cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A composable framework for secure multi-modal access to internet services from Post-PC devices

The Post-PC revolution is bringing information access to a wide range of devices beyond the desktop, such as public kiosks, and mobile devices like cellular telephones, PDAs, and voice based vehicle telematics. However, existing deployed Internet services are geared toward the secure rich interface of private desktop computers. We propose the use of an infrastructure-based secure proxy architecture to bridge the gap between the capabilities of Post-PC devices and the requirements of Internet services. By combining generic content and security transformation functions with service-specific rules, the architecture decouples device capabilities from service requirements and simplifies the addition of new devices and services. Security and protocol specifics are abstracted into reusable components. Additionally, the architecture offers the novel ability to deal with untrusted public Internet access points by providing fine-grain control over the content and functionality exposed to the end device, as well as support for using trusted and untrusted devices in tandem. Adding support for a deployed Internet service requires a few hundred lines of scraping scripts. Similarly, adding support for a new device requires a few hundred lines of stylesheets for the device format. The average latency added by proxy transformations is around three seconds in our unoptimized Java implementation.
MEDIAL COMPARTMENT ARTHRITIS: TKA THE ONLY TRIED & TRUE SOLUTION – AFFIRMS

Osteoarthritis of the knee is commonly a disease which afflicts more than one compartment of the knee so medial compartment arthritis is almost always associated with patellofemoral and or lateral compartment disease to a lesser extent. In a review of 250 consecutive osteoarthritic knees strictly unicompartmental involvement occurred in less than 15% of affected knees. To segmentally replace one compartment when more than one is involved may lead to a suboptimal result from the compartmental replacement as well as lead to pain and failure with mid- to long-term follow up. The long term results with tricompartmental replacement continue to show success rates in the order of 90–95% at 15–20 year follow-up with multiple designs and fixation types. Additionally failure to replace the patella, although popular in Europe, has led to increased anterior knee pain in studies in North America. The disadvantage of tricompartmental knee replacement is the extent of surgical trauma compared to compartmental replacement although newer less invasive approaches may lead to similar recovery to compartmental replacement.
When Hashes Met Wedges: A Distributed Algorithm for Finding High Similarity Vectors

Finding similar user pairs is a fundamental task in social networks, with numerous applications in ranking and personalization tasks such as link prediction and tie strength detection. A common manifestation of user similarity is based upon network structure: each user is represented by a vector that represents the user's network connections, where pairwise cosine similarity among these vectors defines user similarity. The predominant task for user similarity applications is to discover all similar pairs that have a pairwise cosine similarity value larger than a given threshold τ. In contrast to previous work where τ is assumed to be quite close to 1, we focus on recommendation applications where τ is small, but still meaningful. The all pairs cosine similarity problem is computationally challenging on networks with billions of edges, and especially so for settings with small τ. To the best of our knowledge, there is no practical solution for computing all user pairs with, say τ = 0.2 on large social networks, even using the power of distributed algorithms. Our work directly addresses this challenge by introducing a new algorithm --- WHIMP --- that solves this problem efficiently in the MapReduce model. The key insight in WHIMP is to combine the ``wedge-sampling" approach of Cohen-Lewis for approximate matrix multiplication with the SimHash random projection techniques of Charikar. We provide a theoretical analysis of WHIMP, proving that it has near optimal communication costs while maintaining computation cost comparable with the state of the art. We also empirically demonstrate WHIMP's scalability by computing all highly similar pairs on four massive data sets, and show that it accurately finds high similarity pairs. In particular, we note that WHIMP successfully processes the entire Twitter network, which has tens of billions of edges.
Visual routines are associated with specific graph interpretations

We argue that people compare values in graphs with a visual routine - attending to data values in an ordered pattern over time. Do these visual routines exist to manage capacity limitations in how many values can be encoded at once, or do they actually affect the relations that are extracted? We measured eye movements while people judged configurations of a two-bar graph based on size only ("[short tall] or [tall short]?") and contrast only ("[light dark] or [dark light]?"). Participants exhibited visual routines in which they systematically attended to a specific feature (or "anchor point") in the graph; in the size task, most participants inspected the taller bar first, and in the contrast task, most participants attended to the darker bar first. Participants then judged configurations that varied in both size and contrast (e.g., [short-light tall-dark]); however, only one dimension was task-relevant (varied between subjects). During this orthogonal task, participants overwhelmingly relied on the same anchor point used in the single-dimension version, but only for the task-relevant dimension (e.g., taller bar for the size-relevant task). These results suggest that visual routines are associated with specific graph interpretations. Responses were also faster when task-relevant and task-irrelevant anchor points appeared on the same object (congruent) than on different objects (incongruent). This interference from the task-irrelevant dimension suggests that top-down control may be necessary to extract relevant relations from graphs. The effect of visual routines on graph comprehension has implications for both science, technology, engineering, and mathematics pedagogy and graph design.
Weakening and shift of the Arctic stratospheric polar vortex: Internal variability or forced response?

