cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics and Super-Lichnerowicz Algebras

We present supersymmetric, curved space, quantum mechanical models based on deformations of a parabolic subalgebra of osp(2p+2|Q). The dynamics are governed by a spinning particle action whose internal coordinates are Lorentz vectors labeled by the fundamental representation of osp(2p|Q). The states of the theory are tensors or spinor-tensors on the curved background while conserved charges correspond to the various differential geometry operators acting on these. The Hamiltonian generalizes Lichnerowicz’s wave/Laplace operator. It is central, and the models are supersymmetric whenever the background is a symmetric space, although there is an osp(2p|Q) superalgebra for any curved background. The lowest purely bosonic example (2p, Q) = (2, 0) corresponds to a deformed Jacobi group and describes Lichnerowicz’s original algebra of constant curvature, differential geometric operators acting on symmetric tensors. The case (2p, Q) = (0, 1) is simply the \({\mathcal N} = 1\) superparticle whose supercharge amounts to the Dirac operator acting on spinors. The (2p, Q) = (0, 2) model is the \({\mathcal N} = 2\) supersymmetric quantum mechanics corresponding to differential forms. (This latter pair of models are supersymmetric on any Riemannian background.) When Q is odd, the models apply to spinor-tensors. The (2p, Q) = (2, 1) model is distinguished by admitting a central Lichnerowicz-Dirac operator when the background is constant curvature. The new supersymmetric models are novel in that the Hamiltonian is not just a square of super charges, but rather a sum of commutators of supercharges and commutators of bosonic charges. These models and superalgebras are a very useful tool for any study involving high rank tensors and spinors on manifolds.
Practical approaches to green solvents

Solvents are widely used in commercial manufacturing and service industries. Despite abundant precaution, they inevitably contaminate our air, land, and water because they are difficult to contain and recycle. Researchers have therefore focused on reducing solvent use through the development of solvent-free processes and more efficient recycling protocols. However, these approaches have their limitations, necessitating a pollution prevention approach and the search for environmentally benign solvent alternatives. This report highlights opportunities for the practical implementation of such green solvents.
Dynamics and control of quadrotor UAVs transporting a rigid body connected via flexible cables

This paper is focused on the dynamics and control of arbitrary number of quadrotor UAVs transporting a rigid body payload. The rigid body payload is connected to quadrotors via flexible cables where each flexible cable is modeled as a system of serially-connected links. It is shown that a coordinate-free form of equations of motion can be derived for arbitrary numbers of quadrotors and links according to Lagrangian mechanics on a manifold. A geometric nonlinear controller is presented to transport the rigid body to a fixed desired position while aligning all of the links along the vertical direction. Numerical results are provided to illustrate the desirable features of the proposed control system.
A Game-Theoretic View of the Interference Channel: Impact of Coordination and Bargaining

This work considers coordination and bargaining between two selfish users over a Gaussian interference channel. The usual information theoretic approach assumes full cooperation among users for codebook and rate selection. In the scenario investigated here, each user is willing to coordinate its actions only when an incentive exists and benefits of cooperation are fairly allocated. The users are first allowed to negotiate for the use of a simple Han-Kobayashi type scheme with fixed power split. Conditions for which users have incentives to cooperate are identified. Then, two different approaches are used to solve the associated bargaining problem. First, the Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS) is used as a tool to get fair information rates and the operating point is obtained as a result of an optimization problem. Next, a dynamic alternating-offer bargaining game (AOBG) from bargaining theory is introduced to model the bargaining process and the rates resulting from negotiation are characterized. The relationship between the NBS and the equilibrium outcome of the AOBG is studied and factors that may affect the bargaining outcome are discussed. Finally, under certain high signal-to-noise ratio regimes, the bargaining problem for the generalized degrees of freedom is studied.
Correlation of dihedral angles with 13C chemical shifts of quaternary carbon atoms of some phenothiazine derivatives

A direct relationship between the 13C nmr chemical shifts of the quaternary carbon atoms of the central ring of phenothiazine and the dihedral angle of the respective derivatives has been observed. This correlation allows for the useful and quick estimation of the dihedral angles of novel phenothiazines from readily obtainable 13C nmr solution measurements. In addition, the change in the dihedral angle appears to be directly related to the S-C4a-C10a bond angle; however, the C4a-S-C5a bond angle is not affected by changes in the dihedral angle. This indicates that the “flattening” of the phenothiazine tricyclic ring system is compensated for by the vertical displacement of the sulfur atom, by changes in hybridization of N10, and by other angular distortions of the middle ring.
Flavour Changing Neutral Currents, Weak-Scale Scalars and Rare Top Decays

Abstract We examine the decays t → cγ and cZ 0 in the Standard Model with an extra scalar doublet and no discrete symmetry preventing tree-level flavour changing neutral currents. The Yukawa couplings of the new scalars are assumed to be proportional to fermion masses, evading bounds on FCNC's from the light quark sector. These rare top decays may be visible at the SSC.
Soft-Error Tolerance Analysis and Optimization of Nanometer Circuits

