cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Measuring Ex-Ante Welfare in Insurance Markets

The willingness to pay for insurance captures the value of insurance against only the risk that remains when choices are observed. This article develops tools to measure the ex ante expected utility impact of insurance subsidies and mandates when choices are observed after some insurable information is revealed. The approach retains the transparency of using reduced-form willingness to pay and cost curves, but it adds one additional sufficient statistic: the percentage difference in marginal utilities between insured and uninsured. I provide an approach to estimate this additional statistic that uses only the reduced-form willingness to pay curve, combined with a measure of risk aversion. I compare the approach to structural approaches that require fully specifying the choice environment and information sets of individuals. I apply the approach using existing willingness to pay and cost curve estimates from the low-income health insurance exchange in Massachusetts. Ex ante optimal insurance prices are roughly 30% lower than prices that maximize observed market surplus. While mandates reduce market surplus, the results suggest they would actually increase ex ante expected utility.
Realtime Time Synchronized Event-based Stereo

In this work, we propose a novel event based stereo method which addresses the problem of motion blur for a moving event camera. Our method uses the velocity of the camera and a range of disparities to synchronize the positions of the events, as if they were captured at a single point in time. We represent these events using a pair of novel time synchronized event disparity volumes, which we show remove motion blur for pixels at the correct disparity in the volume, while further blurring pixels at the wrong disparity. We then apply a novel matching cost over these time synchronized event disparity volumes, which both rewards similarity between the volumes while penalizing blurriness. We show that our method outperforms more expensive, smoothing based event stereo methods, by evaluating on the Multi Vehicle Stereo Event Camera dataset.
Finding variants for construction-based dialectometry: A corpus-based approach to regional CxGs

This paper develops a construction-based dialectometry capable of identifying previously unknown constructions and measuring the degree to which a given construction is subject to regional variation. The central idea is to learn a grammar of constructions (a CxG) using construction grammar induction and then to use these constructions as features for dialectometry. This offers a method for measuring the aggregate similarity between regional CxGs without limiting in advance the set of constructions subject to variation. The learned CxG is evaluated on how well it describes held-out test corpora while dialectometry is evaluated on how well it can model regional varieties of English. Themethod is tested using two distinct datasets: First, the International Corpus of English representing eight outer circle varieties; Second, a web-crawled corpus representing five inner circle varieties. Results show that themethod (1) produces a grammar with stable quality across sub-sets of a single corpus that is (2) capable of distinguishing between regional varieties of Englishwith a high degree of accuracy, thus (3) supporting dialectometricmethods formeasuring the similarity between varieties of English and (4) measuring the degree to which each construction is subject to regional variation. This is important for cognitive sociolinguistics because it operationalizes the idea that competition between constructions is organized at the functional level so that dialectometry needs to represent as much of the available functional space as possible.
Stagewise Safe Bayesian Optimization with Gaussian Processes

Enforcing safety is a key aspect of many problems pertaining to sequential decision making under uncertainty, which require the decisions made at every step to be both informative of the optimal decision and also safe. For example, we value both efficacy and comfort in medical therapy, and efficiency and safety in robotic control. We consider this problem of optimizing an unknown utility function with absolute feedback or preference feedback subject to unknown safety constraints. We develop an efficient safe Bayesian optimization algorithm, StageOpt, that separates safe region expansion and utility function maximization into two distinct stages. Compared to existing approaches which interleave between expansion and optimization, we show that StageOpt is more efficient and naturally applicable to a broader class of problems. We provide theoretical guarantees for both the satisfaction of safety constraints as well as convergence to the optimal utility value. We evaluate StageOpt on both a variety of synthetic experiments, as well as in clinical practice. We demonstrate that StageOpt is more effective than existing safe optimization approaches, and is able to safely and effectively optimize spinal cord stimulation therapy in our clinical experiments.
Home Monitoring Service Improves Mean Arterial Pressure in Patients with Essential Hypertension: A Randomized Controlled Trial

P99 While the use of telecommunication systems in medicine has been increasing, there have been few trials to assess the efficacy of such technology for improving blood pressure (BP) in patients with essential hypertension. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) was conducted to assess the efficacy of an home monitoring service which utilized automatic transmission of BP data over telephone lines, conversion of the data into report form by computer, and facsimile transmission of the form weekly to physicians and patients. One hundred and eleven patients were randomized to either home service or usual care and followed for a median of 11 weeks. The primary endpoint was change in mean arterial pressure (MAP) which was assessed using a 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) device at both baseline and exit. There was a 3.0 mm Hg decline in MAP from baseline to exit for patients using the home service and a 1.5 mm Hg increase in MAP for patients receiving usual care (p=0.0139). There was a 2.1 mm Hg decline in average diastolic BP (DBP) in the home service group and a 2.3 mm Hg increase in the usual care group (p=0.0120). In addition, the proportion of 24-hour DBP readings above target levels decreased by 6.8% in patients receiving home service, but increased by 6.2% in patients receiving usual care (p=0.0057). The reduction in BP was evident for both genders, for each ethnic group, and for both younger and older patients. For African-Americans, MAP declined by 9.6 mm Hg for those receiving the home service and increased by 5.25 mm Hg for those receiving usual care (p=0.0469). The difference in MAP between the two study arms remained significant after adjustment for patient characteristics. The decrease in BP for home service was, in part, due to more frequent changes in dose and/or type of medication during the course of the trial. This was the first RCT of a home BP service that did not rely on patient self-report and which used 24-hour ABPM at baseline and at exit to assess usual BP. It is recommended that patients with essential hypertension, who are in the process of evaluation for a change in antihypertensive therapy, utilize a home monitoring service.
Labeling of endothelial cells with magnetic microbeads by angiophagy

