cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Curiosity-driven Exploration by Self-supervised Prediction

In many real-world scenarios, rewards extrinsic to the agent are extremely sparse, or absent altogether. In such cases, curiosity can serve as an intrinsic reward signal to enable the agent to explore its environment and learn skills that might be useful later in its life. We formulate curiosity as the error in an agent's ability to predict the consequence of its own actions in a visual feature space learned by a self-supervised inverse dynamics model. Our formulation scales to high-dimensional continuous state spaces like images, bypasses the difficulties of directly predicting pixels, and, critically, ignores the aspects of the environment that cannot affect the agent. The proposed approach is evaluated in two environments: VizDoom and Super Mario Bros. Three broad settings are investigated: 1) sparse extrinsic reward, where curiosity allows for far fewer interactions with the environment to reach the goal; 2) exploration with no extrinsic reward, where curiosity pushes the agent to explore more efficiently; and 3) generalization to unseen scenarios (e.g. new levels of the same game) where the knowledge gained from earlier experience helps the agent explore new places much faster than starting from scratch. Demo video and code available at this https URL
Chapter 9 – Frequency-Domain Approach

This chapter is centered on the complex transfer function , which is obtained from the transfer function using the substitution s = ω ·j . Specifically, the main topic analyzes the steady-state response when the input (or forcing) to a dynamic system is sinusoidal (harmonic). The response, in that particular case, can be determined from the input and the complex transfer function, and is obtained from the regular transfer function G ( s ) for SISO systems or transfer function matrix [ G ( s )] for MIMO systems. The frequency-domain response consists of the output amplitude and phase angle defined in terms of frequency, which becomes the variable. The two resulting graphical representations are known as Bode diagrams. To help analysis and design in the frequency domain, Bode plots are simplified by using a logarithmic scale and asymptote lines instead of the actual curves. Mechanical vibration actuation, transmission, reduction and sensing, as well as cascading nonloading dynamic systems and electrical/mechanical filters are analyzed in the frequency domain. MATLAB conversion between frequency-response data and zero-pole-gain, transfer-function, and state space models is also examined.
Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a common problem, affecting large numbers of women, men, and children who present to primary care practices. It takes on many forms, including psychologic/emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, and its effects on the health of victims and their children are varied. Although many primary care physicians may be uncomfortable inquiring about IPV, a knowledge of patients' IPV victimization may help physicians develop a better understanding of patients' presenting symptoms and health risks, form more effective therapeutic relationships, and work toward reducing the myriad health risks associated with IPV.
Charting the Diffusion of Power Sector Reforms across the Developing World

Some 25 years have elapsed since international financial institutions espoused a package of power sector reform measures that became known as the Washington Consensus. This package encompassed the establishment of autonomous regulatory entities, the vertical and horizontal unbundling of integrated national monopoly utilities, private sector participation in generation and distribution, and eventually the introduction of competition into power generation and even retail services. Exploiting a unique new data set on the timing and scope of power sector reforms adopted by 88 countries across the developing world over 25 years, this paper seeks to improve understanding of the uptake, diffusion, packaging, and sequencing of power sector reforms, and the extent to which they were affected by the economic and political characteristics of the countries concerned. The analysis focuses on describing the patterns of reform without judging their desirability or evaluating their impact. The paper finds that following rapid diffusion during 1995-2005, the spread of power sector reforms slowed significantly in 2005-15. Only a small minority of developing countries fully implemented the reform model as originally conceived. For the majority, reforms were only selectively adopted according to ease of implementation, often stagnated at an intermediate stage, and were sometimes packaged and sequenced in ways unrelated to the original logic. Country characteristics such as geography, income group, power system size, and political economy all had a significant influence on the uptake of reform. Moreover, a significant number of countries experienced reversals of private sector participation, or were unable to follow through with reform plans that were officially announced. Overall, power sector reform in the developing world lags far behind what was achieved in the developed world during the same time period. Yet, even in the developed world, the full package of reforms does not seem to have been universally adopted.
Matching and merging high-resolution and legacy seismic images

ABSTRACTWhen multiple seismic surveys are acquired over the same area using different technologies that produce data with different frequency content, it may be beneficial to combine these data to ...
Engineering posttranslational proofreading to discriminate nonstandard amino acids