Nanometer circuits are becoming increasingly susceptible to soft-errors due to alpha-particle and atmospheric neutron strikes as device scaling reduces node capacitances and supply/threshold voltage scaling reduces noise margins. It is becoming crucial to add soft-error tolerance estimation and optimization to the design flow to handle the increasing susceptibility. The first part of this paper presents a tool for accurate soft-error tolerance analysis of nanometer circuits (ASERTA) that can be used to estimate the soft-error tolerance of nanometer circuits consisting of millions of gates. The tolerance estimates generated by the tool match SPICE generated estimates closely while taking orders of magnitude less computation time. The second part of the paper presents a tool for soft-error tolerance optimization of nanometer circuits (SERTOPT) using the tolerance estimates generated by ASERTA. The tool finds optimal sizes, channel lengths, supply voltages and threshold voltages to be assigned to gates in a combinational circuit such that the soft-error tolerance is increased while meeting the timing constraint. Experiments on ISCAS'85 benchmark circuits showed that soft-error rate of the optimized circuit decreased by as much as 47% with marginal increase in circuit delay.
Spectral Algorithms for Unique Games

We present a new algorithm for Unique Games which is based on purely {\em spectral} techniques, in contrast to previous work in the area, which relies heavily on semidefinite programming (SDP). Given a highly satisfiable instance of Unique Games, our algorithm is able to recover a good assignment. The approximation guarantee depends only on the completeness of the game, and not on the alphabet size, while the running time depends on spectral properties of the {\em Label-Extended} graph associated with the instance of Unique Games. In particular, we show how our techniques imply a quasi-polynomial time algorithm that decides satisfiability of a game on the Khot-Vishnoi\cite{KV} integrality gap instance. Notably, when run on that instance, the standard SDP relaxation of Unique Games {\em fails}. As a special case, we also show how to re-derive a polynomial time algorithm for Unique Games on expander constraint graphs (similar to \cite{AKKTSV}) and a sub-exponential time algorithm for Unique Games on the Hypercube.
The Deep Viriosphere: Assessing the Viral Impact on Microbial Community Dynamics in the Deep Subsurface

All regions of Earth’s biosphere that we have studied—the waters of Earth’s oceans, the soil beneath our feet, and even the air we breathe—teem with viruses. Viral particles are among the smallest biological entities on the planet, with the average viral particle measuring about 100 nm in length: a size so small that five thousand viruses, lined end to end, would fit across the thickness of a human fingernail. What they lack in size, though, they compensate with sheer abundance. If we were to line up all the viruses in the ocean, they would stretch across the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy one hundred times (Suttle 2007). Those viruses are responsible for up to 1023 infections per second in the oceans (Suttle 2007). With each new infection, viruses can have a profound impact on their hosts: they can alter the structure of a microbial population, break up cellular biomass into its constituent organic matter, or introduce new genes into their hosts. Through this activity, viruses play a role in top-down as well as bottom-up processes, and can potentially alter the course of evolution. The importance of viruses in the surface oceans is now well recognized, and research is increasingly dedicated to improving our understanding of their role in important marine processes. The viral role in the deep subsurface, however, is rarely considered. Deep within the crust and sediment below the ocean, viruses may play a profound role in altering biogeochemical cycles, structuring microbial diversity, and manipulating genetic content. Yet many questions remain unanswered: Are certain species or strains in the deep subsurface more susceptible to viral infection than others? What role do viruses play in driving natural selection and evolution in the deep biosphere? Is it more common for viruses to persist as protein-bound virion particles, or do …
The Impact of Mass Migration on the Israeli Labor Market

Mass migration from the former Soviet Union increased the Israeli population by 12% in the first half of the 1990s. This exodus was precipitated by the lifting of emigration restrictions in an unstable USSR and by the open immigration policy of Israel toward Soviet Jews, who faced more restrictive entry policies elsewhere. I use this natural experiment to study the impact of immigration on the labor market outcomes of native Israelis. OLS yields significant reductions in wages and small reductions in employment. However, OLS is biased if the distribution of immigrants across occupations in Israel was not exogenous to relative wage and employment conditions. I instrument for the entry of Russians into an occupation in Israel, using information on their former occupations in the USSR. There is a significant positive correlation between the former presence of the immigrants in an occupation in the USSR and their presence in that occupation in Israel. But the previous occupational choices of Russians abroad were independent of Israeli wage and employment growth subsequent to their migration. IV estimates indicate that immigration did not have an adverse impact on native Israeli labor market outcomes.
Load Distribution on a Close-Coupled Wing Canard at Transonic Speeds

A wind tunnel test where load distributions were obtained at transonic speeds on both the canard and wing surfaces of a closely coupled wing canard configuration is reported. Detailed component and configuration arrangement studies to provide insight into the various aerodynamic interference effects for the leading edge vortex flow conditions encountered are included. Data indicate that increasing the Mach number from 0.70 to 0.95 caused the wing leading edge vortex to burst over the wing when the wing was in the presence of the high canard.
Cr-waste free catalytic carbonyl addition reactions with polymer-immobilized CrF2