Attachment of magnetic particles to cells is needed for a variety of applications but is not always possible or efficient. Simpler and more convenient methods are thus desirable. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that endothelial cells (EC) can be loaded with micron-size magnetic beads by the phagocytosis-like mechanism ‘angiophagy’. To this end, human umbilical vein EC (HUVEC) were incubated with magnetic beads conjugated or not (control) with an anti-VEGF receptor 2 antibody, either in suspension, or in culture followed by re-suspension using trypsinization. In all conditions tested, HUVEC incubation with beads induced their uptake by angiophagy, which was confirmed by (i) increased cell granularity assessed by flow cytometry, and (ii) the presence of an F-actin rich layer around many of the intracellular beads, visualized by confocal microscopy. For confluent cultures, the average number of beads per cell was 4.4 and 4.2, with and without the presence of the anti-VEGFR2 antibody, respectively. However, while the actively dividing cells took up 2.9 unconjugated beads on average, this number increased to 5.2 if binding was mediated by the antibody. Magnetic pulldown increased the cell density of beads-loaded cells in porous electrospun poly-capro-lactone scaffolds by a factor of 4.5 after 5 min, as compared to gravitational settling (p < 0.0001). We demonstrated that EC can be readily loaded by angiophagy with micron-sized beads while attached in monolayer culture, then dispersed in single-cell suspensions for pulldown in porous scaffolds and for other applications.
An expectation-maximization approach to tuning generalized vector approximate message passing

Generalized Vector Approximate Message Passing (GVAMP) is an efficient iterative algorithm for approximately minimum-mean-squared-error estimation of a random vector \(\mathbf {x}\sim p_{\mathbf {x}}(\mathbf {x})\) from generalized linear measurements, i.e., measurements of the form \(\mathbf {y}=Q(\mathbf {z})\) where \(\mathbf {z}=\mathbf {Ax}\) with known \(\mathbf {A}\), and \(Q(\cdot )\) is a noisy, potentially nonlinear, componentwise function. Problems of this form show up in numerous applications, including robust regression, binary classification, quantized compressive sensing, and phase retrieval. In some cases, the prior \(p_{\mathbf {x}}\) and/or channel \(Q(\cdot )\) depend on unknown deterministic parameters \(\varvec{\theta }\), which prevents a direct application of GVAMP. In this paper we propose a way to combine expectation maximization (EM) with GVAMP to jointly estimate \(\mathbf {x}\) and \(\varvec{\theta }\). We then demonstrate how EM-GVAMP can solve the phase retrieval problem with unknown measurement-noise variance.
Mitigating wordline crosstalk using adaptive trees of counters

DRAM technology scaling has the undesirable side effect of degrading cell reliability. One such concern of deeply scaled DRAMs is the increased coupling between adjacent cells, commonly referred to as crosstalk. High access frequency of certain rows in the DRAM may cause data loss in cells of physically adjacent rows due to crosstalk. The malicious exploit of this crosstalk by repeatedly accessing a row to induce this effect is known as row hammering. Additionally, inadvertent row hammering may also occur due to the natural weighted nature of applications' access patterns. In this paper, we analyze the efficiency of existing approaches for mitigating wordline crosstalk and demonstrate that they have been conservatively designed. Given the unbalanced nature of DRAM accesses, a small group of dynamically allocated counters in banks can deterministically detect "hot" rows and mitigate crosstalk. Based on our findings, we propose a Counter-based Adaptive Tree (CAT) approach to mitigate wordline crosstalk using adaptive trees of counters to guide appropriate refreshing of vulnerable rows. The key idea is to tune the distribution of the counters to the rows in a bank based on the memory reference patterns. In contrast to deterministic solutions, CAT utilizes fewer counters, making it practically feasible to be implemented on-chip. Compared to existing probabilistic approaches, CAT more precisely refreshes rows vulnerable to crosstalk based on their access frequency. Experimental results on workloads from four benchmark suites show that CAT reduces the Crosstalk Mitigation Refresh Power Overhead in quad-core systems to 7%, which is an improvement over the 21% and 18% incurred in the leading deterministic and probabilistic approaches, respectively. Moreover, CAT incurs very low performance overhead (∼ 0.5%). Hardware synthesis evaluation shows that CAT can be implemented on-chip with only a nominal area overhead.
Back and forth error compensation and correction method for linear hyperbolic systems with application to the Maxwell's equations

