cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Response of the North Pacific Tropical Cyclone Climatology to Global Warming: Application of Dynamical Downscaling to CMIP5 Models

AbstractA downscaling approach is applied to future projection simulations from four CMIP5 global climate models to investigate the response of the tropical cyclone (TC) climatology over the North Pacific basin to global warming. Under the influence of the anthropogenic rise in greenhouse gases, TC-track density, power dissipation, and TC genesis exhibit robust increasing trends over the North Pacific, especially over the central subtropical Pacific region. The increase in North Pacific TCs is primarily manifested as increases in the intense and relatively weak TCs. Examination of storm duration also reveals that TCs over the North Pacific have longer lifetimes under global warming.Through a genesis potential index, the mechanistic contributions of various physical climate factors to the simulated change in TC genesis are explored. More frequent TC genesis under global warming is mostly attributable to the smaller vertical wind shear and greater potential intensity (primarily due to higher sea surface tem...
Early-Onset Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Mutations Significantly Increase the Velocity, Force, and Actin-Activated ATPase Activity of Human β-Cardiac Myosin

Summary Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a heritable cardiovascular disorder that affects 1 in 500 people. A significant percentage of HCM is attributed to mutations in β-cardiac myosin, the motor protein that powers ventricular contraction. This study reports how two early-onset HCM mutations, D239N and H251N, affect the molecular biomechanics of human β-cardiac myosin. We observed significant increases (20%–90%) in actin gliding velocity, intrinsic force, and ATPase activity in comparison to wild-type myosin. Moreover, for H251N, we found significantly lower binding affinity between the S1 and S2 domains of myosin, suggesting that this mutation may further increase hyper-contractility by releasing active motors. Unlike previous HCM mutations studied at the molecular level using human β-cardiac myosin, early-onset HCM mutations lead to significantly larger changes in the fundamental biomechanical parameters and show clear hyper-contractility.
Fast division using accurate quotient approximations to reduce the number of iterations

A class of iterative integer division algorithms is presented based on look-up table and Taylor-series approximations to the reciprocal. The algorithm iterates by using the reciprocal to find an approximate quotient and then subtracting the quotient multiplied by the divisor from the dividend to find a remaining dividend. Fast implementations can produce an average of either 14 or 27 b per iteration, depending on whether the basic or advanced version of this method is implemented. Detailed analyses are presented to support the claimed accuracy per iteration. Speed estimates using state-of-the-art ECL components show that this method is faster than the Newton-Raphson technique and can produce 53-b quotients of 53-b numbers in about 25 ns using the basic method and 21 ns using the advanced method. In addition, these methods naturally produce an exact remainder, which is very useful for implementing precise rounding specifications. >
Omni-resonant optical micro-cavity.

Optical cavities transmit light only at discrete resonant frequencies, which are well-separated in micro-structures. Despite attempts at the construction of planar 'white-light cavities', the benefits accrued upon optically interacting with a cavity - such as resonant field buildup - have remained confined to narrow linewidths. Here, we demonstrate achromatic optical transmission through a planar Fabry-Perot micro-cavity via angularly multiplexed phase-matching that exploits a bio-inspired grating configuration. By correlating each wavelength with an appropriate angle of incidence, a continuous spectrum resonates and the micro-cavity is rendered transparent. The locus of a single-order 0.7-nm-wide resonance is de-slanted in spectral-angular space to become a 60-nm-wide achromatic resonance spanning multiple cavity free-spectral-ranges. The result is an 'omni-resonant' planar micro-cavity in which light resonates continuously over a broad spectral span. This approach severs the link between the resonance bandwidth and the cavity-photon lifetime, thereby promising resonant enhancement of linear and nonlinear optical effects over broad bandwidths in ultrathin devices.
A Multivariable Decoupling Pole-Zero Placement Self-Tuning Controller

Abstract This paper describes a new multivariable self-tuning controller which is able to handle the system with different time delays between each of the input-output pairs, and deal with the system with unknown or varying time delays. The proposed controller not only moves the closedloop-system poles to the prespecified locations but also decouples the multivariable system. It. can track time varying reference signals and eliminate tracking errors. In addition an implicit algorithm is proposed under certain conditions. The controller is demonstrated using a concentration-flow process, a paper machine head box and an unstable and nonminimum phase system having different time delays.
TRM and Its Variation with Grain Size

Thermoremanent magnetization (TRM), the dominant mechanism in igneous rocks, has been investigated for many years, yielding a large data base of experimental results and several theoretical models. However, there are still a large number of discrepancies between the observations and the theories.
Microsimulation-Based Real-Time Congestion Pricing Strategy for Managed Lane