Incorporation of nonstandard amino acids (nsAAs) leads to chemical diversification of proteins, which is an important tool for the investigation and engineering of biological processes. However, the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases crucial for this process are polyspecific in regard to nsAAs and standard amino acids. Here, we develop a quality control system called "posttranslational proofreading" to more accurately and rapidly evaluate nsAA incorporation. We achieve this proofreading by hijacking a natural pathway of protein degradation known as the N-end rule, which regulates the lifespan of a protein based on its amino-terminal residue. We find that proteins containing certain desired N-terminal nsAAs have much longer half-lives compared with those proteins containing undesired amino acids. We use the posttranslational proofreading system to further evolve a Methanocaldococcus jannaschii tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (TyrRS) variant and a tRNATyr species for improved specificity of the nsAA biphenylalanine in vitro and in vivo. Our newly evolved biphenylalanine incorporation machinery enhances the biocontainment and growth of genetically engineered Escherichia coli strains that depend on biphenylalanine incorporation. Finally, we show that our posttranslational proofreading system can be designed for incorporation of other nsAAs by rational engineering of the ClpS protein, which mediates the N-end rule. Taken together, our posttranslational proofreading system for in vivo protein sequence verification presents an alternative paradigm for molecular recognition of amino acids and is a major advance in our ability to accurately expand the genetic code.
Visible and Infrared Rare-Earth Activated Electroluminescence from Erbium Doped GaN

Room temperature visible and IR light electroluminescence (EL) has been obtained from Er-doped GaN Schottky barrier diodes. The GaN was grown by molecular beam epitaxy on Si substrates using solid sources (for Ga and Er) and a plasma source for N2. Transparent contacts utilizing indium tin oxide were employed. Strong green light emission was observed under reverse bias due to electron impact excitation of the Er atoms. Weaker emission was present under forward bias. The emission spectrum consists of two narrow green lines at 537 and 558 nm and minor peaks at 413, 461, 665, and 706 nm. There is also emission at 1000 nm and 1540 nm in the IR. The green emission lines have been identified as Er transitions from the 2H11/2 and 4S3/2 levels to the 4I15/2 ground state. The IR emission lines have been identified as transitions from the 4I11/2 and 4I13/2 levels to the 4I15/2 ground state. EL intensity for visible and IR light has a sub-unity power law dependence on bias current. An external quantum efficiency of 0.1% has also been demonstrated under a reverse bias current of 3.85 mA.
Predictive painting across faults

AbstractPredictive painting can effectively spread information in 3D volumes following the local structures (dips) of seismic events. However, it has trouble spreading information across faults wit...
Systemic Risk in Europe

Systemic risk may be defined as the propensity of a financial institution to be undercapitalized when the financial system as a whole is undercapitalized. In this article, we investigate the case of non-US institutions, with several factors explaining the dynamics of financial firms returns and with asynchronicity of time zones. We apply this methodology to the 196 largest European financial firms and estimate their systemic risk over the 2000-12 period. We find that, for certain countries, the cost for the taxpayer to rescue the riskiest domestic banks is so high that some banks might be considered too big to be saved.
Factors correlated with repeated aspirin dosing during aspirin desensitization.

Abstract Background Aspirin desensitization is an appropriate procedure for many patients with aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease (AERD). Patients can require aspirin re-dosing, which prolongs the desensitization process. The frequency of this is not widely reported, nor is it known which patients will require multiple re-dosing. Objective To determine the frequency of and factors associated with repeat aspirin re-dosing during desensitization. Methods Charts of aspirin desensitization procedures from 2011-2016 at the University of Michigan Allergy/Immunology Clinic were reviewed. Reactions with provoking doses and number of dose repetitions were characterized. Prior AERD history, medical history, medications, and baseline spirometry were also recorded. Bivariate correlation and multivariate logistic regression were used to analyze associations between patient characteristics and need for repeated dosing of aspirin. Results A total of 84 positive reacting patients during desensitization were found. 33% of these patients required two or more aspirin dose repetitions during desensitization. Requiring two or more repeat doses during desensitization was associated with male gender (odds ratio=6.194, p=0.008), FEV1 decrease during desensitization (odds ratio=1.075 per percent point drop, p=0.021), and initial aspirin provoking dose during desensitization of 81 mg or lower (odds ratio=11.111, p=0.003). No association was found with pre-desensitization medications, asthma severity, AERD duration, or number/character of reported prior aspirin reactions. Conclusion During aspirin desensitization for AERD, approximately 1/3 of our patients require multiple repeat doses. Risk factors for multiple repeated doses include male gender, drop in FEV1, and lower aspirin provoking doses during desensitization. This information can help inform which patients might require multiple re-dosing for desensitization.
Water, High-altitude Condensates, and Possible Methane Depletion in the Atmosphere of the Warm Super-Neptune WASP-107b

The super-Neptune exoplanet WASP-107b is an exciting target for atmosphere characterization. It has an unusually large atmospheric scale height and a small, bright host star, raising the possibility of precise constraints on its current nature and formation history. We report the first atmospheric study of WASP-107b, a Hubble Space Telescope measurement of its near-infrared transmission spectrum. We determined the planet's composition with two techniques: atmospheric retrieval based on the transmission spectrum and interior structure modeling based on the observed mass and radius. The interior structure models set a $3\,\sigma$ upper limit on the atmospheric metallicity of $30\times$ solar. The transmission spectrum shows strong evidence for water absorption ($6.5\,\sigma$ confidence), and the retrieved water abundance is consistent with expectations for a solar abundance pattern. The inferred carbon-to-oxygen ratio is subsolar at $2.7\,\sigma$ confidence, which we attribute to possible methane depletion in the atmosphere. The spectral features are smaller than predicted for a cloud-free composition, crossing less than one scale height. A thick condensate layer at high altitudes (0.1 - 3 mbar) is needed to match the observations. We find that physically motivated cloud models with moderate sedimentation efficiency ($f_\mathrm{sed} = 0.3$) or hazes with a particle size of 0.3 $\mu$m reproduce the observed spectral feature amplitude. Taken together, these findings serve as an illustration of the diversity and complexity of exoplanet atmospheres. The community can look forward to more such results with the high precision and wide spectral coverage afforded by future observing facilities.
The Ethics of Medicaid's Work Requirements and Other Personal Responsibility Policies.