Abstract We study the Back and Forth Error Compensation and Correction (BFECC) method for linear hyperbolic systems and in particular for the Maxwell's equations. BFECC has been applied to schemes for scalar advection equations to improve their stability and order of accuracy. Similar results have been established in this paper for linear hyperbolic systems with constant coefficients. We apply BFECC to the central difference scheme, Lax-Friedrichs scheme and a combination of them for the Maxwell's equations and obtain second order accurate schemes with large CFL numbers (greater than 1 in one or two dimensions). The method is further applied to schemes on non-orthogonal unstructured grids. The new BFECC schemes for the Maxwell's equations operate on a single non-staggered grid and are simple to implement on unstructured grids. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new schemes.
Better Off Alone: Daily Solitude Is Associated With Lower Negative Affect in More Conflictual Social Networks.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Older adults are often considered at risk for social isolation. Little is known, however, about how often older adults lack social contact (in person, phone, electronic) throughout the day, the implications of lacking contact (i.e., solitude), and whether the effects of solitude vary by the broader social context. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Participants were from the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study (DEWS) which included 313 older adults (aged 65+) who completed baseline interviews followed by 5-6 days of ecological momentary assessments approximately every 3 hr. RESULTS Individuals reported having no social contact (i.e., solitude) on 11% of the occasions. Solitude predicted lower negative and positive affect on those occasions. The solitude-negative affect link varied by social network quality. Solitude predicted lower negative affect among individuals with more conflictual social networks but not among those with less conflictual networks. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS Overall, solitude may serve as an adaptive strategy for individuals embedded in demanding or irritating social contexts.
PCAOB inspections: An analysis of entity-level and application-level control audit deficiencies

Abstract The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) inspection process identifies deficiencies related to how firms conduct audits. Our work extends prior research by examining the type of internal control audit deficiencies (entity-level or application-level). Internal control audit deficiencies of both types may increase the risk of material misstatement, so the PCAOB is concerned with whether audit firms are performing appropriate procedures to identify entity-level and application-level internal control audit deficiencies, including those involving information technology general controls (ITGCs). Using text analysis to examine audit deficiencies by internal control type and firm size, we find that PCAOB inspection reports identify significantly more application-level than entity-level control audit deficiencies. Application-level control deficiencies generally involve revenue, inventory, and accounts receivable accounts whereas entity-level deficiencies often involve lack of centralized controls or controls over period end financial reporting. The number of application-level deficiencies identified for both Big 4 and second-tier firms varied between inspection years 2010 and 2015. However, the number of entity-level deficiencies, including ITGCs for both Big 4 and second-tier firms, held nearly steady during the period. Our findings should be of interest to practicing accountants, regulators, and other users of PCAOB inspection reports.
The impact of imbalanced training data on machine learning for author name disambiguation

In supervised machine learning for author name disambiguation, negative training data are often dominantly larger than positive training data. This paper examines how the ratios of negative to positive training data can affect the performance of machine learning algorithms to disambiguate author names in bibliographic records. On multiple labeled datasets, three classifiers—Logistic Regression, Naive Bayes, and Random Forest—are trained through representative features such as coauthor names, and title words extracted from the same training data but with various positive-to-negative training data ratios. Results show that increasing negative training data can improve disambiguation performance but with a few percent of performance gains and sometimes degrade it. Logistic and Naive Bayes learn optimal disambiguation models even with a base ratio (1:1) of positive and negative training data. Also, the performance improvement by Random Forest tends to quickly saturate roughly after 1:10~1:15. These findings imply that contrary to the common practice using all training data, name disambiguation algorithms can be trained using part of negative training data without degrading much disambiguation performance while increasing computational efficiency. This study calls for more attention from author name disambiguation scholars to methods for machine learning from imbalanced data.
Global-mean Vertical Tracer Mixing in Planetary Atmospheres. II. Tidally Locked Planets

