cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The complexity of certain Specht modules for the symmetric group

During the 2004–2005 academic year the VIGRE Algebra Research Group at the University of Georgia (UGA VIGRE) computed the complexities of certain Specht modules Sλ for the symmetric group Σd, using the computer algebra program Magma. The complexity of an indecomposable module does not exceed the p-rank of the defect group of its block. The UGA VIGRE Algebra Group conjectured that, generically, the complexity of a Specht module attains this maximal value; that it is smaller precisely when the Young diagram of λ is built out of p×p blocks. We prove one direction of this conjecture by showing these Specht modules do indeed have less than maximal complexity. It turns out that this class of partitions, which has not previously appeared in the literature, arises naturally as the solution to a question about the p-weight of partitions and branching.
Are the poor protected from budget cuts? theory and evidence for Argentina

Time-series data for Argentina suggest that action to support propoor social spending is warranted at times of fiscal contraction. Social spending in general - and social spending targeted to the poor in particular - took a heavy hit at times of fiscal austerity. Adjustment programs often emphasize protecting social spending - especially propoor spending - from cuts. Yet the incidence of fiscal contraction - and hence the case for action to protect public spending on the poor at a time of overall fiscal austerity - is an empirical question, which Ravallion addresses using data from Argentina. Aggregate budget cuts in Argentina in the 1980s and 1990s typically brought proportionately greater cuts in social spending. Nonsocial spending was protected. But proportionate cuts for types of social spending that matter more to the poor were about the same as the cuts for those that tend to favor the nonpoor. Absolute cuts were in fact greater for social insurance that matters more to the nonpoor. But spending on targeted social assistance and employment programs was more vulnerable to aggregate spending cuts than were more universal social services. Social spending was clearly exposed to fiscal contraction, but this was somewhat less true of propoor spending on things that also benefited the nonpoor. So fine targeting may be a mixed blessing for the poor, bringing greater vulnerability to cuts, possibly when help is most needed. There is a strong case for action to protect propoor social spending at such times. An externally financed workfare scheme in Argentina was far better targeted than other social spending but still had to ensure that a small but relatively well-protected share of the benefits went to the nonpoor. The program was clearly subject to the same political economy constraints that influenced the incidence of past fiscal contractions in Argentina. The program expanded into poor areas when the budget increased but retreated from poor areas when the program was cut. It was the program's disbursements to nonpoor areas that were protected. Still, given the low wage rate offered, the direct benefits from the program were still likely to have favored the poor, even after the cuts. This paper - a product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to better understand the incidence of social spending. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project Policies for Poor Areas (RPO 681-39). The author may be contacted at mravallion@worldbank.org.
THE NEAREST MILLISECOND PULSAR REVISITED WITH XMM-NEWTON: IMPROVED MASS-RADIUS CONSTRAINTS FOR PSR J0437-4715

I present an analysis of the deepest X-ray exposure of a radio millisecond pulsar (MSP) to date, an X-ray Multi Mirror-Newton European Photon Imaging Camera spectroscopic and timing observation of the nearest known MSP, PSR J0437–4715. The timing data clearly reveal a secondary broad Xray pulse offset from the main pulse by �0.55 in rotational phase. In the context of a model of surface thermal emission from the hot polar caps of the neutron star, this can be plausibly explained by a magnetic dipole field that is significantly displaced from the stellar center. Such an offset, if commonplace in MSPs, has important implications for studies of the pulsar population, high energy pulsed emission, and the pulsar contribution to cosmic ray positrons. The continuum emission shows evidence for at least three thermal components, with the hottest radiation most likely originating from the hot magnetic polar caps and the cooler emission from the bulk of the surface. I present pulse phase-resolved X-ray spectroscopy of PSR J0437–4715, which for the first time, properly accounts for the system geometry of a radio pulsar. Such an approach is essential for unbiased measurements of the temperatures and emission areas of polar cap radiation from pulsars. Detailed modelling of the thermal pulses, including relativistic and atmospheric effects, provides a constraint on the redshift-corrected neutron star radius of R > 11.1 km (at 3� conf.) for the current radio timing mass measurement of 1.76 M⊙. This limit favors “stiff” equations of state.
Computer-aided navigation for arthroscopic hip surgery using encoder linkages for position tracking.

