cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Small Majorana fermion codes

The disclosed technology concerns tools and techniques for implementing error-correction codes in a quantum computing device. In particular embodiments, Majorana fermion stabilizer codes having small numbers of modes and distance are disclosed. Particular embodiments have an upper bound on the number of logical qubits for distance 4 codes, and Majorana fermion codes are constructed that saturate this bound. Other distance 4 and 6 codes are also disclosed.
MCF-enabled ultra-high-density 256-core MT connector and 96-core physical-contact MPO connector

Ultra-high-density multi-MCF connectors were realized with the insertion loss of <1 dB by 125-μm-dadding single-mode 8-core fibers and a newly developed simple rotational alignment method using MT-insertable V-groove array with the MT-standard 250-μm fiber pitch.
OrpheusDB: bolt-on versioning for relational databases

Data science teams often collaboratively analyze datasets, generating dataset versions at each stage of iterative exploration and analysis. There is a pressing need for a system that can support dataset versioning, enabling such teams to efficiently store, track, and query across dataset versions. We introduce OrpheusDB, a dataset version control system that "bolts on" versioning capabilities to a traditional relational database system, thereby gaining the analytics capabilities of the database "for free". We develop and evaluate multiple data models for representing versioned data, as well as a light-weight partitioning scheme, LyreSplit, to further optimize the models for reduced query latencies. With LyreSplit, OrpheusDB is on average 103× faster in finding effective (and better) partitionings than competing approaches, while also reducing the latency of version retrieval by up to 20× relative to schemes without partitioning. LyreSplit can be applied in an online fashion as new versions are added, alongside an intelligent migration scheme that reduces migration time by 10× on average.
Bullets for Ballots: Electoral Participation Provisions and Enduring Peace after Civil Conflict

Why does fighting recur following some civil conflict peace settlements, but not others? What kind of agreements are associated with more enduring peace? Post-conflict elections can often complicate and even undermine peace agreements. Agreements that contain “electoral participation provisions,” however, may help stabilize settlements and produce more enduring peace. Electoral participation provisions mandate that rebel groups be allowed to compete alongside the government in post-conflict elections. Such provisions encourage external actors, such as intergovernmental organizations and foreign donors, to become engaged in post-conflict elections. As part of this engagement, they can provide incentives to the parties to adhere to the terms of the settlement, as well as detect and sanction instances of noncompliance. New cross-national data suggest that conflict after peace settlements recurs less often when electoral participation provisions are included than when they are not. The data also suggest that ...
Uniform convergence for the incompressible limit of a tumor growth model

Abstract We study a model introduced by Perthame and Vauchelet [19] that describes the growth of a tumor governed by Brinkman's Law, which takes into account friction between the tumor cells. We adopt the viscosity solution approach to establish an optimal uniform convergence result of the tumor density as well as the pressure in the incompressible limit. The system lacks standard maximum principle, and thus modification of the usual approach is necessary.
Alternating links have representativity $2$

We prove that if L is a nontrivial alternating link embedded (without crossings) in a closed surface F⊂S3, then F has a compressing disk whose boundary intersects L in no more than two points. Moreover, whenever the surface is incompressible and ∂–incompressible in the link exterior, it can be isotoped to have a standard tube at some crossing of any reduced alternating diagram.
Data-injection attacks in stochastic control systems: Detectability and performance tradeoffs

Abstract Consider a stochastic process being controlled across a communication channel. The control signal that is transmitted across the control channel can be replaced by a malicious attacker. The controller is allowed to implement any arbitrary detection algorithm to detect if an attacker is present. This work characterizes some fundamental limitations of when such an attack can be detected, and quantifies the performance degradation that an attacker that seeks to be undetected or stealthy can introduce.
Added Value of Covered Stents in Transjugular Intrahepatic Portosystemic Shunt: A Large Single-Center Experience

Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunts (TIPS) were historically placed using uncovered bare-metal stents. Current practice has now shifted toward the use of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)-covered stents, given the improved primary patency seen with these stents. The aim of this study was to determine whether there is any added value, such as overall survival or stent patency, when using covered stents versus uncovered stents in TIPS placement in a large cohort. From April 1995 to June 2012, a total of 744 consecutive adult patients underwent de novo TIPS placement (378 receiving uncovered stents, 366 receiving covered stents). Information was obtained on demographics, baseline clinical variables, and outcomes after TIPS placement. Data were collected, compared, and analyzed to assess outcomes including mortality, primary patency (determined via repeat intervention), and secondary patency (determined via ultrasound parameters). Covered stents were associated with significantly improved primary patency (P < 0.001) and secondary patency (P < 0.001) when compared with uncovered stents in TIPS procedures. Additionally, covered stents were associated with higher estimated overall survival rates and higher survival rates when TIPS was performed emergently and in patients with higher Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) scores. For example, in patients with MELD scores between 11 and 18, there was a predicted survival of 59.2% with covered stents versus 42.8% with uncovered stents at 1 year. This study demonstrated that covered stents offer the additional value of higher estimated overall survival and higher estimated survival in patients undergoing TIPS emergently and in those with higher MELD scores when compared to uncovered stents.
Mining Relationship-Based Access Control Policies