Abstract A monomeric [Cr(pyridine) 4 F 2 ] + Br − is immobilized onto the dipyridyl-TentaGel resin. Allylations of aldehydes with 5–10 mol % of the CrF 2 -dipyridyl-TentaGel resin 2 /Mn/TMSCl in THF provide the corresponding homoallylic alcohols in excellent yields after TMS-desilylations with a polymer-supported ammonium fluoride 3 . The recovered CrF 2 -dipyridyl-TentaGel resins can be utilized multiple times without a decrease of reactivity.
Extreme low aspect ratio stellarators

A novel class of stellarator configurations with unique and advanced characteristics is proposed. It features extreme low plasma aspect ratios (down to A M I), a simple coil system having a helical center post, extremely high p equilibria (PO N 90%, /3 N 20% is demonstrated) assisted by a strong positive bootstrap current, improved particle transport caused by the absence of an outboard helical ripple, and a natural divertor. The helical center post can be a single helix or may consist of a few helices. @ 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.
Increased feelings with increased body signals

Since the beginning of psychology as a scientific endeavour, the question of whether the body plays a role in how a person experiences emotion has been the centre of emotion research. Patients with structural gastrointestinal disorders, such as Crohn's disease, provide an intriguing opportunity to study the influence of body signals on emotions and feelings. In the present study, emotionally salient films were presented to participants with Crohn's disease in either the active state (Crohn's-active, CA) or silent state (Crohn's-silent, CS), and to normal comparison (NC) participants. We hypothesized that CA participants would have increased feelings, compared with CS and NC participants, when viewing emotional films designed to elicit happiness, disgust, sadness and fear. Gastric myoelectrical activity (electrogastrogram, or EGG) was measured during the films, and after each film was presented, participants rated emotion intensity (arousal) and pleasantness (valence). All groups labelled the emotions similarly. In support of the hypothesis, CA participants showed an increase in subjective arousal for negative emotions compared with CS and NC participants. The CA participants also showed increased EGG during emotional film viewing, as well as a strong positive correlation of EGG with arousal ratings. Together, these findings can be taken as evidence that aberrant feedback from the gastrointestinal system up-regulates the intensity of feelings of negative emotions.
Environmentally Adjusted Elasticity Measures

Here, using input, output and nitrogen pollution data related to one state, we propose to extend the elasticity concept to include environmental pollution treated as undesirable output to provide the environmentally adjusted elasticity measures for the period, 1936-1997 in a two-step procedure.
Motions Near a Shallow Rupturing Fault: Evaluation of Effects Due to the Free Surface

Summary The displacement of the surface of a half space near a shallow rupturing fault is, generally, approximated poorly by doubling the amplitude calculated for the same source in an infinite space. To obtain this result, the motions of a half space were calculated using a Green's function which is a solution to Lamb's problem, and the motions of an infinite space were calculated using the formulae of Haskell. A good approximation to the half-space displacement caused by a P- or S-wave incident at most angles from a point source is numerical correction of the displacement resulting from the point source in an infinite space for the amplification and phase shift of a plane-wave incident at a free surface. This correction approximately doubles the amplitude of the infinite space displacement for SV-waves with angles of incidence within 30 degrees of vertical, for P-waves within 70 degrees of vertical, and for all SH-waves. The static offset of the free surface from a point source is not, in general, twice the offset calculated in the corresponding infinite space case. The displacement from an extended fault is calculated by superposition of point sources on the fault plane; when the infinite space amplitudes may be doubled for all (or most) of these point sources, it may also be doubled for the extended source.
“Intelligent” Polymers in Medicine and Biotechnology

One can define "intelligent" polymers as those polymers that respond with large property changes to small physical or chemical stimuli. These polymers may be in various forms, such as in solution, on surfaces, or as solids. One may also combine intelligent aqueous polymer systems with biomolecules to yield a large family of polymers that respond intelligently to physical, chemical, or biological stimuli. This article overviews such interesting and versatile polymer systems.
The cometary impactor flux at the Earth

Comets account for a small but very significant fraction of impactors on the Earth. Although the total number of Earth-crossing comets is modest as compared with asteroids, the more eccentric and inclined orbits of the comets result in much higher encounter velocities with the planet. Additionally, some Earth-crossing comets are significantly larger than any current near-Earth asteroids (NEAs); comets 1P/Halley and C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp are good examples of this. Thus, the most energetic impacts on the Earth likely result from comets and not NEAs. The mean impact probability for long-period comets is 2.4× 10−9 per comet per perihelion passage, assuming the perihelion distribution of Everhart (1967), with a most probable encounter velocity of 53.5 km sec−1. There are 21 known Earth-crossing Jupiter-family comets with a mean impact probability of 1.6× 10−9 per comet per year and a most probable encounter velocity of 17.0 km sec−1. For the 16 known Earth-crossing Halley-type comets the mean impact probability is 1.2× 10−10 per year with a most probable encounter velocity of 51.3 km sec−1. The poor knowledge of the size distribution of cometary nuclei makes it difficult to estimate actual impact energies at this time, though that situation is slowly improving, in particular for the Jupiter-family comets.
A simple, accurate method to calculate spread-spectrum multiple-access error probabilities