In Zhang & Showman, we developed an analytical theory of 1D eddy diffusivity K zz for global-mean vertical tracer transport in a 3D atmosphere. We also presented 2D numerical simulations on fast-rotating planets to validate our theory. On a slowly rotating planet such as Venus or a tidally locked planet (not necessarily a slow-rotator) such as a hot Jupiter, the tracer distribution could exhibit significant longitudinal inhomogeneity and tracer transport is intrinsically 3D. Here we study the global-mean vertical tracer transport on tidally locked planets using 3D tracer-transport simulations. We find that our analytical K zz theory in Zhang & Showman is validated on tidally locked planets over a wide parameter space. K zz strongly depends on the large-scale circulation strength, horizontal mixing due to eddies, and waves, and local tracer sources and sinks due to chemistry and microphysics. As our analytical theory predicted, K zz on tidally locked planets also exhibit three regimes. In Regime I where the chemical and microphysical processes are uniformly distributed across the globe, different chemical species should be transported via different eddy diffusivity. In Regime II where the chemical and microphysical processes are nonuniform—for example, photochemistry or cloud formation that exhibits strong day–night contrast—the global-mean vertical tracer mixing does not always behave diffusively. In the third regime where the tracer is long-lived, non-diffusive effects are significant. Using species-dependent eddy diffusivity, we provide a new analytical theory of the dynamical quench points for disequilibrium tracers on tidally locked planets from first principles.
Interactive summarization and exploration of top aggregate query answers

We present a system for summarization and interactive exploration of high-valued aggregate query answers to make a large set of possible answers more informative to the user. Our system outputs a set of clusters on the high-valued query answers showing their common properties such that the clusters are diverse as much as possible to avoid repeating information, and cover a certain number of top original answers as indicated by the user. Further, the system facilitates interactive exploration of the query answers by helping the user (i) choose combinations of parameters for clustering, (ii) inspect the clusters as well as the elements they contain, and (iii) visualize how changes in parameters affect clustering. We define optimization problems, study their complexity, explore properties of the solutions investigating the semi-lattice structure on the clusters, and propose efficient algorithms and optimizations to achieve these goals. We evaluate our techniques experimentally and discuss our prototype with a graphical user interface that facilitates this interactive exploration. A user study is conducted to evaluate the usability of our approach.
TENSOR TRAIN ACCELERATED SOLVERS FOR NONSMOOTH RIGID BODY DYNAMICS

In the last two decades, increased need for high-fidelity simulations of the time evolution and propagation of forces in granular media has spurred renewed interest in discrete element method (DEM) modeling of frictional contact. Force penalty methods, while economic and accessible, introduce artificial stiffness, requiring small time steps to retain numerical stability. Optimization-based methods, which enforce contacts geometrically through complementarity constraints, allow the use of larger time steps at the expense of solving a nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) each time step. We review the latest efforts to produce solvers for this NCP, focusing on its relaxation to a cone complementarity problem (CCP) and solution via an equivalent quadratic optimization problem with conic constraints. We distinguish between linearly convergent first order methods and second order methods, which gain quadratic convergence and more robust performance at the expense of the solution of large sparse linear systems. We propose a novel acceleration for the solution of Newton step linear systems in second order methods using low-rank compression based fast direct solvers. We use the Quantized Tensor Train (QTT) decomposition to produce efficient approximate representations of the system matrix and its inverse. This provides a robust framework to accelerate its solution in a direct or a preconditioned iterative method. In a number of numerical tests, we demonstrate that this approach displays sublinear scaling of precomputation costs, may be efficiently updated across Newton iterations as well as across time steps, and leads to a fast, optimal complexity solution of the Newton step. This allows our method to gain an order of magnitude speedups over state-of-the-art preconditioning techniques for moderate to large-scale systems, mitigating the computational bottleneck of second order methods.
An Efficient Algorithm for Computing High-Quality Paths amid Polygonal Obstacles

We study a path-planning problem amid a set O of obstacles in R2, in which we wish to compute a short path between two points while also maintaining a high clearance from O; the clearance of a point is its distance from a nearest obstacle in O. Specifically, the problem asks for a path minimizing the reciprocal of the clearance integrated over the length of the path. We present the first polynomial-time approximation scheme for this problem. Let n be the total number of obstacle vertices and let e ∈ (0, 1r. Our algorithm computes in time O(n2/e2 log n/e) a path of total cost at most (1 + e) times the cost of the optimal path.
Long-Term Care Hospitals: A Case Study in Waste

There is substantial waste in U.S. healthcare, but little consensus on how to identify or combat it. We identify one specific source of waste: long-term care hospitals (LTCHs). These post-acute care facilities began as a regulatory carve-out for a few dozen specialty hospitals, but have expanded into an industry with over 400 hospitals and $5.4 billion in annual Medicare spending in 2014. We use the entry of LTCHs into local hospital markets and an event study design to estimate LTCHs’ impact. We find that most LTCH patients would have counterfactually received care at Skilled Nursing Facilities – post-acute care facilities that provide medically similar care to LTCHs but are paid significantly less – and that substitution to LTCHs leaves patients unaffected or worse off on all dimensions we can objectively measure. Our results imply that Medicare could save about $4.6 billion per year – with no harm to patients – by not allowing for discharge to LTCHs.
Economists (and Economics) in Tech Companies

