cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Locally adaptive optimization: adaptive seeding for monotone submodular functions

The Adaptive Seeding problem is an algorithmic challenge motivated by influence maximization in social networks: One seeks to select among certain accessible nodes in a network, and then select, adaptively, among neighbors of those nodes as they become accessible in order to maximize a global objective function. More generally, adaptive seeding is a stochastic optimization framework where the choices in the first stage affect the realizations in the second stage, over which we aim to optimize.Our main result is a (1 -- 1/e)2-approximation for the adaptive seeding problem for any monotone submodular function. While adaptive policies are often approximated via non-adaptive policies, our algorithm is based on a novel method we call locally-adaptive policies. These policies combine a non-adaptive global structure, with local adaptive optimizations. This method enables the (1 -- 1/e)2-approximation for general monotone submodular functions and circumvents some of the impossibilities associated with non-adaptive policies.We also introduce a fundamental problem in submodular optimization that may be of independent interest: given a ground set of elements where every element appears with some small probability, find a set of expected size at most k that has the highest expected value over the realization of the elements. We show a surprising result: there are classes of monotone submodular functions (including coverage) that can be approximated almost optimally as the probability vanishes. For general monotone submodular functions we show via a reduction from Planted-Clique that approximations for this problem are not likely to be obtainable. This optimization problem is an important tool for adaptive seeding via non-adaptive policies, and its hardness motivates the introduction of locally-adaptive policies we use in the main result.
Extrapolation and Bubbles

Abstract We present an extrapolative model of bubbles. In the model, many investors form their demand for a risky asset by weighing two signals—an average of the asset’s past price changes and the asset’s degree of overvaluation—and “waver” over time in the relative weight they put on them. The model predicts that good news about fundamentals can trigger large price bubbles, that bubbles will be accompanied by high trading volume, and that volume increases with past asset returns. We present empirical evidence that bears on some of the model’s distinctive predictions.
Far infrared emission from galactic and extragalactic dust

This review examines the question of how similar far infrared and submillimeter dust properties are among galaxies including the Milky Way, and within the Milky Way. The IRAS data are examined, and no evidence is found for variations in the broad-band dust properties between 10 and 100 µm. Submillimeter data are examined in a search for a power-law index describing the emissivity of dust at λ > 100 µm. The data are consistent with a universal value of the index between 1 and 2. The evidence for large amounts of cold dust (10 to 15 K) in galaxies is reviewed and found quite soft in light of conflicting data. In most spiral galaxies, the dust-to-gas ratios are comparable to their values in the Milky Way, with a few well-documented exceptions such as the Magellanic Clouds and Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies, which have a lower ratio. No compelling evidence is found for gradients in the dust-to-gas ratio within disks of galaxies. Very small grains with fluctuating temperatures appear to be present in all galaxies examined, and to behave just like those observed in the Milky Way.
Autonomous Navigation for Satellites using Lasercom Systems

An autonomous navigation concept is introduced when a space lasercom (laser communications) system is used for crosslink between two or several orbiting satellites. An on-board tracking estimator is developed based upon the measurement, quantities of ranging data from the communication laser beacon, the line-of-sight vector of the returned signal the optical receiver, together with the satellite attitude and initial ephemeris knowledge. Via en on-board estimator, the relative position and velocity vectors between the two satellites can be estimated quite precisely. Sensitivity of the information content resulted from the lasercom tracking estimator is then analyzed for the feasibility of satellite ephemeris determination via on-board processing with minimum ground support. Linear covariance analysis of a multi-satellite constellation has also been conducted to evaluate the workability of lasercom autonomous navigation system for future space communication network.
Macroeconomic adjustment and income distribution: Alternative models applied to two economies

Abstract To analyze the impact of alternative macroeconomic adjustment mechanisms on the distribution of income in developing countries, we construct a CGE model that is general enough to incorporate neoclassical, neo-Keynesian, and a variety of structuralist macro closure rules. The model is applied to two economies, Brazil and Korea, with alternative macro closures both for savings-investment and for the balance of trade. We find that (1) the size distribution of income is largely insensitive to macro closure rules, (2) the functional distribution is very sensitive to macro closure rules, and (3) the balance-of-trade closure is at least as important in determining distributional outcomes as the savings-investment closure.
Gaming the Attention Economy

The future of human computation (HC) benefits from examining tasks that agents already perform and designing environments to give those tasks computational significance. We call this natural human computation (NHC). We consider the possible future of NHC through the lens of Swarm!, an application under development for Google Glass. Swarm! motivates users to compute the solutions to a class of economic optimization problems by engaging the attention dynamics of crowds. We argue that anticipating and managing economies of attention provides one of the most tantalizing future applications for NHC.
On Logical Constraints in Logic Programming