A real-time toll that accurately reflects the congestion and delays of a system enhances a high-occupancy toll (HOT) lane system. This paper extends an existing system-optimal real-time congestion pricing strategy by relaxing the assumption of constant capacity, which allows one to implement the strategy on a dynamic microsimulation of the HOT lane, whose capacity and that of general purpose lanes vary because of the weaving activity at the end of the HOT lane. It was found that the proposed model was superior in total delay savings, particularly when bottleneck capacities varied significantly. A clear linear relationship was also found between the pricing coefficient and dimensionless delays and the pricing coefficient and revenue. These findings strengthen the system-optimal linear toll pricing strategy and suggest that departments of transportation can implement practical toll systems that incorporate the real-time discharge rates of bottlenecks.
Interpreting Architecture: The ARCHINT Corpus

Aquest article presenta ARCHINT ( Architecture in Interpreting ), un corpus paral·lel, bilingue i unidireccional que conte deu presentacions en congressos enregistrades en video i les respectives transcripcions i interpretacions simultanies al castella. Els objectius de l’article son descriure el corpus ARCHINT, analitzar-ne les aplicacions passades i presents, i proposar desenvolupaments futurs i linies de recerca. A mes, l’article situa ARCHINT en la linia dels estudis d’interpretacio basats en corpus (EIC).
TIDE: A User-Centric Tool for Identifying Energy Hungry Applications on Smartphones

Today, many smartphone users are unaware of what applications (apps) they should stop using to prevent their battery from running out quickly. The problem is identifying such apps is hard due to the fact that there exist hundreds of thousands of apps and their impact on the battery is not well understood. We show via extensive measurement studies that the impact of an app on battery consumption depends on both environmental (wireless) factors and usage patterns. Based on this, we argue that there exists a critical need for a tool that allows a user to: 1) identify apps that are energy hungry and 2) understand why an app is consuming energy, on her phone. Toward addressing this need, we present TIDE, a tool to detect high energy apps on any particular smartphone. TIDE’s key characteristic is that it accounts for usage-centric information while identifying energy hungry apps from among a multitude of apps that run simultaneously on a user’s phone. Our evaluation of TIDE on a test bed of Android-based smartphones, using week-long smartphone usage traces from 17 real users, shows that TIDE correctly identifies over 94% of energy-hungry apps and has a false positive rate of < 6%.
Zeros of polynomials with four-term recurrence

Given real numbers b,c∈ℝ, we form the sequence of polynomials {Hm(z)}m=0∞ satisfying the four-term recurrence H m ( z ) + c H m − 1 ( z ) + b H m − 2 ( z ) + z H m − 3 ( z ) = 0 , m ≥ 1 , with the initial conditions H0(z)=1 and H−1(z)=H−2(z)=0. We find necessary and sufficient conditions on b and c under which the zeros of Hm(z) are real for all m, and provide an explicit real interval on which ⋃m=0∞Z(Hm) is dense, where Z(Hm) is the set of zeros of Hm(z).
Personality Traits, Technology Adoption, and Technical Efficiency: Evidence from Smallholder Rice Farms in Ghana

Although a large literature highlights the impact of personality traits on key labor market outcomes, evidence of their impact on agricultural production decisions remains limited. Data from 1,200 Ghanaian rice farmers suggest that noncognitive skills (polychronicity, work centrality, and optimism) significantly affect simple adoption decisions, returns from adoption, and technical efficiency in rice production, and that the size of the estimated impacts exceeds that of traditional human capital measures. Greater focus on personality traits relative to cognitive skills may help accelerate innovation diffusion in the short term, and help farmers to respond flexibly to new opportunities and risks in the longer term.
Rising restrictions on religion - context, statistics and implications

This article discusses statistics from recent studies by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. It begins with general findings and a discussion of the general global context. It then examines three questions directly related to religious freedom. First, do constitutional protections for religious freedom matter? Second, do blasphemy, apostasy and anti-defamation of religion laws matter? And third, is there a relationship between government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion? The article then looks at the implications by describing how high levels of government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion in the Middle East and North Africa relate to these three issues. The article concludes with a review of the theoretical and statistical model of Grim and Finke (2007 and 2011) that finds religious persecution and violence to be the result of higher restrictions by governments and groups in society on the freedom to practice religion.
Heterogeneous beliefs and return volatility around seasoned equity offerings

Abstract We investigate the dynamics of heterogeneous beliefs and link them to the volatility pattern throughout the seasoned equity offering (SEO) event window. In sync with a reduction in information asymmetry related to management information releases around the SEO event, belief heterogeneity declines. Moreover, heterogeneity in beliefs, proxied by either analyst- or institutional-trade-based measures, is a robust and salient determinant of SEO firm volatility, which provides an explanation for the volatility timing “puzzle” identified in the SEO market. Furthermore, the relation between heterogeneous beliefs and return volatility weakens as short sale constraints tighten, suggesting a potential causal link.
Spin-1/2 optical lattice clock.