As technology platforms have created new markets and new ways of acquiring information, economists have come to play an increasingly central role in tech companies-tackling problems such as platform design, strategy, pricing, and policy. Over the past five years, hundreds of PhD economists have accepted positions in the technology sector. In this paper, we explore the skills that PhD economists apply in tech companies, the companies that hire them, the types of problems that economists are currently working on, and the areas of academic research that have emerged in relation to these problems.
Efficient Crowd Exploration of Large Networks: The Case of Causal Attribution

Accurately and efficiently crowdsourcing complex, open-ended tasks can be difficult, as crowd participants tend to favor short, repetitive "microtasks". We study the crowdsourcing of large networks where the crowd provides the network topology via microtasks. Crowds can explore many types of social and information networks, but we focus on the network of causal attributions, an important network that signifies cause-and-effect relationships. We conduct experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) testing how workers can propose and validate individual causal relationships and introduce a method for independent crowd workers to explore large networks. The core of the method, Iterative Pathway Refinement, is a theoretically-principled mechanism for efficient exploration via microtasks. We evaluate the method using synthetic networks and apply it on AMT to extract a large-scale causal attribution network. Worker interactions reveal important characteristics of causal perception and the generated network data can help improve our understanding of causality and causal inference.
Do Recessions Accelerate Routine-Biased Technological Change? Evidence from Vacancy Postings

We show that skill requirements in job vacancy postings differentially increased in MSAs that were hit hard by the Great Recession, relative to less hard-hit areas. These increases persist through at least the end of 2015 and are correlated with increases in capital investments, both at the MSA and firm levels. We also find that effects are most pronounced in routine-cognitive occupations, which exhibit relative wage growth as well. We argue that this evidence is consistent with the restructuring of production toward routine-biased technologies and the more-skilled workers that complement them, and that the Great Recession accelerated this process.
Income shares, secular stagnation, and the long-run distribution of wealth

Four alarming stylized facts have recently emerged in the United States: (a) a decline in the labor share of income; (b) a decline in labor productivity; (c) an increase in the top 1% wealth share and (d) an increase in the capital‐income ratio. In Capital in the XXI Century, Thomas Piketty's argument is that the r > g inequality determines an increase in the capital‐income ratio; if the elasticity of substitution in production is above one, the profit share rises. We provide a contrasting explanation that draws from the Post Keynesian approach to differential saving propensities between classes and the Classical‐Marxian theory of induced technical change. In a simple model of “capitalists” and “workers,” we show that institutional changes that lower the labor share—declining unionization, increasing monopsony power in the labor market, the global ‘race to the bottom' in unit labor costs or the exhaustion of path‐breaking scientific discoveries—can reduce labor productivity growth because of the lessened incentives to innovate to save on labor costs. A falling labor share reduces workers' total savings, and wealth concentrates in the capitalists' hands. A higher profit share and wealth share both put pressure on accumulation: but the long‐run growth rate, which is anchored to labor productivity growth, has fallen. To restore balanced growth, the capital‐income ratio must rise, independent of the elasticity of substitution. These tendencies are not inevitable: taxation can be used to implement any wealth distribution targeted by policymakers, while worker‐crushing institutional arrangements can also in principle be reversed through policy. Neither change appears likely given the current institutional and global policy climate.
The Impact of Risk Retention Regulation on the Underwriting of Securitized Mortgages

The Dodd-Frank Act requires securitization sponsors to retain not less than a 5% share of the aggregate credit risk of the assets they securitize. This paper examines how the implementation of risk-retention requirements affected the market for securitized mortgage loans. Using a difference-in-difference empirical framework, I find that risk retention implementation is associated with mortgages being issued with markedly higher interest rates, yet notably lower loan-to-value ratios and higher income to debt-service ratios. In addition, after controlling for observable loan characteristics, loans subject to risk retention requirements appear to be less likely to become troubled. These findings suggest that the risk retention rules have made securitized loans safer in both observable and unobservable dimensions, yet are more expensive to borrowers. Further evidence suggests that the risk-retention rules are binding, with the amount of risk being retained following implementation roughly three times that of before, while lenders also seemed to accelerate the securitization of originated loans during the months immediately before the rules took effect.
Is agreeing with a gender stereotype correlated with the performance of female students in introductory physics

Female students who agree that women do worse in physics than men have lower conceptual inventory scores than female students who disagree with this stereotype.
Rare, Pathogenic Germline Variants in Fanconi Anemia Genes Increase Risk for Squamous Lung Cancer.