Recent studies have proposed that the Arctic stratospheric polar vortex has weakened and shifted away from the North Pole during the past three decades. Some of these studies suggest that this trend has been driven by a decline in Arctic sea ice leading to enhanced zonal wave number 1 waves propagating into the stratosphere and that it has in turn contributed to a recent wintertime surface cooling over North America and some parts of Eurasia. Here trends in several measures of the location and strength of the stratospheric polar vortex from 1980 to 2016 are examined in two reanalysis products. All measures show weakening and equatorward shift trends, but only one measure, the vortex centroid latitude, has a trend which is statistically significant at the 95% level in both reanalyses. By comparing large ensembles of historical simulations with preindustrial control simulations for two coupled climate models, the ensemble mean response of the vortex is found to be small relative to internal variability. There is also no relationship between sea ice decline and trends in either vortex location or strength. Despite this, individual ensemble members are found to have vortex trends similar to those observed, indicating that these trends may be primarily a result of natural internally generated climate variability.
The effect of chronic gamma irradiation on apical dominance of trees

Abstract Cherry and apple trees subjected to low doses of gamma irradiation (average of 16 and 34 r/day) for ten years produced atypical branch development and reversal of dominance which could be attributed to the decrease or inactivation of auxin resulting from the irradiation.
Resonances for random highly oscillatory potentials

We study discrete spectral quantities associated with Schrodinger operators of the form −ΔRd+VN, d odd. The potential VN models a highly disordered crystal; it varies randomly at scale N−1 ≪ 1. We use perturbation analysis to obtain almost sure convergence of the eigenvalues and scattering resonances of −ΔRd + VN as N → ∞. We identify a stochastic and a deterministic regime for the speed of convergence. The type of regime depends whether the low frequency effects due to large deviations overcome the (deterministic) constructive interference between highly oscillatory terms.
Particle acceleration in laser-driven magnetic reconnection

Particle acceleration induced by magnetic reconnection is thought to be a promising candidate for producing the nonthermal emissions associated with explosive phenomena such as solar flares, pulsar wind nebulae, and jets from active galactic nuclei. Laboratory experiments can play an important role in the study of the detailed microphysics of magnetic reconnection and the dominant particle acceleration mechanisms. We have used two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to study particle acceleration in high Lundquist number reconnection regimes associated with laser-driven plasma experiments. For current experimental conditions, we show that nonthermal electrons can be accelerated to energies more than an order of magnitude larger than the initial thermal energy. The nonthermal electrons gain their energy mainly from the reconnection electric field near the X points, and particle injection into the reconnection layer and escape from the finite system establish a distribution of energies that ...
Pushing the City Limits Policy Responsiveness in Municipal Government

Are city governments capable of responding to the preferences of their constituents? Is the menu of policy options determined by forces beyond their direct control? We answer these questions using a comprehensive cross-sectional database linking voter preferences to local policy outcomes in more than 2,000 midsize cities and a new panel covering cities in two states. Overall, our analysis paints an encouraging picture of democracy in the city: we document substantial variation in local fiscal policy outcomes and provide evidence that voter preferences help explain why cities adopt different policies. As they become more Democratic, cities increase their spending across a number of service areas. In addition, voter sentiment shapes the other side of the ledger, determining the level and precise mix of revenues on which cities rely. In short, we show that cities respond both to competitive pressures and the needs and wants of their constituents.
Weekly paclitaxel with and without concurrent radiation therapy: Toxicity, pharmacokinetics, and response

Paclitaxel (Taxol; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Princeton, NJ) has shown in vitro and clinical activity against non-small cell lung cancer and astrocytic brain tumors, tumors traditionally thought of as relatively resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Because of its ability to block dividing cells in the G2/M portion of the cell cycle (the most radiosensitive phase of the cell cycle), paclitaxel is also a potentially potent radiosensitizer. To exploit these and other properties of paclitaxel, we explored a weekly, outpatient administration schedule, with and without concurrent radiation therapy, in patients with non-small cell lung cancer and astrocytic brain tumors. Our experience has shown that weekly outpatient administration is feasible, that remarkably high dose intensities can be achieved with acceptable toxicity, and that the specific dose-limiting toxicity appears to depend on administration schedule, type of concurrent radiotherapy, and certain patient characteristics. Preliminary response data are very encouraging. At the same time, pharmacokinetic studies have suggested possible reasons for our ability to use such exorbitant dose intensities safely, and also have shown that sustained plasma paclitaxel levels above the putative radiosensitizing threshold can be achieved continuously during a 6-week course of radiotherapy. Specific results, dosing recommendations, and plans for future studies are discussed.
Static and Dynamic DNA Loops form AP-1-Bound Activation Hubs during Macrophage Development