We introduce a new form of logic programming with constraints. The constraints that we consider are not restricted to statements on real numbers as in CLP(R), see Jaffar and Lassez [10]. Instead our constraints are arbitrary global constraints. The basic idea is that the applicability of a given rule is not predicated on the fact that individual variables satisfy certain constraints, but rather on the fact that the least model of the set rules that are ultimately applicable satisfy the constraint of the rule. Thus the role of clauses is slightly different than in the usual Logic Programming with constraints. In fact, the paradigm we present is closely related to stable model semantics of general logic programming, Gelfond and Lifschitz [9]. We define the notion of a constraint model of a constraint logic program and show that stable models of logic programs as well as the supported models of logic programs are just special cases of constraint models of constraint logic programs. In the general definition of a constraint logic program, the constraint of a clause is not restricted to be of a certain form or even to be expressible in the underlying language of the logic program. This feature is useful for certain applications in hybrid control systems and database applications that we have in mind. In this paper, however, we focus on the properties of constraint programs and constraint models in the simplest case where the constraints arc expressible in the language of underlying program.
Reliability after inspection

The investigation is concerned with the derivation of relationships between the probability of having manufacturing defects, the probability of detecting a flaw, and the final reliability. Equations for the simple situation in which only one flaw can be present are used to introduce the relationships in a Bayes' theorem approach to the assessment of the final reliability. Situations which are prevalent in composites manufacturing are considered. Attention is given to a case involving the random occurrence of flaws on a laminate surface.
Responding to Afghanistan's Opium economy challenge : lessons and policy implications from a development perspective

Opium, Afghanistan's leading economic activity, lies at the heart of the challenges the country faces in state building, governance, security, and development. With their narrow law enforcement focus and limited recognition of development, security, and political implications, current global counter-narcotics polices impose a heavy burden on Afghanistan. This paper first provides a summary overview of Afghanistan's opium economy and the factors determining rural households'decisions on cultivating opium poppy. It then discusses the dynamic evolution of the Afghan drug industry in recent years, in particular its consolidation around fewer, powerful, politically-connected actors and the associated compromising of parts of some government agencies by drug industry interests. The paper reviews the experience with different counter-narcotics interventions, analyzes some proposals not yet tried in Afghanistan, and draws lessons and policy implications. Unfortunately there are no"silver bullets"-easy, quick, or one-dimensional solutions, and a longer-term horizon along with sustained commitment and resources will be required in order to phase out the opium economy over time. The paper concludes by putting forward some broad principles and approaches of a"smart strategy"against drugs in Afghanistan.
Designing an efficient partitioning algorithm for grid environments with application to N-body problems

An important characteristic of distributed grids is that they allow geographically separated multicomputers to be tied together in a transparent virtual environment to solve large-scale computational problems. However, many of these applications require effective runtime load balancing for the resulting solutions to be viable. This paper compares the performance of our MinEX latency-tolerant partitioner with METIS using simulated heterogeneous grid configurations. A solver for the classical N-body problem is implemented to provide a framework for the comparisons. Experimental results show that MinEX provides superior quality partitions and is competitive to METIS in execution speed.
Synthesizing Object-Oriented and Functional Design to Promote Re-Use

Many problems require recursively specified types of data and a collection of tools that operate on those data. Over time, these problems evolve so that the programmer must extend the toolkit or extend the types and adjust the existing tools accordingly. Ideally, this should be done without modifying existing code. Unfortunately, the prevailing program design strategies do not support both forms of extensibility: functional programming accommodates the addition of tools, while object-oriented programming supports either adding new tools or extending the data set, but not both. In this paper, we present a composite design pattern that synthesizes the best of both approaches and in the process resolves the tension between the two design strategies. We also show how this protocol suggests a new set of linguistic facilities for languages that support class systems.
Mine Closure and its Impact on the Community : Five Years After Mine Closure in Romania, Russia and Ukraine

In recent years, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine have undertaken major reforms of their coal sectors, in all cases with financial support and policy advice from the World Bank and bilateral donors. While conditions varied from country to country, in general before restructuring the coal industries of these countries suffered from a number of serious problems, including: obsolete equipment and years of inefficient investments; poor sector management; inauspicious geological conditions in many basins; excessive employment, with productivity levels among the lowest in the world; wretched health and safety conditions; and acute levels of accounts payable. This report is part of a work in progress and reflects the results of research that was carried out in Romania, Russia and Ukraine with the goals of (i) assessing the impact of mine closure on communities in which large-scale downsizing of the mining workforce began at least five years ago, in 1997, (ii) evaluating the effectiveness of the mitigation policies that have been used to date, and (iii) developing policy recommendations to address the problems identified by the research. The report discusses the most significant areas of the impact of mine closure on the community: 1) Employment and Labor Migration 2) Municipal and Social Services 3) Community Cohesiveness and 4) Environment.
An Unconditionally Stable Discontinuous Galerkin Method for the Elastic Helmholtz Equations with Large Frequency

