using three different datasets, and it outperforms all baselines with a large margin.
On Eagleson's theorem in the non-stationary setup

The classical Eagleson's theorem states that if appropriately normalized Birkhoff sums generated by a measurable function and a probability preserving transformation converge in distribution, then they also converge in distribution with respect to any probability measure which is absolutely continuous with respect to the invariant one. In this short note we prove several versions of Eagleson's theorem for some classes of non-stationary stochastic processes which satisfy certain type of decay of correlations.
Surface gravity of rotating dumbbell shapes

We investigate the problem of determining the shape of a rotating celestial object – e.g., a comet or an asteroid – under its own gravitational field. More specifically, we consider an object symmetric with respect to one axis – such as a dumbbell – that rotates around a second axis perpendicular to the symmetry axis. We assume that the object can be modeled as an incompressible fluid of constant mass density, which is regarded as a first approximation of an aggregate of particles. In the literature, the gravitational field of a body is often described as a multipolar expansion involving spherical coordinates (Kaula, 1966). In this work we describe the shape in terms of cylindrical coordinates, which are most naturally adapted to the symmetry of the body, and we express the gravitational potential generated by the rotating body as a simple formula in terms of elliptic integrals. An equilibrium shape occurs when the gravitational potential energy and the rotational kinetic energy at the surface of the body balance each other out. Such an equilibrium shape can be derived as a solution of an optimization problem, which can be found via the variational method. We give an example where we apply this method to a two-parameter family of dumbbell shapes, and find approximate numerical solutions to the corresponding optimization problem.
Using approximate inertial manifold approach to model turbulent non-premixed combustion

The theory of inertial manifolds (IM) is used to develop reduced-order models of turbulent combustion. In this approach, the dynamics of the system are tracked in a low-dimensional manifold determined in situ without invoking laminar flame structures or statistical assumptions about the underlying turbulent flow. The primary concept in approximate IM (AIM) is that slow dominant dynamical behavior of the system is confined to a low-dimension manifold, and fast dynamics respond to the dynamics on the IM instantaneously. Decomposition of slow/fast dynamics and formulation of an AIM is accomplished by only exploiting the governing equations. Direct numerical simulation (DNS) of initially non-premixed fuel–air mixtures developing in forced isotropic turbulence have been carried out to investigate the proposed model. Reaction rate parameters are varied to allow for varying levels of extinction and reignition. The AIM performance in capturing different flame behaviors is assessed both a priori and a posteriori. It is shown that AIM captures the dynamics of the flames including extinction and reignition. Moreover, AIM provides scalar dissipation rate, mixing time for reactive scalars, and closures for nonlinear terms without any additional modeling. The AIM formulation is found promising and provides a new approach to modeling turbulent combustion.
Deep Predictive Learning in Neocortex and Pulvinar

How do humans learn from raw sensory experience? Throughout life, but most obviously in infancy, we learn without explicit instruction. We propose a detailed biological mechanism for the widely embraced idea that learning is driven by the differences between predictions and actual outcomes (i.e., predictive error-driven learning). Specifically, numerous weak projections into the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus generate top-down predictions, and sparse driver inputs from lower areas supply the actual outcome, originating in Layer 5 intrinsic bursting neurons. Thus, the outcome representation is only briefly activated, roughly every 100 msec (i.e., 10 Hz, alpha), resulting in a temporal difference error signal, which drives local synaptic changes throughout the neocortex. This results in a biologically plausible form of error backpropagation learning. We implemented these mechanisms in a large-scale model of the visual system and found that the simulated inferotemporal pathway learns to systematically categorize 3-D objects according to invariant shape properties, based solely on predictive learning from raw visual inputs. These categories match human judgments on the same stimuli and are consistent with neural representations in inferotemporal cortex in primates.
Repurposed drugs block toxin-driven platelet clearance by the hepatic Ashwell-Morell receptor to clear Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia

Staphylococcus aureus (SA) bloodstream infections cause high morbidity and mortality (20 to 30%) despite modern supportive care. In a human bacteremia cohort, we found that development of thrombocytopenia was correlated to increased mortality and increased α-toxin expression by the pathogen. Platelet-derived antibacterial peptides are important in bloodstream defense against SA, but α-toxin decreased platelet viability, induced platelet sialidase to cause desialylation of platelet glycoproteins, and accelerated platelet clearance by the hepatic Ashwell-Morell receptor (AMR). Ticagrelor (Brilinta), a commonly prescribed P2Y12 receptor inhibitor used after myocardial infarction, blocked α-toxin-mediated platelet injury and resulting thrombocytopenia, thereby providing protection from lethal SA infection in a murine intravenous challenge model. Genetic deletion or pharmacological inhibition of AMR stabilized platelet counts and enhanced resistance to SA infection, and the anti-influenza sialidase inhibitor oseltamivir (Tamiflu) provided similar therapeutic benefit. Thus, a "toxin-platelet-AMR" regulatory pathway plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of SA bloodstream infection, and its elucidation provides proof of concept for repurposing two commonly prescribed drugs as adjunctive therapies to improve patient outcomes.
Focus beyond Quadratic Speedups for Error-Corrected Quantum Advantage