Relationship-based access control (ReBAC) provides a high level of expressiveness and flexibility that promotes security and information sharing. We formulate ReBAC as an object-oriented extension of attribute-based access control (ABAC) in which relationships are expressed using fields that refer to other objects, and path expressions are used to follow chains of relationships between objects. ReBAC policy mining algorithms have potential to significantly reduce the cost of migration from legacy access control systems to ReBAC, by partially automating the development of a ReBAC policy from an existing access control policy and attribute data. This paper presents an algorithm for mining ReBAC policies from access control lists (ACLs) and attribute data represented as an object model, and an evaluation of the algorithm on four sample policies and two large case studies. Our algorithm can be adapted to mine ReBAC policies from access logs and object models. It is the first algorithm for these problems.
The Functional Role of Discriminative Stimuli in Free Operant Performance of Developmentally Retarded Children

A free-operant stimulus-removal method for evaluation of the relative functional roles of positive and negative cues in simple two-choice discrimination performance is described and illustrated with data from three developmentally retarded boys. The method avoids the confounding effects of novelty in a restricted-operant ambiguous-cue technique and permits repeated measures on the same Ss. Results suggest that for retarded boys at least, only one of the available relevant cues is functional in discriminative performance and that the kind of cue conditioned is not the same for all Ss.
Social Security and Saving: An Update

Typical neoclassical life-cycle models predict that Social Security has a large and negative effect on private savings. We review this theoretical literature by constructing a model where individua...
Unions, Workers, and Wages at the Peak of the American Labor Movement

Abstract We study a novel dataset compiled from archival records, which includes information on men's wages, union status, educational attainment, work history, and other background variables for several cities circa 1950. Such data are extremely rare for the early post-war period when U.S. unions were at their peak. After describing patterns of selection into unions, we measure the union wage premium using unconditional quantile methods. The wage premium was larger at the bottom of the income distribution than at the middle or higher, larger for African Americans than for whites, and larger for those with low levels of education. Counterfactuals are consistent with the view that unions substantially narrowed urban wage inequality at mid-century.
Iatrogenic Ureteral Injury: Options in Management

• Twenty-five patients sustained 27 iatrogenic ureteral injuries during various operative procedures. Injuries were managed by ureteroureterostomy in 11 injuries, ureteroneocystostomy in 11, nephrectomy in two, ureteral stent in one, cutaneous ureterostomy in one, and reimplantation into an ileal conduit in one. Four of 25 patients died, three as a result of the failure of ureteral repair and intra-abdominal sepsis. Short-term failure of repair occurred in five patients; long-term failure occurred in three. All patients with injuries missed during the primary operation had poor results of ureteral reconstruction. Immediate recognition of accidental ureteral injury provides optimum results. Injuries within 4 cm of the ureterovesical junction are managed by ureteroneocystostomy; injuries greater than 4 cm, by ureteroureterostomy. Crush injuries require immediate placement of a ureteral stent. Prior pelvic radiotherapy or intra-abdominal infection should preclude any attempt at primary reconstruction. (Arch Surg1983;118:454-457)
Long-Term Alternate Day Steroid Therapy in Renal Transplantation. A Controlled Study

Seventy-six adult renal allograft recipients were allocated 5 months post-transplantation to daily or alternate day maintenance methylprednisolone therapy. All 15 recipients of living related kidneys and 23 recipients of cadaver kidneys were placed on the alternate day regimen, while 38 patients with cadaveric grafts remained on daily methylprednisolone. In patients on alternate day methylprednisolone, serum creatinine concentrations, frequency of acute rejection episodes, and prevalence of chronic rejection were similar to those of patients on daily steroids. Furthermore, no differences were noted in the rate of loss of graft function between recipients of cadaver kidneys on daily versus alternate day steroids. There were no differences in body weight, blood pressure, degree of hyperglycemia, or hyperlipidemia between patients on the daily or alternate day schedules. However, the prevalence of clinical osteonecrosis and the rate of infectious complications requiring hospitalization were significantly decreased in patients on alternate day methylprednisolone. We conclude that alternate day methylprednisolone therapy is as effective as daily steroids for the maintenance of graft function in renal transplant recipients. The decreased incidence of osteonecrosis and the lower frequency of infectious complications represent a strong argument in favor of alternate day steroid therapy.
Clinical Applications of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors

Although only recently introduced, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors have been utilized to treat a wide variety of clinical disorders. Their uses to date, approved by the Food and Drug Administration, have been in the treatment of refractory hypertension and congestive heart failure. However, they have been evaluated with mixed results in numerous other conditions in which the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system may play a role. Their current status in the treatment of hypertension, congestive heart failure, and these other conditions is reviewed.
Design, Package, and Hardware Verification of a High-Voltage Current Switch

This paper demonstrates various electrical and package design considerations in series connecting a high-voltage (HV) silicon (Si)-IGBT (6500-V/25-A die) and a silicon carbide-junction barrier Schottky diode (6500-V/25-A die) to form an HV current switch. The effects of connecting the cathode of the series diode to an IGBT collector, versus connecting the IGBT emitter to the anode of the series diode, are analyzed in regards to minimizing the parasitic inductance. An optimized package structure is discussed and an HV current switch module is custom fabricated in the laboratory. An HV double pulse test circuit is used to verify the switching performance of the current switch module. Low-voltage and HV converter prototypes are developed and tested to ensure thermal stability of the same. The main motivation of this paper is to enumerate detailed design considerations for packaging an HV current switch.
Multiplexed gene synthesis in emulsions for exploring protein functional landscapes

Improving our ability to construct and functionally characterize DNA sequences would broadly accelerate progress in biology. Here, we introduce DropSynth, a scalable, low-cost method to build thousands of defined gene-length constructs in a pooled (multiplexed) manner. DropSynth uses a library of barcoded beads that pull down the oligonucleotides necessary for a gene’s assembly, which are then processed and assembled in water-in-oil emulsions. We used DropSynth to successfully build more than 7000 synthetic genes that encode phylogenetically diverse homologs of two essential genes in Escherichia coli . We tested the ability of phosphopantetheine adenylyltransferase homologs to complement a knockout E. coli strain in multiplex, revealing core functional motifs and reasons underlying homolog incompatibility. DropSynth coupled with multiplexed functional assays allows us to rationally explore sequence-function relationships at an unprecedented scale.
Multivariate quadrature for representing cloud condensation nuclei activity of aerosol populations

Atmospheric aerosol is comprised of distinct multicomponent particles that are continuously modified as they are transported in the atmosphere. Resolving variability in particle physical and chemical properties requires tracking high-dimensional probability density functions, which is not practical in large-scale atmospheric simulations. Reduced representations of atmospheric aerosols are needed for efficient regional- and global-scale chemical transport models. Although the aerosol size-composition distribution is described by a high-dimensional probability density function, here we show that cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity of aerosol populations can be represented with high accuracy using an optimized set of representative particles. The sparse representation of the aerosol mixing state, designed for use in quadrature-based moment models, is constructed from a linear program that is combined with an entropy-inspired cost function. Unlike reduced representations common to large-scale atmospheric models, such as modal and sectional schemes, the maximum-entropy approach described here is not confined to pre-determined size bins or assumed distribution shapes. This study is a first step toward a quadrature-based aerosol scheme that will track multivariate aerosol distributions with sufficient computational efficiency for large-scale simulations.
When Demand Increases Cause Shakeouts

Standard economic models that guide competition policy imply that demand increases should lead to more, not fewer firms. However, Sutton’s (1991) model illustrates that in some cases, demand increases can catalyze competitive responses that bring about shake-outs. This paper provides empirical evidence of this effect in the 1960s-1980s hotel and motel industry, an industry where quality competition increasingly took the form of whether firms supplied outdoor recreational amenities such as swimming pools. We find that openings of new Interstate Highways are associated with increases in hotel employment, but decreases in the number of firms, in local areas. We further find that while highway construction is associated with increases in hotel employment in both warm and cold places, it only leads to fewer firms in warm places (where outdoor amenities were more valued by consumers). Finally, we find no evidence of this effect in other industries that serve highway travelers, gasoline retailing or restaurants, where quality competition is either less important or quality is supplied more through variable costs. We discuss the implications of these results for competition policy, and how they highlight the importance and challenge of distinguishing between “natural” and “market-power-driven” increases in concentration.
Anisotropy-driven quantum capacitance in multi-layered black phosphorus

We report analytic results on quantum capacitance (Cq) measurements and their optical tuning in a dual-gated device with potassium-doped multi-layered black phosphorous (BP) as the channel material. The two-dimensional (2D) layered BP is highly anisotropic with a semi-Dirac dispersion marked by linear and quadratic contributions. The Cq calculations mirror this asymmetric arrangement. A further increase in the asymmetry and consequently Cq is predicted by photon-dressing the BP dispersion. To achieve this and tune Cq in a field-effect transistor (FET), we suggest a configuration wherein a pair of electrostatic (top) and optical (back) gates clamp a BP channel. The back gate shines an optical pulse to rearrange the dispersion of the 2D BP. Analytic calculations are done with Floquet Hamiltonians in the off-resonant regime. The value of such Cq calculations, in addition to its role in adjusting the current drive of an FET, is discussed in the context of metal-insulator and topological phase transitions and ...
Prospect Theory and Energy Efficiency

