cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The NASA High-Power Carbon Dioxide Laser A Versatile Tool for Laser Applications

The NASA Lewis Research Center has designed and fabricated a closed-cycle, continuous wave (CW), carbon dioxide (CO2) high-power laser to support research for the identification and evaluation of possible high-power laser applications. The device is designed to generate up to 70 kW of laser power in annular-shape beams from 1 to 9 cm in diameter. Electric discharge, either self-sustained or electron-beam-sustained, is used for excitation. This laser facility can be used in two ways. First, it provides a versatile tool on which research can be performed to advance the state-of-the-art technology of high-power CO2 lasers in such areas as electric excitation, laser chemistry, and quality of output beams, all of which are important whether the laser application is government or industry oriented. Second, the facility provides a well-defined, continuous wave beam for various application experiments, such as propulsion, power conversion, and materials processing.
Estimating Coarse Gene Network Structure from Large-Scale Gene Perturbation Data

Large scale gene perturbation experiments generate information about the number of genes whose activity is directly or indirectly affected by a gene perturbation. From this information, one can numerically estimate coarse structural network features such as the total number of direct regulatory interactions and the number of isolated subnetworks in a transcriptional regulation network. Applied to the results of a large-scale gene knockout experiment in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the results suggest that the yeast transcriptional regulatory network is very sparse, containing no more direct regulatory interactions than genes. The network comprises >100 independent subnetworks.
Azamerone, a terpenoid phthalazinone from a marine-derived bacterium related to the genus Streptomyces (Actinomycetales).

A novel meroterpenoid, azamerone, was isolated from the saline culture of a new marine-derived bacterium related to the genus Streptomyces. Azamerone is composed of an unprecedented chloropyranophthalazinone core with a 3-chloro-6-hydroxy-2,2,6-trimethylcyclohexylmethyl side chain. The structure was rigorously determined by NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography. A possible biosynthetic origin of this unusual ring system is proposed.
A View from a Fossil: The New Economy, Creativity and Consumption – Two or Three Things I Don’t Believe in

The new economy’s definition and history need to be questioned, specifically the notion that the ‘creative industries’ are panaceas for economic problems and gifts to cultural studies that make it important. Questions of labor have been occluded in much discussion of the new economy and in cultural studies. Instead of a focus on consumption and meaning, progressive critics need to turn their attention to the new international division of cultural labor.
Robust rational turnout

We show that equilibria of a class of participation games (Palfrey and Rosenthal in Public Choice 41(1):7–53, 1983; Journal of Public Economics 24(2):171–193, 1984) exhibit minimal heterogeneity of behavior so that players’ mixed strategies are summarized by at most two probabilities. We then establish that, except for a finite set of common costs of participation, these games are regular. Thus, equilibria of these voting games are robust to general payoff perturbations and survive in nearby games of incomplete information.
Studying Nanoscale Magnetism and Its Dynamics With Soft X-Ray Microscopy

Magnetic soft X-ray microscopy allows for imaging magnetic structures at a spatial resolution down to 15 nm and a time resolution in the sub-100 ps regime. Inherent elemental specificity can be used to image the magnetic response of individual components such as layers in multilayered systems. This review highlights current achievements and discusses the future potential of magnetic soft X-ray microscopy at fsec X-ray sources where snapshot images of ultrafast spin dynamics with a spatial resolution below 10 nm will become feasible.
Efficient Synthesis of 2‐Substituted Indoles Based on Palladium(II) Acetate/Tri‐tert‐butylphosphine‐Catalyzed Alkynylation/Amination of 1,2‐Dihalobenzenes

A simple, efficient palladium(II) acetate/ tri-tert-butylphosphine-catalyzed indole synthesis from o-alkynylhalobenzenes, readily available from 1,2-dihalobenzenes, has been achieved in good to excellent yields. A one-pot, Pd(OAc) 2 /t-Bu3P-catalyzed sequential reaction from 1-chloro-2-iodobenzene, phenylacetylene and amines has also been achieved in good yields.
Error Exponents for Variable-Length Block Codes With Feedback and Cost Constraints

Variable-length block-coding schemes are investigated for discrete memoryless channels with ideal feedback under cost constraints. Upper and lower bounds are found for the minimum achievable probability of decoding error Pe,min as a function of constraints R, P, and tau on the transmission rate, average cost, and average block length, respectively. For given R and P, the lower and upper bounds to the exponent -( ln Pe,min )/tau are asymptotically equal as tau rarr infin. The resulting reliability function,limtaurarrinfin(-In Pe,min)/tau as a function of R and V, is concave in the pair (R,P) and generalizes the linear reliability function of Burnashev to include cost constraints. The results are generalized to a class of discrete-time memoryless channels with arbitrary alphabets, including additive Gaussian noise channels with amplitude and power constraints.
Real-time correction of atmospherically degraded telescope images through image sharpening