Breaking controversial new ground, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently invited states to consider establishing work requirements as a condition of receiving Medicaid benefits. Noncompliant beneficiaries may lose some or all benefits, and if they do, will incur higher spending if they have to pay for medical care out of pocket. Current evidence suggests work requirements and related policies, which proponents claim promote personal responsibility, can create considerable risks of health and financial harm in vulnerable populations. Concerns about implementing these policies in Medicaid have been widely expressed, including by major physician organizations, and others have examined their legality. Setting these issues aside, if the policies survive legal challenges, CMS should act to minimize the potential harms these policies could cause to the health of Medicaid’s vulnerable population. To this end, CMS should create guidance that would minimize risks, ensure proportionality of penalties (i.e., that benefits are not eliminated for first-time or relatively minor infractions), and stipulate when harms rise to a level that requires program changes or termination.
A Tunable Measure for Information Leakage

A tunable measure for information leakage called maximal a-leakage is introduced. This measure quantifies the maximal gain of an adversary in refining a tilted version of its prior belief of any (potentially random) function of a dataset conditioning on a disclosed dataset. The choice of $\alpha$ determines the specific adversarial action ranging from refining a belief for $\alpha=1$ to guessing the best posterior for $\alpha=\infty$ , and for these extremal values this measure simplifies to mutual information (MI) and maximal leakage (MaxL), respectively. For all other $\alpha$ this measure is shown to be the Arimoto channel capacity. Several properties of this measure are proven including: (i) quasi-convexity in the mapping between the original and disclosed datasets; (ii) data processing inequalities; and (iii) a composition property. A full version of this paper is in [1].
Mining hierarchical temporal roles with multiple metrics

Temporal role-based access control (TRBAC) extends role-based access control to limit the times at which roles are enabled. This paper presents a new algorithm for mining high-quality TRBAC policies from timed ACLs (i.e., ACLs with time limits in the entries) and optionally user attribute information. Such algorithms have potential to significantly reduce the cost of migration from timed ACLs to TRBAC. The algorithm is parameterized by the policy quality metric. We consider multiple quality metrics, including number of roles, weighted structural complexity (a generalization of policy size), and (when user attribute information is available) interpretability, i.e., how well role membership can be characterized in terms of user attributes. Ours is the first TRBAC policy mining algorithm that produces hierarchical policies, and the first that optimizes weighted structural complexity or interpretability. In experiments with datasets based on real-world ACL policies, our algorithm is more effective than previous algorithms at their goal of minimizing the number of roles.
Defending Honor and Beyond: Reconsidering the Relationship between Seemingly Futile Defense and Permissible Harming

In Helen Frowe's book, Defensive Killing, she argues that some cases of seemingly futile self-defense are actually instances of justifiable defense of the victim's honor. This paper explores Frowe's claim, first by isolating the central cases and then by examining her rejection of punitive reasons. From there, the paper examines Frowe's understanding of "defense of honor," ultimately suggesting that Frowe's conception is best construed as action that has expressive, but not defensive, value. From there, I turn to two more general puzzles. First, what if the defender mistakenly believes that she can successfully defend and acts for that reason, but the reason that actually supports her action is not one she is acting in light of? And, second, how ought we to understand the interests of an aggressor who has forfeited his rights?
Queue management: Elimination, expectation, and enhancement

Abstract Queues in a service process represent an unmet customer need and can detract from the value an organization provides. In this article, we present a framework based on three principles for managing customer queues to reduce the discomfort experienced while waiting: (1) eliminate or reduce the wait through process enhancements, (2) manage expectations through timely and relevant communication with one’s customers, and (3) enhance the waiting experience. We provide examples of historical and recent innovations along all three dimensions in multiple situations and suggest practical approaches for managers to add additional value to customers while they wait.
Prosodic-Enhanced Siamese Convolutional Neural Networks for Cross-Device Text-Independent Speaker Verification