The three-dimensional arrangement of the human genome comprises a complex network of structural and regulatory chromatin loops important for coordinating changes in transcription during human development. To better understand the mechanisms underlying context-specific 3D chromatin structure and transcription during cellular differentiation, we generated comprehensive in situ Hi-C maps of DNA loops in human monocytes and differentiated macrophages. We demonstrate that dynamic looping events are regulatory rather than structural in nature and uncover widespread coordination of dynamic enhancer activity at preformed and acquired DNA loops. Enhancer-bound loop formation and enhancer activation of preformed loops together form multi-loop activation hubs at key macrophage genes. Activation hubs connect 3.4 enhancers per promoter and exhibit a strong enrichment for activator protein 1 (AP-1)-binding events, suggesting that multi-loop activation hubs involving cell-type-specific transcription factors represent an important class of regulatory chromatin structures for the spatiotemporal control of transcription.
Nonmarital and Teen Fertility

This chapter explores trends, causes and consequences of nonmarital and teen fertility in the United States and in selected European countries. First, we describe some key factors, including changes in economic institutions and family planning technologies, that likely contribute to the large changes in patterns of marriage and fertility observed in developed countries in recent decades. Secondly, we observe that substantial empirical hurdles to credibly estimating the impacts of nonmarital and teen fertility on adults' and children's outcomes remain, though recent evidence suggests more modest impacts than early evidence. Finally, we explore new directions in this research area, arguing that the conventional comparison between nonmarital and marital births should be revised to more adequately incorporate the rapidly growing number of births to cohabiting partners. Additional directions include continuing analysis of the dynamic impacts of the Great Recession and an integration of biological considerations into the economic analysis of fertility.
The rise of project network organizations: Building core teams and flexible partner pools for interorganizational projects

Abstract This study shifts attention from project-based firms (PBFs) to project network organizations (PNOs) as increasingly important interorganizational contexts of project collaboration. As a result of organizational specialization, PNOs have emerged as generic organizational forms combining the coordination capacity of PBFs with the resource richness of networks. PNOs connect legally independent, yet often operationally interdependent individuals and organizations in strategically coordinated sets of core project teams and flexible partner pools that sustain beyond singular projects. Based on an empirical review of PNOs in film, event organizing, construction, complex product and system development, research, open innovation and international development, core features, antecedents and differentiating properties of PNOs are identified. Structural differences are related to project variety and connectivity, degree of specialization and geographic concentration of resources. Findings extend our understanding of interorganizational project coordination across fields, and the interplay of PBFs, networks and project entrepreneurship.
Structural basis for regulation of the nucleo-cytoplasmic distribution of Bag6 by TRC35

The metazoan protein BCL2-associated athanogene cochaperone 6 (Bag6) forms a hetero-trimeric complex with ubiquitin-like 4A and transmembrane domain recognition complex 35 (TRC35). This Bag6 complex is involved in tail-anchored protein targeting and various protein quality-control pathways in the cytosol as well as regulating transcription and histone methylation in the nucleus. Here we present a crystal structure of Bag6 and its cytoplasmic retention factor TRC35, revealing that TRC35 is remarkably conserved throughout the opisthokont lineage except at the C-terminal Bag6-binding groove, which evolved to accommodate Bag6, a unique metazoan factor. While TRC35 and its fungal homolog, guided entry of tail-anchored protein 4 (Get4), utilize a conserved hydrophobic patch to bind their respective partners, Bag6 wraps around TRC35 on the opposite face relative to the Get4–5 interface. We further demonstrate that TRC35 binding is critical not only for occluding the Bag6 nuclear localization sequence from karyopherin α to retain Bag6 in the cytosol but also for preventing TRC35 from succumbing to RNF126-mediated ubiquitylation and degradation. The results provide a mechanism for regulation of Bag6 nuclear localization and the functional integrity of the Bag6 complex in the cytosol.
SYNTH: A spectrum synthesizer