In this paper we propose and analyze an interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin (IP-DG) method using piecewise linear polynomials for the elastic Helmholtz equations with the first order absorbing boundary condition. It is proved that the sesquilinear form for the problem satisfies a generalized weak coercivity property, which immediately infers a stability estimate for the solution of the differential problem in all frequency regimes. It is also proved that the proposed IP-DG method is unconditionally stable with respect to both frequency $$\omega $$ź and mesh size h. Sub-optimal order (with respect to h) error estimates in the broken $$H^1$$H1-norm and in the $$L^2$$L2-norm are obtained in all mesh regimes. These estimate improve to optimal order when the mesh size h is restricted to the pre-asymptotic regime (i.e., $$\omega ^{\beta } h =O(1)$$źβh=O(1) for some $$1\le \beta <2$$1≤β<2). Numerical experiments are also presented to validate the theoretical results and to numerically examine the pollution effect (with respect to $$\omega $$ź) in the error bounds.
Confluent Vandermonde matrices, divided differences, and Lagrange–Hermite interpolation over quaternions

ABSTRACTWe introduce the notion of a confluent Vandermonde matrix with quaternion entries and discuss its connection with Lagrange–Hermite interpolation over quaternions. The formula for the rank of a confluent Vandermonde matrix is obtained as well as the representation formula for divided differences of quaternion polynomials. Extensions of these results to the power series setting include the formula for the rank of a confluent Cauchy matrix and norm-constrained Lagrange–Hermite interpolation by square summable power series over quaternions.
Foreign exchange rates: A multiple currency and maturity analysis

Abstract Three dollar exchange-rate series — the German mark, the British pound, and the Japanese yen — are converted to market price revisions by calculating the difference between the price for delivery at a fixed date and the preceding period's price for delivery at the same date. These price revisions are likely to meet the stationary stochastic process assumptions required for time-series modeling even if the original series are non-stationary. Using error covariance assumptions analogous to a pooled time series of cross-sections, a multivariate time-series model is fitted and tested on 168 observations out of sample. Forecasting performance is evaluated using both mean squared errors and a non-parametric test of direction.
Monitoring Delamination of Thermal Barrier Coatings During Interrupted High‐Heat‐Flux Laser Testing using Upconversion Luminescence Imaging

This presentation showed progress made in extending luminescence-base delamination monitoring to TBCs exposed to high heat fluxes, which is an environment that much better simulates actual turbine engine conditions. This was done by performing upconversion luminescence imaging during interruptions in laser testing, where a high-power CO2 laser was employed to create the desired heat flux. Upconverison luminescence refers to luminescence where the emission is at a higher energy (shorter wavelength) than the excitation. Since there will be negligible background emission at higher energies than the excitation, this methods produces superb contrast. Delamination contrast is produced because both the excitation and emission wavelengths are reflected at delamination cracks so that substantially higher luminescence intensity is observed in regions containing delamination cracks. Erbium was selected as the dopant for luminescence specifically because it exhibits upconversion luminescence. The high power CO2 10.6 micron wavelength laser facility at NASA GRC was used to produce the heat flux in combination with forced air backside cooling. Testing was performed at a lower (95 W/sq cm) and higher (125 W/sq cm) heat flux as well as furnace cycling at 1163C for comparison. The lower heat flux showed the same general behavior as furnace cycling, a gradual, "spotty" increase in luminescence associated with debond progression; however, a significant difference was a pronounced incubation period followed by acceleration delamination progression. These results indicate that extrapolating behavior from furnace cycling measurements will grossly overestimate remaining life under high heat flux conditions. The higher heat flux results were not only accelerated, but much different in character. Extreme bond coat rumpling occurred, and delamination propagation extended over much larger areas before precipitating macroscopic TBC failure. This indicates that under the higher heat flux (and surface & interface temperatures), the TBC was more tolerant of damage. The main conclusions were that high heat flux conditions can not only accelerate TBC debond progression but can also grossly alter the pathway of delamination.
Using Asynchronous Video to Achieve Instructor Immediacy and Closeness in Online Classes: Experiences from Three Cases

this research sought to understand the experiences of students and instructors with asynchronous video (video-mail) using webcams in three online sections of teacher education classes at Brigham Young University. We examined the experiences of students through scores and comments posted in student ratings surveys, and the experiences of instructors through personal reports. these experiences were evaluated in terms of the observed existence of instructor immediacy and of closeness. immediacy is defined in this study as the verbal and non-verbal signals normally achieved in face-toface communications between instructor and students that can help establish a close and trusting relationship whereby students know their instructor and feel that they are known, where students seek support, where feedback is personal and meaningful, where students have a sense of well being, and where student motivation is positively impacted.
CZT imaging detectors for ProtoEXIST

