cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Simple Robust Testing of Hypotheses in Non-Linear Models

We develop a test statistic to test hypotheses in nonlinear, weighted regression models with serial correlation/heteroskedasticity of unknown form. The novel aspect is that these tests are simple and do not require use of heteroskedasticity autocorrelation consistent (HAC) estimators. Furthermore, they introduce a new class of test, utilizing stochastic transformations to eliminate nuisance parameters, as a substitute for estimating the nuisance parameters. We derive the limiting null distributions of these new tests in a general nonlinear setting, and show that while the tests have nonstandard distributions, the distributions depend only upon the number of restrictions being tested. We apply this method of testing to an empirical example and illustrate that the size of the new test is less distorted than tests utilizing HAC estimators.
Socioeconomic impact assessments of high-Speed rail: A meta-Analysis

The interest in the socioeconomic impact assessments of the high-speed rail (HSR) system is burgeoning as many countries are considering investing in such a system. While extensive studies have pro...
Radiative contribution to thermal grating decay

The decay of a spatially sinusoidal temperature perturbation (thermal grating) via thermal transport by both conduction and radiation is analyzed theoretically. The intrinsic non-radiative conduction is described by the heat diffusion equation while radiative transport is described by the radiation transport equation for a non-scattering absorbing medium. We solve the coupled equations analytically and obtain the thermal grating decay rate, which leads to an explicit expression for the radiative contribution to the effective thermal conductivity measured with the laser-induced transient thermal grating technique. We find that at a given thermal grating period, the radiative contribution to thermal transport is maximized when the absorption length of thermal radiation is about 1/4 of the period. We present the expression for an upper bound for the radiative contribution and discuss the results for representative materials. We conclude that in a typical transient grating measurement with the grating period in the micrometer range, the radiative contribution is negligible, but it may be significant if the grating period is in the millimeter or centimeter range. Our analysis also provides a Fourier-domain Green's function that can be used to find the temperature field produced by an arbitrary spatiotemporal distribution of heat sources.
Multi-class object layout with unsupervised image classification and object localization

Recognizing the presence of object classes in an image, or image classification, has become an increasingly important topic of interest. Equally important, however, is also the capability to locate these object classes in the image. We consider in this paper an approach to these two related problems with the primary goal of minimizing the training requirements so as to allow for ease of adding new object classes, as opposed to approaches that favor training a suite of object-specific classifiers. To this end, we provide the analysis of an exemplar-based approach that leverages unsupervised clustering for classification purpose, and sliding window matching for localization. While such exemplar based approach by itself is brittle towards intraclass and viewpoint variations, we achieve robustness by introducing a novel Conditional Random Field model that facilitates a straightforward accept/reject decision of the localized object classes. Performance of our approach on the PASCAL Visual Object Challenge 2007 dataset demonstrates its efficacy.
Organo-F-element thermochemistry : implications for reactivity and bonding from metal-ligand bonding energetics

This article surveys the thermochemistry of organolanthanide and organoactinide complexes in several interrelated areas. For trivalent 4f and tetravalent 5f as well as tetravalent (d°) group 4 complexes, patterns in metal-ligand o bond enthalpies are rather similar for a diverse range of ligands. This information is directly applicable to the analysis and invention of a variety of stoichiometric and catalytic transformations, including olefin hydroamination, hydrophosphination, and hydrosilylation, as well as dehydrogenative silane polymerization. Studies of metal-ligand bonding energetics in zero-valent lanthanide and group 4 bisarene sandwich complexes reveal metal-arene bonding which is both similar and rather strong.
Is Mexico Ready for a Jury Trial?: Comparative Analysis of Lay Justice Systems in Mexico, the United States, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Ireland

This article examines the possible re-establishment of the jury system in Mexico and explores its broader application in criminal trials. Via- ble options might include: the use of a 'verdict questionnaire' in the form of a list of propositions answered by the jury; vigorous strategies to ensure the secu- rity and safety of judges and jurors from defendants involved in drug cartels; introduction of lay participation at a state level; and implementation of a mixed tribunal that allows joint deliberations by professional and lay judges, in addition to all-citizen juries.
Institutional Labyrinth: Beyond Establishing Lead Urban Transport Institutions

The regulation and the management of urban transport services are often fragmented across multiple institutions. The need for a lead institution to take comprehensive responsibility for urban transport is well recognized. However, attempts in some developing countries to establish effective institutions have not proved successful. This paper seeks to highlight the causes of this lack of success in two cities—Metropolitan Manila, Philippines, and Dakar, Senegal—across two continents. The paper argues that several challenges, even beyond establishing the institutions themselves, need to be addressed if these institutions are to prove effective. Inadequate definition of their role and overlap of responsibilities with other agencies, coupled with inadequate power over financial resources, can render them ineffective.
Tools for education policy analysis