Background While arthroscopic surgery has many advantages over traditional surgery, this minimally invasive technique is not often applied to the hip joint. Two main reasons for this are the complexity of navigating within the joint and the difficulty of correctly placing portal incisions without damaging critical neurovascular structures. This paper proposes a computer-aided navigation system to address the challenges of arthroscopic hip surgery. Methods Unlike conventional arthroscopic methods, our system uses a hyper-redundant encoder linkage to track surgical instruments, thus eliminating the occlusion and distortion problems associated with standard optical and electromagnetic tracking systems. The encoder linkage position information is used to generate a computer display of patient anatomy. Results The tracking error from the encoder linkage was evaluated to be within an acceptable range for this tracking prototype, and the new computer-aided approach to arthroscopic hip surgery was applied to a prototype system for concept verification. Conclusion This navigation system for arthroscopic hip surgery can be used as a tool to address the challenges of joint navigation and portal placement in arthroscopic hip surgery by visually supplementing the limiting view from the arthroscope. The introduction of a tracking linkage shows significant potential as an alternative to other tracking systems. Positive feedback about the completed demo system was obtained from surgeons who perform arthroscopic proceduces. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Congruences for Andrews’ spt-Function Modulo 32760 and Extension of Atkin’s Hecke-Type Partition Congruences

New congruences are found for Andrews’ smallest parts partition function spt(n). The generating function for spt(n) is related to the holomorphic part α(24z) of a certain weak Maass form \(\mathcal{M}(z)\) of weight \(\tfrac{3} {2}\). We show that a normalized form of the generating function for spt(n) is an eigenform modulo 72 for the Hecke operators T(l 2) for primes l > 3 and an eigenform modulo p for p = 5, 7, or 13 provided that (l, 6p) = 1. The result for the modulus 3 was observed earlier by the author and considered by Ono and Folsom. Similar congruences for higher powers of p (namely 56, 74, and 132) occur for the coefficients of the function α(z). Analogous results for the partition function were found by Atkin in 1966. Our results depend on the recent result of Ono that \(\mathcal{M}_{\ell}(z/24)\) is a weakly holomorphic modular form of weight \(\tfrac{3} {2}\) for the full modular group where $$\displaystyle{\mathcal{M}_{\ell}(z) = \mathcal{M}(z)\vert T{(\ell}^{2}) -{ 3\overwithdelims() \ell} (1+\ell)\mathcal{M}(z).}$$
Mild Copper-Catalyzed Fluorination of Alkyl Triflates with Potassium Fluoride†

A chemoselective catalytic fluorination of alkyl triflates is described using potassium fluoride as a fluoride source. Excellent yields of the desired alkyl fluorides are obtained after one hour at 45 °C using 2 mol % of the copper catalyst. With 10 mol % of the catalyst, full conversion can be achieved in less than 10 minutes at 45 °C, and thus makes this procedure potentially suited for the preparation of 18F-labeled PET probes. As a result of the mild reaction conditions, only the substitution products are observed with no evidence of common side reactions, such as elimination. Reported is a preliminary study of the reaction scope, which demonstrates that the fluorination can be performed in the presence of a wide range of functional groups. Evidence suggests an unusual role of the [IPrCuOTf] catalyst as a phase-transfer catalyst and points to [IPrCuF] as the active fluorinating reagent (IPr=1,3-bis(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)imidazol-2-ylidene).
Dynamics of Wet Oxidation of High-Al-Content III-V Materials

Oxidation of layers of high-Al-content III-V materials by water vapor has become the enabling process for high-efficiency vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELS) and has potential applications for reducing substrate current leakage in GaAs-on-insulator (GOI) MESFETS. Because of the established importance of wet oxidation in optoelectronic devices and its potential applications in electronic devices, it has become increasingly important to understand the mechanism of wet oxidation and how it might be expected to affect both the fabrication and subsequent operation of devices that have been made using this technique. The mechanism of wet oxidation and the consequence of this mechanism for heterostructure design and ultimate device operation are discussed here.
Multiresolution diffusion entropy analysis of time series: an application to births to teenagers in Texas

Abstract The multiresolution diffusion entropy analysis is used to evaluate the stochastic information left in a time series after systematic removal of certain non-stationarities. This method allows us to establish whether the identified patterns are sufficient to capture all relevant information contained in a time series. If they do not, the method suggests the need for further interpretation to explain the residual memory in the signal. We apply the multiresolution diffusion entropy analysis to the daily count of births to teens in Texas from 1964 through 2000 because it is a typical example of a non-stationary time series, having an anomalous trend, an annual variation, as well as short time fluctuations. The analysis is repeated for the three main racial/ethnic groups in Texas (White, Hispanic and African American), as well as, to married and unmarried teens during the years from 1994 to 2000 and we study the differences that emerge among the groups.
International Supply Response

Abstract Long-run aggregate agricultural supply elasticities obtained from conventional supply functions fitted to time series data tend to be relatively inelastic in the range of 0.1 to 0.4. I argue that these estimates substantially understate the true long-run supply response in agriculture. Because of the lack of international input price data, implicit output/input price ratios are estimated from a production function assuming profit maximization. The estimation of an aggregate supply function utilizing these price ratios yields long run aggregate supply elasticities in the range of 0.90 to 1.19. These figures are substantially larger than those obtained from conventional supply functions fitted to time series data, but correspond closely to estimates reported in an earlier cross-country study that used different price data for different points in time. The results imply that policies which distort domestic and/ or world market prices of agricultural products cause greater output distortions in both the DCs and LDCs than are predicted by the small supply elasticities obtained from conventional supply estimation.
Products of Farey graphs are totally geodesic in the pants graph