We present a new technique for the correction of atmospheric distortion in telescope images. Most of this distortion arises from a random phase variation of the incoming light across the telescope aperture. This variation limits the resolving power of even large telescopes to about one arc second. If the sharpness of the images is defined in a suitable way, this sharpness is maximized only when the phase distortion of the incoming light is zero. We present computer simulations of a simple feedback system in which active optical elements, set to maximize the sharpness, correct most of the atmospheric distortion. Photon statistics set the limiting magnitude of the object for which a practical feedback system can work. Details in a sixth magnitude object smaller than 0.1 sec of arc should be resolvable. The system can be conveniently employed within existing telescopes.
A review and perspective of recent bio-oil hydrotreating research

The pathway for catalytic hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of biomass-derived fast pyrolysis oil represents a compelling route for production of liquid transportation fuels. This is a review of the published research and patent literature in bio-oil HDO over the last 6 years performed with actual bio-oils and identifiable strategy for production of an infrastructure compatible liquid transportation fuel. Research is moving towards continuous, industrially relevant processes generating data to inform techno-economic analysis (TEA) and understand the nature of the fuels produced. Research gaps identified include: (1) focus on process integration; (2) developing appropriate quality metrics for intermediates; (3) evaluating research by TEA; and (4) meeting fuel functional requirements and comparison to ASTM standards for existing fuels.
The Solar Neighborhood XXVIII: The Multiplicity Fraction of Nearby Stars from 5 to 70 AU and the Brown Dwarf Desert Around M Dwarfs

We report on our analysis of Hubble Space Telescope/NICMOS snapshot high-resolution images of 255 stars in 201 systems within ∼10 pc of the Sun. Photometry was obtained through filters F110W, F180M, F207M, and F222M using NICMOS Camera 2. These filters were selected to permit clear identification of cool brown dwarfs through methane contrast imaging. With a plate scale of 76 mas pixel −1 , NICMOS can easily resolve binaries with subarcsecond separations in the 19. 5×19. �� 5 field of view. We previously reported five companions to nearby M and L dwarfs from this search. No new companions were discovered during the second phase of data analysis presented here, confirming that stellar/substellar binaries are rare. We establish magnitude and separation limits for which companions can be ruled out for each star in the sample, and then perform a comprehensive sensitivity and completeness analysis for the subsample of 138 M dwarfs in 126 systems. We calculate a multiplicity fraction of 0.0 +3.5 −0.0 % for L companions to M dwarfs in the separation range of 5‐70 AU, and 2.3 +5.0 −0.7 % for L and T companions to M dwarfs in the separation range of 10‐70 AU. We also discuss trends in the color‐magnitude diagrams using various color combinations and present astrometry for 19 multiple systems in our sample. Considering these results and results from several other studies, we argue that the so-called brown dwarf desert extends to binary systems with low-mass primaries and is largely independent of primary mass, mass ratio, and separations. While focusing on companion properties, we discuss how the qualitative agreement between observed companion mass functions and initial mass functions suggests that the paucity of brown dwarfs in either population may be due to a common cause and not due to binary formation mechanisms.
Suzuki coupling of aryl chlorides with phenylboronic acid in water, using microwave heating with simultaneous cooling.

We present here a methodology for the Suzuki coupling of aryl chlorides with phenylboronic acid using Pd/C as a catalyst, water as a solvent, and microwave heating. We show that simultaneous coolin ...
Financialization takes off at Boeing

This article examines the 2001 dislocation of the headquarters of the iconic US aerospace company, Boeing, out of the Puget Sound region of the State of Washington, its ancestral manufacturing base. It argues the rationale for the exit was the desire on the part of Boeing's increasingly finance-focused executives to detach and disembed the ‘brains’ of the company from the product-focused, engineering-based corporate culture embedded in Puget Sound. The article attempts to ground the logic of financialization by examining how it emerged at, and was shaped by one particular company. I employ economic geographers’ conceptions of place-based corporate culture, and societal, territorial and network embeddedness (Hess, 2004, Progress in Human Geography, 28: 165-186) to explain how financialization and corporate dislocation can enable each other. The article also briefly discusses Boeing's eventual decision to re-embed its headquarters in downtown Chicago, Illinois.
A Stereodivergent Strategy to Both Product Enantiomers from the Same Enantiomer of a Stereoinducing Catalyst: Agelastatin A