This hands-on, interactive guide to evaluating and revamping education policy is designed to help policymakers in low-income countries identify weakness and make the most efficient use of scarce education resources. Education specialist in the developed world will also find this guide to be an invaluable tool for analyzing priorities and arriving at cost-effective solutions. The out-growth of training workshops held at the World Bank, this book and CD-ROM present relevant policy problems and engage the user in a search for effective education-service delivery options. Users can, moreover, plug in their own data and apply the statistical models to the specific challenges of their own educational systems. Both a self-paced learning guide and a practical assessment tool, this publication will be of interest to policymakers, as well as education researches, teachers, and students.
EX 33 ON GOD'S FACE: A LESSON FROM THE ENOCHIC TRADITION

The article examines the Enochic background of the imagery of the Divine Face found in Exodus 33. The study argues that Ex 33 could actually contain the original Enochic motif. In Mesopotamian traditions, a prototype of Enoch, Enmeduranki, is portrayed as a «translated» figure, the one who had access to the glorious presence/face of the solar deity. The implicit link between the Enochic account of the divine Presence and the Mosaic account of the divine panim found in Ex 33 may well reflect the conceptual world of the priestly editor, who often «has expressed his acquaintance with a fairly broad range of Mesopotamian traditions in remarkably few words».
Supplementary Eye Fields

The supplementary eye fields (SEFs) are located in dorsomedial frontal cortex and contribute to high-level control of eye movements. Recordings in the SEF reveal neural activity related to vision, saccades, and fixations, and electrical stimulation in the SEF evokes saccades and fixations. Inactivations and lesions of the SEF, however, cause minimal oculomotor deficits. The SEF thus processes information relevant to eye movements and influences critical oculomotor centers but seems unnecessary for generating action. Instead, the SEF has overarching, subtle functions that include limb-eye coordination, the timing and sequencing of actions, learning, monitoring conflict, prediction, supervising behavior, value-based decision making, and the monitoring of decisions.
Automatic classification of object code using machine learning

Recent research has repeatedly shown that machine learning techniques can be applied to either whole files or file fragments to classify them for analysis. We build upon these techniques to show that for samples of un-labeled compiled computer object code, one can apply the same type of analysis to classify important aspects of the code, such as its target architecture and endianess. We show that using simple byte-value histograms we retain enough information about the opcodes within a sample to classify the target architecture with high accuracy, and then discuss heuristic-based features that exploit information within the operands to determine endianess. We introduce a dataset with over 16000 code samples from 20 architectures and experimentally show that by using our features, classifiers can achieve very high accuracy with relatively small sample sizes.
Definitive radiation therapy of carcinoma of the prostate: A report on 15 years of experience

AbstractThe charts of 310 consecutive patients with localized prostatic carcinoma treated definitively with small-field external-beam irradiation were reviewed. The 5- and 10-year uncorrected actuarial survival rates for patients with disease limited to the prostate were 72 and 48%, respectively, compared to 48 and 30% in patients with palpable extracapsular extension. Patients for whom the interval between histological diagnosis and initiation of radiotherapy was less than one year had a significantly higher survival rate than those for whom this interval was longer. Severe symptoms which persisted beyond one year after treatment developed in 5%. Sexual potency was maintained in 70% of patients not hormonally manipulated following radiotherapy.
Generating pathological gait patterns via the use of robotic locomotion models

In this article we explore the feasibility of modeling normal and pathological human gait using a relatively simple five-element model. We use a robust, nonlinear control scheme to regulate the gait patterns of the model. Simulated gait patterns are generated through the use of five constraint relationships that depend on four gait parameters. Two pathological conditions due to muscle weaknesses were simulated by modifying the control torques at the joints. We demonstrate that the model successfully approximates the qualitative and quantitative dynamic trends that were observed in normal and pathological human locomotion.
On Helicity Fluctuations and the Energy Cascade in Turbulence

Recent conjectures concerning the correlation between regions of high local helicity and low dissipation are examined from a rigorous theoretical standpoint based on the Navier-Stokes equations. It is proven that only the solenoidal part of the Lamb vector w × u (which is directly tied to the nonlocal convection and stretching of vortex lines) contributes to the energy cascade in turbulence. Consequently, it is shown that regions of low dissipation can be associated with either low or high helicity—a result which disproves earlier speculations concerning this direct connection between helicity and the energy cascade. Some brief examples are given along with a discussion of the consistency of these results with the most recent computations of helicity fluctuations in incompressible turbulent flows.
Robust stability of linear systems : some computational considerations

The cases of both additive and multiplicative perturbations were discussed and a number of relationships between the two cases were given. A number of computational aspects of the theory were also discussed, including a proposed new method for evaluating general transfer or frequency response matrices. The new method is numerically stable and efficient, requiring only operations to update for new values of the frequency parameter.
Safe Platooning in Automated Highway Systems