We show that for a surface Σ, the subgraph of the pants graph determined by fixing a collection of curves that cut Σ into pairs of pants, once-punctured tori, and four-times-punctured spheres is totally geodesic. The main theorem resolves a special case of a conjecture made in [2] and has the implication that an embedded product of Farey graphs in any pants graph is totally geodesic. In addition, we show that a pants graph contains a convex n-flat if and only if it contains an n-quasi-flat.
Inorganic semiconductors for flexible electronics

This article reviews several classes of inorganic semiconductor materials that can be used to form high-performance thin-film transistors (TFTs) for large area, flexible electronics. Examples ranging from thin films of various forms of silicon to nanoparticles and nanowires of compound semiconductors are presented, with an emphasis on methods of depositing and integrating thin films of these materials into devices. Performance characteristics, including both electrical and mechanical behavior, for isolated transistors as well as circuits with various levels of complexity are reviewed. Collectively, the results suggest that flexible or printable inorganic materials may be attractive for a range of applications not only in flexible but also in large-area electronics, from existing devices such as flat-panel displays to more challenging (in terms of both cost and performance requirements) systems such as large area radiofrequency communication devices, structural health monitors, and conformal X-ray imagers.
Effect of space charge forces on particle tracking and generation of high order maps

TOPKARK is a beam optics program consisting of two Fortran codes developed in parallel: a 3-D high-order mapping code and a particle tracking code; both utilize a space charge model which treats the particle bunch as a uniformly-filled 3-D ellipsoid. The map code uses the differential algebra library DA to generate an arbitrary-order Taylor map describing a given lattice, then the Lie algebra library LIELIB is used to obtain the Dragt-Finn factorization of the corresponding Lie polynomial. The Lie polynomial generated by TOPKARK without space charge has been successfully bench-marked through third order against MARYLIE 3.0 and through fifth order against TLIE. With space charge on, TOPKARK generates a linear map that agrees well with TRACE 3-D. The tracking code uses a symplectic integration scheme when space charge is off, and it includes a more general space charge model which assumes only ellipsoidal symmetry of the spatial distribution. >
Parameter Identification of Compressor Dynamics During Closed-Loop Operation

A low-speed axial research compressor has been fitted with movable inlet guide vanes to allow for feedback stabilization of rotating stall. A model exists whose structure captures the input-outpout behavior, and stabilization of rotating stall is possible using this model. Quantitative identification of the parameters in the rotating stall model requires the ability to identify MIMO dynamics, which may by unstable, during closed loop operation. The instrumental variable techninque is presented as the basic approach to this problem
A Byzantine Fault Tolerant Distributed Commit Protocol

In this paper, we present a Byzantine fault tolerant distributed commit protocol for transactions running over un- trusted networks. The traditional two-phase commit protocol is enhanced by replicating the coordinator and by running a Byzantine agreement algorithm among the coordinator replicas. Our protocol can tolerate Byzantine faults at the coordinator replicas and a subset of malicious faults at the participants. A decision certificate, which includes a set of registration records and a set of votes from participants, is used to facilitate the coordinator replicas to reach a Byzantine agreement on the outcome of each transaction. The certificate also limits the ways a faulty replica can use towards non-atomic termination of transactions, or semantically incorrect transaction outcomes.
Numerical solution of the hypersonic viscous shock-layer equations

Laminar flow past axisymmetric blunt bodies moving at hypersonic speeds is considered on the basis of a set of equations which govern the fully viscous shock layer for moderate to high Reynolds numbers. The shock-layer equations are derived by writing the full Navier-Stokes equations in boundary-layer coordinates and performing an order of magnitude analysis on the terms in the equations. Terms are kept up to second order in the inverse square root of the Reynolds number from both a viscous and an inviscid viewpoint, so that the simplified governing equations are uniformly valid to moderately low Reynolds numbers. To the order of the approximations involved the body surface conditions are given by slip and temperature jump conditions while a set of shock slip conditions are used to determine conditions behind the shock. The thin shock-layer approximation is then applied to the simplified set of governing equations, and the resulting equations are found to be of parabolic type. This is an important simplification as far as numerical solution of the problem is concerned since these equations can be solved by numerical methods similar to those developed for solving the boundary-layer equations. The numerical procedure consists of finding initial data at the stagnation line and then integrating downstream using an implicit finite difference method. The thin shock-layer approximation is then removed by iteration. Rather than work with the governing equations in the usual boundary-layer coordinates, it is found that it is more convenient to work with the equations in a transformed form. New dependent variables are defined by dividing the old dependent variables by their local values at the shock. In addition, a new normal independent variable is defined by dividing the old normal variable by the local distance from the body to the shock. Examples are presented to demonstrate the method and to compare with second-order boundary-layer theory.
One-dimensional electrophoresis using nondenaturing conditions.