In this article, we report a full account of our recent development of pyrroles and N-alkoxyamides as new classes of nucleophiles for palladium-catalyzed AAA reactions, along with application of these methodologies in the total synthesis of agelastatin A, a marine natural product with exceptional anticancer activity and other biological properties. Our method allows for access to either regioisomer of the pyrrolopiperazinones (6 and 19) with high efficiency and enantioselectivity. Note that isomer 19 was obtained via a cascade reaction through a double allylic alkylation pathway. From regioisomer 6, the total synthesis of (+)-agelastatin A was completed in a very short fashion (four steps from 6), during the course of which we developed a new copper catalyst for aziridination and an In(OTf)(3)/DMSO system to oxidatively open an N-tosyl aziridine. Starting with the other pyrrolopiperazinone 19, a five-step sequence has been developed to furnish a formal total synthesis of (-)-agelastatin A. A unique feature of our syntheses is the use of two rather different strategies for the total syntheses of both enantiomers of agelastatin A using the same enantiomer of a chiral palladium catalyst.
EFFECT OF GRAVITY ON THE SPREAD OF EXTRADURAL ANAESTHESIA FOR CAESAREAN SECTION

The effect of gravity on the spread of extradural anaesthesia was evaluated in a series of parturients undergoing elective Caesarean section. Following placement of an extradural catheter, 25 patients were placed 30–40° head-up for 20 min during the administration of the local anaesthetic drug; 25 additional patients remained supine during injection. Extradural anaesthesia was induced with 3% 2-chloroprocaine 23 ml and analgesia to pinprick assessed at 5-min intervals. Additional drug was given after 20 min, if required. There were no differences in the rate of onset of sacral blockade or in the extent of neural blockade between the two groups. The semi-upright position was not necessary to ensure adequate sacral anaesthesia for Caesarean section.
Initial design and analysis of a capacitive sensor for shear and normal force measurement

Initial experiments characterizing a shunt-mode sensor that simultaneously measures both normal and shear strains due to an applied force vector have been completed. The sensor, termed SCCINS (sensed capacitance changes due to incident normal and shear stress), is based on variations in the physical dimensions of an elastic dielectric due to applied forces. Two sinusoids of the same frequency but with a fixed phase relationship are used to excite the device. The amplitude and phase of the output signal are modulated by normal and shear strains, respectively. By measuring the amplitude and phase of the output signal, these strains may be determined, and subsequently used to reconstruct the normal and shear components of the force vector. >
Deviations, Dynamics, and Equilibrium Refinements

Existing equilibrium refinements rule out Nash equilibria susceptible to deviations. We propose a framework for considering not only equilibria impervious to deviations, but also equilibria likely to recur in the long run because they are repeatedly deviated to. We explore which equilibria are recurrent with respect to the deviations underlying some existing signaling refinements. We show that the set of recurrent equilibria based on Cho and Kreps's (1987) intuitive criterion is equivalent to their solution concept, but that applying our framework to existing cheap-talk refinements make those solution concepts more realistic and guarantee existence where their current formulations do not.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: B49, C72, C73.
Computation of Casimir interactions between arbitrary three-dimensional objects with arbitrary material properties

We extend a recently introduced method for computing Casimir forces between arbitrarily shaped metallic objects [M. T. H. Reid et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 040401 (2009)] to allow treatment of objects with arbitrary material properties, including imperfect conductors, dielectrics, and magnetic materials. Our original method considered electric currents on the surfaces of the interacting objects; the extended method considers both electric and magnetic surface current distributions, and obtains the Casimir energy of a configuration of objects in terms of the interactions of these effective surface currents. Using this new technique, we present the first predictions of Casimir interactions in several experimentally relevant geometries that would be difficult to treat with any existing method. In particular, we investigate Casimir interactions between dielectric nanodisks embedded in a dielectric fluid; we identify the threshold surface-surface separation at which finite-size effects become relevant, and we map the rotational energy landscape of bound nanoparticle diclusters.
Who Dominates Market Power for U.S.-China Soybean Trade?

This research develops a two-country partial equilibrium trade model to test the market power of Chinese soybean importers and U.S. soybean exporters in the soybean trade between the two countries. Results show that Chinese soybean importers have stronger market power than U.S. soybean exporters.
New compounds: Synthesis of 2-amino-5H-1,3,4-benzotriazepin-5-ones

N-Methyl-2-aminobenzohydrazides, when treated with cyanogen bromide, were found to yield 2-amino-5H-1,3,4-benzotriazepin-5-ones.
Organic matter processing by a stream‐segment ecosystem: Fort River, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

An annual organic matter budget for a 1700 m segment of Fort River (Massachusetts, USA) is presented. Primary production in this fourth order stream exceeds litter input annually, however ecosystem P/R is 0.5. Respiration in excess of gross primary production is supported by allochthonous organic matter imported from upstream reaches. The relative contribution of organic matter size fractions to stream consumers depends upon biologic lability, rate of input, and residence time in the ecosystem. Particles of seston size (1 μm to 1 mm) are most heavily used by consumers, however dissolved organic matter represents the largest input component. Microorganisms are the predominant consumers in this soft-water, nutrient-poor stream ecosystem. A conceptual model for assessing the processing efficiency of stream ecosystems is presented and discussed in terms of several headwater to estuary gradients.
Length to diameter ratio and row number effects in short pin fin heat transfer