A computer code has been written at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) to synthesize the results of typical gamma-ray spectroscopy experiments. The code, dubbed SYNTH1, allows users to specify physical characteristics of a gamma-ray source, the quantity of the nuclides producing the radiation, the source-to-detector distance, the type and thickness of absorbers, the size and composition of the detector (Ge or NaI), and the electronic set up used to gather the data. In the process of specifying the parameters needed to synthesize a spectrum, several interesting intermediate results are produced, including a photopeak transmission function vs. energy, a detector efficiency curve, and a weighted list of gamma and x rays produced from a set of nuclides. All of these intermediate results are available for graphical inspection and for printing. SYNTH runs on personal computers, is menu driven and can be customized to user specifications. SYNTH contains robust support for coaxial germanium detectors and some support for sodium iodide detectors. SYNTH is not a finished product. A number of additional developments are planned. However, the existing code has been carefully compared to spectra obtained from National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) certified standards with very favorable results.
Antitumor Studies of 2-Amino-2-Thiazoline and Other Tumor-Modifying Agents

2--amino-2-thiazoline (AT) and 1-thiazolidine-4-carboxylate (TC, thioproline), which have been previously proposed as agents of reverse transformation, have been examined as antitumor agents in several rodent tumor systems. AT administration reduced tumor incidence in sym-dimethylhydrazine treated outbred ICR Swiss female mice and doubled the survival of DBA/2Ha female mice infected with polycythemic Friend leukemia virus. Indomethacin, pentoxyphylline, RA233 and diethyldithiocarbamate (DTC), with potential for altering host or tumor prostaglandin levels, platelet aggregation and host immunity, respectively, ranged from marginally effective to ineffective against Friend virus infection. AT was, however, ineffective against 4 other induced and transplanted mouse tumors and did not notably increase differentiation or decrease transformation in any of several tumor cell systems. No in vitro or in vivo tumor system was found to be more than marginally affected by TC. Thus, AT alone was of significant antitumor activity in inhibiting late stages of viral- or carcinogen induced tumor progression, but could not be demonstrated as an agent of reverse transformation.
Active Gaming as a Form of Exercise to Induce Hypoalgesia.

Abstract Objective: An acute bout of moderate-to-vigorous exercise temporarily reduces pain sensitivity in healthy adults. Recently, active gaming has been rising in popularity as a means of light-to-moderate exercise and may be particularly suitable for deconditioned individuals. Whether the physical activity elicited in active games can produce a hypoalgesic effect remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine whether active videogames can reduce pressure and heat pain sensitivity in healthy adults. We also evaluated the relationship between the physical activity elicited by the games and the magnitude of the hypoalgesic response. Materials and Methods: Twenty-one healthy adults played four different active games on separate days, including Microsoft® Kinect Xbox® One's Fighter Within and Sports Rival's Tennis, and Nintendo® Wii™ Sports' Boxing and Tennis. Heat pain thresholds on the forearm and pressure pain thresholds (PPTs) on the trapezius and forearm were assessed immediately before a...
Beyond reciprocity: The bystander effect of knowledge response in online knowledge communities

Abstract Because new members are important sources of knowledge to online knowledge communities, it is important to retain them after their initial interactions with the community. With a large-scale behavioral dataset collected from a leading online Question and Answer community for programmers, Stack Overflow, we investigated how the community's knowledge responses and social responses to newcomers' questions affected their subsequent likelihood of knowledge contribution (answering others' questions) and knowledge seeking (asking more questions). Contrary to the theory of reciprocity, and in line with predictions by the bystander effect, we found that receiving high quality answers negatively influenced new knowledge seekers' future likelihood of knowledge contribution. Consistent with the social exchange theory, receiving high quality answers positively affected newcomers' future knowledge seeking behaviors. Social responses (votes to the new members' questions) were found to have strong positive effects on both newcomers' future knowledge contribution and seeking behaviors.
A Totally Implantable Venous Access System for Long-Term Chemotherapy in Children

A totally implantable venous access system consisting of a subcutaneously placed stainless steel portal with a silicone diaphragm attached to a Silastic elastomer central venous catheter was inserted in 39 children with poor venous access. The devices were utilized for blood drawing and the administration of antineoplastic drugs, parenteral nutritional fluids, antibiotics, and blood products. Cumulative duration of access was 6,724 days (range 5–491, median 172 days). Major complications necessitating removal of the device included catheter sepsis or pocket abscess (7%), catheter clot not responsive to enzyme declotting (5%), and catheter occlusion by too tight a ligature (2%). The system provided easy venous access and permitted full physical activity.
Prostate Cancer in a Sprague-Dawley Rat

An adenocarcinoma of the prostate gland developed in one rat of the Lobund Sprague-Dawley (S-D) strain, following treatments with testosterone propionate in silastic membranes. The transplanted cells (PA-SD1) developed local tumors, metastasized through lymphatic channels to the lungs, and induced osteolytic lesions when deposited adjacent to the calvarium. In vitro-propagated PA-SD1 cells produced the same tumor type in Lobund strain S-D rats as that from which it was derived.
Essential Self-Adjointness for Semi-bounded Magnetic Schrödinger Operators on Non-compact Manifolds☆