We experimentally investigate an optical clock based on {sup 171}Yb (I=1/2) atoms confined in an optical lattice. We have evaluated all known frequency shifts to the clock transition, including a density-dependent collision shift, with a fractional uncertainty of 3.4x10{sup -16}, limited principally by uncertainty in the blackbody radiation Stark shift. We measured the absolute clock transition frequency relative to the NIST-F1 Cs fountain clock and find the frequency to be 518 295 836 590 865.2(0.7) Hz.
Subspace-Aware Index Codes

In this letter, we generalize the well-known index coding problem to exploit the structure in the source-data to improve system throughput. In many applications (e.g., multimedia), the data to be transmitted may lie (or can be well approximated) in a low-dimensional subspace. We exploit this low-dimensional structure of the data using an algebraic framework to solve the index coding problem (referred to as subspace-aware index coding ) as opposed to the traditional index coding problem which is subspace-unaware . Also, we propose an efficient algorithm based on the alternating minimization approach to obtain near optimal index codes for both subspace-aware and -unaware cases. Our simulations indicate that under certain conditions, a significant throughput gain (about 90%) can be achieved by subspace-aware index codes over conventional subspace-unaware index codes.
Engineering giant nonlinearities in quantum nanosystems.

We describe a method to engineer giant nonlinearities in, and probes to measure nonlinear observables of, mesoscopic quantum resonators. This involves tailoring the Hamiltonian of a simple auxiliary system perturbatively coupled to the resonator, and has the potential to engineer a wide range of nonlinearities to high accuracy. We give a number of explicit examples, including a readily realizable two-qubit auxiliary system that creates an ${x}^{4}$ potential and a ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(3)}$ (Kerr) nonlinearity, valid to fifth order in the perturbative coupling.
Deterministic Entanglement of Two Trapped Ions

We have prepared the internal states of two trapped ions in both the Bell-like singlet and triplet entangled states. In contrast to all other experiments with entangled states of either massive particles or photons, we do this in a deterministic fashion, producing entangled states on demand without selection. The deterministic production of entangled states is a crucial prerequisite for large-scale quantum computation.
CDF status and B physics prospects

With extensive upgrades to the detector and electronics, CDF has started collecting data with Run II of the Tevatron. The enhanced silicon coverage and the use of silicon based tracks in the trigger, make CDF well suited for a broad program of B hadron measurements. We present the current status of the experiment and prospects for measurements in Run II.
Experimental Verification of Rotor Demagnetization in a Fractional-Slot Concentrated-Winding PM Synchronous Machine Under Drive Fault Conditions

This paper presents the results of experimental tests designed to verify analytical predictions of the rotor demagnetization characteristics of a 0.6 kW (cont.) 9-slot/6-pole fractional-slot concentrated winding (FSCW) interior permanent magnet (IPM) synchronous machine. The demagnetization characteristics of the rotor magnets in this commercially produced FSCW-IPM machine are measured using a test configuration that is designed to conduct multiple demagnetization tests on the same test machine under controlled temperature conditions. In this paper, finite-element (FE) predictions of the rotor demagnetization characteristics of the experimental machine during three-phase symmetrical short-circuit and single-phase asymmetrical short-circuit faults are presented. These results are compared with experimental test measurements of the postfault currents and the magnet flux density distribution following demagnetization, demonstrating very good agreement of many key features. These comparisons also confirm that 3-D effects and magnet material properties such as the magnet thermal coefficients have a significant impact on some details of the FE predictions of the machine's fault-mode response characteristics.
Sea Ice Trends in Climate Models Only Accurate in Runs with Biased Global Warming

AbstractObservations indicate that the Arctic sea ice cover is rapidly retreating while the Antarctic sea ice cover is steadily expanding. State-of-the-art climate models, by contrast, typically simulate a moderate decrease in both the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice covers. However, in each hemisphere there is a small subset of model simulations that have sea ice trends similar to the observations. Based on this, a number of recent studies have suggested that the models are consistent with the observations in each hemisphere when simulated internal climate variability is taken into account. Here sea ice changes during 1979–2013 are examined in simulations from the most recent Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) as well as the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble (CESM-LE), drawing on previous work that found a close relationship in climate models between global-mean surface temperature and sea ice extent. All of the simulations with 1979–2013 Arctic sea ice retreat as fast as observations a...
Combining model-based and model-free updates for trajectory-centric reinforcement learning

Reinforcement learning algorithms for real-world robotic applications must be able to handle complex, unknown dynamical systems while maintaining data-efficient learning. These requirements are handled well by model-free and model-based RL approaches, respectively. In this work, we aim to combine the advantages of these approaches. By focusing on time-varying linear-Gaussian policies, we enable a model-based algorithm based on the linear-quadratic regulator that can be integrated into the model-free framework of path integral policy improvement. We can further combine our method with guided policy search to train arbitrary parameterized policies such as deep neural networks. Our simulation and real-world experiments demonstrate that this method can solve challenging manipulation tasks with comparable or better performance than model-free methods while maintaining the sample efficiency of model-based methods.
Resilient localization for sensor networks in outdoor environments