The relative effects of pin length to diameter ratio and of pin row geometry on the heat transfer from pin fins, was determined. Array averaged heat transfer coefficients on pin and endwall surfaces were measured for two configurations of staggered arrays of short pin fins (length to diameter ratio of 4). One configuration contained eight streamwise rows of pins, while the other contained only four rows. Results showed that both the 8-row and the 4-row configurations for an L sub p/D of 4, exhibit higher heat transfer than in similar tests on shorter pin fins (L sub p/D of 1/2 and 2). It was also found that for this L sub p/D ratio, the array averaged heat transfer was slightly higher with eight rows of staggered pins than with only four rows. Previously announced in STAR as N83-14431
Commercial Real Estate Prices and Stock Market Returns: An International Analysis

The movement toward globalization of institutional investments requires an understanding of the historical relationship between international commercial real estate price changes and stock returns. Previous studies have focused on the time series of stock and real estate returns, using data from a single country. By necessity, these studies examined returns and price changes over short intervals, creating a bias when property values are smoothed from year to year. This study examines the relation between stock returns and changes in property values and rents based on data from 17 countries. Although we find no relation between real estate values and rents and stock returns in the United States, we find significant relations in a number of other countries. When the data are pooled, the relation between stock returns and both value changes and changes in rental rates is very strong.
Droplet breakup in flow past an obstacle: A capillary instability due to permeability variations

In multiphase flow in confined geometries an elementary event concerns the interaction of a droplet with an obstacle. As a model of this configuration we study the collision of a droplet with a circular post that spans a significant fraction of the cross-section of a microfluidic channel. We demonstrate that there exist conditions for which a drop moves completely around the obstacle without breaking, while for the same geometry but higher speeds the drop breaks. Therefore, we identify a critical value of the capillary number above which a drop will break. We explain the results with a one-dimensional model characterizing the flow in the narrow gaps on either side of the obstacle, which identifies a surface-tension–driven instability associated with a variation in the permeability in the flow direction. The model captures the major features of the experimental observations.
How Much Irrationality Does the Market Permit

Abstract This article asks whether competition can ameliorate the consequences of cognitive error. Consumers differ cognitively, some being more prone to err (the “naive”) than others (the “sophisticated”). Competition among firms is analyzed with a search equilibrium model. Firms offer an exploitative contract or a naive contract to a consumer population partitioned in two ways: some consumers are sophisticated while others are naive, and some consumers search for preferred contracts while others visit one firm. There are two principal results. First, when consumers shop, neither contract type is priced monopolistically, and competitive pricing sometimes obtains. Second, when enough consumers are sophisticated and the naive have a relatively low willingness to pay for their preferred contract, exploitative contracts decline in frequency and may actually vanish. These results suggest that while decision makers should continue to ask if consumers suffer from cognitive error, they also should ask whether ma...
Creating the perception-based LADDER sketch recognition language

Sketch recognition is automated understanding of hand-drawn diagrams. Current sketch recognition systems exist for only a handful of domains, which contain on the order of 10--20 shapes. Our goal was to create a generalized method for recognition that could work for many domains, increasing the number of shapes that could be recognized in real-time, while maintaining a high accuracy. In an effort to effectively recognize shapes while allowing drawing freedom (both drawing-style freedom and perceptually-valid variations), we created the shape description language modeled after the way people naturally describe shapes to 1) create an intuitive and easy to understand description, providing transparency to the underlying recognition process, and 2) to improve recognition by providing recognition flexibility (drawing freedom) that is aligned with how humans perceive shapes. This paper describes the results of a study performed to see how users naturally describe shapes. A sample of 35 subjects described or drew approximately 16 shapes each. Results show a common vocabulary related to Gestalt grouping and singularities. Results also show that perception, similarity, and context play an important role in how people describe shapes. This study resulted in a language (LADDER) that allows shape recognizers for any domain to be automatically generated from a single hand-drawn example of each shape. Sketch systems for over 30 different domains have been automatically generated based on this language. The largest domain contained 923 distinct shapes, and achieved a recognition accuracy of 83% (and a top-3 accuracy of 87%) on a corpus of over 11,000 sketches, which recognizes almost two orders of magnitude more shapes than any other existing system.
ENGAGING THE CREATIVE MINDS — THE ENGAGE MODELS

All enterprises need creativity and innovation to maintain and sustain long term profitability. This paper advocates the rapid development of the creative process by applying an ENGAGE model. In order to frequently generate new ideas, creative people need to pursue new thinking strategies, which are outlined by a second ENGAGE model. It is believed that by consistently emphasizing both the creative process and the thinking strategies outlined in these two ENGAGE models, individuals and companies could become inventive and innovative much sooner than otherwise, thus contribute more effectively to the wellbeing of their enterprises and to the society at large.
Re-circulating linac vacuum system