Abstract We prove essential self-adjointness for semi-bounded below magnetic Schrodinger operators on complete Riemannian manifolds with a given positive smooth measure which is fixed independently of the metric. Some singularities of the scalar potential are allowed. This is an extension of the Povzner–Wienholtz–Simader theorem. The proof uses the scheme of Wienholtz but requires a refined invariant integration by parts technique, as well as the use of a family of cut-off functions which are constructed by a non-trivial smoothing procedure due to Karcher.
Spin coating modeling and planarization using fill patterns for advanced packaging technologies

An empirical model is proposed for the dielectric spin coating (DSC) and curing process applied to existing underlying topographies in redistribution layers (RDLs). Test structures that represent a wide range of underlying feature widths, spacings, and heights are designed and fabricated. These are coated with multiple thicknesses of polyimide, and their surfaces are profiled and analyzed. An empirical model based on spatial filtering over underlying features is developed, with model parameters fit to coatings over a single feature for each set of process parameters. The model predicts post-coating thicknesses at the chip-scale. Comparisons between predictions and experimental results show an RMS error of 4.4% of the feature heights when averaged over each region profiled. Finally, fill and cheesing patterns are designed and new test structures are simulated using these patterns. Simulation results suggest that global variations can be made as small as desired using these fill and cheesing patterns, limited only by the minimum allowable feature size and resolution.
Towards Fast-Convergence, Low-Delay and Low-Complexity Network Optimization

Distributed network optimization has been studied several years. However, we still do not have a good idea of how to design schemes that can simultaneously provide good performance across the dimensions of utility optimality, convergence speed, and delay. To address these challenges, in this paper, we propose a new algorithmic framework with all these metrics approaching optimality. The salient features of our new algorithm are three-fold: (i) fast convergence: it converges with only O(log(1/e)) iterations, that is the fastest speed among all the existing algorithms; (ii) low delay: it guarantees optimal utility with finite queue length; (iii) simple implementation: the control variables of this algorithm are based on virtual queues that do not require maintaining per-flow information. The new technique builds on a kind of inexact Uzawa method in the Alternating Directional Method of Multiplier. A theoretical contribution of independent interest is a new pathway we provide to prove global and linear convergence rate of Uzawa-ADMM without requiring the full rank assumption of the constraint matrix.
Status moves: Evaluations and effectiveness of status behaviors:

This paper examines reactions of in-group members and third-party observers to behaviors people perform to affect the status hierarchy of their group (i.e., status moves). We understand status hier...
Diacylglycerol kinase synthesized by commensal Lactobacillus reuteri diminishes protein kinase C phosphorylation and histamine-mediated signaling in the mammalian intestinal epithelium

Lactobacillus reuteri 6475 (Lr) of the human microbiome synthesizes histamine and can suppress inflammation via type 2 histamine receptor (H2R) activation in the mammalian intestine. Gut microbes such as Lr promote H2R signaling and may suppress H1R proinflammatory signaling pathways in parallel by unknown mechanisms. In this study, we identified a soluble bacterial enzyme known as diacylglycerol kinase (Dgk) from Lr that is secreted into the extracellular milieu and presumably into the intestinal lumen. DgK diminishes diacylglycerol (DAG) quantities in mammalian cells by promoting its metabolic conversion and causing reduced protein kinase C phosphorylation (pPKC) as a net effect in mammalian cells. We demonstrated that histamine synthesized by gut microbes (Lr) activates both mammalian H1R and H2R, but Lr-derived Dgk suppresses the H1R signaling pathway. Phospho-PKC and IκBα were diminished within the intestinal epithelium of mice and humans treated by wild-type (WT) Lr, but pPKC and IκBα were not decreased in treatment with ΔdgkA Lr. Mucosal IL-6 and systemic interleukin (IL)-1α, eotaxin, and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) were suppressed in WT Lr, but not in ΔdgkA Lr colonized mice. Collectively, the commensal microbe Lr may act as a "microbial antihistamine" by suppressing intestinal H1R-mediated proinflammatory responses via diminished pPKC-mediated mammalian cell signaling.
Economic incentives and small firms: Does it pay to be green?