Two protocols for nondenaturing or native gel electrophoresis (i.e., in the absence of denaturing agents, detergent, or urea) are presented in this unit and offer a useful technique for analyzing the native size of proteins, subunit structure, and optimal separation. Mobility of proteins in native gels depends on size, shape, and intrinsic charge. Continuous PAGE is very flexible and permits cationic and anionic separations over a broad range of pH. Discontinuous PAGE is limited to separations of proteins that are negatively charged at neutral pH.
Quadratically constrained attitude control via semidefinite programming

We consider the attitude control problem augmented with an arbitrary number of nonconvex quadratic constraints. By utilizing the implicit magnitude constraint of the state vector (i.e., quaternion), we are able to reduce this problem to a convex quadratically constrained quadratic program or a semidefinite program. This result leads to an efficient solution strategy for general quadratically constrained attitude control problems. An example demonstrates the proposed methodology.
Cross-Coupling Reactions of Organosilicon Compounds: New Concepts and Recent Advances

This review highlights the rapid evolution of the newly-developed class of palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of organosilicon compounds. A myriad of heteroatom-containing silicon moieties (silyl hydrides, siletanes, silanols, silyl ethers, orthosiliconates, di- and polysiloxanes and pyridylsilanes) undergo mild and stereospecific cross-coupling. The diversity of methods for introduction of silicon groups into organic molecules and the range of organic electrophiles that can be used are emphasized.
Photoresponse of a strongly correlated material determined by scanning photocurrent microscopy

The generation of a current by light is a key process in optoelectronic and photovoltaic devices. In band semiconductors, depletion fields associated with interfaces separate long-lived photo-induced carriers. However, in systems with strong electron-electron and electron-phonon correlations it is unclear what physics will dominate the photoresponse. Here, we investigate photocurrent in VO(2), an exemplary strongly correlated material known for its dramatic metal-insulator transition at T(c) ≈ 68 °C, which could be useful for optoelectronic detection and switching up to ultraviolet wavelengths. Using scanning photocurrent microscopy on individual suspended VO(2) nanobeams we observe a photoresponse peaked at the metal-insulator boundary but extending throughout both insulating and metallic phases. We determine that the response is photothermal, implying efficient carrier relaxation to a local equilibrium in a manner consistent with strong correlations. Temperature-dependent measurements reveal subtle phase changes within the insulating state. We further demonstrate switching of the photocurrent by optical control of the metal-insulator boundary arrangement. Our work shows the value of applying scanning photocurrent microscopy to nanoscale crystals in the investigation of strongly correlated materials, and the results are relevant for designing and controlling optoelectronic devices employing such materials.
Production rate control for failure-prone production systems with no backlog permitted

In this paper, we consider systems in which backlog is not allowed. We show that the hedging point policy is still optimal. For systems with backlog, it is usually quite straightforward to show that their optimal cost-to-go functions are convex-a key property that is needed for the hedging point policy to be optimal. With no backlog permitted, it becomes much more difficult to establish the convexity property, and the explicit formulas for the optimal hedging point and the optimal cost-to-go functions have to be obtained, based on which the convexity property can then be verified. The method we use in this paper to derive these explicit formulas is mainly based on an interesting relationship between the inventory process of the system under the hedging point policy and some stochastic processes which are well studied in queueing theory. >
Total synthesis of a biotinylated derivative of phorboxazole A via Sonogashira coupling

Abstract The C46 terminus of phorboxazole A has been modified to incorporate a biotin-terminated linker via direct palladium-mediated Sonogashira reaction conditions. Synthetic 45,46-dehydrobromophorboxazole A was joined with a tris- (polyethyleneglycol)vinyl iodide-biotin ester using catalytic PdCl 2 (PPh 3 ) 2 , CuI, and Et 3 N in THF. This process demonstrates the utility of mild carbon-carbon bond formation in the context of phorboxazoles’ architecture and provides a potential affinity probe.
Patterns on a free surface caused by underwater topography: a laboratory-scale study

The motivation of this paper is to deepen the theoretical foundations of the interpretation of Synthetic Aperature Radar (SAR) imagery of the coastal seas. The approach uses large-eddy simulations (LES) to study the link between bottom topography and its expression on a free surface. In particular, the focus is on situations where the flow cannot be well approximated using simple conservation of mass arguments. The full Navier-Stokes equations are solved for laboratory-scale domains. Free surface patterns are presented for three configurations: neutral flow over wavy topography, stratified flow over wavy topography, and neutral flow over three-dimensional sinusoidal topography. The extent to which each configuration produces unique and identifiable surface patterns is explored. The focus is on the fluid mechanics near the surface, for example, attachment and persistence of vortical structures, upwelling, and zones of convergence. Neutral flow over wavy topography creates a large number of powerful upwelli...
Almost everywhere high nonuniform complexity