The process of determining the physical locations of nodes in a wireless sensor network is known as localization. Self-localization is critical for large-scale sensor networks, because manual or assisted localization is often impractical due to time requirements, economic constraints, or inherent limitations of the deployment scenarios. We propose scalable solutions for reliably localizing wireless sensor networks in environments conducive to several types of ranging errors. We follow a hybrid hardware-software approach for acoustic ranging or radio interferometry to acquire internode distance measurements, and a resilient self-localization algorithm to compute the node location estimates. The acoustic ranging method improves on previous work, extending the practical measurement range up to 35 m in grassy outdoor environments, achieving a distance-invariant median measurement error of about 1p (33 cm). The localization algorithm is based on least-squares scaling with soft constraints. Empirical evaluation using ranging results obtained from sensor network field experiments and simulations confirms that our approach is more resilient than multidimensional scaling (MDS) algorithms against large-magnitude ranging errors and sparse range measurements: conditions that are common in large-scale outdoor sensor network deployments.
Early adolescents’ social goals and school adjustment

What are the common types of social goals endorsed by early adolescents and how are they related to their school adjustment? This article discusses the importance of assessing students’ social goals during the early adolescent developmental period when peers become increasingly important and youth experience tremendous changes to the school context as they transition to middle school. Commonly endorsed social goals particularly relevant to this developmental period and to youth’s social and academic adjustment at school are discussed, including: social status goals (i.e., the goal for popularity and the goal for peer preference); agentic and communal goals; and social achievement goals (i.e., social development goal, social demonstration-approach goal, and social demonstration-avoidance goal). This conceptual review presents research linking social goals to different markers of school adjustment in both the social domain (e.g., aggressive behavior, social worry) and the academic domain (e.g., effort in the classroom, grade point average). A summary of which social goals are related to indices of positive school adjustment is presented. Implications for educators and recommendations for future research on early adolescents’ social goals are discussed.
Assessing and Promoting the Wellness of United States Ophthalmology Residents: A Survey of Program Directors☆☆☆

Objective To report on the status of residency-based wellness initiatives in ophthalmic graduate medical education and identify strategies for promoting ophthalmology resident wellness by surveying US ophthalmology program directors (PDs). Design The PDs were each sent an e-mail containing a link to an anonymous online 15-question survey. The PDs also received a letter with the survey link and a $1 incentive. After 2 weeks, nonresponders received 2 weekly reminder e-mails and phone calls. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the multiple choice responses and categorize the free response answers. Setting National survey. Participants All 111 US ophthalmology PDs were invited to participate. Results Of 111 PDs, 56 (50%) responded; 14 (26%) of 53 respondents reported that their programs faced an issue involving resident depression, burnout, or suicide within the last year; 25 (45%) of 56 reported that their department had a resident wellness program. Respondents without wellness programs reported a shortage of time (19/30; 63%) and lack of training and resources (19/30; 63%) as barriers to instituting these programs. Respondents reported that the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education could better promote resident wellness by providing training resources for burnout and depression screening (35/53; 66%), resilience skills building (38/53; 72%), and wellness program development (36/53; 68%). Conclusions This survey suggests that there is a substantial burden of burnout and depression among residents in ophthalmic graduate medical education and that this burden can be addressed by promoting the training of educators to recognize the signs of burnout and depression, and providing resources to develop and expand formal wellness programs.
The Impact of Data Preprocessing on the Performance of a Naive Bayes Classifier.

In the research of text mining, document classification is a growing field. Even though we have many existing classifying approaches, Naive Bayes Classifier is simple and effective at classification. Data preprocessing is the important step in the data mining process. It prepares the raw data for the further process. The aim of this paper is to identify the impact of preprocessing the dataset on the performance of a Naive Bayes Classifier. The Naive Bayes Classifier is suggested as the most effective method to identify the spam emails. The Impact of preprocessing phase on the performance of the Naive Bayes classifier is analyzed by comparing the output of both the preprocessed dataset result and non-preprocessed dataset result. The test results show that combining Naive Bayes classification with the proper data preprocessing can improve the prediction accuracy.
Assessment of Perioperative Risk in the Patient With Diabetes Mellitus

To define the preoperative clinical characteristics that identify patients with diabetes mellitus at increased risk for postoperative complications, and inception cohort of diabetic patients undergoing surgical treatment was examined. Serious cardiac morbidity and death were predicted by the presence of pre-existing cardiac disease, specifically, congestive heart failure and valvular heart disease. Patients at increased risk for non-cardiac complications (infection, renal insufficiency and cerebral ischemic events) included 24 per cent of those patients with diabetic end-organ disease (retinopathy, neuropathy and nephropathy), 29 per cent of those with congestive heart failure or valvular heart disease and 35 per cent of those with peripheral vascular disease and infection. In patients who did not have such pre-existing conditions, serious noncardiac complications were rare (4 per cent). Neither the severity of the disease nor the degree of perioperative glucose control were associated with increased postoperative morbidity or mortality. We conclude that, among patients with diabetes mellitus who are undergoing surgical procedures, postoperative complications can be predicted by the presence of readily identifiable preoperative clinical characteristics.
Bacterial Peritonitis Secondary to a Perinephric Abscess. Case Report and Differentiation From Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis

Abstract A cirrhotic patient is described who presented with Escherichia coli septic arthritis as the first manifestation of a perinephric abscess. Results of baseline abdominal paracentesis were unremarkable. After 10 days of antibiotics, abdominal paracentesis was repeated because of recurrence of fever; E. coli peritonitis was confirmed. Subsequent autopsy revealed a perinephric abscess. Development of bacterial peritonitis during antibiotic treatment is distinctly unusual in the "spontaneous" form of peritonitis and should raise suspicion of secondary bacterial peritonitis.
Use of Clinical Findings in the Diagnosis of Urinary Tract Infection in Women

To develop a decision rule for predicting urinary culture results in patients suspected of having urinary tract infection, we used discriminant analysis to identify the optimum combination of clinical findings. Thirty variables identified in a pilot study were recorded from 248 patients in a second study. Five findings were independent predictors of positive urinary culture: history of urinary tract infection, back pain, microscopic pyuria, hematuria, and bacteriuria. An additive decision rule that assigned one point for each of the five variables was tested in a third group of 258 patients. These scores stratified patients into subsets with increasing likelihood of positive culture. Higher scores identified patients who can confidently be treated without documentation of bacteriuria. If the rule applies successfully to other populations, cost savings could result from identification of patients who do not require quantitative urinary culture to demonstrate significant bacteriuria. (Arch Intern Med1985;145:2222-2227)
Supplier Centrality and Auditing Priority in Socially Responsible Supply Chains

Problem definition: A key question in socially responsible supply networks is as follows: When firms audit some, but not all, of their respective suppliers, how do the degree centralities of the su...
Pursuit-evasion games in dynamic flow fields via reachability set analysis

In this paper, we adopt a reachability-based approach to deal with the pursuit-evasion differential game between two players in the presence of dynamic environmental disturbances (e.g., winds, sea currents). We give conditions for the game to be terminated in terms of reachable set inclusions. Level set equations are defined and solved to generate the reachable sets of the pursuer and the evader. The corresponding time-optimal trajectories and optimal strategies can be readily retrieved afterwards. We validate our method by applying it to a pursuit-evasion game in a simple flow field, for which an analytical solution is available. We then implement the proposed scheme to a problem with a more realistic flow field.
Depth control of autonomous underwater vehicles using indirect robust control method

In this article, we propose a robust depth control design scheme for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in the presence of hydrodynamic parameter uncertainties and disturbances. The controller is designed via a new indirect robust control method that handles the uncertainties by formulating the uncertainty bounds into the cost functional and then transforming the robust control problem into an equivalent optimal control problem. Both robust asymptotic stability and optimality can be achieved and proved with this new formulation. The θ-D method is utilised to solve the resultant nonlinear optimal control problem such that an approximate closed-form feedback controller can be obtained and thus is easy to implement onboard without intensive computation load. Simulation results demonstrate that robust depth control is accomplished under the system parameter uncertainties and disturbances with small control fin deflection requirement.
Natural variation in a single amino acid substitution underlies physiological responses to topoisomerase II poisons

Many chemotherapeutic drugs are differentially effective from one patient to the next. Understanding the causes of this variability is a critical step towards the development of personalized treatments and improvements to existing medications. Here, we investigate sensitivity to a group of anti-neoplastic drugs that target topoisomerase II using the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans. We show that wild strains of C. elegans vary in their sensitivity to these drugs, and we use an unbiased genetic approach to demonstrate that this natural variation is explained by a methionine-to-glutamine substitution in topoisomerase II (TOP-2). The presence of a non-polar methionine at this residue increases hydrophobic interactions between TOP-2 and its poison etoposide, as compared to a polar glutamine. We hypothesize that this stabilizing interaction results in increased genomic instability in strains that contain a methionine residue. The residue affected by this substitution is conserved from yeast to humans and is one of the few differences between the two human topoisomerase II isoforms (methionine in hTOPIIα and glutamine in hTOPIIβ). We go on to show that this amino acid difference between the two human topoisomerase isoforms influences cytotoxicity of topoisomerase II poisons in human cell lines. These results explain why hTOPIIα and hTOPIIβ are differentially affected by various poisons and demonstrate the utility of C. elegans in understanding the genetics of drug responses.
THE PARADOX OF THE PILL: HETEROGENEOUS EFFECTS OF ORAL CONTRACEPTIVE ACCESS