The vacuum system for a proposed 2.5 GeV, 10/spl mu/A re-circulating linac synchrotron light source is readily achievable with conventional vacuum hardware and established fabrication processes. Some of the difficult technical challenges associated with synchrotron light source storage rings are sidestepped by the relatively low beam current and short beam lifetime requirements of a re-circulating linac. This minimal lifetime requirement leads directly to relatively high limits on the background gas pressure through much of the facility. The 10/spl mu/A average beam current produces very little synchrotron radiation induced gas desorption and thus the need for an "ante-chamber" in the vacuum chamber is eliminated. In the arc bend magnets, and the insertion devices, the vacuum chamber dimensions can be selected to balance the coherent synchrotron radiation and resistive wall wakefield effects, while maintaining the modest limits on the gas pressure and minimal outgassing.
A Reassessment of the Relationship between Inequality and Growth

This paper challenges the current belief that income inequality has a negative relationship with economic growth. It uses an improved data set on income inequality which not only reduces measurement error, but also allows estimation via a panel technique. Results suggest that in the short and medium term, an increase in a country's level of income inequality has a significant positive relationship with subsequent economic growth.
Interior Plasma Diagnostics of Arcjet Thrusters

We review past experimental measurements of internal flow properties of arcjet thrusters. These measurements are generally classified as either intrusive, requiring design changes to prototype thrusters, or nonintrusive, and include measurements of cathode temperature, as well as static pressure, flow temperatures (vibrational, rotational, electronic, translational), electron density, and velocity throughout the interior region extending to the exit plane. Comparisons are made to available model predictions. These measurements, performed on a wide range of thrusters, and operating on variety of propellants, indicate that the nozzle plasma flow may be removed from local thermodynamic equilibrium.
An Experimental Study of LP-Based Approximation Algorithms for Scheduling Problems

Recently there has been much progress on the design of approximation algorithms for a variety of scheduling problems in which the goal is to minimize the average weighted completion time of the jobs scheduled. Many of these approximation algorithms have been inspired by polyhedral formulations of the scheduling problems and their use in computing optimal solutions to small instances. In this paper we demonstrate that the progress in the design and analysis of approximation algorithms for these problems also yields techniques with improved computational efficacy. Specifically, we give a comprehensive experimental study of a number of these approximation algorithms for 1|rj|âwjCj, the problem of scheduling jobs with release dates on one machine so as to minimize the average weighted completion time of the jobs scheduled. We study both the quality of lower bounds given for this problem by different linear-programming relaxations and combinatorial relaxations, and the quality of upper bounds delivered by a number of approximation algorithms based on them. The best algorithms, on almost all instances, come within a few percent of the optimal average weighted completion time. Furthermore, we show that this can usually be achieved with O(n log n) computation. In addition we observe that on most kinds of synthetic data used in experimental studies a simple greedy heuristic, used in successful combinatorial branch-and-bound algorithms for the problem, outperforms (on average) all of the LP-based heuristics. We identify, however, other classes of problems on which the LP-based heuristics are superior and report on experiments that give a qualitative sense of the range of dominance of each. We consider the impact of local improvement on the solutions as well. We also consider the performance of the algorithms for the average weighted flow-time criterion, which, although equivalent to average weighted completion time at optimality, is provably much harder to approximate. Nonetheless, we demonstrate that for most instances we consider that the algorithms give very good results for this criterion as well. Finally, we extend the techniques to a rather different and more complex problem that arises from an actual manufacturing application: resource-constrained project scheduling. In this setting as well, the techniques yield algorithms with improved performance; we give the best-known solutions for a set of instances provided by BASF AG, Germany.
Leibniz's Definition of Monad

This is a short discussion of the definition of monad which was given by G. W. Leibniz in his Monadology.
Abiding by the Vote: Between-Groups Conflict in International Collective Action

We analyze institutional solutions to international cooperation when actors have heterogeneous preferences over the desirability of the action and split into supporters and opponents, all of whom can spend resources toward their preferred outcome. We study how actors can communicate their preferences through voting when they are not bound either by their own vote or the outcome of the collective vote. We identify two organizational types with endogenous coercive enforcement and find that neither is unambiguously preferable. Like the solutions to the traditional Prisoners' Dilemma these forms require long shadows of the future to sustain. We then show that cooperation can be sustained through a noncoercive organization where actors delegate execution to an agent. Even though this institution is costlier, it does not require any expertise by the agent and is independent of the shadow of the future, and thus is implementable when the others are not.
A Fine Forehand

“As long as a branch of science offers an abundance of problems, so long is it alive: a lack of problems foreshadows extinction or the cessation of independent development.”1 On this occasion here and on his birthday and whenever one is doing philosophy these words of David Hilbert seem particularly appropriate.2 The aesthetics of sport is supposedly the subject. It is not a serious subject if it has no significant problems. There are no significant problems that can sensibly be characterized as problems in the aesthetics of sport.
Synthetic approaches toward molecular and polymeric carbon allotropes