The exact calculation of error probabilities for direct-sequence spread-spectrum multiple-access (DS/SSMA) systems has been addressed in the literature. The exact calculation is computationally difficult, so emphasis has been on approximations and bounds. One particularly attractive approximation is to just use a signal-to-noise ratio in a Gaussian approximation, the 'standard approximation'. Unfortunately, that approximation is not generally accurate enough. An improved Gaussian approximation with good accuracy has recently been presented. The author derives an accurate Gaussian approximation which is also computationally very simple. >
The origin of water vapor rings in tropical oceanic cold pools

Tropical deep convection over the ocean is found to grow preferentially from thermodynamically preconditioned regions of high specific humidity and, thus, high moist static energy. For this reason, rings of enhanced specific humidity at the leading edges of evaporatively driven cold pools have recently received considerable attention. The prevailing theory explains these rings by the water vapor source from the evaporation of rain drops below cloud base. Their origin is studied in this letter using large-eddy simulations of individual cumulus clouds that rise into a tropical atmosphere over ocean. It is demonstrated that—in contrast to this theory—water vapor rings are primarily explained by surface latent heat fluxes rather than by the evaporation of rain. This finding implies that conceptual models used in subgrid-scale parameterizations of deep convection should consider the formation of rings of increased specific humidity by the cold-pool-induced enhancement of surface fluxes.
Dynamic service rate control for a single-server queue with Markov-modulated arrivals

We consider the problem of service rate control of a single-server queueing system with a finite-state Markov-modulated Poisson arrival process. We show that the optimal service rate is nondecreasing in the number of customers in the system; higher congestion levels warrant higher service rates. On the contrary, however, we show that the optimal service rate is not necessarily monotone in the current arrival rate. If the modulating process satisfies a stochastic monotonicity property, the monotonicity is recovered. We examine several heuristics and show where heuristics are reasonable substitutes for the optimal control. None of the heuristics perform well in all the regimes and the fluctuation rate of the modulating process plays an important role in deciding the right heuristic. Second, we discuss when the Markov-modulated Poisson process with service rate control can act as a heuristic itself to approximate the control of a system with a periodic nonhomogeneous Poisson arrival process. Not only is the current model of interest in the control of Internet or mobile networks with bursty traffic, but it is also useful in providing a tractable alternative for the control of service centers with nonstationary arrival rates. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 60: 661–677, 2013
A nonparametric approach for noisy point data preprocessing

3D point data acquired from laser scan or stereo vision can be quite noisy. A preprocessing step is often needed before a surface reconstruction algorithm can be applied. In this paper, we propose a nonparametric approach for noisy point data preprocessing. In particular, we proposed an anisotropic kernel based nonparametric density estimation method for outlier removal, and a hill-climbing line search approach for projecting data points onto the real surface boundary. Our approach is simple, robust and efficient. We demonstrate our method on both real and synthetic point datasets.
¿Quién le susurra al presidente? Asesores vs. ministros en América Latina

This article examines who influences presidential decisions within the Executive and how this occurs. Based on interviews with twenty-one former presidents, this paper argues that the tension between advisors and ministers varies according to the type of presidential leadership and whether the president freely appoints ministers or they are imposed by political parties. The interaction between both variables conditions relations between advisors and ministers, allowing advisors to complement, substitute, accommodate or compete with ministers’ duties. To systematize this argument, this paper proposes a categorization of the degree of conflict that exists between ministers and advisors.
Modeling children’s school travel mode and parental escort decisions

Understanding of the activity-travel patterns of children is becoming increasingly important to various policy makers. Further, there is also a growing recognition that intra-household interactions need to be explicitly accommodated in travel models for realistic forecasts and policy evaluation. In the light of these issues, this paper contributes towards an overall understanding of the school-travel behavior of children and the related interdependencies among the travel patterns of parents and children. An econometric model is formulated to simultaneously determine the choice of mode and the escorting person for children’s travel to and from school. The 2000 San Francisco Bay Area Travel Survey (BATS) data are used in the model estimation process. Empirical results indicate that the characteristics of child like age, gender, and ethnicity, and employment and work flexibility characteristics of the parents have strong impacts on the mode choice decisions. In addition, the impacts of some of these attributes on the choice of mode to school are different from the corresponding impacts on the choice of mode from school. The distance between home and school is found to strongly and negatively impact the choice of walking to and from school, with the impact being stronger for walking to school. Several land-use and built-environment variables were explored, but were found not to be statistically significant predictors.
Fe/Cr- and Co/Cr-mediated catalytic asymmetric 2-haloallylations of aldehydes.