Abstract We investigate the distribution of nonuniform complexities in uniform complexity classes. We prove that almost every problem decidable in exponential space has essentially maximum circuit-size and space-bounded Kolmogorov complexity almost everywhere. (The circuit-size lower bound actually exceeds, and thereby strengthens, the Shannon 2 n / n lower bound for almost every problem, with no computability constraint.) In exponential time complexity classes, we prove that the strongest relativizable lower bounds hold almost everywhere for almost all problems. Finally, we show that infinite pseudorandom sequences have high nonuniform complexity almost everywhere. The results are unified by a new, more powerful formulation of the underlying measure theory, based on uniform systems of density functions, and by the introduction of a new nonuniform complexity measure, the selective Kolmogorov complexity.
Experimental studies of the characteristics of dry band arcing on ADSS fiber optic cables

A series of simulated arcing experiments are conducted in a laboratory setting to investigate the characteristics of dry band arcs on ADSS fiber optic cables. The measurement of resistance, power, and energy of dry band arcs is described. The impact of voltage and current on arc resistance is presented. The power and energy of dry band arcing is measured under different short-circuit current and open-circuit voltage. An equation which relates arc power to open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current is proposed. Experiments show that arc power has a threshold to cause the damage of cable jackets. The study of arc power and energy can be used to predict a potential damage of ADSS cables.
N-Acylated sulfonamide sodium salt: A prodrug of choice for the bifunctional 2-hydroxymethyl-4-(5-phenyl-3-trifluoromethyl-pyrazol-1-yl) benzenesulfonamide class of COX-2 inhibitors☆

Synthesis and biological evaluation of possible prodrugs of COX-2 inhibitors involving sulfonamide and hydroxymethyl groups of 2-hydroxymethyl-4-(5-phenyl-3-trifluoromethyl-pyrazol-1-yl) benzenesulfonamides are described. Out of many options, the sodium salt of N-propionyl sulfonamide demonstrated much improved pharmacological profiles and physicochemical properties suitable for oral as well as parenteral administration.
Generalized multicoincidence analysis methods

The ability to conduct automated trace radionuclide analysis at or near the sample collection point would provide a valuable tool for emergency response, environmental monitoring, and verification of treaties and agreements. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is developing systems for this purpose based on dual gamma-ray spectrometers, e.g., NaI(TI) or HPGe, combined with thin organic scintillator sensors to detect light charged particles. Translating the coincident signatures recorded by these systems, which include betagamma,gammagamma, and betagammagamma, into the concentration of detectable radionuclides in the sample requires generalized multicoincidence analysis tools. The development and validation of the Coincidence Lookup Library, which currently contains the probabilities of single and coincidence signatures from more than 420 isotopes, is described. Also discussed is a method to calculate the probability of observing a coincidence signature which incorporates true coincidence summing effects. These effects are particularly important for high-geometric-efficiency detection systems. Finally, a process for verifying the integrated analysis software package is demonstrated using GEANT 4 simulations of the prototype detector systems
The Dynamics of Sovereign Debt Crises and Bailouts

Abstract Motivated by the recent European debt crisis, this paper investigates the scope for a bailout guarantee in a sovereign debt crisis. Defaults may arise from negative income shocks, government impatience or a “sunspot”-coordinated buyers strike. We introduce a bailout agency, and characterize the strategy with the minimal actuarially fair intervention which guarantees the no-buyers-strike fundamental equilibrium, relying on the market for residual financing. The intervention makes it cheaper for governments to borrow, inducing them borrow more, leaving default probabilities possibly rather unchanged. The maximal backstop will be pulled precisely when fundamentals worsen.
Collaborative consumption: a goal-based framework

Collaborative consumption takes many forms, including car sharing, community gardens, credit unions and toy libraries. While these phenomena are arguably reshaping the marketplace, to this point, we lack a way to harmonize these diverse systems under a single umbrella or to connect them to prior research. The present paper focuses on the ways that various social sciences have conceptualized collaborative consumption's goals. The resulting goal-based framework allows both alignment of and differentiation among modern collaborative consumption systems. This approach also helps us identify the rich literatures that can inform our study of different types of modern collaborative consumption systems, thus offering potential for future programmatic knowledge-building.
Does Second Language Experience Modulate Perception of Tones in a Third Language