The twentieth century saw dramatic increases in nonmarital births, concentrated heavily among poor and working‐class women. In this paper, we investigate whether the oral contraceptive pill played a causal role in the rise of nonmarital births. Exploiting exogenous variation in laws governing access to the pill, we find that changes in marital access to the pill increased the nonmarital birthrate by between 15% and 18%, accounting for about one‐third of the overall increase in nonmarital births. These effects are concentrated almost entirely among women whose fathers did not graduate high school and among minority women. We also document that the pill increased spacing between first and second births, and lowered the probability that a woman obtained a high‐school diploma, consistent with increases in nonmarital births. We find no evidence that postsecondary education levels were influenced by pill access, and no evidence that nonmarital births move with male employment patterns. Our findings add to a growing literature which documents the power of the pill to shape women's lives in broadly heterogenous ways, with minority and less‐well‐educated women bearing the brunt of the losses, a phenomenon we call the paradox of the pill. (JEL J12, J13, I24)
On Bayesian Testing of Additive Conjoint Measurement Axioms Using Synthetic Likelihood

This article introduces a Bayesian method for testing the axioms of additive conjoint measurement. The method is based on an importance sampling algorithm that performs likelihood-free, approximate Bayesian inference using a synthetic likelihood to overcome the analytical intractability of this testing problem. This new method improves upon previous methods because it provides an omnibus test of the entire hierarchy of cancellation axioms, beyond double cancellation. It does so while accounting for the posterior uncertainty that is inherent in the empirical orderings that are implied by these axioms, together. The new method is illustrated through a test of the cancellation axioms on a classic survey data set, and through the analysis of simulated data.
TESTING LORENTZ SYMMETRY USING HIGH ENERGY ASTROPHYSICS OBSERVATIONS.

We discuss some of the tests of Lorentz symmetry made possible by astrophysical observations of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays, γ -rays and neutrinos. These are among the most sensitive tests of Lorentz invariance violation because they are the highest energy phenomena known to man.
Equity issuances and agency costs: The telling story of shareholder approval around the world

Abstract Mandatory shareholder approval of equity issuances varies across and within countries. When shareholders approve issuances, average announcement returns are positive. When managers issue stock without shareholder approval, returns are negative and 4% lower. The closer the vote is to the issuance or the greater is the required plurality, the higher are the returns for public offers, rights offers, and private placements. When shareholder approval is required, rights offers predominate. When managers may issue stock without shareholder approval, public offers predominate. These findings suggest that agency problems affect equity issuances and challenge existing adverse selection, market timing, and signaling explanations.
The Tragedy of the Commons

The tragedy of the commons as a food basket is averted by private property, or something formally like it. The pollution problem is a consequence of population. Analysis of the pollution problem as a function of population density uncovers a not generally recognized principle of morality, namely: the morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed. Those who have more children will produce a larger fraction of the next generation than those with more susceptible consciences. Perhaps the simplest summary of the analysis of man’s population problems is this: the commons, if justifiable at all, is justifiable only under conditions of low-population density. As the human population has increased, the commons has had to be abandoned in one aspect after another. The man who takes money from a bank acts as if the bank were a commons.
Twentieth century correlations between extratropical SST variability and ITCZ shifts

The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is a global-scale band of tropical precipitation lying, in the annual mean, just north of the equator. Its position can be tied to the atmosphere's energy balance: the Northern Hemisphere is heated more strongly than the Southern Hemisphere, biasing the atmosphere's circulation and ITCZ north of the equator. In the context of this energy balance framework, we examine multidecadal connections between variations in the position of the global ITCZ and indices of extratropical sea surface temperature (SST) variability over the twentieth century. We find that the ITCZ and atmospheric circulation are shifted farther to the north during periods when North Atlantic and North Pacific SSTs are anomalously warm. Additionally, a warmer North Atlantic is correlated with a relatively warm Northern Hemisphere atmosphere. Our results suggest an important role for the ocean circulation in modulating ITCZ migrations on decade-and-longer timescales.
Is Real Earnings Smoothing Harmful? Evidence from Firm‐Specific Stock Price Crash Risk

This study examines whether and when real earnings smoothing influences firm-specific stock price crash risk. Using a sample of U.S. public firms for the years 1993 through 2014, we find real earnings smoothing to be positively associated with firm-specific stock price crash risk. This finding is consistent with the view that real earnings smoothing helps managers withhold bad news, keep poor-performing projects, conceal resource diversion, and engage in ineffective risk management, which increases crash risk. Further, we find a stronger relation between crash risk and real earnings smoothing when firm uncertainty is higher, product market competition is lower, and balance sheet constraint is higher. Overall, our study suggests that real earnings smoothing destroys shareholder value in that it increases stock price crash risk. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Ceramic Yb:YAG microchip laser