This report addresses the problem of designing safe controllers for the hybrid system composed by the interaction of the regulation and coordination layers in the hierarchical California PATH Automated Highway System (AHS) architecture. Conditions to achieve safe platooning under normal mode of operation are investigated. The results that are obtained allow for the decoupling of the design and verification of the regulation and coordination layers in the PATH AHS architecture.
The Bioeconomics of Marine Sanctuaries

Consider an offshore fishing grounds of size K. Suppose the grounds has been overfished to the point that net revenue has been driven to zero and the fishery is in open access equilibrium at (X∞, Y∞). A marine sanctuary, where fishing is prohibited, is then created. Suppose the marine sanctuary is of size K2 and that fishing is allowed on a smaller grounds, now of size K1, where K1 + K2 = K. In the first, deterministic, model, the present value of net revenue from the grounds-sanctuary system is maximized subject to migration (diffusion) of fish from the sanctuary to the grounds. The size of the sanctuary is varied, the system is re-optimized, and the populations levels, harvest, and value of the fishery is compared to the 'no-sanctuary' optimum, and the open access equilibrium. In the deterministic model, a marine sanctuary reduces the present value of the fishery relative to the 'ideal' of optimal management of the original grounds. In the second model net growth is subject to stochastic fluctuation. Simulation demonstrates the ability of a marine sanctuary to reduce the variation in biomass on the fishing grounds. Variance reduction in fishable biomass is examined for different-sized sanctuaries when net growth on the grounds and in the sanctuary fluctuate independently and when they are perfectly correlated. For the stochastic model of this paper, sanctuaries ranging in size from 60 to 40% of the original grounds (0.6 ≥ K2/K ≥ 0.4) had the ability to lower variation in fishable biomass compared to the no sanctuary case. For a sanctuary equal to or greater than 70% of the original grounds (K2 ≥ 0.7K), net revenue would be nonpositive and there would be no incentive to fish.
Farmers' Willingness to Grow Cover Crops: Examining the Economic Factors of Adoption in Alabama

The inclusion of cover crops in cropping systems brings both direct and indirect costs and benefits. The literature has shown that cover crops can improve soil conservation and productivity, potentially improving cash crop yields and decreasing cash crop production costs. Farmers will adopt cover crops if the net economic benefit of utilizing them is positive. This study examines farmers’ willingness to grow cover crops as a soil conservation practice and to examine the socio-economic factors affecting their decision. Survey data collected in 2007-8 from Alabama farmers about cover crop adoption and management is utilized to estimate a cover crop adoption model.
Living on the edge -- risk, protection, behavior, and outcomes of Argentine youth

Risk and protective factors influence behaviors and outcomes for youth. While risk factors expose youth to risk-taking behavior that compromises well-being and hinders personal development, protective factors mediate risk and act as protective mechanisms that insulate youth from negative outcomes. This paper groups youth by risk levels using a cluster analysis methodology, and identifies the risk and protective factors that characterize these groups. Using data from a new household survey covering youth in four urban areas of Argentina in 2005, youth are clustered by characteristics in relation to family and health, education and income, substance abuse, and crime and violence as indicators of risk and protective factors, and behaviors and consequences. Almost half of Argentine youth are at an elevated risk level, and one in four is at serious risk of experiencing negative outcomes or already suffering the consequences. The findings show, for example, that higher income protects against risk factors, such as an insecure neighborhood, and facilitates youth attending school. Furthermore, parents' lack of education is negatively related to the behaviors and outcomes of their children.
Engine Throttle Control Using Anticipatory Band in the Sliding Phase Plane

Drive-by-wire throttle control is investigated using the pneumatic cruise control hardware in a research automobile. The dynamics of this pneumatic system are difficult to model, and the solenoid valves used for controlling the pressure make accurate throttle control difficult. To this end, a dynamic switching control law is developed. This control law utilizes an anticipatory band in a phase plane, which is defined in the sense of sliding mode control. In contrast to the deadband frequently used in bang-bang control where the control direction is switched after the error crosses a desired value, the anticipatory band switches the control direction before the error reaches the desired value. Experimental results show stable and accurate tracking performance.
Tukey, John Wilder

John Tukey (1915–2000), is best known to statisticians for founding the field of exploratory data analysis, for introducing the jackknife as a tool for characterizing the uncertainty in a statistic, and for guiding and contributing to research in robust methods. His work in other fields included Tukey's lemma; fast fourier transform; and coining the word “bit” for computer science. Keywords: clinical trials; multiplicity; exploratory data analysis; national halothane study; adjustment for covariates; jackknife; sampling; statistical mapping; bit; software
The Role of Education in Preparing Graduates for the Labor Market in the GCC Countries