The first example to couple aldehydes and 3-bromo-2-halopropenes in a catalytic asymmetric manner is reported. The coupling reaction is effected by the use of a chiral sulfonamide−Cr complex (prepared in situ from 1d, CrBr3, Fe(III) or from Co(II), Et3N, and Mn), TMSCl, and 2,6-lutidine. The method reported here is operationally simple and scalable, furnishing 3-halohomoallylic alcohols with a synthetically useful level of enantiomeric excess.
Isoform-selective histone deacetylase inhibitors

Histone deacetylase (HDAC) proteins are transcription regulators linked to cancer. As a result, multiple small molecule HDAC inhibitors are in various phases of clinical trials as anti-cancer drugs. The majority of HDAC inhibitors non-selectively influence the activities of eleven human HDAC isoforms, which are divided into distinct classes. This tutorial review focuses on the recent progress toward the identification of class-selective and isoform-selective HDAC inhibitors. The emerging trends suggest that subtle differences in the active sites of the HDAC isoforms can be exploited to dictate selectivity.
Elementary Vortex Processes in Thermal Superfluid Turbulence

By solving pertinent mathematical models with numerical and computational methods, we analyze the formation of superfluid vorticity structures in a turbulent normal fluid with an inertial range exhibiting Kolmogorov scaling. We demonstrate that mutual friction forcing causes quantum vortex instabilities whose signature is spiral vortical configurations. The spirals expand until they accidentally meet metastable, intense normal fluid vorticity tubes of similar curvature and vorticity orientation that trap them by driving them towards low mutual friction sites where superfluid bundles are formed. The bundle formation sites are located within the tube cores, but, due to tube curvature and many-tube interaction effects, are displaced by variable distances from the tube centerlines as they follow the contours of the latter. We analyze possible implications of these processes in fully developed thermal superfluid turbulence dynamics.
GENERALIZED GEOMETRIC APPROACHES FOR LEAF SEQUENCING PROBLEMS IN RADIATION THERAPY

The 3-D static leaf sequencing (SLS) problem arises in radiation therapy for cancer treatments, aiming to deliver a prescribed radiation dose to a target tumor accurately and efficiently. The treatment time and machine delivery error are two crucial factors to the solution (i.e., a treatment plan) for the SLS problem. In this paper, we prove that the 3-D SLS problem is NP-hard, and present the first ever algorithm for the 3-D SLS problem that can determine a tradeoff between the treatment time and machine delivery error (also called the "tongue-and-groove" error in medical literature). Our new 3-D SLS algorithm with error control gives the users (e.g., physicians) the option of specifying a machine delivery error bound, and subject to the given error bound, the algorithm computes a treatment plan with the minimum treatment time. We formulate the SLS problem with error control as computing a k-weight shortest path in a directed graph and build the graph by computing g-matchings and minimum cost flows. Further, we extend our 3-D SLS algorithm to all the popular radiotherapy machine models with different constraints. In our extensions, we model the SLS problems for some of the radiotherapy systems as computing a minimum g-path cover of a directed acyclic graph. We implemented our new 3-D SLS algorithm suite and conducted an extensive comparison study with commercial planning systems and well-known algorithms in medical literature. Some of our experimental results based on real medical data are presented.
Macro Federalism and Local Finance

The book is divided into two parts. The first part macro federalism provides a fresh look at emerging constitutional challenges arising from globalization and the information revolution, as well as the dynamic-efficiency and growth implications of existing federal constitutions. Several aspects of these systems are examined: (a) institutional design to achieve internal economic union; (b) policies for regional development; (c) conduct of monetary policy; (d) coordination of fiscal policies, with a special emphasis on tax harmonization; and (e) management of risks of insolvency from sub-national borrowing. The second part of the book local finance provides a comparative perspective on local finances and measures the progress of decentralized governance reforms in developing countries.
SUSY Vertex Algebras and Supercurves

Given a strongly conformal SUSY vertex algebra V and a supercurve X, we construct a vector bundle \({\fancyscript V}^r_X\) on X, the fiber of which is isomorphic to V. Moreover, the state-field correspondence of V canonically gives rise to (local) sections of these vector bundles. We also define chiral algebras on any supercurve X, and show that the vector bundle \({\fancyscript V}^r_X\), corresponding to a SUSY vertex algebra, carries the structure of a chiral algebra.
An Interrupted Fischer Indolization Approach toward Fused Indoline-Containing Natural Products

An efficient method to access the fused indoline ring system present in a multitude of bioactive molecules has been developed. The strategy involves the condensation of hydrazines with latent aldehydes to ultimately deliver indoline-containing products by way of an interrupted Fischer indolization sequence. Our studies show that the approach will likely be amenable to the synthesis of complex targets, such as the communesin natural products.
Stock Market Liberalization, Economic Reform, and Emerging Market Equity Prices