Abstract Investments in energy efficiency entail uncertainty, and when faced with uncertainty consumers have been shown to behave according to prospect theory: preferences are reference-dependent and exhibit loss aversion, and probabilities are subjectively weighted. Using data from a choice experiment eliciting prospect theory parameters, I provide evidence that loss-averse people are less likely to invest in energy efficiency. Then, I consider policy design under prospect theory when there are also externalities from energy use. A higher degree of loss aversion implies a higher subsidy to energy efficiency. Numerical simulations suggest that the impact of prospect theory on policy may be substantial.
The Role of Subnational Politicians in Distributive Politics: Political Bias in Venezuela’s Land Reform Under Chávez

This article examines how the partisanship of empowered subnational politicians can affect within-district benefit distribution. I present a theory of the role of subnational politicians in distributive politics, and then test this theory on a distributive Venezuelan land reform initiative by leveraging unique individual-level data on revealed voter preferences and the receipt of particularistic benefits. Using data from a list of millions of voters who signed petitions to recall former President Chavez, I match information on recent land grant applicants to petition signers to measure how political preferences affect the likelihood of applying for and receiving land, and how state governors condition this relationship. I find evidence for both strategic core voter targeting and blockage of benefits to opposition voters. These effects, however, are modified by the political affiliation of governors. The findings point to the importance of considering how intervening subnational politicians influence distr...
Oscillatory interlayer coupling in Co/Pt multilayers with perpendicular anisotropy

Interlayer coupling in several series of ${[\mathrm{Co}∕\mathrm{Pt}]}_{N}$ multilayers with perpendicular anisotropy and Pt thicknesses from 3 to 79 \AA{} has been investigated using magnetometry measurements at temperatures from 293 K down to 8 K. Oscillatory interlayer coupling with a ferromagnetic background as a function of the Pt thickness was observed in every multilayer series. This oscillation of interlayer coupling can be attributed to the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction. Unusual temperature dependence of the coercivity and the saturation magnetization suggests that the polarization of Pt atoms by the adjacent Co layers is responsible for the ferromagnetic interlayer coupling in $\mathrm{Co}∕\mathrm{Pt}$ multilayers and the magnetic polarization of Pt atoms extends further into the Pt layers as the temperature decreases.
Methamphetamine-Induced Brain Injury and Alcohol Drinking

A majority of methamphetamine (Meth) abusers also abuse alcohol but the neurochemical consequences of this co-abuse are unknown. Individually, alcohol and Meth cause inflammation and long-term alterations in dopamine and serotonin signaling within the brain. Experiments were conducted to identify if serial exposure to alcohol and Meth has neurochemical consequences that are greater than after either drug alone. Male Sprague Dawley rats voluntarily drank 10% ethanol (EtOH) every other day for 4 weeks and were then exposed to a binge injection regimen of Meth (10 mg/kg injected every 2 h, for a total of 4 injections). EtOH drinking and preference increased over the 4 weeks and caused inflammation evidenced by increases in serum and brain lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and brain cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) 24 h after the last day of drinking. Meth alone depleted dopamine and serotonin in the striatum, as well as serotonin in the prefrontal cortex when measured 1 week later. In contrast, EtOH drinking alone did not affect dopamine and serotonin content in the striatum and prefrontal cortex, but prior EtOH drinking followed by injections of Meth enhanced Meth-induced depletions of dopamine, serotonin, as well as dopamine and serotonin transporter immunoreactivities in a manner that was correlated with the degree of EtOH consumption. Cyclooxygenase inhibition by ketoprofen during EtOH drinking blocked the increases in LPS and COX-2 and the enhanced decreases in dopamine and serotonin produced by Meth. Therefore, prior EtOH drinking causes an increase in inflammatory mediators that mediate a synergistic interaction with Meth to cause an enhanced neurotoxicity.
Blobs and drift wave dynamics

The modified Hasegawa-Mima equation retaining all nonlinearities is investigated from the point of view of the formation of blobs. The linear analysis shows that the amplitude of the drift wave packet propagating in the direction of decreasing background plasma density increases and eventually saturates due to nonlinear effects. Nonlinear modification of the time averaged plasma density profile results in the formation of large amplitude modes locked in the radial direction, but still propagating in the poloidal direction, which resembles the experimentally observed chain of blobs propagating in the poloidal direction. Such specific density profiles, causing the locking of drift waves, could form naturally at the edge of tokamak due to a neutral ionization source. As a result, locked modes can grow in situ due to plasma instabilities, e.g., caused by finite resistivity. The modulation instability (in the poloidal direction) of these locked modes can result in a blob-like burst of plasma density.
Orbital upper critical field of type-II superconductors with pair breaking