Reviews trends regarding the role of education in the labor market and then considers the implications for education in the countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Large Firms and Internal Labor Markets

This paper introduces a model of internal labor markets that is consistent with the observed dierences between workers in large and small …rms with respect to wages and separation rates. In particular, …rms constitute labor markets with no search frictions. Workers are free to move within a …rm at no cost, whereas switch- ing across …rms is costly. If the quality of a match between a worker and a oc- cupation/department/team within a …rm is uncertain, then larger …rms oer more opportunities for workers to …nd the right match. As a result, workers abandon unpromising matches more easily and are more likely to be employed in better matches. In equilibrium, workers in larger …rms are more productive, earn higher wages and are less likely to quit, even conditional on their wage. Using data from the 1996 SIPP we …nd support for the predictions of our framework: internal mo- bility is higher in larger …rms and depends negatively on wages and tenure; workers in larger …rms switch occupations at higher wage levels and receive higher wages in their new occupation; the size-wage premium is higher for workers with longer tenure, while workers who leave large …rms continue to enjoy high wages, but only if they remain in the same occupation; and …nally the wage and size eects on the separation probability are signi…cantly larger for workers who switch occupations.
High-level security issues in multimedia/hypertext systems

Multimedia/hypertext systems are growing at an enormous rate. A large variety of trans­actions take place over the Internet. We have today different types of documents available as hypertext on the WWW for these transactions. WWW is the major platform for world-wide transfer of documents. The security of these documents is a top priority issue but this is a relatively neglected area. Most of the existing work focuses on low-level aspects. We look here at the high-level security measures available today, different combinations of security models, different types of documents and the effect of the system environment. We indicate directions for future research.
Multidimensional Item Response Theory Models

It is common for educational and psychological tests to be inherently multidimensional, or measuring two or more traits, skills, or dimensions. If assessment data are determined to be multidimensional testing practitioners, researchers can apply multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) to help them better understand what their tests are measuring, how accurately the different composites of ability are being assessed, and use this information to inform the test development process. In this entry, several different aspects of MIRT analyses are discussed: obtaining evidence that the test is multidimensional, estimating the item and ability parameters for a multidimensional model, and illustrating the estimated parameters graphically to gain a better understanding about the composites of traits or skills that are being assessed. Keywords: dimensionality; multidimensional item response theory
Neurogenic pulmonary edema.

Although nervous system induced pulmonary edema appears to have a relatively well established neuroeffector site, the pathogenesis of this condition remains incompletely understood. Both hemodynamic and nonhemodynamic components exist. The hemodynamic (cardiogenic) component is relatively brief and may unmask a noncardiogenic edema. Experimental models, human studies, and clinical reports also are discussed and evaluated.
Useful-Skew Clock Routing with Gate Sizing for Low Power Design

This paper presents a new problem formulation and algorithm of clock routing combined with gate sizing for minimizing total logic and clock power. Instead of zero-skew or assuming a fixed skew bound, we seek to produce useful skews in clock routing. This is motivated by the fact that only positive skew should be minimized while negative skew is useful in that it allows a timing budget larger than the clock period for gate sizing. We construct an useful-skew tree (UST) such that the total clock and logic power (measured as a cost function) is minimized. Given a required clock period and feasible gate sizes, a set of negative and positive skew bounds are generated. The allowable skews within these bounds and feasible gate sizes together form the feasible solution space of our problem. Inspired by the Deferred-Merge Embedding (DME) approach, we devise a merging segment perturbation procedure to explore various tree configurations which result in correct clock operation under the required period. Because of the large number of feasible configurations, we adopt a simulated annealing approach to avoid being trapped in a local optimal configuration. This is complemented by a bi-partitioning heuristic to generate an appropriate connection topology to take advantage of useful skews. Experimental results of our method have shown 12% to 20% total power reduction over previous methods of clock routing with zero-skew or a single fixed skew bound and separately sizing logic gates. This is achieved at no sacrifice of clock frequency.
A randomized proper orthogonal decomposition technique

In this paper, we consider the problem of model reduction of large scale systems, such as those obtained through the discretization of PDEs. We propose a randomized proper orthogonal decomposition (RPOD) technique to obtain the reduced order models by randomly choosing a subset of the inputs/outputs of the system to construct a suitable small sized Hankel matrix from the full Hankel matrix. It is shown that the RPOD technique is computationally orders of magnitude cheaper when compared to techniques such as the Eigensystem Realization Algorithm (ERA)/Balanced proper orthogonal decomposition (BPOD) while obtaining the same information in terms of the number and accuracy of the dominant modes. The method is tested on a linearized channel flow problem.
Automated Travel Time Measurement Using Vehicle Lengths from Loop Detector Speed Traps