In this paper a novel cross-device text-independent speaker verification architecture is proposed. Majority of the state-of-the-art deep architectures that are used for speaker verification tasks consider Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients. In contrast, our proposed Siamese convolutional neural network architecture uses Mel-frequency spectrogram coefficients to benefit from the dependency of the adjacent spectro-temporal features. Moreover, although spectro-temporal features have proved to be highly reliable in speaker verification models, they only represent some aspects of short-term acoustic level traits of the speaker’s voice. However, the human voice consists of several linguistic levels such as acoustic, lexicon, prosody, and phonetics, that can be utilized in speaker verification models. To compensate for these inherited shortcomings in spectro-temporal features, we propose to enhance the proposed Siamese convolutional neural network architecture by deploying a multilayer perceptron network to incorporate the prosodic, jitter, and shimmer features. The proposed end-to-end verification architecture performs feature extraction and verification simultaneously. This proposed architecture displays significant improvement over classical signal processing approaches and deep algorithms for forensic cross-device speaker verification.
Absorption probabilities of quantum walks

Quantum walks are known to have nontrivial interaction with absorbing boundaries. In particular, Ambainis et al. (in: Proceedings of the thirty-third annual ACM symposium on theory of computing, 2001) showed that in the $$(\mathbb {Z},C_1,H)$$ quantum walk (one-dimensional Hadamard walk) an absorbing boundary partially reflects information. These authors also conjectured that the left absorption probabilities $$P_n^{(1)}(1,0)$$ related to the finite absorbing Hadamard walks $$(\mathbb {Z},C_1,H,\{ 0,n\} )$$ satisfy a linear fractional recurrence in n (here $$P_n(1,0)$$ is the probability that a Hadamard walk particle initialized in $$|1\rangle |R\rangle $$ is eventually absorbed at $$|0\rangle $$ and not at $$|n\rangle $$ ). This result, as well as a third-order linear recurrence in initial position m of $$P_n^{(m)}(1,0)$$ , was later proved by Bach and Borisov (Absorption probabilities for the two-barrier quantum walk, 2009, arXiv:0901.4349 ) using techniques from complex analysis. In this paper, we extend these results to general two-state quantum walks and three-state Grover walks, while providing a partial calculation for absorption in d-dimensional Grover walks by a $$d-1$$ -dimensional wall. In the one-dimensional cases, we prove partial reflection of information, a linear fractional recurrence in lattice size, and a linear recurrence in the initial position.
Entrepreneurship and knowledge spillovers from the public sector

A compelling body of research has found that investments in knowledge from other firms and universities spill over to enhance the performance of entrepreneurial firms. This literature has shown that firm performance is positively related to investments in new knowledge by other firms and research universities. This paper addresses a gap in the literature by positing that public sector knowledge is also conducive to enhancing performance by knowledge intensive entrepreneurial (KIE) firms. Our findings suggest that the public sector provides a fertile source of knowledge for enhancing KIE firm performance.
Multiple Access in Cellular V2X: Performance Analysis in Highly Congested Vehicular Networks

Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication enables vehicles, roadside vulnerable users, and infrastructure facilities to communicate in an ad-hoc fashion. Cellular V2X (C-V2X), which was introduced in the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) release 14 standard, has recently received significant attention due to its perceived ability to address the scalability and reliability requirements of vehicular safety applications. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive study of the resource allocation of the C-V2X multiple access mechanism for high-density vehicular networks, as it can strongly impact the key performance indicators such as latency and packet delivery rate. Phenomena that can affect the communication performance are investigated and a detailed analysis of the cases that can cause possible performance degradation or system limitations, is provided. The results indicate that a unified system configuration may be necessary for all vehicles, as it is mandated for IEEE 802.11p, in order to obtain the optimum performance. In the end, we show the inter-dependence of different parameters on the resource allocation procedure with the aid of our high fidelity simulator.
Post-Disaster 4G/5G Network Rehabilitation Using Drones: Solving Battery and Backhaul Issues

Drone-based communications is a novel and attractive area of research in cellular networks. It provides several degrees of freedom in time (available on demand), space (mobile) and it can be used for multiple purposes (self-healing, offloading, coverage extension or disaster recovery). This is why the wide deployment of drone-based communications has the potential to be integrated in the 5G standard. In this paper, we utilize a grid of drones to provide cellular coverage to disaster-struck regions where the terrestrial infrastructure is totally damaged due to earthquake, flood, etc. We propose solutions for the most challenging issues facing drone networks which are limited battery energy and limited backhauling. Our proposed solution based mainly on using three types of drones; tethered backhaul drone (provides high capacity backhauling), untethered powering drone (provides on the fly battery charging) and untethered communication drone (provides cellular connectivity). Hence, an optimization problem is formulated to minimize the energy consumption of drones in addition to determining the placement of these drones and guaranteeing a minimum rate for the users. The simulation results show that we can provide unlimited cellular service to the disaster-affected region under certain conditions with a guaranteed minimum rate for each user.
Operating Performance Effects of Service Quality and Environmental Sustainability Capabilities in Logistics