It is unclear what roles native language (L1) and second language (L2) play in the perception of lexical tones in a third language (L3). In tone perception, listeners with different language backgrounds use different fundamental frequency (F0). While English listeners use F0 height, Mandarin listeners rely more on F0 direction. The present study addresses whether knowledge of Mandarin, particularly as an L2, results in speakers’ reliance on F0 direction in their perception of L3 (Cantonese) tones. Fifteen English-speaking L2 learners of Mandarin constituted the target group, and 15 English monolinguals and 15 native Mandarin speakers, with no background in other tonal languages, were included as control groups. All groups had to discriminate Cantonese tones either by distinguishing a contour tone from a level tone (F0 direction pair) or a level tone from another level tone (F0 height pair). The results showed that L2 learners patterned differently from both control groups by using F0 direction as well as F0 height under the influence of L1 and L2 experience. The acoustics of the tones also affected all listeners’ discrimination. When L2 and L3 are similar in terms of the presence of lexical tone, L2 experience modulates the perception of L3 tones.
Contribution of hearing aids to music perception by cochlear implant users

AbstractObjectivesModern cochlear implant (CI) encoding strategies represent the temporal envelope of sounds well but provide limited spectral information. This deficit in spectral information has been implicated as a contributing factor to difficulty with speech perception in noisy conditions, discriminating between talkers and melody recognition. One way to supplement spectral information for CI users is by fitting a hearing aid (HA) to the non-implanted ear.MethodsIn this study 14 postlingually deaf adults (half with a unilateral CI and the other half with a CI and an HA (CI + HA)) were tested on measures of music perception and familiar melody recognition.ResultsCI + HA listeners performed significantly better than CI-only listeners on all pitch-based music perception tasks. The CI + HA group did not perform significantly better than the CI-only group in the two tasks that relied on duration cues. Recognition of familiar melodies was significantly enhanced for the group wearing an HA in addition to th...
Dynamics of Feeder Cattle Basis and Price Slides

This study examines the dynamics of the relationship between per pound prices for feeder cattle at different sale weights. The feeder cattle “price slide” relationship, as it is commonly known, is influenced by fluctuations in the output price for slaughter cattle and the input price of feed corn. I empirically test predictions about price slide dynamics that are derived from a two-input derived demand model for slaughter cattle. Empirical analysis is conducted using an extensive dataset of feeder cattle transactions.
Fertility and Female Employment: A Panel Study on Developing Countries

The study analyzes the effect of female employment on fertility rate. Using panel fertility regression specification with Prais-Winsten regressions procedure, panel-corrected standard errors, and autoregressive errors on a sample of 29 developing countries over the period 1990-2011, the study estimates the effect of female labor participation on fertility rate. To pick up country-specific factors, using the principal component analysis, the study estimates a family policy index that consists of three important family policy variables including: Duration of paid leave for mothers (weeks), wage replacement of paid leave for mothers (%), and length of breast feeding coverage (years). Furthermore, to pick up fixed effects and time effects, the study includes geographic location (latitude) and time effects. The empirical results confirm the finding of Engelhardt and Prskawetz (2005) that the increase in female labor force participation rate has a negative impact on fertility and that this negative effect is decreasing over time. Also, the results suggest that more flexible policies toward family planning such as longer duration of paid leave for mothers, higher percentage of wage replacement of paid leave for mothers, and longer breast feeding coverage help in increasing fertility. Finally, in line with Pampel (2001), Kogel (2004) and Engelhardt and Prskawetz (2005) the study finds that time trend affects this negative relationship between female labor participation and fertility where the negative impact of the former on the latter decreases over time.
EU accession and foreign-owned firms in Bulgaria

ABSTRACTBulgaria signed the European Union accession treaty in 2005. Accession caused an increase in the volume of inward foreign direct investment flows (IFDI). We analyse World Bank BEEPS firm-level data for 2007 to understand the characteristics and performance of foreign firms in Bulgaria. Regression analysis reveals that foreign firms are larger, have lower capital-to-labour ratios, are more likely to export and are more likely to locate in Sofia. However, foreign firms have had limited success in Bulgaria. They do not exhibit higher sales growth and, in manufacturing, carried out lower capital investment in machinery than domestic firms. The numbers of visits from tax officials is the same for domestic and foreign firms in manufacturing, and lower for foreign firms in the service sector. However, firms with higher exports-to-sales ratios and higher absolute sales were subjected to a higher number of visits from tax officials. These findings suggest that a range of institutional challenges remain for...
How to Incentivize Data-Driven Collaboration Among Competing Parties