We describe the detector development for a balloon-borne wide-field hard X-ray (20-600 keV) telescope, ProtoEXIST . ProtoEXIST is a pathfinder for both technology and science of the proposed implementation of the Black Hole Finder Probe, Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey telescope (EXIST). The principal technology challenge is the development of large area, close-tiled modules of imaging CZT detectors (1000 cm 2 for ProtoEXIST1 ). We review the updates of the detector design and package concept for ProtoEXIST1 and report the current development status of the CZT detectors, using calibration results of our basic detector unit - 2 x 2 x 0.5 cm CZT crystals with 2.5 mm pixels (8 x 8 array). The current prototype (Rev1) of our detector crystal unit (DCU) shows ~4.5 keV electronics noise (FWHM), and the radiation measurements show the energy resolution (FWHM) of the units is 4.7 keV (7.9%) at 59.5 keV, 5.6 keV (4.6%) at 122 keV, and 7.6 keV (2.1%) at 356 keV. The new (Rev2) DCU with revised design is expected to improve the resolution by ~30%.
Ethynyl ortho esters as precursors of propargyl cations: The low-temperature, ionic diels-alder addition of ethyl propiolate to 1,3-dienes via ethynyl ortho esters

Abstract 3,3,3-Triethoxypropyne (triethyl orthopropiolate) was added to a series of 1,3-dienes at low temperature in the presence of trimethylsilyl inflate to yield the 4π + 2π products of the formal addition of ethyl propiolate to the 1,3-dienes.
Connecting in online technical communication courses: Addressing usability challenge for students and faculty members

In designing and offering online technical communication courses, faculty members face many challenges, including attempting to assure the usability of the interface for students. This article addresses five of these challenges and provides options for faculty members to begin to address these challenges.
Local sources of financing for infrastructure in Africa : a cross-country analysis

With the exception of South Africa, local financial markets in sub-Saharan Africa remain underdeveloped and small, with a particular dearth of financing with maturity terms commensurate with the medium- to long-term horizons of infrastructure projects. But as financial market reforms gather momentum, there is growing awareness of the need to tap local and regional sources. Drawing on a comprehensive new database constructed for the purpose of this research, the paper assesses the actual and potential role of local financial systems for 24 African countries in financing infrastructure. The paper concludes that further development and more appropriate regulation of local institutional investors would help them realize their potential as financing sources, for which they are better suited than local banks because their liabilities would better match the longer terms of infrastructure projects. There are clear signs of positive change: private pension providers are emerging in Africa, there is a shift from defined benefit toward defined contribution plans, and African institutional investors have begun taking a more diversified portfolio approach in asset allocation. Although capital markets remain underdeveloped, new issuers in infrastructure sectors-particularly of corporate bonds-are coming to market in several countries, in some cases constituting the debut issue. More than half of the corporate bonds listed at end-2006 on these countries' markets were by companies in infrastructure sectors. More cross-border listings and investment within the region-in both corporate bonds and equity issues-including by local institutional investors, could help overcome local capital markets' impediments and may hold significant promise for financing cross-country infrastructure projects.
Is cost recovery a feasible objective for water and electricity ? The Latin American experience

Given the relatively small segment of the population that faces genuine affordability problems in Latin America, there appears to be a promising case for using targeted subsidies to reconcile the cost recovery objective with social protection concerns. Social tariff schemes of various kinds are already widespread in Latin America, but they suffer from a number of design flaws. Increasing block tariff (IBT) structures are the most prevalent form of social tariffs in the region. These are likely to be more successful in the electricity sector than in the water sector because the correlation between consumption and income is much stronger in the case of electricity than water. Moreover, IBT structures in electricity tend to be much better designed than in the case of water, with lower fixed charges, lower subsistence blocks, and steeper gradients. A number of more sophisticated social tariff schemes are also being applied that combine consumption criteria with some form of socioeconomic screening. These are generally found to perform better than IBTs, although they also present significant room for improvement.
Towards Single Face Shortest Vertex-Disjoint Paths in Undirected Planar Graphs

Given k pairs of terminals {(s1, t1), …, (s k , t k )} in a graph G, the min-sum k vertex-disjoint paths problem is to find a collection {Q1, Q2, …, Q k } of vertex-disjoint paths with minimum total length, where Q i is an s i -to-t i path between s i and t i . We consider the problem in planar graphs, where little is known about computational tractability, even in restricted cases. Kobayashi and Sommer propose a polynomial-time algorithm for k ≤ 3 in undirected planar graphs assuming all terminals are adjacent to at most two faces. Colin de Verdiere and Schrijver give a polynomial-time algorithm when all the sources are on the boundary of one face and all the sinks are on the boundary of another face and ask about the existence of a polynomial-time algorithm provided all terminals are on a common face.
Receive side coalescing for accelerating TCP/IP processing