The orbital upper critical field ${H}_{c2}$ is evaluated for isotropic materials with arbitrary transport and pair-breaking scattering rates. It is shown that unlike transport scattering which enhances ${H}_{c2}$, the pair breaking suppresses the upper critical field and reduces the dimensionless ratio ${h}^{*}(0)={H}_{c2}(0)/{T}_{c}{(d{H}_{c2}/dT)}_{{T}_{c}}$ from the Helfand-Werthamer value of $\ensuremath{\approx}0.7$ to 0.5 for a strong pair breaking. ${h}^{*}(T)$ is evaluated for arbitrary transport and pair-breaking scattering. A phenomenological model for the pair-breaking suppression by magnetic fields is introduced. It shows qualitative features such as a positive curvature of ${H}_{c2}(T)$ and the low temperature upturn usually associated with multiband superconductivity.
What you see is not what you get: The costs of trading market anomalies

Abstract Is there a gap between the profitability of a trading strategy on paper and that which is achieved in practice? We answer this question by developing a general technique to measure the real-world implementation costs of financial market anomalies. Our method extends Fama-MacBeth regressions to compare the on-paper returns to factor exposures with those achieved by mutual funds. Unlike existing approaches, ours delivers estimates of all-in implementation costs without relying on parametric microstructure models or explicitly specified factor trading strategies. After accounting for implementation costs, typical mutual funds earn low returns to value and no returns to momentum.
Junction Potentials Bias Measurements of Ion Exchange Membrane Permselectivity

Ion exchange membranes (IEMs) are versatile materials relevant to a variety of water and waste treatment, energy production, and industrial separation processes. The defining characteristic of IEMs is their ability to selectively allow positive or negative ions to permeate, which is referred to as permselectivity. Measured values of permselectivity that equal unity (corresponding to a perfectly selective membrane) or exceed unity (theoretically impossible) have been reported for cation exchange membranes (CEMs). Such nonphysical results call into question our ability to correctly measure this crucial membrane property. Because weighing errors, temperature, and measurement uncertainty have been shown to not explain these anomalous permselectivity results, we hypothesized that a possible explanation are junction potentials that occur at the tips of reference electrodes. In this work, we tested this hypothesis by comparing permselectivity values obtained from bare Ag/AgCl wire electrodes (which have no junct...
Power Analysis for Genetic Association Test (PAGEANT) provides insights to challenges for rare variant association studies.

Motivation Genome-wide association studies are now shifting focus from analysis of common to rare variants. As power for association testing for individual rare variants may often be low, various aggregate level association tests have been proposed to detect genetic loci. Typically, power calculations for such tests require specification of large number of parameters, including effect sizes and allele frequencies of individual variants, making them difficult to use in practice. We propose to approximate power to a varying degree of accuracy using a smaller number of key parameters, including the total genetic variance explained by multiple variants within a locus. Results We perform extensive simulation studies to assess the accuracy of the proposed approximations in realistic settings. Using these simplified power calculations, we develop an analytic framework to obtain bounds on genetic architecture of an underlying trait given results from genome-wide association studies with rare variants. Finally, we provide insights into the required quality of annotation/functional information for identification of likely causal variants to make meaningful improvement in power. Availability and implementation A shiny application that allows a variety of Power Analysis of GEnetic AssociatioN Tests (PAGEANT), in R is made publicly available at https://andrewhaoyu.shinyapps.io/PAGEANT/. Contact nilanjan@jhu.edu. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Process-morphology scaling relations quantify self-organization in capillary densified nanofiber arrays

Capillary-mediated densification is an inexpensive and versatile approach to tune the application-specific properties and packing morphology of bulk nanofiber (NF) arrays, such as aligned carbon nanotubes. While NF length governs elasto-capillary self-assembly, the geometry of cellular patterns formed by capillary densified NFs cannot be precisely predicted by existing theories. This originates from the recently quantified orders of magnitude lower than expected NF array effective axial elastic modulus (E), and here we show via parametric experimentation and modeling that E determines the width, area, and wall thickness of the resulting cellular pattern. Both experiments and models show that further tuning of the cellular pattern is possible by altering the NF–substrate adhesion strength, which could enable the broad use of this facile approach to predictably pattern NF arrays for high value applications.
How hadron collider experiments contributed to the development of QCD: from hard-scattering to the perfect liquid