A back-of-the-envelope analysis shows the conditions for current quantum error-correcting codes and architectures to outperform classical computers.
Homogenized Flux-Body Force Treatment of Compressible Viscous Porous Wall Boundary Conditions

A homogenization approach is proposed for the treatment of porous wall boundary conditions in the computation of compressible viscous flows. Like any other homogenization approach, it eliminates th...
A generalization of Veldkamp's theorem for a class of Lie algebras

Abstract A classical theorem of Veldkamp describes the center of an enveloping algebra of a Lie algebra of a semi-simple algebraic group in characteristic p. We generalize this result to a class of Lie algebras with a property that they arise as the reduction modulo p ≫ 0 from an algebraic Lie algebra g , such that g has no nontrivial semi-invariants in Sym ( g ) and Sym ( g ) g is a polynomial algebra. As an application, we solve the derived isomorphism problem of enveloping algebras for the above class of Lie algebras.
Misinterpreting "Sounds of Silence": Why Courts Should Not "Imply" Congressional Preclusion of § 1983 Constitutional Claims

Despite the clear text of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, its promise to protect constitutional rights has been obfuscated by the theory that Congress, by enacting civil rights laws, has “impliedly” foreclosed the historic use of § 1983 to vindicate constitutional wrongdoing. Increasingly, plaintiffs are being denied their right to vindicate constitutional wrongdoing, either because the new “preempting” federal statute does not trigger individual liability or because it makes institutional liability more difficult to establish. It is counterintuitive to believe that Congress, in an attempt to expand equality or due process, intended to cut off existing remedies for constitutional violations. Nonetheless, a growing number of federal appellate courts are invoking the “implied” foreclosure doctrine to curtail § 1983 litigation. For example, some circuits have held that Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments, which prohibits sex discrimination in schools that receive federal financial assistance, should be understood to preclude a remedy under § 1983 for gender-based discrimination by state educators. The same issue arises whenever civil rights statutes create “overlapping” remedies for civil rights violations. The Supreme Court is poised to review this analysis. It has agreed to hear the following question: “Does an implied right of action under Title IX of 1972 Education Amendments preclude constitutional claims under § 1983 to remedy sex discrimination by federally funded educational institutions?” After tracing the genesis and expansion of the doctrine, this Article provides the arguments for rejecting “implied” congressional foreclosure of § 1983 constitutional claims that should govern this case and future cases.
An axiomatic approach to existence and liveness for differential equations

This article presents an axiomatic approach for deductive verification of existence and liveness for ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with differential dynamic logic (dL). The approach yields proofs that the solution of a given ODE exists long enough to reach a given target region without leaving a given evolution domain. Numerous subtleties complicate the generalization of discrete liveness verification techniques, such as loop variants, to the continuous setting. For example, ODE solutions may blow up in finite time or their progress towards the goal may converge to zero. These subtleties are handled in dL by successively refining ODE liveness properties using ODE invariance properties which have a complete axiomatization. This approach is widely applicable: several liveness arguments from the literature are surveyed and derived as special instances of axiomatic refinement in dL. These derivations also correct several soundness errors in the surveyed literature, which further highlights the subtlety of ODE liveness reasoning and the utility of an axiomatic approach. An important special case of this approach deduces (global) existence properties of ODEs, which are a fundamental part of every ODE liveness argument. Thus, all generalizations of existence properties and their proofs immediately lead to corresponding generalizations of ODE liveness arguments. Overall, the resulting library of common refinement steps enables both the sound development and justification of new ODE existence and of liveness proof rules from dL axioms. These insights are put into practice through an implementation of ODE liveness proofs in the KeYmaera X theorem prover for hybrid systems.
Rate Allocation and Content Placement in Cache Networks

We introduce the problem of optimal congestion control in cache networks, whereby both rate allocations and content placements are optimized jointly. We formulate this as a maximization problem with non-convex constraints, and propose solving this problem via (a) a Lagrangian barrier algorithm and (b) a convex relaxation. We prove different optimality guarantees for each of these two algorithms; our proofs exploit the fact that the non-convex constraints of our problem involve DR-submodular functions.