Purpose: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, with substantially better prognosis in early-stage as opposed to late-stage disease. Identifying genetic factors for lung squamous cell carcinoma (SqCC) risk will enable their use in risk stratification, and personalized intensive surveillance, early detection, and prevention strategies for high-risk individuals. Experimental Design: We analyzed whole-exome sequencing datasets of 318 cases and 814 controls (discovery cohort) and then validated our findings in an independent cohort of 444 patients and 3,479 controls (validation cohort), all of European descent. We also combined all the samples from both cohorts, which, after principal component analysis (PCA) and population stratification, included 765 cases and 4,344 controls (combined cohort). We focused on rare, pathogenic variants found in the ClinVar database and used penalized logistic regression to identify genes in which such variants are enriched in cases. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results: We observed an overall enrichment of rare, deleterious germline variants in Fanconi anemia genes in cases with SqCC [joint analysis odds ratio (OR) = 3.08; P = 1.4e−09; 95% confidence interval (CI), 2.2–4.3]. Consistent with previous studies, BRCA2 in particular exhibited an increased overall burden of rare, deleterious variants (joint OR = 3.2; P = 8.7e−08; 95% CI, 2.1–4.7). More importantly, rare, deleterious germline variants were enriched in Fanconi anemia genes even without the BRCA2 rs11571833 variant that is strongly enriched in lung SqCC cases (joint OR = 2.76; P = 7.0e−04; 95% CI, 1.6–4.7). Conclusions: These findings can be used toward the development of a genetic diagnostic test in the clinic to identify SqCC high-risk individuals, who can benefit from personalized programs, improving prognosis.
A symbiont's guide to the germline

Microbial symbioses exhibit astounding adaptations, yet all symbionts face the problem of how to reliably associate with host offspring every generation. A common strategy is vertical transmission, in which symbionts are directly transmitted from the female to her offspring. The diversity of symbionts and vertical transmission mechanisms is as expansive as the diversity of eukaryotic host taxa that house them. However, there are several common themes among these mechanisms based on the degree to which symbionts associate with the host germline during transmission. In this review, we detail three distinct vertical transmission strategies, starting with associations that are transmitted from host somatic cells to offspring somatic cells, either due to lacking a germline or avoiding it. A second strategy involves somatically-localized symbionts that migrate into the germline during host development. The third strategy we discuss is one in which the symbiont maintains continuous association with the germline throughout development. Unexpectedly, the vast majority of documented vertically inherited symbionts rely on the second strategy: soma-to-germline migration. Given that not all eukaryotes contain a sequestered germline and instead produce offspring from somatic stem cell lineages, this soma-to-germline migration is discussed in the context of multicellular evolution. Lastly, as recent genomics data have revealed an abundance of horizontal gene transfer events from symbiotic and non-symbiotic bacteria to host genomes, we discuss their impact on eukaryotic host evolution.
Treadmill running and targeted tibial loading differentially improve bone mass in mice

Abstract Treadmill running and tibial loading are two common modalities used to assess the role of mechanical stimulation on the skeleton preclinically. The primary advantage of treadmill running is its physiological relevance. However, the applied load is complex and multiaxial, with observed results influenced by cardiovascular and musculoskeletal effects. In contrast, with tibial loading, a direct uniaxial load is applied to a single bone, providing the advantage of greater control but with less physiological relevance. Despite the importance and wide-spread use of both modalities, direct comparisons are lacking. In this study, we compared effects of targeted tibial loading, treadmill running, and their combination on cancellous and cortical architecture in a murine model. We show that tibial loading and treadmill running differentially improve bone mass, with tibial loading resulting in thicker trabeculae and increased cortical mass, and exercise resulting in greater number of trabeculae and no cortical mass-based effects. Combination of the modalities resulted in an additive response. These data suggest that tibial loading and exercise may improve mass differentially.
Rural and Urban Differences in the Adoption of New Health Information and Medical Technologies

Background This statewide survey sought to understand the adoption level of new health information and medical technologies, and whether these patterns differed between urban and rural populations. Methods A random sample of 7,979 people aged 18-75 years, stratified by rural status and race, who lived in 1 of 34 Indiana counties with high cancer mortality rates and were seen at least once in the past year in a statewide health system were surveyed. Results Completed surveys were returned by 970 participants. Rural patients were less likely than urban to use electronic health record messaging systems (28.3% vs 34.5%, P = .045) or any communication technology (43.0% vs 50.8%, P = .017). Rural patients were less likely to look for personal health information for someone else's medical record (11.0% vs 16.3%, P = .022), look-up test results (29.5% vs 38.3%, P = .005), or use any form of electronic medical record (EMR) access (57.5% vs 67.1%, P = .003). Rural differences in any use of communication technology or EMRs were no longer significant in adjusted models, while education and income were significantly associated. There was a trend in the higher use of low-dose computed tomography (CT) scan among rural patients (19.1% vs 14.4%, P = .057). No significant difference was present between rural and urban patients in the use of the human papilloma virus test (27.1% vs 26.6%, P = .880). Conclusions Differences in health information technology use between rural and urban populations may be moderated by social determinants. Lower adoption of new health information technologies (HITs) than medical technologies among rural, compared to urban, individuals may be due to lower levels of evidence supporting HITs.
Electrification and Women's Empowerment : Evidence from Rural India