Resource allocation decisions in the areas of service quality and environmental sustainability can be challenging because ex ante it is difficult to assess the potential performance benefits of such investments. This paper investigates the operating performance implications of service quality and environmental sustainability in the context of logistics. Specifically, using the resource-based view of the firm as the theoretical framework, we examine future operating performance of firms that won service quality and environmental sustainability awards in logistics between 2004 and 2013. Awardees include firms that are logistics service providers and firms that operate in other industries; in all cases, these awards recognize firms’ logistics capabilities. Our results reveal that firms’ service quality and environmental sustainability capabilities, as recognized by winning awards in the respective categories, are associated with improved operating performance during the three-year post-award period. Additionally, the performance benefits associated with service quality awards are greater than those associated with environmental sustainability awards. Our analysis further shows that whereas environmental sustainability relates to better future operating performance by enhancing only sales growth, service quality is positively associated with enhanced sales growth as well as cost efficiency. Finally, our results also indicate that positive operating performance implications of these awards are not contingent on the industry competitive intensity or innovative intensity. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
TLR3 deficiency exacerbates the loss of epithelial barrier function during genital tract Chlamydia muridarum infection

PROBLEM Chlamydia trachomatis infections are often associated with acute syndromes including cervicitis, urethritis, and endometritis, which can lead to chronic sequelae such as pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), chronic pelvic pain, ectopic pregnancy, and tubal infertility. As epithelial cells are the primary cell type productively infected during genital tract Chlamydia infections, we investigated whether Chlamydia has any impact on the integrity of the host epithelial barrier as a possible mechanism to facilitate the dissemination of infection, and examined whether TLR3 function modulates its impact. METHOD OF STUDY We used wild-type and TLR3-deficient murine oviduct epithelial (OE) cells to ascertain whether C. muridarum infection had any effect on the epithelial barrier integrity of these cells as measured by transepithelial resistance (TER) and cell permeability assays. We next assessed whether infection impacted the transcription and protein function of the cellular tight-junction (TJ) genes for claudins1-4, ZO-1, JAM1 and occludin via quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and western blot. RESULTS qPCR, immunoblotting, transwell permeability assays, and TER studies show that Chlamydia compromises cellular TJ function throughout infection in murine OE cells and that TLR3 deficiency significantly exacerbates this effect. CONCLUSION Our data show that TLR3 plays a role in modulating epithelial barrier function during Chlamydia infection of epithelial cells lining the genital tract. These findings propose a role for TLR3 signaling in maintaining the integrity of epithelial barrier function during genital tract Chlamydia infection, a function that we hypothesize is important in helping limit the chlamydial spread and subsequent genital tract pathology.
Multiomic Strategies Reveal Diversity and Important Functional Aspects of Human Gut Microbiome

It is well accepted that dysbiosis of microbiota is associated with disease; however, the biological mechanisms that promote susceptibility or resilience to disease remain elusive. One of the major limitations of previous microbiome studies has been the lack of complementary metatranscriptomic (functional) data to complement the interpretation of metagenomics (bacterial abundance). The purpose of this study was twofold, first to evaluate the bacterial diversity and differential gene expression of gut microbiota using complementary shotgun metagenomics (MG) and metatranscriptomics (MT) from same fecal sample. Second, to compare sequence data using different Illumina platforms and with different sequencing parameters as new sequencers are introduced, and to determine if the data are comparable on different platforms. In this study, we perform ultradeep metatranscriptomic shotgun sequencing for a sample that we previously analyzed with metagenomics shotgun sequencing. We performed sequencing analysis using different Illumina platforms, with different sequencing and analysis parameters. Our results suggest that use of different Illumina platform did not lead to detectable bias in the sequencing data. The analysis of the sample using MG and MT approach shows that some species genes are highly represented in the MT than in the MG, indicating that some species are highly metabolically active. Our analysis also shows that ~52% of the genes in the metagenome are in the metatranscriptome and therefore are robustly expressed. The functions of the low and rare abundance bacterial species remain poorly understood. Our observations indicate that among the low abundant species analyzed in this study some were found to be more metabolically active compared to others, and can contribute distinct profiles of biological functions that may modulate the host-microbiota and bacteria-bacteria interactions.
The relationship between sagittal hoof conformation and hindlimb lameness in the horse.