With rapid advancements in Ethernet technology, Ethernet speeds have increased by 10 fold, from 1 to 10Gbps, in a period of 2-3 years. This sudden increase in speeds has outpaced the rate at which processor and memory speeds have been increasing, raising concerns that TCP/IP processing will not scale to these levels. As a result, applications running on commercial servers will not be able to take advantage of the increased Ethernet bandwidth. This has led to a flurry of activity in the industry and academia focused on finding ways to scale up TCP/IP processing to 10Gbps and beyond. In this paper, we propose a novel technique called "Receive Side Coalescing" (RSC) that increases TCP/IP processing efficiencies significantly. RSC allows NICs to identify packets that belong to same TCP/IP flow and coalesce them into a single large packet. As a result, TCP/IP stack has to process fewer packets reducing per packet processing costs. NIC can do this coalescing of packets during interrupt moderation time hence packet latency is not affected. We have collected packet traces and analyzed those to find out how much coalescing is possible in different scenarios. Our analysis shows that about 50% reduction in number of packets is possible. We have prototyped RSC on Windows and Linux to understand the benefits, and the results show that 2-7% of savings in CPU utilization is possible at 1Gbps speeds. Projection models developed to estimate processing costs at 10Gbps show that RSC can save up to 20% of the CPU.
Optimal attorney advertising

Abstract Attorney advertising routinely targets tort victims. This paper reviews legal services advertising restrictions in the United States and abroad. A theoretical model is developed which incorporates advertising intensity, litigation costs, and an endogenous number of lawsuits. Since advertising induces victims to bring suit, it increases the level of injurer care. However, litigation costs are also incurred. At the optimum, the marginal benefit of deterrence equals the sum of marginal litigation and advertising costs. Extensions of the model are considered, including the possibility that advertising stirs up frivolous lawsuits and that firms use advertising to rent seek. Fee shifting and alternative fee structures are also discussed. Although blanket prohibitions on attorney advertising are likely suboptimal, some regulations may be justified.
Aqueous electrochemistry of tellurium at glassy carbon and gold: A combined voltammetry-oscillating quartz crystal microgravimetry study

The electrochemistry of tellurium was studied in an aqueous H2SO4 matrix using glassy carbon and Au working electrodes. Cyclic voltammetry was used in conjunction with oscillating quartz crystal microgravimetry to delineate features in the voltammograms accompanied by mass loss or gain at the electrode surface, from those attributable to the solution phase. The voltammetry profiles for Te showed a remarkable degree of sensitivity to the electrode surface. Thus, a set of waves attributable to the direct 6 e− reduction of HTeO2+ to H2Te, and a cathodic pre-wave associated with the catalytic deposition of Te0, were noted at the Au surface. These features were conspicuously absent at the glassy carbon surface. On the other hand, the 2 e− reduction of Te0 to H2Te manifested in a similar fashion at the two electrode surfaces. Evidence for follow-up homogeneous reaction chemistry involving HTeO2+ and H2Te is presented. Using a combination of the voltammetry and microgravimetry data, an internally consistent mechanistic scheme is presented for Te aqueous electrochemistry, and discussed within the framework of previous work at other electrode surfaces including Pt.
Photothermal Analysis of Thin Films

Exposure of a sample to any form of radiation causes local heating via absorption and subsequent thermalization of energy. If the incident radiation is modulated or pulsed a transient heat source is generated in the sample. Thermal waves and, due to thermal expansion, acoustic waves are launched into the sample under study and interact with the sample before being detected by one of the numerous detection schemes available nowadays. By changing the incident wavelength, spectra of the sample can he recorded readily. Scanning of the excitation across the sample allows mapping of optical, thermal and acoustical properties of the sample under investigation. Any type of radiation can be utilized for the excitation of these phenomena. When using electromagnetic radiation, lasers are the preferred light source since they provide convenient access to an energy source of high spectral resolution, power, and, in the case of time resolved experiments, well-characterized pulse shape. In addition, lasers with their parallel beam facilitate the focusing of the energy into a small area. Other sources of energy that can he advantageous are particle beams, such as electron or ion beams.
Technical and Scale Efficiencies for Chinese Rural Credit Cooperatives: A Bootstrapping Approach in Data Envelopment Analysis

Chinese rural credit cooperatives (RCCs) are a major supplier of credit to the rural sector in China. However, Chinese RCCs are currently encountering operating problems, and experimental reform is occurring to restructure the RCCs. In order to have some idea about the efficacy of reform, it is important to have an understanding of the institutional economics underlying the delivery of rural credit in China. This paper evaluates pure technical efficiency, overall technical efficiency, and scale efficiencies for RCCs in China using non-parametric techniques. The use of a bootstrap algorithm allows for inference on efficiency measures.
Good Intentions Are Not Enough: Four Recommendations for Implementing the Trafficking Victims Protection Act