Life on earth is based on compounds that have carbon frames and backbones. Today, chemists have added to the world of biomolecules and biopolymers approximately 107 different synthetic molecules and polymers, the structures of which also depend on the formation of strong, stable carbon–carbon bonds. Although the stability of carbon–carbon bonds has been recognized for more than a century, the two natural modifications graphite and diamond were, until recently, the only allotropic forms of carbon on earth that were available in macroscopic quantities and were structurally well characterized. With the synthesis of macroscopic quantities of buckminsterfullerene (C60) and the higher fullerenes (C70, C76, C78, etc.) and the exploration of the fascinating properties of these all-carbon spheres, this situation has completely changed. In the coming decades, the design, preparation, and study of novel molecular and polymeric allotropic forms of carbon will be a central topic in chemistry. Research in this area will dramatically advance the fundamental knowledge on carbon-based matter and, as already illustrated by the ongoing work on C60, generate unprecedented technological perspectives. This review surveys synthetic organic-chemical approaches toward the preparation and study of all-carbon molecules and polymers that differ from the familiar networks of graphite and diamond as well as from the fullerenes. We will also discuss the ongoing research on fullerenes with a particular focus on the synthetic approaches to these all-carbon spheres and their transition metal complexes.
Financial Fragility and Economic Performance

Financial stability is an important goal of policy, but the relation of financial stability to economic performance and even the meaning of the term itself are poorly understood. This paper explores these issues in a theoretical model. We argue that financial instability, or fragility, occurs when entrepreneurs who want to undertake investment projects have low net worth; the heavy reliance on external finance that this implies causes the agency costs of investment to be high. High agency costs in turn lead to low and inefficient investment. Standard policies for fighting financial fragility can be interpreted as transfers that maintain or increase the net worth of potential borrowers.
Highly Efficient Synthesis of 5-Substituted 1H-Tetrazoles Catalyzed by Cu-Zn Alloy Nanopowder, Conversion into 1,5- and 2,5-Disubstituted Tetrazoles, and Synthesis and NMR Studies of New Tetrazolium Ionic Liquids

A series of 5-substituted 1H-tetrazoles were synthesized through [3+2] cycloaddition reactions between nitriles RCN and NaN3 in the presence of Cu–Zn alloy nanopowder as catalyst. The 1,5-dibutyl, 1-butyl-5-hexyl, 2,5-dibutyl, and 2-butyl-5-hexyl derivatives were then used as building blocks to synthesize several novel tetrazolium ionic liquids (ILs) with EtSO4–, OTf–, and NTf2– counterions. Whereas alkylation of the 2,5-dialkyltetrazoles selectively gave the N-4 alkylated onium salts, with the 1,5-dialkyl derivatives approximately 1:1 mixtures of two tetrazolium salts were formed by alkylation at N-3 and N-4. The triflate and ethyl sulfate salts are room-temperature ILs that are hydrophilic, whereas the NTf2 salts are low-melting ILs and are hydrophobic. The resulting tetrazolium-based ionic liquids were studied by various multinuclear and 2D NMR techniques including natural abundance 15N and 1H/15N correlations.
Congenital Myasthenic Syndromes

Congenital myasthenic syndromes are genetic disorders of neuromuscular transmission that should be considered in the differential diagnosis of seronegative myasthenia gravis and other neuromuscular disorders. They are present at birth but may not manifest until childhood or adult life. A classification system of congenital myasthenic syndromes based on molecular genetics is under evolution. Clinical and neurophysiological correlations with molecular studies have defined diagnostic criteria that assist the clinician in identifying specific clinical myasthenic syndromes. Some types of congenital myasthenia (e.g., slow-channel and fast-channel syndrome, acetylcholinesterase deficiency, and choline acetyltransferase deficiency) can be identified by clinical features, response to cholinesterase inhibitors, and standard electrodiagnostic studies. The molecular genetics, pathogenesis, clinical features, differential diagnosis, natural history, and treatment of well-characterized congenital myasthenic syndromes are discussed.
Integrating faces and fingerprints for personal identification

An automatic personal identification system based solely on fingerprints or faces is often not able to meet the system performance requirements. We have developed a prototype biometrics system which integrates faces and fingerprints. The system overcomes the limitations of face recognition systems as well as fingerprint verification systems. The integrated prototype system operates in the identification mode with an admissible response time. The identity established by the system is more reliable than the identity established by a face recognition system. In addition, the proposed decision fusion scheme enables performance improvement by integrating multiple cues with different confidence measures. Experimental results demonstrate that our system performs very well. It meets the response time as well as the accuracy requirements.
Optimal Taxation and Income Mobility with Borrowing Limits