BACKGROUND: Lameness can be multifactorial and may result from the accumulation of multiple seemingly unrelated causes. The identification of factors associated with lameness could be one method to decrease incidence of lameness and prolong the equine athlete's competitive life. OBJECTIVES: To determine if there is an association between hoof balance in the sagittal plane and hindlimb lameness. STUDY DESIGN: Case‐control study. METHODS: Eighty client‐owned horses with hindlimb lameness (cases) and 80 horses with no detectable hindlimb lameness (controls) were prospectively enroled following lameness evaluation as either cases (lameness localised with regional anaesthesia) or controls (no hindlimb lameness). Lameness cases were divided based on location (stifle, tarsus, proximal metatarsus and other sites). Lateromedial radiographs were performed on hind hooves and plantar angle of the distal phalanx (PADP) was determined. The prevalence of negative/neutral PADP and median PADPs were calculated. Conditional logistic regression and Wilcoxon signed rank tests were used to analyse PADPs, and odds ratios were calculated. Significance was set at P<0.05. RESULTS: The mean PADP was significantly smaller in cases compared to controls. The mean PADP was significantly smaller in horses with lameness localised to tarsus and proximal suspensory, but not the stifle. Lameness in horses was associated with a negative/neutral PADP (Odds ratio [OR] 3.87, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.97–7.61, P<0.01), with lameness localised to the tarsus (OR 4.98, 95% CI 1.34–18.54, P = 0.01) and proximal suspensory (OR 5.16, 95% CI 1.11–23.89, P = 0.03) being associated with a negative/neutral PADP. MAIN LIMITATIONS: It is unknown whether the negative/neutral PADP contributed to lameness or lameness resulted in lower PADP. CONCLUSIONS: Horses with hindlimb lameness localised to the distal tarsus and proximal metatarsus, but not the stifle, were more likely to have negative/neutral PADPs. Corrective farriery to improve PADP may be investigated further as one component in the treatment of hindlimb lameness localised to regions proximal to the foot. The Summary is available in Portuguese – see Supporting Information
Identification of the linear factor model

This paper provides several new results on identification of the linear factor model. The model allows for correlated latent factors and dependence among the idiosyncratic errors. I also illustrate...
Bayesian regularization: From Tikhonov to horseshoe

Bayesian regularization is a central tool in modern-day statistical and machine learning methods. Many applications involve high-dimensional sparse signal recovery problems. The goal of our paper is to provide a review of the literature on penalty-based regularization approaches, from Tikhonov (Ridge, Lasso) to horseshoe regularization.
Magnetopause and Boundary Layer

A brief overview is given of our present knowledge, observational and theoretical, of the structure of the magnetopause and the adjoining plasma boundary layer. Particular attention is given to the relationship between these electromagnetic and plasma structures on the front lobe of the magnetosphere and the magnetic field reconnection process. Items discussed include: magnetopause thickness; behavior of magnetic field components parallel and perpendicular to the magnetopause; particle energization; structure of the boundary layer from reconnection theory.
Auditory sensory memory span for duration is severely curtailed in females with Rett syndrome

Rett syndrome (RTT), a rare neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in the MECP2 gene, is typified by profound cognitive impairment and severe language impairment, rendering it very difficult to accurately measure auditory processing capabilities behaviorally in this population. Here we leverage the mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the event-related potential to measure the ability of RTT patients to decode and store occasional duration deviations in a stream of auditory stimuli. Sensory memory for duration, crucial for speech comprehension, has not been studied in RTT. High-density electroencephalography was successfully recorded in 18 females with RTT and 27 age-matched typically developing (TD) controls (aged 6–22 years). Data from seven RTT and three TD participants were excluded for excessive noise. Stimuli were 1 kHz tones with a standard duration of 100 ms and deviant duration of 180 ms. To assess the sustainability of sensory memory, stimulus presentation rate was varied with stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 450, 900, and 1800 ms. MMNs with maximum negativity over fronto-central scalp and a latency of 220–230 ms were clearly evident for each presentation rate in the TD group, but only for the shortest SOA in the RTT group. Repeated-measures ANOVA revealed a significant group by SOA interaction. MMN amplitude correlated with age in the TD group only. MMN amplitude was not correlated with the Rett Syndrome Severity Scale. This study indicates that while RTT patients can decode deviations in auditory duration, the span of this sensory memory system is severely foreshortened, with likely implications for speech decoding abilities.
Carboxyl-terminal modulator protein regulates Akt signaling during skeletal muscle atrophy in vitro and a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neuromuscular disease involving motor neuron death, paralysis and, ultimately, respiratory failure. Motor neuron dysfunction leads to target skeletal muscle atrophy involving dysregulation of downstream cell survival, growth and metabolic signaling. Decreased Akt activity is linked to muscle atrophy in ALS and is associated with increased atrophy gene expression. Unfortunately, the regulating mechanism of Akt activity in atrophic muscle remains unclear. Recent research indicates a role of carboxyl-terminal modulator protein (CTMP) in Akt-signaling related neurologic dysfunction and skeletal muscle metabolism. CTMP is known to bind and reduce Akt phosphorylation and activation. We hypothesized that CTMP expression might progressively increase in ALS skeletal muscle as the disease progresses, downregulating Akt activity. We found that CTMP protein expression significantly increased in hindlimb skeletal muscle in the mSOD1G93A mouse model of ALS in late stages of the disease (P < 0.05), which negatively correlated with Akt phosphorylation over this period (R2 = −0.77). Co-immunoprecipitation of Akt revealed CTMP binding in pre-symptomatic and end-stage skeletal muscle, suggesting a possible direct role in reduced Akt signaling during disease progression. Inflammatory TNFα and downstream cellular degradation process markers for autophagy, lysosome production, and atrophy significantly increased in a pattern corresponding to increased CTMP expression and reduced Akt phosphorylation. In an in vitro model of skeletal muscle atrophy, differentiated C2C12 cells exhibited reduced Akt activity and decreased FOXO1 phosphorylation, a process known to promote transcription of atrophy genes in skeletal muscle. These results corresponded with increased Atrogin-1 expression compared to healthy control cells (P < 0.05). Transfection with CTMP siRNA significantly increased Akt phosphorylation in atrophic C2C12 cells, corresponding to significantly decreased CTMP expression. In conclusion, this is the first study to provide evidence for a link between elevated CTMP expression, downregulated Akt phosphorylation and muscle atrophy in ALS and clearly demonstrates a direct influence of CTMP on Akt phosphorylation in an in vitro muscle cell atrophy model.
Situating My Positionality as a Black Woman with a Dis/Ability in the Provision of Equity-Focused Technical Assistance: A Personal Reflection.