In the year 2000, Congress proudly signed into law the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), with one goal in mindprotecting victims of human trafficking by working to eliminate human trafficking in the United Stated and around the world. Fully eight years after the passage of the TVPA, while the law itself has the potential to be quite effective, it remains to be effectively implemented. Put simply, human trafficking appears to be increasing as traffickers discover how lucrative and easy it is to enslave another human being, and while prosecutions of traffickers in human beings have increased, that slim risk of punishment has not been enough to make a dent in the phenomenon, touted in the media as modern day slavery.
Financial inclusion in Africa : an overview

This paper summarizes financial inclusion across Africa. First, it provides a brief overview of the African financial sector landscape. Second, it uses the Global Financial Inclusion Indicators (Global Findex) database to characterize adults in Africa that use formal and informal financial services and identify the barriers to formal account ownership. Next, it uses World Bank Enterprise Survey data to examine how the use of financial services by small and medium enterprises in Africa compares with small and medium enterprises in other developing regions in terms of account ownership and availability of lines of credit. The authors find that less than a quarter of adults in Africa have an account with a formal financial institution and that many adults in Africa use informal methods to save and borrow. Similarly, the majority of small and medium enterprises in Africa are unbanked and access to finance is a major obstacle. Compared with other developing economies, high-growth small and medium enterprises in Africa are less likely to use formal financing, which suggests formal financial systems are not serving the needs of enterprises with growth opportunities.
Data and Safety Monitoring

We consider the role of a Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) in overseeing the conduct of a randomized clinical trial. This includes insuring both the scientific integrity of the study and patient safety, monitoring the occurrence of adverse events and assessing efficacy. Formal stopping rules are particularly useful in clinical trials for monitoring efficacy, with a view towards terminating the trial early if the evidence for or against efficacy becomes overwhelming prior to the scheduled completion of the trial. The most commonly used approaches in formal stopping rules are discussed in some detail. These include the Pocock and O'Brien–Fleming boundaries and the spending function approach developed by Lan and DeMets. Discussion of stochastic curtailment, point and interval estimation associated with early termination, multiple endpoints, and a brief overview of decision theoretic methods (including Bayesian methods) is provided. Keywords: DSMB ; clinical trials; group sequential; spending function
Chapter 2 – Structural and Energetic Basis of Molecular Recognition

Publisher Summary Any binding process requires that the associating molecules prefer to interact with each other rather than the alternative, in which the individual binding interfaces interact with the solvent in which they are found. The forces that drive binding are reasonably well understood in a qualitative sense, although the accurate prediction of binding free energies or the structures of the interacting subunits remains unsolved. This chapter briefly reviews the physical–chemical principles of binding and summarizes the analysis of the three-dimensional structures of interacting molecules and their complexes. The interaction of proteins with membrane surfaces provides an example of how different combinations of hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions are combined to achieve various specificities. Theoretical calculations of electrostatic interactions can account quantitatively for many of the observed binding properties of peripheral membrane proteins. Given the knowledge of the structures of the isolated monomers, it would be extremely useful to be able to predict the structure of the complex they form. Although the accurate prediction of binding free energies remains an unsolved problem, the current level of understanding of molecular recognition is such that computational methods can be extremely useful in the design and interpretation of experimental results. Moreover, the use of bioinformatics tools can significantly expand the range of problems that can be addressed.
Does Service Offshoring Lead to Job Losses? Evidence from the United States

Does sourcing service inputs from overseas suppliers lead to less employment at home? This paper estimates the eects of oshoring on employment in U.S. manufac- turing industries between 1992 and 2000. It …nds that service oshoring has a small negative eect of less than half a percent on employment when industries are …nely disaggregated (450 manufacturing industries). However, this aect disappears at more aggregate industry level of 96 industries indicating that there is su¢ cient growth in demand in other industries within these broadly de…ned classi…cations to oset any negative eects. Thus, there is no net job losses from service oshoring.
Gaps in bounded query hierarchies