An efficient microchip laser utilizing domestically fabricated ceramic Yb:YAG is presented. In continuous-wave (cw) and Q-switched operation, the laser maintains linear polarization with 22 dB extinction and oscillates in the fundamental TEM 00 mode. In cw mode, the ceramic laser has an output power of 2.25 W and a slope efficiency of 66%. When passively Q-switched at 11.4 kHz repetition rate using Cr:YAG, the 1.9 ns pulse has an average power of 0.72 W and a slope efficiency of 46%. To our knowledge, this is currently the highest reported power from a ceramic Yb:YAG laser. The laser performance of the 5-at.% ceramic is compared to a 10-at.% single crystal, and we discuss how the scattering loss and storage efficiency of the ceramic medium affect its laser characteristics.
A Polymer Membrane Containing Fe0 as a Contaminant Barrier

A poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) membrane containing iron (Fe0) particles was developed and tested as a model barrier for contaminant containment. Carbon tetrachloride, copper (Cu2+), nitrobenzene, 4-nitroacetophenone, and chromate (CrO42-) were selected as model contaminants. Compared with a pure PVA membrane, the Fe0/PVA membrane can increase the breakthrough lag time for Cu2+ and carbon tetrachloride by more than 100-fold. The increase in the lag time was smaller for nitrobenzene and 4-nitroacetophenone, which stoichiometrically require more iron and for which the PVA membrane has a higher permeability. The effect of Fe0 was even smaller for CrO42- because of its slow reaction. Forty-five percent of the iron, based on the content in the dry membrane prior to hydration, was consumed by reaction with Cu2+ and 15% by reaction with carbon tetrachloride. Similarly, 25%, 17%, and 6% of the iron was consumed by nitrobenzene, 4-nitroacetophenone, and CrO42-, respectively. These percentages approximately double when...
Is the Balance of Payments Constrained Growth Rate Time-Varying? Exchange Rate Over Valuation, Policy-Induced Recessions, Deindustrialization, and Long Run Growth

A long-held view among macroeconomists in the UK and USA is that sustained currency over valuation, often the result of financial-sector dominance, weakens domestic macroeconomic performance, and results in premature deindustrialization. Similar concerns have been expressed about persistent, policy-induced recessions. According to balance of payments constrained growth (BPCG) theory, meanwhile, the BPCG rate in a multi-sector economy varies directly with the share of manufacturing in total output. This chapter develops a simple model that combines these observations to show how a temporary but persistent shock to the nominal exchange rate and/or domestic demand can both affect the actual rate of growth in the short run (by moving it away from the long-run equilibrium BPCG rate) and alter the BPCG rate itself (by lowering the income elasticity of demand for exports as a result of induced premature deindustrialization). The result is a time-varying balance of payments constrained growth (TV-BPCG) rate. Because actual growth and the TV-BPCG rate vary directly, the latter is also characterized as quasi path dependent.
A Relativistic Quaternionic Wave Equation

We study a one-component quaternionic wave equation which is relativistically covariant. Bi-linear forms include a conserved 4-current and an antisymmetric second rank tensor. Waves propagate within the light-cone and there is a conserved quantity which looks like helicity. The principle of superposition is retained in a slightly altered manner. External potentials can be introduced in a way that allows for gauge invariance. There are some results for scattering theory and for two-particle wavefunctions as well as the beginnings of second quantization. However, we are unable to find a suitable Lagrangian or an energy-momentum tensor.
Molecular basis for the recognition of the human AAUAAA polyadenylation signal.

Nearly all eukaryotic messenger RNA precursors must undergo cleavage and polyadenylation at their 3′-end for maturation. A crucial step in this process is the recognition of the AAUAAA polyadenylation signal (PAS), and the molecular mechanism of this recognition has been a long-standing problem. Here, we report the cryo-electron microscopy structure of a quaternary complex of human CPSF-160, WDR33, CPSF-30, and an AAUAAA RNA at 3.4-A resolution. Strikingly, the AAUAAA PAS assumes an unusual conformation that allows this short motif to be bound directly by both CPSF-30 and WDR33. The A1 and A2 bases are recognized specifically by zinc finger 2 (ZF2) of CPSF-30 and the A4 and A5 bases by ZF3. Interestingly, the U3 and A6 bases form an intramolecular Hoogsteen base pair and directly contact WDR33. CPSF-160 functions as an essential scaffold and preorganizes CPSF-30 and WDR33 for high-affinity binding to AAUAAA. Our findings provide an elegant molecular explanation for how PAS sequences are recognized for mRNA 3′-end formation.
Real and Financial Shocks, Exchange Rate Regimes and the Probability of a Currency Crisis

We analyze the relationships among shocks, exchange rate regimes, and capital controls in relation to the probabilities of currency crises. Based on the theoretical model by Nakatani (2016, 2017a), we use panel data on 34 developing countries and apply a probit estimation. We find that both productivity shocks and country risk premium shocks trigger currency crises, whereas productivity shocks are important for severe currency crises. We also find that the effects of these shocks on the probability of a crisis are larger for floating exchange rate regimes and that capital controls mitigate the effects of productivity shocks in pegged regimes.
Birth weight and infant health for multiple births.