A stock market liberalization is a decision by a country's government to allow foreigners to purchase shares in that country's stock market. On average, a country's aggregate equity price index experiences abnormal returns of 3.3 percent per month in real dollar terms during an eight-month window leading up to the implementation of its initial stock market liberalization. This result is consistent with the prediction of standard international asset pricing models that stock market liberalization may reduce the liberalizing country's cost of equity capital by allowing for risk sharing between domestic and foreign agents. A stock market liberalization is a decision by a country's government to allow foreigners to purchase shares in that country's stock market. Standard international asset pricing models (JAPMs) predict that stock market liberalization may reduce the liberalizing country's cost of equity capital by allowing for risk sharing between domestic and foreign agents (Stapleton and Subrahmanyan (1977), Errunza and Losq (1985), Eun and Janakiramanan (1986), Alexander, Eun, and Janakiramanan (1987), and Stulz (1999a, 1999b)). This prediction has two important empirical implications for those emerging countries that liberalized their stock markets in the late 1980s and early 1990s. First, if stock market liberalization reduces the aggregate cost of equity capital then, holding expected future cash flows constant, we should observe an increase in a country's equity price index when the market learns that a stock market liberalization is going to occur. The second implication is
Merging of Air Traffic Flows

The problem of merging two or more flows of aircraft in a horizontal plane is considered. The aircraft aim to reach a target flow with the minimal amount of turning, while maintaining a given separation between them. Neither a priori sequencing nor scheduling of the merging aircraft is assumed. The individual trajectories for each aircraft are computed using optimization, and a subset of these optimal trajectories serve as a basis for merging multiple aircraft. A second optimization step produces trajectories for each aircraft to ensure both effective merging into the flow and sufficient separation. This generates the sequencing of the merging aircraft. Simulations of several merging scenarios illustrate the approach and show its results. A statistical study of the influence of the problem parameters on the success of the merging algorithm provides a guideline for the design of the airspace around the merging area. The proposed algorithm can be used for automatic en route and terminal area merging tasks within future more automated air traffic control systems.
Orthonormal Basis Lattice Neural Networks

Lattice based neural networks are capable of resolving some difficult non-linear problems and have been successfully employed to solve real-world problems. In this paper a novel model of a lattice neural network (LNN) is presented. This new model generalizes the standard basis lattice neural network (SB-LNN) based on dendritic computing. In particular, we show how each neural dendrite can work on a different orthonormal basis than the other dendrites. We present experimental results that demonstrate superior learning performance of the new Orthonormal Basis Lattice Neural Network (OB-LNN) over SB-LNNs.
Algorithms for the analysis of ensemble neural spiking activity using simultaneous-event multivariate point-process models

Understanding how ensembles of neurons represent and transmit information in the patterns of their joint spiking activity is a fundamental question in computational neuroscience. At present, analyses of spiking activity from neuronal ensembles are limited because multivariate point process (MPP) models cannot represent simultaneous occurrences of spike events at an arbitrarily small time resolution. Solo recently reported a simultaneous-event multivariate point process (SEMPP) model to correct this key limitation. In this paper, we show how Solo’s discrete-time formulation of the SEMPP model can be efficiently fit to ensemble neural spiking activity using a multinomial generalized linear model (mGLM). Unlike existing approximate procedures for fitting the discrete-time SEMPP model, the mGLM is an exact algorithm. The MPP time-rescaling theorem can be used to assess model goodness-of-fit. We also derive a new marked point-process (MkPP) representation of the SEMPP model that leads to new thinning and time-rescaling algorithms for simulating an SEMPP stochastic process. These algorithms are much simpler than multivariate extensions of algorithms for simulating a univariate point process, and could not be arrived at without the MkPP representation. We illustrate the versatility of the SEMPP model by analyzing neural spiking activity from pairs of simultaneously-recorded rat thalamic neurons stimulated by periodic whisker deflections, and by simulating SEMPP data. In the data analysis example, the SEMPP model demonstrates that whisker motion significantly modulates simultaneous spiking activity at the 1ms time scale and that the stimulus effect is more than one order of magnitude greater for simultaneous activity compared with non-simultaneous activity. Together, the mGLM, the MPP time-rescaling theorem and the MkPP representation of the SEMPP model offer a theoretically sound, practical tool for measuring joint spiking propensity in a neuronal ensemble.
RESOLVING THE ORIGIN OF THE DIFFUSE SOFT X-RAY BACKGROUND

The ubiquitous diffuse soft (1/4 keV) X-ray background was one of the earliest discoveries of X-ray astronomy. At least some of the emission may arise from charge exchange between solar wind ions and neutral atoms in the heliosphere, but no detailed models have been fit to the available data. Here, we report on a new model for charge exchange in the solar wind, which, when combined with a diffuse hot plasma component, filling the Local Cavity provides a good fit to the only available high-resolution soft X-ray and extreme ultraviolet spectra using plausible parameters for the solar wind. The implied hot plasma component is in pressure equilibrium with the local cloud that surrounds the solar system, creating for the first time a self-consistent picture of the local interstellar medium.
Forecasting foreground impact on cosmic microwave background measurements