The availability of vast amounts of data is changing how we can make medical discoveries, predict global market trends, save energy, and develop new educational strategies. In certain settings such as Genome Wide Association Studies or deep learning, the sheer size of data (patient files or labeled examples) seems critical to making discoveries. When data is held distributed by many parties, as often is the case, they must share itly to reap its full benefits.One obstacle is the reluctance of different entities to share their data, due to privacy concerns or loss of competitive edge. Work on cryptographic multi-party computation over the last 30 years address the privacy aspects, but sheds no light on individual parties' losses and gains when access to data carries tangible rewards. Is an individual collaborator better off by collaborating, even if it is clear that better overall conclusions can be drawn. Addressing this question is the topic of this paper.The order in which collaborators receive the outputs of a collaboration will be a crucial aspect of our modeling and solutions. We believe that timing is an important and unaddressed issue in data-based collaborations.Our contributions are as follows. We formalize a model of $n$-party collaboration for computing functions over private inputs in which the participants receive their outputs in sequence, and the order depends on their private inputs. Each output "improves" on all previous outputs according to a reward function. We say that a mechanism for collaboration achieves a collaborative equilibrium if it guarantees a higher reward for all participants when joining a collaboration compared to not joining it. We show that while in general computing a collaborative equilibrium is NP-complete, we can design polynomial-time algorithms for computing it for a range of natural model settings. When possible, we design mechanisms to compute a distribution of outputs and an ordering of output delivery, based on the n participants' private inputs, which achieves a collaborative equilibrium.The collaboration mechanisms we develop are in the standard model, and thus require a central trusted party; however, we show that this assumption is not necessary under standard cryptographic assumptions. We show how the mechanisms can be implemented in a decentralized way by n distrustful parties using new extensions of classical secure multiparty computation that impose order and timing constraints on the delivery of outputs to different players in addition to guaranteeing privacy and correctness.
Assessing Consumer Willingness to Pay for Ground Bison Given Nutrition Information

According to the USDA National Nutrient Database for bison, the bison nutrient benefits include higher protein level, lower calories, lower fat, and lower cholesterol compared to various commercial meats, like skinless-chicken, beef, pork, lamb, and salmon. This study investigates how consumers evaluate fresh ground bison in terms of their willingness to pay. Results show that the variation of consumer knowledge on bison nutrition contributes to different levels of willingness to pay. Implications from this study suggest enhancing consumers’ knowledge of bison products would increase the sale of bison products.
IS INTERNET JOB SEARCH STILL INEFFECTIVE

Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) data for 2005–8, we find that unemployed persons who look for work online are re-employed about 25% faster than comparable workers who do not search online. This finding contrasts with previous results for 1998–2001, and is robust to controls for cognitive test scores and detailed indicators of Internet access. Internet job search (IJS) appears to be most effective in reducing unemployment durations when used to contact friends and relatives, to send out resumes or fill out applications and also to look at advertisements. We detect a weak positive relationship between IJS and wage growth between jobs. Over the past decade, the Internet has been credited for substantial reductions in search frictions in markets ranging from life insurance to apartment rentals (Brown and Goolsbee, 2002; Kroft and Pope, 2010). In contrast, studies of the Internet’s effects on labour market matching have been few in number and, on balance, find little or no evidence of a friction-reducing effect. For example, Kuhn and Skuterud (2004) find that unemployed workers who look for work online have longer unemployment durations than comparable non-Internet searchers, whereas Kroft and Pope (2010) find no evidence that the rapid expansion of Craigslist as a job search tool has affected city-level unemployment rates. 1 At least on the surface, these results seem puzzling, in view of the dramatic expansion of online job search sites as well as the general decline in communication costs associated with the Internet. Both of these changes should increase the arrival rate of matches between job searchers and vacancies, thereby reducing search frictions in labour markets. In this study, we provide new evidence relevant to this ‘puzzle’ of ineffective Internet job search (IJS) using data on young US jobseekers during the period 2005–8, taken from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97). Our main result is that Internet searchers’ unemployment durations are about 25% shorter than comparable workers who search offline only. Specifically, after replicating Kuhn and Skuterud’s (2004) estimate of a counterproductive effect of IJS using their current population survey (CPS) data from 1998–2001 for this age group, we show that this counterproductive effect is reversed in the more recent period in the same regression specification. This reversal holds whether or not we control for a possible source of endogenous selection – searchers’ scores on a widely used cognitive skills test – that was not available in the earlier data. We speculate that improvements in technology over this period, ranging from better online job sites to network externalities associated with greater overall Internet penetration, might explain this change over time.
Some Inverse Problems in Periodic Homogenization of Hamilton-Jacobi Equations

We look at the effective Hamiltonian \({\overline{H}}\) associated with the Hamiltonian \({H(p,x)=H(p)+V(x)}\) in the periodic homogenization theory. Our central goal is to understand the relation between \({V}\) and \({\overline{H}}\). We formulate some inverse problems concerning this relation. Such types of inverse problems are, in general, very challenging. In this paper, we discuss several special cases in both convex and nonconvex settings.
Implementation in Undominated Strategies: A Look at Bounded Mechanisms