Prior results show that most bounded query hierarchies cannot contain finite gaps. For example, it is known that P/sub (m+1)-tt//sup SAT/=P/sub m-tt//sup SAT//spl rArr/P/sub btt//sup SAT/=P/sub m-tt//sup SAT/ and for all sets A/spl middot/FP/sub (m=1)-tt//sup A/=FP/sub m-tt//sup A//spl rArr/FP/sub btt//sup A/=FP/sub m-tt//sup A//spl middot/P/sub (m+1)-T//sup A/=P/sub m-T//sup A/=P/sub bT//sup A//spl middot/FP/sub (m+1)-T//sup A/=FP/sub m-T//sup A//spl rArr/FP/sub bT//sup A/=FP/sub m-T//sup A/ where P/sub m-tt//sup A/ is the set of languages computable by polynomial-time Turing machines that make m nonadaptive queries to A; P/sub btt//sup A/=/spl cup//sub m/P/sub m-tt//sup A/, P/sub m-t//sup A/ and P/sub bT//sup A/ are the analogous adaptive queries classes; and FP/sub m-tt//sup A/, FP/sub btt//sup A/, FP/sub m-T//sup A/, and FP/sub bT//sup A/ in turn are the analogous function classes. It was widely expected that these general results would extend to the remaining case-languages computed with nonadaptive queries-yet results remained elusive. The best known was that P/sub 2m-tt//sup A/=P/sub m-tt//sup A//spl rArr/P/sub btt//sup A/=P/sub m-tt//sup A/. We disprove the conjecture, in fact, P/sub [4/3m]-tt//sup A/=P/sub m-tt//sup A/not/spl rArr/P/sub ([4/3m]+1)-tt/=P/sub [4/3m]-tt//sup A/. Thus there is a P/sub m-tt//sup A/ hierarchy that contains a finite gap. We also make progress on the 3-tt vs. 2-tt case: P/sub 3-tt//sup A/=P/sub 2-tt//sup A//spl rArr/P/sub btt//sup A//spl sube/P/sub 2-tt//sup A//poly.
Measures invariant under the geodesic flow and their projections

Let S n be the n-sphere of constant positive curvature. For n > 2, we will show that a measure on the unit tangent bundle of S 2n , which is even and invariant under the geodesic flow, is not uniquely determined by its projection to S 2n .
Tracking point of view in narrative

Third-person fictional narrative text is composed not only of passages that objectively narrate events, but also of passages that present characters' thoughts, perceptions, and inner states. Such passages take a character's psychological point of view. A language understander must determine the current psychological point of view in order to distinguish the beliefs of the characters from the facts of the story, to correctly attribute beliefs and other attitudes to their sources, and to understand the discourse relations among sentences. Tracking the psychological point of view is not a trivial problem, because many sentences are not explicitly marked for point of view, and whether the point of view of a sentence is objective or that of a character (and if the latter, which character it is) often depends on the context in which the sentence appears. Tracking the psychological point of view is the problem addressed in this work. The approach is to seek, by extensive examinations of naturally occurring narrative, regularities in the ways that authors manipulate point of view, and to develop an algorithm that tracks point of view on the basis of the regularities found. This paper presents this algorithm, gives demonstrations of an implemented system, and describes the results of some preliminary empirical studies, which lend support to the algorithm.
Generating all finite modular lattices of a given size

Modular lattices, introduced by R. Dedekind, are an important subvariety of lattices that includes all distributive lattices. Heitzig and Reinhold [8] developed an algorithm to enumerate, up to isomorphism, all finite lattices up to size 18. Here we adapt and improve this algorithm to construct and count modular lattices up to size 24, semimodular lattices up to size 22, and lattices of size 19. We also show that 2 n−3 is a lower bound for the number of nonisomorphic modular lattices of size n.
On the CNOT-cost of TOFFOLI gates

The three-input TOFFOLI gate is the workhorse of circuit synthesis for classical logic oper-ations on quantum data, e.g., reversible arithmetic circuits. In physical implementations,however, TOFFOLI gates are decomposed into six CNOT gates and several one-qubit gates.Though this decomposition has been known for at least 10 years, we provide here thefirst demonstration of its CNOT-optimality. We study three-qubit circuits which containless than six CNOT gates and implement a block-diagonal operator, then show that theyimplicitly describe the cosine-sine decomposition of a related operator. Leveraging thecanonical nature of such decompositions to limit one-qubit gates appearing in respectivecircuits, we prove that the n-qubit analogue of the TOFFOLI requires at least 2n CNOTgates. Additionally, our results offer a complete classification of three-qubit diagonaloperators by their CNOT-cost, which holds even if ancilla qubits are available.
Optical Propagation and Image Formation Through the Turbulent Atmosphere

In contrast with steady flows, also called “laminar flows”, turbulent flows have a random velocity field. In pipes, the transition from laminar to turbulent flows occurs when a dimensionless number, called the Reynolds number, exceeds some value which depends only upon the geometry of the flow. The Reynolds number is defined as ūL/v where ū is the mean flow speed, L is the transverse size of the pipe, and v is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid. This result still applies to the atmosphere if L is taken as some characteristic size of the flow. Large scale flows such as those occuring in the Earth’s atmosphere are easily turbulent.
Fractal dynamics of earthquakes

Many objects in nature, from mountain landscapes to electrical breakdown and turbulence, have a self-similar fractal spatial structure (Mandelbrot, 1982). This is by no means a trivial observation, since it implies that systems are correlated over large distances. Much effort has been put into computer simulation and characterization of these objects. However the empirical geometrical observation and characterization do not by themselves serve as a physical explanation. It seems obvious that to understand the origin of self-similar structures, we must understand the nature of the dynamical processes that created them: Temporal and spatial properties must necessarily be completely interwoven.
Three-dimensional modelling and geothermal process simulation