Electrification has been shown to accelerate opportunities for women by moving them into more productive activities, but whether improvements in economic outcomes also change gender norms and practices within the household remains unclear. This paper investigates the causal link between electricity access and women's empowerment, using a large gender-disaggregated data set on India. Empowerment is measured by women's decision-making ability, mobility, financial autonomy, reproductive freedom, and social participation. Using propensity score matching, the study finds that electrification enhances all measures of women's empowerment and is associated with an 11-percentage point increase in the overall empowerment index. Employment and education are identified as the two most important causal channels through which electrification enables empowerment.
Auto-conditioned Recurrent Mixture Density Networks for Learning Generalizable Robot Skills

Personal robots assisting humans must perform complex manipulation tasks that are typically difficult to specify in traditional motion planning pipelines, where multiple objectives must be met and the high-level context be taken into consideration. Learning from demonstration (LfD) provides a promising way to learn these kind of complex manipulation skills even from non-technical users. However, it is challenging for existing LfD methods to efficiently learn skills that can generalize to task specifications that are not covered by demonstrations. In this paper, we introduce a state transition model (STM) that generates joint-space trajectories by imitating motions from expert behavior. Given a few demonstrations, we show in real robot experiments that the learned STM can quickly generalize to unseen tasks and synthesize motions having longer time horizons than the expert trajectories. Compared to conventional motion planners, our approach enables the robot to accomplish complex behaviors from high-level instructions without laborious hand-engineering of planning objectives, while being able to adapt to changing goals during the skill execution. In conjunction with a trajectory optimizer, our STM can construct a high-quality skeleton of a trajectory that can be further improved in smoothness and precision. In combination with a learned inverse dynamics model, we additionally present results where the STM is used as a high-level planner. A video of our experiments is available at this https URL
A new encounter between leader–follower tracking and observer-based control: Towards enhancing robustness against disturbances

Abstract This paper studies robust tracking control for a leader–follower multi-agent system (MAS) subject to disturbances. A challenging problem is considered here, which differs from those in the literature in two aspects. First, we consider the case when all the leader and follower agents are affected by disturbances, while the existing studies assume only the followers to suffer disturbances. Second, we assume the disturbances to be bounded only in rates of change rather than magnitude as in the literature. To address this new problem, we propose a novel observer-based distributed tracking control design. As a distinguishing feature of our approach, the followers can cooperatively estimate the disturbance affecting the leader to adjust their maneuvers accordingly, which is enabled by the design of the first-of-its-kind distributed disturbance observers. We build specific tracking control approaches for both first- and second-order MASs and prove that they can lead to bounded-error tracking, despite the challenges due to the relaxed assumptions about disturbances. We further perform simulation to validate the proposed approaches.
Gastrointestinal carcinoma and sarcoma surgery.

A number of advances in both earlier diagnostic imaging and better treatment options for patients with intra-abdominal malignancies have occurred. Frequently such newer therapies rely on the integration of established surgical and radiation approaches potentially with newer chemotherapies and immunomodulators. Unfortunately, with further study some newer therapies have proven less beneficial than initially suggested. Keeping up with the data supporting newer alternatives, and determining which therapies to provide patients can be a challenge.
Total Synthesis of O-Methylsterigmatocystin Using N-Alkylnitrilium Salts and Carbonyl−Alkene Interconversion in a New Xanthone Synthesis

A general strategy is described for the preparation of substituted xanthones and embodied in the preparation of (±)-O-methylsterigmatocystin (OMST), the most advanced, known intermediate in the bio...
Thermal Stability and Magnetic Properties of Fe−Polyoxocation Intercalated Montmorillonite

Iron polyoxocation montmorillonite complexes were prepared by ion exchange. The thermal stabilities of the complexes were determined to 750 °C. Their magnetic behavior was investigated between 2 K and room temperature. The complexes were stable when heated to 500 °C for as long as 60 h although the magnetic behavior for that specimen differs from those heated for shorter periods. At 750 °C the pillared sample collapsed but could be reexpanded with additional Fe−polycation. A dried specimen of the Fe−polycation exhibits spin glass behavior. Intercalated specimens heated in the range 200−500 °C for 1−2 days exhibit complex magnetic behavior when susceptibilities are measured for zero-field-cooled samples. An initial asperomagnetic spin arrangement at 2 K undergoes a transition at 4.4 K to a new asperomagnetic state that then relaxes to a speromagnet. The freezing temperature is about 15 K.
Recent Development of Fluorinating Agents

This paper reviews the recent development of the fluorinating agents. The agents are classified into two categories -nulceophilic and electrophilic fluorinating agents- and summarized. The agents included are new ammonium, phosphonium, and phosphazenium fluoride salts, hypofluorites, N-fluorosulfonamides, N-fluoropyridinium salts, N-fluoroamides, N-fluoroquinuclidinium salts and some others. The fluorinations with the agents are also described.
Herpes ICP8 protein stimulates homologous recombination in human cells