In this essay, I reflect on how an equity-focused technical assistance (TA) practitioner who holds intersectional minoritized social identities is in a unique position to introduce tensions in the ...
Large-scale proteomic analysis of human brain identifies proteins associated with cognitive trajectory in advanced age

In advanced age, some individuals maintain a stable cognitive trajectory while others experience a rapid decline. Such variation in cognitive trajectory is only partially explained by traditional neurodegenerative pathologies. Hence, to identify new processes underlying variation in cognitive trajectory, we perform an unbiased proteome-wide association study of cognitive trajectory in a discovery (n = 104) and replication cohort (n = 39) of initially cognitively unimpaired, longitudinally assessed older-adult brain donors. We find 579 proteins associated with cognitive trajectory after meta-analysis. Notably, we present evidence for increased neuronal mitochondrial activities in cognitive stability regardless of the burden of traditional neuropathologies. Furthermore, we provide additional evidence for increased synaptic abundance and decreased inflammation and apoptosis in cognitive stability. Importantly, we nominate proteins associated with cognitive trajectory, particularly the 38 proteins that act independently of neuropathologies and are also hub proteins of protein co-expression networks, as promising targets for future mechanistic studies of cognitive trajectory. Cognitive abilities tend to decline over time in advanced age, yet some individuals experience stable abilities or rapid decline. Here the authors present a proteome-wide association study of cognitive trajectory, and identify 38 proteins associated with cognitive resilience.
Dual-pump approach to photon-pair generation: demonstration of enhanced characterization and engineering capabilities

We experimentally study the generation of photon pairs via spontaneous four-wave mixing with two distinct laser pulses. We find that the dual-pump technique enables new capabilities: 1) a new characterization methodology to measure noise contributions, source brightness and photon-collection efficiencies directly from raw photon-count measurements; 2) an enhanced ability to generate heralded single photons in a pure quantum state; and 3) the ability to derive upper and lower bounds on heralded-photon quantum state purity from measurements of photon-number statistics even in the presence of noise. Such features are highly valuable in photon-pair sources for quantum applications.
Financial Inclusion in the Europe and Central Asia Region : Recent Trends and a Research Agenda

Financial inclusion can help promote development. Inclusive financial systems allow people to invest in their education and health, save for retirement, capitalize on business opportunities, and confront shocks. In the Europe and Central Asia region, there is great variation in financial inclusion. In the euro area, most adults already own an account. Account ownership -- which is the first step of entry into the formal financial system has increased in the developing countries in the region, to 65 percent of the adult population from 45 percent in 2011. Tajikistan, Armenia, Moldova, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Georgia are among the countries that have seen the greatest increases globally, despite starting from a very low base. These experiences underline the potential role of digital payments in driving financial inclusion. Nevertheless, almost 30 percent of unbanked adults report lack of trust in banks as a barrier, which is nearly double the developing country average. And in some countries, gender and income gaps in account ownership remain significant. For example, the gender gap is close to 30 percentage points in Turkey, which is three times the average gap in developing countries. And in Romania, the gap between richest 60 percent of the population and poorest 40 percent is 33 percentage points, which is more than twice the average gap in developing countries. But there are many opportunities to increase account ownership. Over 80 percent of the unbanked have a mobile phone, and simply moving public sector pension payments into accounts would reduce the number of unbanked adults in the region by up to 20 million, including 8 million in the Russian Federation alone. Given the heterogeneity of experiences, there are ample opportunities for countries in the region to learn from each other, which lays out a rich research and operational agenda going forward.
Characterization of apolipoprotein A-I peptide phospholipid interaction and its effect on HDL nanodisc assembly