This report presents a vehicle reidentification algorithm for consecutive detector stations on a freeway, whereby a vehicle measurement made at a downstream detector station is matched with the vehicle's corresponding measurement at an upstream station. The algorithm should improve freeway surveillance by measuring the actual vehicle travel times; these are simply the differences in the times that each (matched) vehicle arrives to the upstream and downstream stations. Thus, it will be possible to quantify conditions between widely spaced detector stations rather than assuming that the local conditions measured at a single station are representative of an extended link between stations.
Framework for safe reuse of software binaries

In this paper we consider reusability of software component binaries Reuse of code at the binary level is important because usually only the machine code for system components is available; vendors do not want to share their source code for proprietary reasons We develop necessary and sufficient conditions for ensuring that software binaries are reusable and relate them to the coding standards that have been developed in the industry to ensure binary code reusability These coding standards, in essence, discourage the (i) use of hard-coded pointers, and (ii) writing of non-reentrant code Checking that binary code satisfies these standards/conditions, however, is undecidable, in general We thus develop static analysis based methods for checking if a software binary satisfies these conditions This static analysis rests on the abstract interpretation framework We illustrate our approach by showing how we statically analyze the presence of hard coded pointer variables in assembly code obtained from binaries of digital signal processing applications The analyzer we have developed takes the binary to be checked for reuse as input, disassembles it, builds the flow graph, and statically analyzes the flow graph to check for the presence of code that will hinder its reuse.
Influence of the Organic Species and Oxoanion in the Synthesis of two Uranyl Sulfate Hydrates, (H3O)2[(UO2)2(SO4)3­(H2O)]·7H2O and (H3O)2[(UO2)2(SO4)3(H2O)]·4H2O, and a Uranyl Selenate-Selenite [C5H6N][(UO2)(SeO4)(HSeO3)]

Two uranyl sulfate hydrates, (H3O)2[(UO2)2(SO4)3(H2O)]·7H2O (NDUS) and (H3O)2[(UO2)2(SO4)3(H2O)]·4H2O (NDUS1), and one uranyl selenate-selenite [C5H6N][(UO2)(SeO4)(HSeO3)] (NDUSe), were obtained and their crystal structures solved. NDUS and NDUSe result from reactions in highly acidic media in the presence of L-cystine at 373 K. NDUS crystallized in a closed vial at 278 K after 5 days and NDUSe in an open beaker at 278 K after 2 weeks. NDUS1 was synthesized from aqueous solution at room temperature over the course of a month. NDUS, NDUS1, and NDUSe crystallize in the monoclinic space group P21/n, a = 15.0249(4) A,b = 9.9320(2) A, c = 15.6518(4) A, β = 112.778(1)°, V = 2153.52(9) A3,Z = 4, the tetragonal space group P43212, a = 10.6111(2) A,c = 31.644(1) A, V = 3563.0(2) A3, Z = 8, and in the monoclinic space group P21/n, a = 8.993(3) A, b = 13.399(5) A, c = 10.640(4) A,β = 108.230(4)°, V = 1217.7(8) A3, Z = 4, respectively.The structural units of NDUS and NDUS1 are two-dimensional uranyl sulfate sheets with a U/S ratio of 2/3. The structural unit of NDUSe is a two-dimensional uranyl selenate-selenite sheets with a U/Se ratio of 1/2. In-situ reaction of the L-cystine ligands gives two distinct products for the different acids used here. Where sulfuric acid is used, only H3O+ cations are located in the interlayer space, where they balance the charge of the sheets, whereas where selenic acid is used, interlayer C5H6N+ cations result from the cyclization of the carboxyl groups of L-cystine, balancing the charge of the sheets.
Transient gas motion in nuclear-reactor-pumped lasers : computational and experimental results

In some types of nuclear-reactor-pumped lasers, the fission fragments that are used to excite gaseous lasing species heat the gas in a spatially nonuniform manner. This heating nonuniformity induces transient gas motion, which results in density and refractive-index gradients that affect the laser's optical behavior. A model of the transient gas motion is developed using the acoustic filtering methodology, which neglects the spatial variation of the pressure. This model incorporates the effect of spatially varying gas density on fission-fragment heating. Gas motion out of the laser cell into small, rapidly cooled regions is treated as a volumetric mass loss distributed over the laser cell. Although these regions have a relatively small fraction of the total volume, a large amount of gas can flow into them during the heating because of the rapid cooling therein. This gas removal from the cell during pumping, neglected in previous analyses, is important because fission-fragment heating is strongly dependent on local gas density. To quantify the laser's optical behavior, experiments are performed in which a probe laser beam is passed through the laser cell. This probe beam acquires a wavefront distortion from the refractive-index gradients and is imaged onto a wavefront slope sensor, which yieldsmore » temporally and spatially resolved measurements of the angular deflection (wavefront slope) of the probe laser beam. Experimental and model results for this quantity exhibit reasonably good agreement over a wide range of pressures and heating amplitudes. 14 refs., 12 figs.« less
Conventions and Norms: Philosophical Aspects