Abstract This study investigates the relationships among green performance, financial performance and green economic incentives for small firms. Surprisingly little research exists on the environment and small firms. The traditional view of the corporation argues that improving the environment hurts firm performance. Recent green-oriented research argues that this is not the case for larger firms. This study found a positive relationship between green and financial performance. That is, those small firms that perform better environmentally are also the most successful financially. This study also investigates green economic incentives that encourage green practice. The results indicate that the positive relationship between green and financial performance is greater when few green economic incentives exist for small firms. Although not hypothesized, the study found a positive relationship between green economic incentives and small firm performance, leading to a recommendation that small firms should consider encouraging the government to adopt green economic incentives. The paper also offers potential avenues for future research.
The future of citeseer: citeseer x

CiteSeer, a public online computer and information science search engine and digital library, was introduced in 1997 and was a radical departure from the traditional methods of academic and scientific document access and analysis. Computer and information scientists quickly became used to and expected immediate access to their literature and CiteSeer provided a popular partial solution. CiteSeer was based on these features: actively acquiring new documents, automatic citation indexing, and automatic linking of citations and documents. CiteSeer, now hosted at the Pennsylvania State University with several mirrors, has over 750,000 documents. The current CiteSeer model is to a limited extent portable and was recently extended to academic business documents (SMEALSearch). Why has CiteSeer been so popular and how should it progress? What is its role with regards to other similar systems such as the Google Scholar and DBLP? What role should CiteSeer play in the open access movement? We discuss this and the Next Generation CiteSeer project, CiteSeerx, which will emphasize CiteSeer as a research tool, research web service, and researcher facilitator and testbed. In contrast to the current tightly integrated CiteSeer architecture, CiteSeerx will be modular, scalable and self managed. We will discuss how new intelligent data mining and information extraction algorithms will provide improved and new indexes, enhanced document access, expanded and automatic document gathering, collaboratories, new data and metadata resources, active mirroring, and web services. As an example of new features, we point out our new API based acknowledgement index and search. This new feature not only provides insight into the impact of acknowledged individuals, funding agencies and others, but also presents an architectural model for integration and expansion of our legacy system.
Bank competition: measurement, decision‐making and risk‐taking

This paper investigates whether greater competition increases or decreases individual bank and banking system risk. Using a new text-based measure of competition, and an instrumental variables analysis that exploits exogenous variation in bank deregulation, we provide robust evidence that greater competition increases both individual bank risk and a bank's contribution to system-wide risk. Specifically, we find that higher competition is associated with lower underwriting standards, less timely loan loss recognition, and a shift toward noninterest revenue. Further, we find that higher competition is associated with higher stand-alone risk of individual banks, greater sensitivity of a bank's downside equity risk to system-wide distress, and a greater contribution by individual banks to downside risk of the banking sector.
The Nature of Trade and Growth Linkages

This paper shows new empirical regularities indicating that the structure of trade connections affects the trade-growth nexus. System generalized method of moments estimations indicate that key structural features associated with the composition of traded products and partners matter for growth. The results show that increases in the degree of intra-industry trade, greater insertion into the middle of global value chains, and increases in the shares of differentiated goods, skilled labor-intensive goods, and high-tech-intensive goods in traded baskets are all associated with higher income growth. An increase in the share of trade with countries at the core of the global trade network is also associated with greater growth effects. However, many of these effects are non-linear and depend on the degree of trade openness and labor force education. The results suggest that technological diffusion and learning spillovers play some role in the growth effects associated with the nature of trade connections.
DrImpute: imputing dropout events in single cell RNA sequencing data.

The single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technique begin a new era by allowing the observation of gene expression at the single cell level. However, there is also a large amount of technical and biological noise. Because of the low number of RNA transcriptomes and the stochastic nature of the gene expression pattern, there is a high chance of missing nonzero entries as zero, which are called dropout events. We develop DrImpute to impute dropout events in scRNA-seq data. We show that DrImpute has significantly better performance on the separation of the dropout zeros from true zeros than existing imputation algorithms. We also demonstrate that DrImpute can significantly improve the performance of existing tools for clustering, visualization and lineage reconstruction of nine published scRNA-seq datasets. DrImpute can serve as a very useful addition to the currently existing statistical tools for single cell RNA-seq analysis. DrImpute is implemented in R and is available at https://github.com/gongx030/DrImpute .
Architecture for software-assisted quantity calculus.

Abstract A quantity value, such as 5 kg, consists of a number and a reference (often an International System of Units (SI) unit) that together express the magnitude of a quantity. Many software libraries, packages, and ontologies that implement “quantities and units” functions are available. Although all of them begin with SI and associated practices, they differ in how they address issues such as ad hoc counting units, ratios of two quantities of the same kind, and uncertainty. This short article describes an architecture that addresses the complete set of functions in a simple and consistent fashion. Its goal is to encourage more convergent thinking about the functions and the underlying concepts so that the many disparate implementations, present and future, will become more consistent with one another.
A Machine Learning Approach to Modeling Human Migration