Background: Synthetic HDLs (sHDLs), small nanodiscs of apolipoprotein mimetic peptides surrounding lipid bilayers, were developed clinically for atheroma regression in cardiovascular patients. Formation of HDL involves interaction of apolipoprotein A-I (ApoA-I) with phospholipid bilayers and assembly into lipid-protein nanodiscs. Purpose: The objective of this study is to improve understanding of physico-chemical aspects of HDL biogenesis such as the thermodynamics of ApoA-I-peptide membrane insertion, lipid binding, and HDL self-assembly to improve our ability to form homogeneous sHDL nanodiscs that are suitable for clinical administration. Methods: The ApoA-I-mimetic peptide, 22A, was combined with either egg sphingomyelin (eSM) or 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) phospholipid vesicles to form sHDL. The sHDL assembly process was investigated through lipid vehicle solubilization assays and characterization of purity, size, and morphology of resulting nanoparticles via gel permeation chromatography (GPC), dynamic light scattering (DLS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Peptide-lipid interactions involved were further probed by sum frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy and attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). The pharmacokinetics of eSM-sHDL and POPC-sHDL nanodiscs were investigated in Sprague Dawley rats. Results: sHDL formation was temperature-dependent, with spontaneous formation of sHDL nanoparticles occurring only at temperatures exceeding lipid transition temperatures as evidenced by DLS, GPC, and TEM characterization. SFG and ATR-FTIR spectroscopy findings support a change in peptide-lipid bilayer interactions at temperatures above the lipid transition temperature. Lipid-22A interactions were stronger with eSM than with POPC, which resulted in the formation of more homogeneous sHDL nanoparticles with longer in vivo circulation time as evidenced the PK study. Conclusion: Physico-chemical characteristics of sHDL are in part determined by phospholipid composition. Optimization of phospholipid composition may be utilized to improve the stability and homogeneity of sHDL.
High Reflection from a One-Dimensional Array of Graphene Nanoribbons

We show one-dimensional plasmonic systems such as graphene nanoribbons can be used to engineer extremely large bandwidth, high reflectivity resonances. Further, we prove that the underlying concept relies upon the general observation of the lack of Chu-Harrington limit in one-dimensional systems. © 2019 The Author(s)
Adaptation of Human iPSC-Derived Cardiomyocytes to Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors Reduces Acute Cardiotoxicity via Metabolic Reprogramming

Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are widely used to treat solid tumors but can be cardiotoxic. The molecular basis for this toxicity and its relationship to therapeutic mechanisms remain unclear; we therefore undertook a systems-level analysis of human cardiomyocytes (CMs) exposed to four TKIs. CMs differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) were exposed to sunitinib, sorafenib, lapatinib, or erlotinib, and responses were assessed by functional assays, microscopy, RNA sequencing, and mass spectrometry (GEO: GSE114686; PRIDE: PXD012043). TKIs have diverse effects on hiPSC-CMs distinct from inhibition of tyrosine-kinase-mediated signal transduction; cardiac metabolism is particularly sensitive. Following sorafenib treatment, oxidative phosphorylation is downregulated, resulting in a profound defect in mitochondrial energetics. Cells adapt by upregulating aerobic glycolysis. Adaptation makes cells less acutely sensitive to sorafenib but may have long-term negative consequences. Thus, CMs exhibit adaptive responses to anti-cancer drugs conceptually similar to those previously shown in tumors to mediate drug resistance.
Silylstannylation of highly functionalized acetylenes. synthesis of precursors for annulations via radical or Heck reactions.

Pd-catalyzed silylstannylation of acetylenes tolerates a variety of reactive functional groups (aldehydes, nonterminal acetylenes, epoxides, activated and unactivated olefins), providing easy access to precursors that can be converted into carbocyclic and heterocyclic compounds via free radical or Heck reactions. Examples of the synthesis of pyrrolidines, bicyclic β-lactams, hydrindanes, and tetrahydrofurans are described.
A cyanide-bridged chain of Mo6Se8 clusters: a product of cyanide-melt cluster synthesis.

A cyanide-linked “chain-of-clusters” compound, K6[Mo6Se8(CN)5], is an intermediate formed when [Mo6Se8(CN)6]7- clusters are synthesized by dissolution of the binary Chevrel phase, Mo6Se8, into molt...
In Vivo Flow Cytometry of Extremely Rare Circulating Cells.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are of great interest in cancer research, but methods for their enumeration remain far from optimal. We developed a new small animal research tool called “Diffuse in vivo Flow Cytometry” (DiFC) for detecting extremely rare fluorescently-labeled circulating cells directly in the bloodstream. The technique exploits near-infrared diffuse photons to detect and count cells flowing in large superficial arteries and veins without drawing blood samples. DiFC uses custom-designed, dual fiber optic probes that are placed in contact with the skin surface approximately above a major vascular bundle. In combination with a novel signal processing algorithm, DiFC allows counting of individual cells moving in arterial or venous directions, as well as measurement of their speed and depth. We show that DiFC allows sampling of the entire circulating blood volume of a mouse in under 10 minutes, while maintaining a false alarm rate of 0.014 per minute. In practice, this means that DiFC allows reliable detection of circulating cells below 1 cell per mL. Hence, the unique capabilities of DiFC are highly suited to biological applications involving very rare cell types such as the study of hematogenous cancer metastasis.