We explore the possible impact of galactic and extragalactic foregrounds on measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We find that, given our present understanding of the foregrounds, they are unlikely to qualitatively affect the ability of the MAP and Planck satellites to determine the angular power spectrum of the CMB, the key statistic for constraining cosmological parameters. Sufficiently far from the galactic plane, the only foregrounds that will affect power spectrum determination with any significance are the extragalactic ones. For MAP we find the most troublesome foregrounds are radio point sources and the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect. For Planck they are these same radio point sources and the Far Infrared Background. Prior knowledge of the statistics of the SZ component (either via theoretical calculation, or higher frequency observations of just a few percent of the sky, such as will be done by balloon-borne experiments) may significantly improve MAP's determination of the CMB power spectrum. We also explore the foreground impact on MAP and Planck polarization power spectrum measurements.
COMPARATIVE NONINFORMATIVITIES OF QUANTUM PRIORS BASED ON MONOTONE METRICS

Abstract We consider a number of prior probability distributions of particular interest, all being defined on the three-dimensional convex set of two-level quantum systems. Each distribution is — following recent work of Petz and Sudar — taken to be proportional to the volume element of a monotone metric on that Riemannian manifold. We apply and entropy-based test (a variant of one recently developed by Clarke) to determine which of two priors is more noninformative in nature. This involves converting them to posterior probability distributions based on some set of hypothesized outcomes of measurements of the quantum system in question. It is, then, ascertained whether or not the relative entropy (Kullback-Leibler statistic) between a pair of priors increases or decreases when one of them is exchanged with its corresponding posterior. The findings lead us to assert that the maximal monotone metric yields the most noninformative prior distribution and the minimal monotone (that is, the Bures) metric, the least. Our conclusions both agree and disagree, in certain respects, with ones recently reached by Hall, who relied upon a less specific test criterion than our entropy-based one.
Convection in Galaxy-Cluster Plasmas Driven by Active Galactic Nuclei and Cosmic-Ray Buoyancy

Turbulent heating may play an important role in galaxy-cluster plasmas, but if turbulent heating is to balance radiative cooling in a quasi-steady state, some mechanism must regulate the turbulent velocity so that it is neither too large nor too small. This paper explores one possible regulating mechanism associated with an active galactic nucleus at cluster center. A steady-state model for the intracluster medium is presented in which radiative cooling is balanced by a combination of turbulent heating and thermal conduction. The turbulence is generated by convection driven by the buoyancy of cosmic rays produced by a central radio source. The cosmic-ray luminosity is powered by the accretion of intracluster plasma onto a central black hole. The model makes the rather extreme assumption that the cosmic rays and thermal plasma are completely mixed. Although the intracluster medium is convectively unstable near cluster center in the model solutions, the specific entropy of the thermal plasma still increases outward because of the cosmic-ray modification to the stability criterion. The model provides a self-consistent calculation of the turbulent velocity as a function of position but fails to reproduce the steep central density profiles observed in clusters. The principal difficulty is that in order for the fully mixed intracluster medium to become convectively unstable, the cosmic-ray pressure must become comparable to or greater than the thermal pressure within the convective region. The large cosmic ray pressure gradient then provides much of the support against gravity, reducing the thermal pressure gradient near cluster center and decreasing the central plasma density gradient. A more realistic active galactic nucleus (AGN)-feedback model of intracluster turbulence, in which relativistic and thermal plasmas are only partially mixed, may have greater success.
Do Financial Institutions Matter

In standard asset pricing theory, investors are assumed to invest directly in financial markets. The role of financial institutions is ignored. The focus in corporate finance is on agency problems. How do you ensure that managers act in shareholders' interests? There is an inconsistency in assuming that when you give your money to a financial institution there is no agency problem, but when you give it to a firm there is. It is argued that both areas need to take proper account of the role of financial institutions and markets. Appropriate concepts for analyzing particular situations should be used.
Family Background and Gender Differences in Educational Expectations

Socioeconomic outcomes of parents and their children are more correlated for sons than for daughters. This paper presents empirical evidence from Denmark that these gender differences result from different transmission mechanisms by separating the effects of parental education and income.
Nonlinear Landau damping in the ionosphere

A model is presented to explain the non-resonant waves which give rise to the diffuse resonance observed near 3/2 f sub H by the Alouette and ISIS topside sounders, where f sub H is the ambient electron cyclotron frequency. In a strictly linear analysis, these instability driven waves will decay due to Landau damping on a time scale much shorter than the observed time duration of the diffuse resonance. Calculations of the nonlinear wave particle coupling coefficients, however, indicate that the diffuse resonance wave can be maintained by the nonlinear Landau damping of the sounder stimulated 2f sub H wave. The time duration of the diffuse resonance is determined by the transit time of the instability generated and nonlinearly maintained diffuse resonance wave from the remote short lived hot region back to the antenna. The model is consistent with the Alouette/ISIS observations, and clearly demonstrates the existence of nonlinear wave-particle interactions in the ionosphere.
Sampling 3-colourings of regular bipartite graphs