Human migration is a type of human mobility, where a trip involves a person moving with the intention of changing their home location. Predicting human migration as accurately as possible is important in city planning applications, international trade, spread of infectious diseases, conservation planning, and public policy development. Traditional human mobility models, such as gravity models or the more recent radiation model, predict human mobility flows based on population and distance features only. These models have been validated on commuting flows, a different type of human mobility, and are mainly used in modeling scenarios where large amounts of prior ground truth mobility data are not available. One downside of these models is that they have a fixed form and are therefore not able to capture more complicated migration dynamics. We propose machine learning models that are able to incorporate any number of exogenous features, to predict origin/destination human migration flows. Our machine learning models outperform traditional human mobility models on a variety of evaluation metrics, both in the task of predicting migrations between US counties as well as international migrations. In general, predictive machine learning models of human migration will provide a flexible base with which to model human migration under different what-if conditions, such as potential sea level rise or population growth scenarios.
Wealth Distribution with Random Discount Factors

Abstract To explain the Pareto tail behavior empirically observed in wealth distributions, the quantitative macro literature has occasionally assumed that agents have random discount factors. This paper formally proves that the stationary wealth distribution in a simple Huggett model with random discounting has power law tails and characterizes the Pareto exponents analytically. I find that in general there is no clear relationship between the return on wealth and inequality and that the Pareto exponent is highly sensitive to the persistence of the discount factor process. I also provide a practical guidance for how to characterize the Pareto exponents in richer models.
Hepatic Dysfunction Caused by Consumption of a High-Fat Diet

Obesity is a major human health crisis that promotes insulin resistance and, ultimately, type 2 diabetes. The molecular mechanisms that mediate this response occur across many highly complex biological regulatory levels that are incompletely understood. Here, we present a comprehensive molecular systems biology study of hepatic responses to high-fat feeding in mice. We interrogated diet-induced epigenomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic alterations using high-throughput omic methods and used a network modeling approach to integrate these diverse molecular signals. Our model indicated that disruption of hepatic architecture and enhanced hepatocyte apoptosis are among the numerous biological processes that contribute to early liver dysfunction and low-grade inflammation during the development of diet-induced metabolic syndrome. We validated these model findings with additional experiments on mouse liver sections. In total, we present an integrative systems biology study of diet-induced hepatic insulin resistance that uncovered molecular features promoting the development and maintenance of metabolic disease.
Time Intervals in Sequence Sampling, Not Data Modifications, Have a Major Impact on Estimates of HIV Escape Rates

The ability of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to avoid recognition by humoral and cellular immunity (viral escape) is well-documented, but the strength of the immune response needed to cause such a viral escape remains poorly quantified. Several previous studies observed a more rapid escape of HIV from CD8 T cell responses in the acute phase of infection compared to chronic infection. The rate of HIV escape was estimated with the help of simple mathematical models, and results were interpreted to suggest that CD8 T cell responses causing escape in acute HIV infection may be more efficient at killing virus-infected cells than responses that cause escape in chronic infection, or alternatively, that early escapes occur in epitopes mutations in which there is minimal fitness cost to the virus. However, these conclusions were challenged on several grounds, including linkage and interference of multiple escape mutations due to a low population size and because of potential issues associated with modifying the data to estimate escape rates. Here we use a sampling method which does not require data modification to show that previous results on the decline of the viral escape rate with time since infection remain unchanged. However, using this method we also show that estimates of the escape rate are highly sensitive to the time interval between measurements, with longer intervals biasing estimates of the escape rate downwards. Our results thus suggest that data modifications for early and late escapes were not the primary reason for the observed decline in the escape rate with time since infection. However, longer sampling periods for escapes in chronic infection strongly influence estimates of the escape rate. More frequent sampling of viral sequences in chronic infection may improve our understanding of factors influencing the rate of HIV escape from CD8 T cell responses.
A Supply Chain Approach to Trade and Labor Provisions

As labor provisions in trade agreements have become increasingly ubiquitous, there remain questions about whether or not these provisions have been effective in improving working conditions in trading partner countries. Through an analysis of sample labor provisions in United States and European Union free trade agreements, this paper shows that both approaches, albeit using different methods, aim primarily to improve de jure labor law and de facto enforcement of that law by government regulatory institutions. This paper argues that instead, labor provisions ought to be grounded in a supply chain approach. A supply chain approach shifts the focus from impacting de jure and de facto labor law as administered by the state though sanctions or dialogue, and towards context specific, experimental, and coordinated private and public regulatory interventions that operate in key export industries that are implicated in trading partners’ supply chains. It does so in part by recognizing the potential regulatory power of consumer citizenship.
Proprietary costs and sealing documents in patent litigation