A revolution in elementary particle physics occurred during the period from the ICHEP1968 to the ICHEP1982 with the advent of the parton model from discoveries in Deeply Inelastic electron-proton Scattering at SLAC, neutrino experiments, hard-scattering observed in p+p collisions at the CERN ISR, the development of QCD, the discovery of the J/Ψ at BNL and SLAC and the clear observation of high transverse momentum jets at the CERN SPS p + p collider. These and other discoveries in this period led to the acceptance of QCD as the theory of the strong interactions. The desire to understand nuclear physics at high density such as in neutron stars led to the application of QCD to this problem and to the prediction of a Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) in nuclei at high energy density and temperatures. This eventually led to the construction of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL to observe superdense nuclear matter in the laboratory. This article discusses how experimental methods and results which confirmed QCD at the first hadron collider, the CERN ISR, played an important role in experiments at the first heavy ion collider, RHIC, leading to the discovery of the QGP as a perfect liquid as well as discoveries at RHIC and the LHC which continue to the present day.
IL-4 Rescues Surface IgM Expression in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cells express poor levels of surface Ig, and many are minimally activated or anergic in response to BCR crosslinking in vitro. Paradoxically, CLL cells in patients are highly activated through BCR signaling and expand in proliferation centers, suggesting that the function of sIg signaling is rescued. Here, we find that, compared with normal naive B cells, CLL cells express an extremely low level of CD79b protein but relatively normal levels of CD79a and IgM protein. Association of both CD79a and CD79b to IgM is markedly reduced. We further find that IL-4 markedly rescues CD79b and sIgM protein levels in CLL cells. These changes significantly enhance signaling in response to BCR crosslinking. Furthermore, we find that these changes are more pronounced in IGHV -unmutated CLL than IGHV -mutated CLL cells. The results described herein reveal that reduced sIgM is due to low expression of CD79b protein in CLL cells. Crosstalk between the IL-4 receptor and the BCR rescues sIgM-BCR expression and signaling. The differential responses of IGHV -unmutated and -mutated CLL cells to IL-4 may reflect, or be involved in, the distinct clinical courses that characterize these populations.
Intelligent Mortality Reporting With FHIR

One pressing need in the area of public health is timely, accurate, and complete reporting of deaths and the diseases or conditions leading up to them. Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) is a new HL7 interoperability standard for electronic health record, while Sustainable Medical Applications and Reusable Technologies (SMART)-on-FHIR enables third-party app development that can work “out of the box.” This paper demonstrates the feasibility of developing SMART-on-FHIR applications that enables medical professionals to perform timely and accurate death reporting within multiple different USA State jurisdictions. We explored how the information on a standard certificate of death can be mapped to resources defined in the FHIR standard Draft Standard for Trial Use Version 2 and common profiles. We also demonstrated analytics for potentially improving the accuracy and completeness of mortality reporting data.
Acknowledging Challenges and Embracing Innovative Instructional Practices in Response to Cultural and Linguistic Diversity.

Aims of the current study were to explore teachers’ background, beliefs, attitudes, and sense of self-efficacy, as well as instructional supports and innovative practices in response to cultural an...
MIMiS: minimally intrusive mining of smartphone user behaviors

The proliferation of smartphones has lead researchers towards using them as an observational tool in psychological science. However, there is little effort towards protecting user privacy in these analyses. The overarching question of our work is: Given a set of sensitive user features, what is the minimum amount of information required to group similar users? Our contributions are two fold: we introduce privacy surfaces that combine sensitive user data at different levels of temporal granularity. Second, we introduce MIMiS, an unsupervised privacy-aware framework that clusters users as homogeneous groups with respect to their temporal signature. In addition, we explore the trade-off between intrusiveness and prediction accuracy. We extensively evaluate MIMiS on real data across a variety of privacy surfaces. MIMiS identified groups that are highly homogeneous w.r.t. user mental health scores and their academic performance.
Hybrid Diffusion Imaging in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is an important public health problem. Although conventional medical imaging techniques can detect moderate-to-severe injuries, they are relatively insensitive to mTBI. In this study, we used hybrid diffusion imaging (HYDI) to detect white matter alterations in 19 patients with mTBI and 23 other trauma control patients. Within 15 days (standard deviation = 10) of brain injury, all subjects underwent magnetic resonance HYDI and were assessed with a battery of neuropsychological tests of sustained attention, memory, and executive function. Tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) was used for voxel-wise statistical analyses within the white matter skeleton to study between-group differences in diffusion metrics, within-group correlations between diffusion metrics and clinical outcomes, and between-group interaction effects. The advanced diffusion imaging techniques, including neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) and q-space analyses, appeared to be more sensitive then classic diffusion tensor imaging. Only NODDI-derived intra-axonal volume fraction (Vic) demonstrated significant group differences (i.e., 5-9% lower in the injured brain). Within the mTBI group, Vic and a q-space measure, P0, correlated with 6 of 10 neuropsychological tests, including measures of attention, memory, and executive function. In addition, the direction of correlations differed significantly between groups (R2 > 0.71 and pinteration 0.83. In summary, the NODDI-derived axonal density index and q-space measure for tissue restriction demonstrated superior sensitivity to white matter changes shortly after mTBI. These techniques hold promise as a neuroimaging biomarker for mTBI.
A Review of Dementia with Lewy Bodies' Impact, Diagnostic Criteria and Treatment.