We show that if $G=(V,E)$ is a regular bipartite graph for which the expansion of subsets of a single parity of $V$ is reasonably good and which satisfies a certain local condition (that the union of the neighbourhoods of adjacent vertices does not contain too many pairwise non-adjacent vertices), and if $M$ is a Markov chain on the set of proper 3-colourings of $G$ which updates the colour of at most $c|V|$ vertices at each step and whose stationary distribution is uniform, then for $c < .22$ and $d$ sufficiently large the convergence to stationarity of $M$ is (essentially) exponential in $|V|$. In particular, if $G$ is the $d$-dimensional hypercube $Q_d$ (the graph on vertex set $\{0,1\}^d$ in which two strings are adjacent if they differ on exactly one coordinate) then the convergence to stationarity of the well-known Glauber (single-site update) dynamics is exponentially slow in $2^d/(\sqrt{d} \log d )$. A combinatorial corollary of our main result is that in a uniform 3-colouring of $Q_d$ there is an exponentially small probability (in $2^d$) that there is a colour $i$ such the proportion of vertices of the even subcube coloured $i$ differs from the proportion of the odd subcube coloured $i$ by at most .22. Our proof combines a conductance argument with combinatorial enumeration methods.
A Model of Money with Multilateral Matching

We develop a model of decentralized monetary exchange to examine the distributional effects of inflation across heterogeneous agents. The agents have private information about their productivity, preferences, or money holdings. Matching is multilateral and each seller is visited by a stochastic number of buyers. The good is allocated according to a second-price auction in money. In equilibrium, homogeneous buyers hold different amounts of money leading to price dispersion. We find the closed-form solution for the distribution of money holdings. Entry of sellers is suboptimal except at the Friedman rule. Inflation acts as a regressive tax.
The dS/CFT correspondence

A holographic duality is proposed relating quantum gravity on dSD (D-dimensional de Sitter space) to conformal field theory on a single SD−1 ((D-1)-sphere), in which bulk de Sitter correlators with points on the boundary are related to CFT correlators on the sphere, and points on + (the future boundary of dSD) are mapped to the antipodal points on SD−1 relative to those on −. For the case of dS3, which is analyzed in some detail, the central charge of the CFT2 is computed in an analysis of the asymptotic symmetry group at ±. This dS/CFT proposal is supported by the computation of correlation functions of a massive scalar field. In general the dual CFT may be non-unitary and (if for example there are sufficently massive stable scalars) contain complex conformal weights. We also consider the physical region − of dS3 corresponding to the causal past of a timelike observer, whose holographic dual lives on a plane rather than a sphere. − can be foliated by asymptotically flat spacelike slices. Time evolution along these slices is generated by L0+0, and is dual to scale transformations in the boundary CFT2.
The Transit Light Curve Project. XIII. Sixteen Transits of the Super-Earth GJ 1214b

We present optical photometry of 16 transits of the super-Earth GJ 1214b, allowing us to refine the system parameters and search for additional planets via transit timing. Starspot-crossing events are detected in two light curves, and the star is found to be variable by a few percent. Hence, in our analysis, special attention is given to systematic errors that result from starspots. The planet-to-star radius ratio is 0.11610 {+-} 0.00048, subject to a possible upward bias by a few percent due to the unknown spot coverage. Even assuming this bias to be negligible, the mean density of the planet can be either 3.03 {+-} 0.50 g cm{sup -3} or 1.89 {+-} 0.33 g cm{sup -3}, depending on whether the stellar radius is estimated from evolutionary models, or from an empirical mass-luminosity relation combined with the light curve parameters. One possible resolution is that the orbit is eccentric (e {approx} 0.14), which would favor the higher density, and hence a much thinner atmosphere for the planet. The transit times were found to be periodic within about 15 s, ruling out the existence of any other super-Earths with periods within a factor of two of the known planet.
Application of Fundamental Organometallic Chemistry to the Development of a Gold-Catalyzed Synthesis of Sulfinate Derivatives

The development of a gold(I)-catalyzed sulfination of aryl boronic acids is described. This transformation proceeds through an unprecedented mechanism which exploits the reactivity of gold(I)–heteroatom bonds to form sulfinate anions. Further in situ elaboration of the sulfinate intermediates leads to the corresponding sulfones and sulfonamides, two pharmacophores routinely encountered in drug discovery.
Solving ill-conditioned linear algebraic systems by the dynamical systems method (DSM)

An iterative scheme for the dynamical systems method (DSM) is given, such that one does not have to solve the Cauchy problem occuring in the application of the DSM for solving ill-conditioned Linear Algebraic Systems (LAS). The novelty of the algorithm is that the algorithm does not have to find the regularization parameter α by solving a nonlinear equation. Numerical experiments show that DSM competes favorably with the variational regularization.