The author studies age-dependent optimal taxation in an environment that takes into consideration changes in consumption behavior over the life cycle due to changes in labor income paths and borrowing limits. Income mobility is defined as an exogenous rate at which individuals change from a low-to a high-income path. In this framework, the role of age-dependent income taxation is reinforced. Consumption and leisure optimal allocations are not constant over the life cycle even when preferences are additively separable. As a result, age-dependent optimal capital income taxation faced by high-income earners differs from zero for all forms of preferences. In addition, past environments used to study optimal taxation appear as special cases of the proposed model. When the rate of income mobility is infinite, the proposed model nests the simple finite horizon framework. When life expectancy is infinite, the model nests the infinite horizon framework.
A SPECIFICATION-BASED COVERAGE METRIC TO EVALUATE TEST SETS

Software developers use a variety of formal and informal methods, including testing, to argue that their systems are suitable for building high assurance applications. In this paper, we develop another connection between formal methods and testing by defining a specification-based coverage metric to evaluate test sets. Formal methods in the form of a model checker supply the necessary automation to make the metric practical. The metric gives the software developer assurance that a given test set is sufficiently sensitive to the structure of an application's specification. We also develop the necessary foundation for the metric and then illustrate the metric on an example.
Supramolecular architectures featuring stereoisomeric cluster complexes of the [Re6(μ3‐Se)8]2+ core

The [Re 6 (μ 3 -Se) 8 ] 2+ core-containing cluster complexes of the general formula [Re 6 (μ 3 -Se) 8 (PEt 3 ) 4 L 2 ] 2+ (both trans- and cis-isomers) site-differentiated with inert PEt 3 and functional L ligands that are capable of hydrogen bonding or secondary (with respect to primary coordination with the cluster core) metal-ligand coordination interactions have been prepared. The applications of such stereospecific cluster isomers as building blocks for supramolecular construction have been studied. A great variety of multicluster arrays mediated by intercluster hydrogen bonding or cluster ligand coordination with secondary metal ions have been obtained and structurally characterized. The findings from this research clearly establish the superior utility of these novel building blocks for the creation of structurally sophisticated architectures and possibly functional materials.
MACROPOROUS MATERIALS WITH UNIFORM PORES BY EMULSION TEMPLATING

A method was developed for the production of macroporous oxide materials by using the droplets of a nonaoueous emulsion as the templates around which material is deposited through a sol-gel process. Moreover, uniform pores Ganged in regular arrays can be obtained by stat?ing with-an emulsion of uniform droulets. These droulets first self-assemble into a colloidal crvstal after which gelation of the suspending sol-gel m&me captures the ordered structure. After drying and calcination pellets are obtained which contain ordered arrays of spherical pores left behind by the emulsion droplets. The method can be used to make uniform pores in the range from 0.05-5 micrometers in many different materials. We demonstrate the process for titania, silica, and zirconia.
On a conjecture by Y. Last

We prove a conjecture due to Y. Last. The new determinantal representation for transmission coefficient of Jacobi matrix is obtained.
Random permutations and unique fully supported ergodicity for the Euler adic transformation

There is only one fully supported ergodic invariant probability measure for the adic transformation on the space of infinite paths in the graph that underlies the Eulerian numbers. This result may partially justify a frequent assumption about the equidistribution of random permutations.
Plug-and-Play Architectural Design and Verification

In software architecture, components represent the computational units of a system and connectors represent the interactions among those units. Making decisions about the semantics of these interactions is a key part of the design process. It is often difficult, however, to choose the appropriate interaction semantics due to the wide range of alternatives and the complexity of the system behavior affected by those choices. Techniques such as finite-state verification can be used to evaluate the impact of these design choices on the overall system behavior. This paper presents the Plug-and-Play approach that allows designers to experiment with alternative design choices of component interactions in a plug-and-play manner. With this approach, connectors representing specific interaction semantics are composed from a library of predefined, reusable building blocks. In addition, standard interfaces for components are defined that reduce the impact of interaction changes on the components' computations. This approach facilitates design-time verification by improving the reusability of component models and by providing reusable formal models for the connector building blocks, thereby reducing model-construction time for finite-state verification.
Advancing Scholarship through Digital Critical Editions: Mark Twain Project Online