The subsurface geological model or 3-D GIS is constructed from three kinds of objects, which are a lithotope (in boundary representation), a number of fault systems, and volumetric textures (vector fields). The chief task of the model is to yield an estimate of the conductance tensors (fluid permeability and thermal conductivity) throughout an array of voxels. This is input as material properties to a FEHM numerical physical process model.
Low field magnets with high temperature superconductors for an upgrade of CESR

An upgrade to the CESR electron-positron storage ring is being considered in which the single ring machine is replaced with two rings capable of storing high currents to provide high luminosity symmetric electron-positron collisions. This paper considers the implementation of the two rings using dual bore quadrupoles fabricated with high temperature superconductors (HTS). The use of HTS provides the required high current density needed to achieve the small (81 mm) inter-beam spacing, with a simpler and more efficient cryogenic system than would be required with conventional low-temperature superconductors. Concepts for the quadrupole magnetic and cryostat design are discussed. A concept for dipole magnets using Nb/sub 3/Sn, integrated with a warm beam tube vacuum system, is also discussed.
Quantum theory in the rigged hilbert space — Irreversibility from causality

After a review of the arrows of time, we describe the possibilities of a time-asymmetry in quantum theory. Whereas Hilbert space quantum mechanics is time-symmetric, the rigged Hilbert space formulation, which arose from Dirac’s braket formalism, allows the choice of asymmetric boundary conditions analogous to the retarded solutions of the Maxwell equations for the radiation arrow of time. This led to irreversibility on the microphysical level as exemplified by decaying states or resonances. Resonances are mathematically represented by Gamow kets, functionals over a space of very well-behaved (Hardy class) vectors, which have been chosen by a boundary condition (outgoing for decaying states). Gamow states have all the properties that one heuristically needs for quasistable states. For them a Golden Rule can be derived from the fundamental probabilities P(t)=Tr(Λ(t)WGamow (t0)) that fulfills the time-asymmetry condition t≥t 0 which could not be realized in the Hilbert space.
Trellis coding for diagonally layered space-time systems

Foschini's (1996) diagonally layered space-time transmission system known as D-BLAST is an advanced architecture designed for a Rayleigh fading environment using multiple element antenna arrays at both the transmit and receive sites to achieve very high spectral efficiencies. In this paper we examine the performance of trellis codes that are designed to have a distance structure that is matched to the periodic signal-to-noise ratio variation of the channel created by D-BLAST, under the assumption that the channel is static during one burst but may change from burst to burst. We show that trellis coding comes within 2 dB of the best theoretical outage curve possible with D-BLAST.
Laser Damage Database at 1064 nm

In conjunction with our diversification of laser damage testing capabilities (see "Expanded Damage Test Facilities at LLNL" this conference), we have expanded upon a database of threshold measurements and parameter variations at 1064 nm. This includes all tests at low pulse-repetition frequencies (PRF) ranging from single shots to 120 Hz. These tests were conducted on the Reptile laser facility since 1987 and the Variable Pulse Laser (VPL) facility since 1988. Pulse durations ranged from 1 to 16 ns. The table below summa- rizes the test data scaled to 10-ns pulses.
The Digestibility and Utilization of Egg Proteins

Raw egg-white is found to be a decidedly indigestible substance. It may cause diarrhea in dogs, rats, rabbits and men when ingested in any large quantity. Its utilization by the body is poor since ...
Trust, assocational life, and economic performance

Assuming that J. S. Mill and others are correct in their belief that trust matters for the economic performance of nations, the determinants of trust become important. Section 2 discusses the sources of trust and briefly summarizes empirical evidence. Section 3 builds on Fukuyama’s concept of the “radius of trust” to identify the type of trust which should be advantageous to national economic performance. Section 4 addresses measurement issues. Evidence on trust and economic performance relies heavily on the use of a single survey indicator of trust: in light of the potential for translation problems and other sources of measurement error, can this indicator be trusted? Section 5 presents empirical evidence on trust and economic performance, for a 25-nation OECD sample and for a larger 40-country sample. Section 6 presents evidence on the relationship between associational life and economic performance, testing the conflicting theoretical perspectives of Putnam (1993) and Olson (1982). Section 7 briefly concludes.
A synchronous paradigm for modeling stable reactive systems

This paper describes a modeling technique for single-agent reactive systems, that is influenced by the modeling paradigm of Parnas as well as by the synchronous paradigms of LUSTRE and ESTEREL. In this paradigm, single-agent reactive systems are modeled in a universe having a discrete clock. This discretization of time greatly reduces the temporal complexity of the model. We believe that the advantage of this reduction in temporal complexity is that the resulting model is in many ways better suited to automated software construction and analysis techniques (e.g., deductive synthesis, transformation, and verification) than models that are based on continuous representations of time.