Abstract I provide plausibly causal estimates of the effect of birth weight using data from the universe of twins, triplets, and quadruplets born between 1995 and 2000 in the United States. Infants from higher-order multiple births have lower birth weights, but experience smaller reductions in infant health when they are low birth weight. OLS estimates using a rich set of controls show that this result holds when comparing singletons to multiples and when analyzing historical data from before the widespread use of in vitro fertilization. These results suggest that the paradox of low birth weight remains even after controlling for unobserved maternal heterogeneity.
PinAPL-Py: A comprehensive web-application for the analysis of CRISPR/Cas9 screens

Large-scale genetic screens using CRISPR/Cas9 technology have emerged as a major tool for functional genomics. With its increased popularity, experimental biologists frequently acquire large sequencing datasets for which they often do not have an easy analysis option. While a few bioinformatic tools have been developed for this purpose, their utility is still hindered either due to limited functionality or the requirement of bioinformatic expertise. To make sequencing data analysis of CRISPR/Cas9 screens more accessible to a wide range of scientists, we developed a Platform-independent Analysis of Pooled Screens using Python (PinAPL-Py), which is operated as an intuitive web-service. PinAPL-Py implements state-of-the-art tools and statistical models, assembled in a comprehensive workflow covering sequence quality control, automated sgRNA sequence extraction, alignment, sgRNA enrichment/depletion analysis and gene ranking. The workflow is set up to use a variety of popular sgRNA libraries as well as custom libraries that can be easily uploaded. Various analysis options are offered, suitable to analyze a large variety of CRISPR/Cas9 screening experiments. Analysis output includes ranked lists of sgRNAs and genes, and publication-ready plots. PinAPL-Py helps to advance genome-wide screening efforts by combining comprehensive functionality with user-friendly implementation. PinAPL-Py is freely accessible at http://pinapl-py.ucsd.edu with instructions and test datasets.
Tunable Assembly of Gold Nanorods in Polymer Solutions To Generate Controlled Nanostructured Materials

Gold nanorods grafted with short-chain polymers are assembled into controlled open structures using polymer-induced depletion interactions and structurally characterized using small-angle X-ray scattering. When the nanorod diameter is smaller than the radius of gyration of the depletant polymer, the depletion interaction depends solely on the correlation length of the polymer solution and not directly on the polymer molecular weight. As the polymer concentration increases, the stronger depletion interactions increasingly compress the grafted chains and push the gold nanorods closer together. By contrast, other structural characteristics such as the number of nearest neighbors and fractal dimension exhibit a nonmonotonic dependence on polymer concentration. These parameters are maximal at intermediate concentrations, which are attributed to a crossover from reaction-limited to diffusion-limited aggregation. The control over structural properties of anisotropic nanoscale building blocks demonstrated here wi...
Grocery Auction Games: Distribution and Value in the Industrialized Food System

Grocery auctions, as an outgrowth of the inefficiencies of the industrialized food system, repurpose unwanted, damaged, and overstock food that has been removed from the primary market. Based on ethnographic research conducted at grocery auctions in Maryland and Mississippi, this article examines how the spoils and waste of the capitalist industrialized food system are transformed into valued food. During the competitive play of bidding, the divergent needs and motivations of distributers and consumers intersect and collectively determine the value of food: distribution, rather than production, emerges as a central force in the creation of value. Focusing on the generative potential of value, I argue that the social dimensions of distribution enacted through bidding render the value-making process itself visible and expose the products of the industrialized food system as contested sites of engagement rather than hegemonic markers of value.
The Substance of Secret Agreements and the Role of Government Lawyers

Megan Donaldson's The Survival of the Secret Treaty: Publicity, Secrecy, and Legality in the International Order recounts the ways in which lawyers played an important but complicated role in governmental decisions about whether and when to register secret agreements. On the one hand, these lawyers urged their governments to comply with the League of Nations and UN Charter registration processes. On the other hand, these same lawyers used their drafting and interpretive skills to enable their governments to employ secrecy where necessary, while helping their clients minimize the fact and size of any legal violations that occurred. They thus urged legal compliance on the front end and reduced the extent of noncompliance on the back end.
Delay to Colectomy and Survival for Patients Diagnosed with Colon Cancer.

Background: A long wait-time for colectomy for colon cancer should theoretically affect survival but, to date, the association between delay to colectomy and survival remains unresolved. Methods: W...
The rise of the randomistas: on the experimental turn in international aid

In recent years, the use of experimental methodologies has emerged as a central means of evaluating international aid interventions. Today, proponents of randomized control trials (so-called random...