Conventions and norms are distinct but overlapping social regularities. ‘Convention’ has been variously defined as a type of agreement, a jointly accepted principle of action, and a set of coordinated expectations that solve a recurrent coordination problem. The related meaning of ‘norm’ is a regularity of behavior among a population of individuals, where the regularity is at least partly sustained by the fact that at least most individuals approve conformity to the regularity and/or disapprove nonconformity. Game theory addresses how conventions arise without agreement, but the process turns out to be difficult to explain based on rationality alone. Some theorists contend that norms are based on emotion rather than rationality, but others contend that the rational pursuit of interest can explain norm origin.
New approaches to parsing conjunctions using prolog

Conjunctions are particularly difficult to parse in traditional, phrase-based grammars. This paper shows how a different representation, not based on tree structures, markedly improves the parsing problem for conjunctions. It modifies the union of phrase marker model proposed by Goodall [1984], where conjunction is considered as the linearization of a three-dimensional union of a non-tree based phrase marker representation. A PROLOG grammar for conjunctions using this new approach is given. It is far simpler and more transparent than a recent phrase-based extraposition parser conjunctions by Dahl and Mc.Cord [1984]. Unlike the Dahl and Mc.Cord or ATN SYSCONJ approach, no special trail machinery is needed for conjunction, beyond that required for analyzing simple sentences. While of comparable efficiency, the new approach unifies under a single analysis a host of related constructions: respectively sentences, right node raising, or gapping. Another advantage is that it is also completely reversible (without cuts), and therefore can be used to generate sentences.
Improvements in database concurrency control with locking

Abstract:Various techniques have been proposed to ensure the safe, concurrent execution of a set of database transactions. Locking protocols are the most prominent and widely used of these techniques, with two-phase locking and tree locking being but two examples of these protocols. A locking protocol defines a general set of restrictions on the placement of lock and unlock steps within transactions. In this paper we show that it is possible to further increase the potential level of concurrency of a set of transactions, within the context of a specific locking protocol, by further restricting the placement of lock and unlock steps within each transaction. We also discuss a variation of the tree locking protocols that allows transactions to be locked with respect to a dynamically changing set of tree structures. In addition, we define and discuss the concept of a concurrency cost function for a locked transaction. This cost function measures the potential for conflict of a transaction with other transactions.
Automatic differentiation and numerical software design

Automatic differentiation (AD) tools can generate accurate and efficient derivative code for computer programs of arbitrary length. In some cases, however, the developer of the code to be differentiated may be required to provide additional information to an AD tool to ensure the desired solution. We illustrate these issues with nondifferentiable language intrinsics such as max() in the context of computing the Euclidean norm and numerical integrators. In both cases, very little additional information is required to ensure that AD computes the “do-what-I-mean” derivatives. In addition, the provision of such information makes it easy to derive “derivative-enhanced” versions of these codes.
Buying bad behavior: Tournament incentives and securities class action lawsuits

Research summary: Tournament theory suggests that a large gap in pay between CEOs and top managers can provide incentives to perform, but we argue that it can also elicit negative effort and even motivate the kind of behavior that leads to lawsuits. We posit that this negative effort is greater when firms have high levels of unrelated diversification because there is less operational interdependency, so tournament effects are stronger. We also contend that the influence of tournament incentives on behavior leading to lawsuits is weaker when environmental uncertainty is high. We discuss the consequences of these findings for research on fraud and tournament theory as well as the practical repercussions for firms, investors, and policymakers. Managerial summary: Each year, the press has a field day when companies announce the outsized compensation packages laid out for CEOs. Economists use “tournament theory” to describe how high CEO pay motivates everyone else to work hard to get into the top job. The problem with this approach is that, yes, top managers work harder when the gap between their and the CEO's pay increases, but as that gap widens, it also incentivizes top managers to cheat or cut corners. As a result, we find that the gap between CEO and top manager compensation predicts the likelihood that shareholders will file a securities class action lawsuit against the company. This gap in pay is an especially good predictor of lawsuits for highly unrelated diversified companies and companies facing a low level of external uncertainty. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Contextual learning in the neurosolver

In this paper, we introduce an enhancement to the Neurosolver, a neuromorphic planner and a problem solving system. The enhanced architecture enables contextual learning. The Neurosolver was designed and tested on several problem solving and planning tasks such as re-arranging blocks and controlling a software-simulated artificial rat running in a maze. In these tasks, the Neurosolver learned temporal patterns independent of the context. However in the real world no skill is acquired in vacuum; Contextual cues are a part of every situation, and the brain can incorporate such stimuli as evidenced through experiments with live rats. Rats use cues from the environment to navigate inside mazes. The enhanced architecture of the Neurosolver accommodates similar learning.
Aleksandrov surfaces and hyperbolicity