Dementia with Lewy bodies is one of the most common causes of dementia. It is not as common as Alzheimer’s disease; the general public's awareness of the disease is poor in comparison. Its effects on caregivers and patients alike are not well known to the general population. There are currently no FDA-approved medications specifically for the treatment of DLB. Many of the medications that are approved for Alzheimer’s disease are widely used in the treatment of DLB with varying degrees of success. Treatment of DLB is life long and requires a dedicated team of physicians and caregivers to minimize the degree of morbidity and mortality experienced by the patients suffering from the disease as it progresses.
Toward fast and accurate SNP genotyping from whole genome sequencing data for bedside diagnostics.

Motivation Genotyping a set of variants from a database is an important step for identifying known genetic traits and disease-related variants within an individual. The growing size of variant databases as well as the high depth of sequencing data poses an efficiency challenge. In clinical applications, where time is crucial, alignment-based methods are often not fast enough. To fill the gap, Shajii et al. propose LAVA, an alignment-free genotyping method which is able to more quickly genotype single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs); however, there remains large room for improvements in running time and accuracy. Results We present the VarGeno method for SNP genotyping from Illumina whole genome sequencing data. VarGeno builds upon LAVA by improving the speed of k-mer querying as well as the accuracy of the genotyping strategy. We evaluate VarGeno on several read datasets using different genotyping SNP lists. VarGeno performs 7-13 times faster than LAVA with similar memory usage, while improving accuracy. Availability and implementation VarGeno is freely available at: https://github.com/medvedevgroup/vargeno. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Meditation smartphone application effects on prehypertensive adults' blood pressure: Dose-response feasibility trial.

Objective Essential hypertension (EH) is the most common chronic disease in the United States and a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Lifestyle interventions (e.g., diet, exercise, stress management) to reduce blood pressure (BP) are often complex with varying effectiveness. Breathing awareness meditation (BAM) is a stress management strategy with encouraging effects on BP, though widespread dissemination is hampered by the lack of an easy-to-use methodology to train and monitor BAM practices. A smartphone application (Tension Tamer [TT]) that implements BAM and tracks adherence has shown promise in addressing these gaps. This 6-month dose-response feasibility trial evaluated effects of the app on BP to further optimize BAM user guidelines. Methods Sixty-four adults with prehypertension were randomized to complete TT-guided BAM sessions for 5-, 10-, or 15-min intervals twice daily over 6 months. Continuous heart rate readings derived from the phone's video camera via reflective photoplethysmography were used as feedback and as an index of time-stamped adherence. Outcomes (resting BP, HR) were collected at baseline, 1-, 3-, and 6-months. Results Mixed modeling results showed a significant time effect for systolic BP (SBP) with a dose-response effect at Months 3 and 6. Adherence declined over time and was lowest in the 15-min dose condition, though SBP reductions were maintained. Generally, adherence was negatively associated with dose as the study progressed. Conclusions Smartphone-implemented BAM appears to reduce SBP and can be a low-cost method to reach large populations. (PsycINFO Database Record
Face De-Spoofing: Anti-Spoofing via Noise Modeling

Many prior face anti-spoofing works develop discriminative models for recognizing the subtle differences between live and spoof faces. Those approaches often regard the image as an indivisible unit, and process it holistically, without explicit modeling of the spoofing process. In this work, motivated by the noise modeling and denoising algorithms, we identify a new problem of face de-spoofing, for the purpose of anti-spoofing: inversely decomposing a spoof face into a spoof noise and a live face, and then utilizing the spoof noise for classification. A CNN architecture with proper constraints and supervisions is proposed to overcome the problem of having no ground truth for the decomposition. We evaluate the proposed method on multiple face anti-spoofing databases. The results show promising improvements due to our spoof noise modeling. Moreover, the estimated spoof noise provides a visualization which helps to understand the added spoof noise by each spoof medium.
Optimal dynamic basis trading

We study the problem of dynamically trading a futures contract and its underlying asset under a stochastic basis model. The basis evolution is modeled by a stopped scaled Brownian bridge to account for non-convergence of the basis at maturity. The optimal trading strategies are determined from a utility maximization problem under hyperbolic absolute risk aversion risk preferences. By analyzing the associated Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation, we derive the exact conditions under which the equation admits a solution and solve the utility maximization explicitly. A series of numerical examples are provided to illustrate the optimal strategies and examine the effects of model parameters.
Beyond the Walls: The Importance of Community Contexts in Immigration Detention:

Immigration detention facilities are commonly assumed to be insulated microcosms that maintain their existence separate and apart from the surrounding communities. Yet detention facilities are not ...
Quantization of Hamiltonian loop group spaces