Recombineering has transformed functional genomic analysis. Genome modification by recombineering using the phage lambda Red homologous recombination protein Beta in Escherichia coli has approached 100% efficiency. While highly efficient in E. coli, recombineering using the Red Synaptase/Exonuclease pair (SynExo) in other organisms declines in efficiency roughly correlating with phylogenetic distance from E. coli. SynExo recombinases are common to double-stranded DNA viruses infecting a variety of organisms, including humans. Human Herpes virus 1 (HHV1) encodes a SynExo comprised of ICP8 synaptase and UL12 exonuclease. In a previous study, the Herpes SynExo was reconstituted in vitro and shown to catalyze a model recombination reaction. Here we describe stimulation of gene targeting to edit a novel fluorescent protein gene in the human genome using ICP8 and compared its efficiency to that of a "humanized" version of Beta protein from phage λ. ICP8 significantly enhanced gene targeting rates in HEK 293T cells while Beta was not only unable to catalyze recombineering but inhibited gene targeting using endogenous recombination functions, despite both synaptases being well-expressed and localized to the nucleus. This proof of concept encourages developing species-specific SynExo recombinases for genome engineering.
Highly selective glycine phase-transfer catalysis using fluoroanthracenylmethyl cinchonidine catalysts

Abstract Fluoroanthracenylmethyl cinchonidine phase-transfer catalysts have been produced and explored for asymmetric glycine alkylation. The fluoroanthracenylmethyl precursors were made from aryloxazolidinones and aldehydes using an efficient electrophilic substitution with phosphorous pentoxide. The cinchonidine catalysts promote highly selective glycine alkylation under mild conditions. The 1,8-difluoroanthracenyl-10-methyl catalyst 6 (10 mol %) in toluene/THF with 50% aqueous KOH (−20 °C) promoted benzylation of glycine 1 to give 2 in 86% yield, 98% ee. Other electrophiles also gave excellent selectivity and reactivity.
Advances and Continuing Challenges in Achieving Realistic and Predictive Simulations of the Properties of Organic and Biological Molecules

Can the theoretical/computational chemist correctly predict the structures and free energies of molecular systems? It is an assumption of our research that classical molecular mechanics/dynamics is or can be made sufficiently accurate to accurately represent not only conformational (intramolecular) energetics but also nonbonded (both intramolecular and intermolecular) energetics. Even though these classical mechanical energy functions are not perfect representations of the BornOppenheimer surface, progress has been made during the last decade in improving them. If the force fields are proven accurate on rigid or degenerate systems such as liquids, where we can sample enough of the system to be confident of convergence, then they can be usefully applied to systems of greater complexity, where the main difficulty is sampling enough configurations of the system.1-3 Given the importance of an accurate molecular mechanical model, we first present the recent efforts to develop an improved one, dividing our discussion into (a) philosophy and approach to a molecular mechanical model, (b) testing the molecular mechanical model on simple systems, (c) nonadditive molecular mechanical models, and (d) the importance of long-range electrostatic effects in complex systems. We then turn to applications of such models to molecules of organic and biochemical interest. Here we highlight a number of themes: (a) solvation in simple and complex systems, (b) molecular recognition, (c) more complex systems, octanol and DNA, and (d) chemical reactions in solutions and in enzymes. We then conclude with perspectives for the future. [Accounts of Chemical Research articles are intended to emphasize research in the author’s lab; thus, we have been quite selective in our discussions. A recent exhaustive review of free energy calculations has attempted to note all the contributions to 1993.4 However, we note that the many exciting studies being carried out in other labs attest to the vitality of computational chemistry and biochemistry.]
Asymmetric Total Synthesis of the Epothilone Sagopilone – From Research to Development

We describe our successful efforts for the translation of our research strategy that was focused on a broad structural modification of the natural product epothilone B, to the production of the distinct drug candidate sagopilone in a kg scale. By a direct comparison of the research and development procedures we address some important aspects to be considered for an up-scaling process. 1 Introduction and Concept 2 Preparation of Building Block A 2.1 Research Sequence A1––A3–A4–A5–A6–A7–A8–A9– A10–(A12–)A13 2.2 Development Sequence A11–A12–A13 3 Preparation of Building Block B 3.1 Research Sequence B1–B2–B3–B4–(B6–B7)–B9–B10 3.2 Development Sequence B1–B2–B3–B4–B5–B8–B10 4 Preparation of Building Block C 4.1 Research Sequence C1–C2–C3–C4–C6–C7–C9–C10–C11–C12 4.2 Development Sequence C1–C2–C5–C8–C9–C10–C11–C12 5 Preparation of Building Block BC 5.1 Research 5.2 Development 6 Preparation of the Final Sequence ABC 6.1 Research 6.2 Development 7 Summary