Digital critical editions hold the promise of supporting new scholarly research activities not previously possible or practical with print critical editions. This promise resides in the specific ability to integrate corpora, their associated editorial material and other related content into system architectures and data structures that exploit the strengths of the digital publishing environment. The challenge is to do more than simply create an online copy of the print publication, but rather to provide the kind of resource that both eases and extends the research activities of scholars. Authoritative collections published online in this manner, and with the same rigor brought to the print publishing process, offer scholars: the ability to discover more elusive, granular pieces of information with greater facility; tighter, more obvious and more accessible connections between authoritative versions of texts, editorial matter and primary source material; and continually corrected and expanded "editions," no longer dependent upon the print lifecycle. This paper will explore these benefits and others as they are instantiated in the recently released Mark Twain Papers Online (MTPO) (http://www.marktwainproject.org), created and published as a joint project of the Mark Twain Papers & Project at The Bancroft Library of UC Berkeley (the Papers), the University of California Press (UC Press), and the California Digital Library of the University of California (CDL). This current release of MTPO is comprised of more than twenty three hundred letters written between 1853 and 1880; over twenty eight thousand records of other letters with text not held by the Papers; nearly one hundred facsimiles; and makes available the many decades of archival research on the part of the editors at the Papers. Of particular focus in this discussion will be several key features of the system which, despite the many challenges they presented in development, were felt to be essential pieces of a digital publication that could support scholarship in new and significant ways. Those features include facets, which create intellectual structure and support serendipity; advanced search, which provides a means for researchers to apply their own analytical frameworks; citation support functionality, which serves to secure and record the outcomes of research exploration; and complex displays of individual letters, which allow detailed inspection by collocating the pieces of the authoritative object. These features together maintain the integrity and stability of the collection, while concurrently allowing for fluidity in the continued expansion of the material. In this way, MTPO hopes to succeed as a digital critical edition that will support and extend the research activities of scholars.
Bounds on the achievable rate of noisy feedback Gaussian channels under linear feedback coding scheme

In this paper, we investigate the additive Gaussian noise channel with noisy feedback. We consider the setup of linear coding of the feedback information and Gaussian signaling of the message (i.e. Cover-Pombra Scheme). Then, we derive the upper and lower bounds on the largest achievable rate for this setup. We show that these two bounds can be obtained by solving two convex optimization problems. Finally, we present some simulations and discussion.
Laser vibrometer based on optical-feedback-induced frequency modulation of a single-mode laser diode

We describe a sensitive and inexpensive vibrometer based on optical feedback by diffuse scattering to a single-mode diode laser. Fluctuations in the diode laser’s operating frequency that are due to scattered light from a vibrating surface are used to detect the amplitude and frequency of surface vibrations. An additional physical vibration of the laser provides an absolute amplitude calibration. The fundamental bandwidth is determined by the laser response time of roughly 10−9 s. A noise floor of 0.23 nm/Hz1/2 at 30 kHz with 5 × 10−5 of the incident light returning is demonstrated. This instrument provides an inexpensive and sensitive method of noncontact measurement in solid materials with low or uneven reflectivity. It can be used as a vibration or velocity sensor.
X-ray crystallographic studies provide additional evidence that an enzyme-like binding pocket is crucial to the enantioselective dihydroxylation of olefins by OsO4—bis-cinchona alkaloid complexes

X-Ray crystallographic analysis on single crystals and 1H NMR studies in solution of various bis-cinchona alkaloid derivatives reveal a general preference for a conformation which possesses a U-shaped binding pocket with favorable dimensions for the inclusion of olefinic substrates and the acceleration of face selective dihydroxylation by a proximate pentacoordinate OsO4.
Rival Strategies of Validation: Tools for Evaluating Measures of Democracy

The challenge of finding appropriate tools for measurement validation is an abiding concern in political science. This article considers four traditions of validation, using examples from cross-national research on democracy: the levels-of-measurement approach, structural-equation modeling with latent variables, the pragmatic tradition, and the case-based method. Methodologists have sharply disputed the merits of alternative traditions. We encourage scholars—and certainly analysts of democracy—to pay more attention to these disputes and to consider strengths and weaknesses in the validation tools they adopt. An online appendix summarizes the evaluation of six democracy data sets from the perspective of alternative approaches to validation. The overall goal is to open a new discussion of alternative validation strategies.
Decentralization and public services: the case of immunization

The author studies the impact of political decentralization on childhood immunization, an essential public service provided in almost all countries. He examines the relationship empirically using a time-series data set of 140 low- and middle-income countries from 1980 to 1997. The author finds that decentralization has different effects in low- and middle-income countries. In the low-income group, decentralized countries have higher coverage rates than centralized ones, with an average difference of 8.5 percent for measles and DTP3 vaccines. In the middle-income group, the reverse effect is observed: decentralized countries have lower coverage rates than centralized ones, with an average difference of 5.2 percent for the same vaccines. Both results are significant at the 99 percent level. Modifiers of the decentralization-immunization relationship also differ in the two groups. In the low-income group, development assistance reduces the gains from decentralization. In the middle-income group, democratic government mitigates the negative effects of decentralization, and decentralization reverses the negative effects of ethnic tension and ethno-linguistic fractionalization, but institutional quality and literacy rates have no interactive effect either way. Similar results are obtained whether decentralization is measured with a dichotomous categorical variable or with more specific measures of fiscal decentralization. The study confirms predictions in the theoretical literature about the negative impact of local political control on services that have public goods characteristics and inter-jurisdictional externalities. The author discusses reasons for the difference between low- and middle-income countries.