We prove a Fredholm property for spin-c Dirac operators $$\mathsf {D}$$ on non-compact manifolds satisfying a certain condition with respect to the action of a semi-direct product group $$K\ltimes \Gamma $$ , with K compact and $$\Gamma $$ discrete. We apply this result to an example coming from the theory of Hamiltonian loop group spaces. In this context we prove that a certain index pairing $$[{\mathcal {X}}] \cap [\mathsf {D}]$$ yields an element of the formal completion $$R^{-\infty }(T)$$ of the representation ring of a maximal torus $$T \subset H$$ ; the resulting element has an additional antisymmetry property under the action of the affine Weyl group, indicating $$[{\mathcal {X}}] \cap [\mathsf {D}]$$ corresponds to an element of the ring of projective positive energy representations of the loop group.
Spread, Then Target, and Advertise in Waves: Optimal Budget Allocation Across Advertising Channels

We analyze optimal strategies for the allocation of a finite budget that can be invested in different advertising channels over time with the objective of influencing social opinions in a network of individuals. In our analysis, we consider both exogenous influence mechanisms, such as advertising campaigns, as well as endogenous mechanisms of social influence, such as word-of-mouth and peer-pressure, which are modeled using diffusion dynamics. We show that for a broad family of objective functions, the optimal influence strategy at every time uses all channels at either their maximum rate or not at all, i.e., a bang-bang strategy. Furthermore, we prove that the number of switches between these extremes is bounded above by a term that is typically much smaller than the number of agents. This means that the optimal influence strategy is to exert maximum effort in waves for every channel, and then cease effort and let the effects propagate. We also show that, at the beginning of the campaign, the total cost-adjusted reach of an exogenous advertising channel determines its relative value. In contrast, as we approach our investment horizon (e.g., election day), the optimal strategy is to invest in channels able to target individuals instead of broad-reaching channels. We demonstrate that the optimal influence strategies are easily computable in several practical cases, and explicitly characterize the optimal controls for the case of linear objective functions in closed form. Finally, we see that, in the canonical example of designing an election campaign, identifying late-deciders is a critical component in the optimal design.
Verifying Equivalence of Database-Driven Applications

This paper addresses the problem of verifying equivalence between a pair of programs that operate over databases with different schemas. This problem is particularly important in the context of web applications, which typically undergo database refactoring either for performance or maintainability reasons. While the web application should have the same externally observable behavior before and after schema migration, there are no existing tools for proving equivalence of such programs. This paper takes a first step towards solving this problem by formalizing the equivalence and refinement checking problems for database-driven applications. We then propose a proof methodology based on the notion of bisimulation invariants over a new logic called the theory of relational algebra with updates. We also present a fully automated technique for synthesizing such bisimulation invariants and automatically verify their correctness. We have implemented the proposed technique in a tool called Mediator and show that it can verify the equivalence of real-world web applications containing hundreds of transactions.
Finite-trace linear temporal logic: coinductive completeness

Linear temporal logic (LTL) is suitable not only for infinite-trace systems, but also for finite-trace systems. Indeed, LTL is frequently used as a trace specification formalism in runtime verification. The completeness of LTL with only infinite or with both infinite and finite traces has been extensively studied, but similar direct results for LTL with only finite traces are missing. This paper proposes a sound and complete proof system for finite-trace LTL. The axioms and proof rules are natural and expected, except for one rule of coinductive nature, reminiscent of the Godel-Lob axiom. A direct decision procedure for finite-trace LTL satisfiability, a PSPACE-complete problem, is also obtained as a corollary.
Optimized Portfolio Contracts for Bidding the Cloud

Amazon EC2 provides two most popular pricing schemes–i) the costly on-demand instance where the job is guaranteed to be completed, and ii) the cheap spot instance where a job may be interrupted. We consider a user can select a combination of on-demand and spot instances to finish a task. Thus he needs to find the optimal bidding price for the spot-instance, and the portion of the job to be run on the on-demand instance. We formulate the problem as an optimization problem and seek to find the optimal solution. We consider three bidding strategies: one-time requests with expected guarantee, one-time requests with penalty for incomplete job and violating the deadline, and persistent requests. Even without a penalty on incomplete jobs, the optimization problem turns out to be non-convex. Nevertheless, we show that the portion of the job to be run on the on-demand instance is at most half. If the job has a higher execution time or smaller deadline, the bidding price is higher and vice versa. Additionally, the user never selects the on-demand instance if the execution time is smaller than the deadline. The numerical results illustrate the sensitivity of the effective portfolio to several of the parameters involved in the model. Our empirical analysis on the Amazon EC2 data shows that our strategies can be employed on the real instances, where the expected total cost of the proposed scheme decreases over 45 percent compared to the baseline strategy.
Testing, Stress, and Performance: How Students Respond Physiologically to High-Stakes Testing

We examine how students’ physiological stress differs between a regular school week and a high-stakes testing week, and we raise questions about how to interpret high-stakes test scores. A potentia...