Aleksandrov surfaces are a generalization of two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, and it is known that every open simply-connected Aleksandrov surface is conformally equivalent either to the unit disc (hyperbolic case) or to the plane (parabolic case). We prove a criterion for hyperbolicity of Aleksandrov surfaces which have nice tilings and where negative curvature dominates. We then apply this to generalize a result of Nevanlinna and give a partial answer for his conjecture about line complexes.
Relating personality and behavior: posture and gestures

We have constructed a Bayesian model relating personality and emotion to externally observable behaviors, designed to be useful in generating natural and convincing communicative behaviors in a conversational agent. The same model can be used to diagnose the internal emotional state and personality type of the human user. This paper briefly recounts the motivation and structure of the overall model, and then considers the relationship between personality type and posture and gestures in more detail. As is well established in the psychology literature, people recognize characteristic body motions as reliable indicators of the personality type of others. We review the most likely sources of evidence for those judgments, and consider the feasibility of generating behavior in an animated computer agent that presents a consistent personality, as well as the more difficult task of recognizing personality type based on body movement.
Revenue Sharing in MLB: The Effect on Player Transfers

The 1997 collective bargaining agreement between the Major League Baseball owners and players’ union considerably altered the system of revenue redistribution. This system, a convoluted cross-subsidization system, known as the “split pool plan”, was designed to progressively redistribute income from the highest revenue generating teams toward the lowest revenue-producing clubs. The 2003 agreement extended the basic system of revenue redistribution, but increased the tax rate to 34%, and modified the nature of the redistribution. The purpose of the revenue sharing system was to alleviate a growing disparity in revenue generation, which MLB claims is continuing to cause increased levels of competitive imbalance. The new scheme is examined theoretically within the principal-agent framework, which shows that the incentive to divest in talent is increased for low revenue clubs. Empirical results are supportive. Payroll disparity and competitive imbalance increased modestly from the period immediately preceding implementation. Most striking however is a significant increase in the rate that productive players have transferred away from low revenue teams. This strongly suggests that these teams were acting on the increased incentives to divest in talent.
A single-electron transistor made from a cadmium selenide nanocrystal

The techniques of colloidal chemistry permit the routine creation of semiconductor nanocrystals1,2 whose dimensions are much smaller than those that can be realized using lithographic techniques3,4,5,6. The sizes of such nanocrystals can be varied systematically to study quantum size effects or to make novel electronic or optical materials with tailored properties7,8,9. Preliminary studies of both the electrical10,11,12,13 and optical properties14,15,16 of individual nanocrystals have been performed recently. These studies show clearly that a single excess charge on a nanocrystal can markedly influence its properties. Here we present measurements of electrical transport in a single-electron transistor made from a colloidal nanocrystal of cadmium selenide. This device structure enables the number of charge carriers on the nanocrystal to be tuned directly, and so permits the measurement of the energy required for adding successive charge carriers. Such measurements are invaluable in understanding the energy-level spectra of small electronic systems, as has been shown by similar studies of lithographically patterned quantum dots3,4,5,6 and small metallic grains17.
Real-time Bayesian anomaly detection in streaming environmental data

[1] With large volumes of data arriving in near real time from environmental sensors, there is a need for automated detection of anomalous data caused by sensor or transmission errors or by infrequent system behaviors. This study develops and evaluates three automated anomaly detection methods using dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs), which perform fast, incremental evaluation of data as they become available, scale to large quantities of data, and require no a priori information regarding process variables or types of anomalies that may be encountered. This study investigates these methods' abilities to identify anomalies in eight meteorological data streams from Corpus Christi, Texas. The results indicate that DBN-based detectors, using either robust Kalman filtering or Rao-Blackwellized particle filtering, outperform a DBN-based detector using Kalman filtering, with the former having false positive/negative rates of less than 2%. These methods were successful at identifying data anomalies caused by two real events: a sensor failure and a large storm.
Catching the Head, Tail, and Everything in Between: A Streaming Algorithm for the Degree Distribution