We study whether the sealing of a defendant’s judicial records during a patent lawsuit filing correlates with the defendant’s level of competition and disclosure. Courts permit sealing of judicial records when competitive damage outweighs the public interest in access to documents and records. We find that defendants with sealed judicial records have higher research and development (R&D), lower industry sales concentration, and more references to competition in their annual reports than defendants without sealed judicial records. We observe faster mean reversion of return on net operating assets when courts seal defendant records. The results suggest that sealing relates to archival measures of competition. Finally, consistent with proprietary costs restraining disclosure, we find that defendants with sealed judicial records are less likely to issue management forecasts, file 8-Ks less frequently, and have longer and less readable 10-Ks.
Data-Driven Promotion Planning for Paid Mobile Applications

In this paper, we propose a two-step data-analytic approach to the promotion planning for mobile applications (apps). In the first step, we use historical sales data to estimate the app demand mode...
Do Evaluations Rise With Experience

Sequential evaluation is the hallmark of fair review: The same raters assess the merits of applicants, athletes, art, and more using standard criteria. We investigated one important potential contaminant in such ubiquitous decisions: Evaluations become more positive when conducted later in a sequence. In four studies, (a) judges’ ratings of professional dance competitors rose across 20 seasons of a popular television series, (b) university professors gave higher grades when the same course was offered multiple times, and (c) in an experimental test of our hypotheses, evaluations of randomly ordered short stories became more positive over a 2-week sequence. As judges completed repeated evaluations, they experienced more fluent decision making, producing more positive judgments (Study 4 mediation). This seemingly simple bias has widespread and impactful consequences for evaluations of all kinds. We also report four supplementary studies to bolster our findings and address alternative explanations.
Addition of Sodium Bicarbonate to Irrigation Solution May Assist in Dissolution of Uric Acid Fragments During Ureteroscopy

Abstract Introduction: We hypothesized that adding sodium bicarbonate (bicarb) to normal saline (NS) irrigation during ureteroscopy in patients with uric acid (UA) nephrolithiasis may assist in dis...
Price Competition and Market Segmentation in Retail Gasoline: New Evidence from South Korea

I examine price dispersion in retail gasoline and focus on differentiation along the service dimension: full service versus self service. Consistent with more intensive search by self-service customers, I find that price dispersion always decreases with the number of nearby self-service stations, but does not decrease with the number of nearby full-service stations. When I segment the market by brand, I observe that the estimates are sensitive to how brands are separated into different types. These findings show that the market is more clearly segmented by service level than by brand type and also highlight the importance of product differentiation when modeling price dispersion.
Do bondholders receive benefits from bank interventions

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of bank interventions on bond performance in relation to loan covenant violations. Design/methodology/approach This paper tests the following questions: do bondholders receive benefits from bank interventions? Is bond performance related to the probability of bank interventions? Is the turnover of a chief executive officer (CEO) associated with bank interventions and bond performance? Abnormal bond returns, the difference between bond returns and matched bond index returns are used to measure bond performance. An estimated outstanding loan balance is used to measure the probability of bank interventions. CEO turnover is identified from proxy statements and categorized into forced and voluntary CEO turnovers. Event studies and regression analysis were used to answer the above research questions. Findings This paper finds that both short-term and long-term bond returns increase after covenant violations, bond performance is positively related to the probability of bank interventions, forced CEO turnovers are positively associated with the probability of bank interventions and firms with forced CEO turnovers tend to have superior bond performance. Originality/value This paper is the first to explore the relation between bank interventions and bond performance.
Estimation of soybean leaf area, edge, and defoliation using color image analysis.

Abstract Soybeans are an extremely important crop in the United States, providing the largest source of animal protein feed and a main source of vegetable oil in the country. The goal of this research is to identify methodologies to estimate percent defoliation of the soybean canopy and leaves using RGB images taken in the field. The Mahalanobis distance classification method was used to process sets of images and calculate leaf area (number of pixels) corresponding to two classes (leaf and background) with eight different color groups. The Canny edge detection algorithm provided an efficient method for detecting leaf edges, and threshold t2 = 20 was found to be the optimal value for estimating soybean leaf edge. The segmentation results showed a performance of 96% for soybean leaves using Mahalanobis distance classification. Two statistical regression models (polynomial and logistic regression) for defoliation of soybean were developed based on individual images of trifoliate leaves taken from the field. The models both utilized leaf area and edge to provide estimates of soybean defoliation; however, a logistic equation has potential to provide greater understanding and more accurate estimates of defoliation with variations, especially at low defoliation. The R2 and root mean square error (RMSE) of estimated and observed defoliation of trifoliate leaves were 0.90 and 6.16%, respectively. The validation of soybean canopy defoliation and its corresponding trifoliate leaves defoliation also provided reasonable correlation (R2 = 0.96 and RMSE = 1.85%). This approach could lead to use of remotely sensed imagery for estimating defoliation in soybeans and timely intervention with integrated pest management strategies.