This paper examines the impact of placing natural restrictions on the mechanisms considered for implementation problems. It is shown that if all mechanisms are considered and preferences satisfy a basic condition, then any social choice correspondence can be implemented in undominated strategies. An example points out that the strength of this result derives from the use of mechanisms with questionable features. In part of the message space the agent who announces the highest integer is rewarded. This sort of "tail-chasing" construction, common in the constructive proofs of the literature, is used to assure that undesired strategy combinations do not form an equilibrium. If such mechanisms are ruled out, then the social choice correspondences which can be implemented in undominated strategies satisfy an incentive compatibility type condition called strategy-resistence. For social choice functions this is equivalent to strategy-proofness. This contrast suggests that this issue should be examined as it applies to other solution concepts used in implementation theory. The last portion of the paper begins to explore the issue as it relates to Nash implementation and undominated Nash implementation.
A theory of generative ConvNet

We show that a generative random field model, which we call generative ConvNet, can be derived from the commonly used discriminative ConvNet, by assuming a ConvNet for multicategory classification and assuming one of the categories is a base category generated by a reference distribution. If we further assume that the non-linearity in the ConvNet is Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) and the reference distribution is Gaussian white noise, then we obtain a generative ConvNet model that is unique among energy-based models: The model is piecewise Gaussian, and the means of the Gaussian pieces are defined by an auto-encoder, where the filters in the bottom-up encoding become the basis functions in the top-down decoding, and the binary activation variables detected by the filters in the bottom-up convolution process become the coefficients of the basis functions in the top-down deconvolution process. The Langevin dynamics for sampling the generative ConvNet is driven by the reconstruction error of this autoencoder. The contrastive divergence learning of the generative ConvNet reconstructs the training images by the auto-encoder. The maximum likelihood learning algorithm can synthesize realistic natural image patterns.
FLASH: Fast Bayesian Optimization for Data Analytic Pipelines

Modern data science relies on data analytic pipelines to organize interdependent computational steps. Such analytic pipelines often involve different algorithms across multiple steps, each with its own hyperparameters. To achieve the best performance, it is often critical to select optimal algorithms and to set appropriate hyperparameters, which requires large computational efforts. Bayesian optimization provides a principled way for searching optimal hyperparameters for a single algorithm. However, many challenges remain in solving pipeline optimization problems with high-dimensional and highly conditional search space. In this work, we propose Fast LineAr SearcH (FLASH), an efficient method for tuning analytic pipelines. FLASH is a two-layer Bayesian optimization framework, which firstly uses a parametric model to select promising algorithms, then computes a nonparametric model to fine-tune hyperparameters of the promising algorithms. FLASH also includes an effective caching algorithm which can further accelerate the search process. Extensive experiments on a number of benchmark datasets have demonstrated that FLASH significantly outperforms previous state-of-the-art methods in both search speed and accuracy. Using 50% of the time budget, FLASH achieves up to 20% improvement on test error rate compared to the baselines. FLASH also yields state-of-the-art performance on a real-world application for healthcare predictive modeling.
Does Joining the EU Make You Happy? Evidence from Bulgaria and Romania

We examine the effect of joining the European Union on individual life satisfaction in Bulgaria and Romania in the context of the 2007 EU enlargement. Although EU membership is among the most important events in Bulgaria and Romania’s modern histories, there is no evidence on how it affected the subjective well-being of ordinary people in the two countries. Using a difference-in-differences strategy and Eurobarometer data, we provide some of the first evidence that joining the EU increased average life satisfaction in Bulgaria and had a positive but statistically insignificant effect in Romania. One explanation is that after both countries joined in 2007, trust towards the EU only increased in Bulgaria but not in Romania. Furthermore, Romania’s political war of 2007 may have mired the country’s positive life satisfaction experiences related to EU membership. We also show that the younger, the employed and those with a high-school education were the winners from EU integration. Our results are robust to two placebo tests, in which we use two fake entry dates to the EU, as well as an estimation using bootstrapped standard errors. Our findings have implications for EU integration policy and future enlargements.
Water on The Moon, III. Volatiles & Activity

For centuries some scientists have argued that there is activity on the Moon (or water, as recounted in Parts I & II), while others have thought the Moon is simply a dead, inactive world. The question comes in several forms: is there a detectable atmosphere? Does the surface of the Moon change? What causes interior seismic activity? From a more modern viewpoint, we now know that as much carbon monoxide as water was excavated during the LCROSS impact, as detailed in Part I, and a comparable amount of other volatiles were found. At one time the Moon outgassed prodigious amounts of water and hydrogen in volcanic fire fountains, but released similar amounts of volatile sulfur (or SO2), and presumably large amounts of carbon dioxide or monoxide, if theory is to be believed. So water on the Moon is associated with other gases. We review what is known (and touch on what is unknown) about outgassing of various gases from the Moon.