The degree distribution is one of the most fundamental graph properties of interest for real-world graphs. It has been widely observed in numerous domains that graphs typically have a tailed or scale-free degree distribution. While the average degree is usually quite small, the variance is quite high and there are vertices with degrees at all scales. We focus on the problem of approximating the degree distribution of a large streaming graph, with small storage. We design an algorithm headtail, whose main novelty is a new estimator of infrequent degrees using truncated geometric random variables. We give a mathematical analysis of headtail and show that it has excellent behavior in practice. We can process streams will millions of edges with storage less than 1% and get extremely accurate approximations for all scales in the degree distribution. We also introduce a new notion of Relative Hausdorff distance between tailed histograms. Existing notions of distances between distributions are not suitable, since they ignore infrequent degrees in the tail. The Relative Hausdorff distance measures deviations at all scales, and is a more suitable distance for comparing degree distributions. By tracking this new measure, we are able to give strong empirical evidence of the convergence of headtail.
An Empirical Examination of the Impact of College Financial Aid on Family Savings

The system of distributing financial aid dollars using needs analysis formulae implicitly imposes a financial aid tax on assets. Existing studies provide mixed evidence of the influence of this imp...
Invariance of Structure in an Aging Colloidal Glass

We study concentrated colloidal suspensions, a model system which has a glass transition. The non‐equilibrium nature of the glassy state is most clearly highlighted by aging — the dependence of the system’s properties on the time elapsed since vitrification. Fast laser scanning confocal microscopy allows us to image a colloidal glass and track the particles in three dimensions. We analyze the static structure in terms of tetrahedral packing. We find that while the aging of the suspension clearly affects its dynamics, none of the geometrical quantities associated with tetrahedra change with age.
Magnetar Driven Bubbles and the Origin of Collimated Outflows from GRBs

We model the interaction between the wind from a newly formed rapidly rotating magnetar and the surrounding progenitor. In the first few seconds after core collapse the magnetar inflates a bubble of plasma and magnetic fields behind the supernova shock, which expands asymmetrically because of the pinching effect of the toroidal magnetic field, as in PWNe, even if the host star is spherically symmetric. The degree of asymmetry depends on the ratio of the magnetic energy to the total energy in the bubble. We assume that the wind by newly formed magnetars inflating these bubbles is more magnetized than for PWNe. We show that for a magnetic to total power supplied by the central magnetar ∼0.1 the bubble expands relatively spherically while for values greater than 0.3, most of the pressure in the bubble is exerted close to the rotation axis, driving a collimated outflow out through the host star. This can account for the collimation inferred from observations of long‐duration gamma‐ray bursts (GRBs). Given tha...
Radiation fields, scattering, and inverse scattering on asymptotically hyperbolic manifolds

We define the forward and backward radiation fields on an asymptotically hyperbolic manifold and show that they give unitary translation representations of the wave group and as such can be used to define a scattering matrix. We show that this scattering matrix is equivalent to the one defined by stationary methods. Furthermore, we prove a support theorem for the radiation fields which generalizes to this setting well-known results of Helgason [23] and Lax and Phillips [35] for the horocyclic Radon transform. As an application, we use the boundary control method of Belishev [4] to show that an asymptotically hyperbolic manifold is determined up to invariants by the scattering matrix at all energies.
Bounded gaps between prime polynomials with a given primitive root

A famous conjecture of Artin states that there are infinitely many prime numbers for which a fixed integer g is a primitive root, provided g ? - 1 and g is not a perfect square. Thanks to work of Hooley, we know that this conjecture is true, conditional on the truth of the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis. Using a combination of Hooley's analysis and the techniques of Maynard-Tao used to prove the existence of bounded gaps between primes, Pollack has shown that (conditional on GRH) there are bounded gaps between primes with a prescribed primitive root. In the present article, we provide an unconditional proof of the analogue of Pollack's work in the function field case; namely, that given a monic polynomial g ( t ) which is not an vth power for any prime v dividing q - 1 , there are bounded gaps between monic irreducible polynomials P ( t ) in F q t for which g ( t ) is a primitive root (which is to say that g ( t ) generates the group of units modulo P ( t ) ). In particular, we obtain bounded gaps between primitive polynomials, corresponding to the choice g ( t ) = t .
Formal Verification of Out-of-Order Execution Using Incremental Flushing

We present a two-part approach for verifying out-of-order execution. First, the complexity of out-of-order issue and scheduling is handled by creating an in-order abstraction of the out-of-order execution core. Second, incremental flushing addresses the complexity difficulties encountered by automated abstraction functions on very deep pipelines. We illustrate the techniques on a model of a simple out-of-order processor core.
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: Consistency or Crisis?

The early hot, dense, expanding Universe was a primordial reactor in which the light nuclides D, 3He, 4He and 7Li were synthesized in astrophysically interesting abundances. The challenge to the standard hot big bang model (Big Bang Nucleosynthesis ≡ BBN) is the comparison between the observed and predicted abundances, the latter which depend only on the universal abundance of nucleons. The current status of observations is reviewed and the inferred primordial abundances are used to confront BBN. This comparison suggests consistency for BBN for a narrow range in the nucleon abundance but, looming on the horizon are some potential crises which will be outlined.