cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Dynamics of intervention adoption, implementation, and maintenance inside organizations: The case of an obesity prevention initiative

Abstract Overall impact of public health prevention interventions relies not only on the average efficacy of an intervention, but also on the successful adoption, implementation, and maintenance (AIM) of that intervention. In this study, we aim to understand the dynamics that regulate AIM of organizational level intervention programs. We focus on two well-documented obesity prevention interventions, implemented in food carry-outs and stores in low-income urban areas of Baltimore, Maryland, which aimed to improve dietary behaviour for adults by providing access to healthier foods and point-of-purchase promotions. Building on data from field observations, in-depth interviews, and data discussed in previous publications, as well as the strategy and organizational behaviour literature, we developed a system dynamics model of the key processes of AIM. With simulation analysis, we show several reinforcing mechanisms that span stakeholder motivation, communications, and implementation quality and costs can turn small changes in the process of AIM into big difference in the overall impact of the intervention. Specifically, small changes in the allocation of resources to communication with stakeholders of intervention could have a nonlinear long-term impact if those additional resources can turn stakeholders into allies of the intervention, reducing the erosion rates and enhancing sustainability. We present how the dynamics surrounding communication, motivation, and erosion can create significant heterogeneity in the overall impact of otherwise similar interventions. Therefore, careful monitoring of how those dynamics unfold, and timely adjustments to keep the intervention on track are critical for successful implementation and maintenance.
Cost Management Research

ABSTRACT The traditional view of cost behavior assumes a simple mechanistic relation between cost drivers and costs. In contrast, contemporary cost management research recognizes that costs are caused by managers' operating decisions subject to various constraints, incentives, and psychological biases. This conceptual innovation opens up the “black box” of cost behavior and gives researchers a powerful new way to use observed cost behavior as a lens to study the determinants and the consequences of managers' operating decisions. Banker and Byzalov (2014) presented an overview of the economic theory of cost behavior and major estimation issues. The research literature on cost management has grown rapidly in the past few years and has enhanced the understanding of how managerial decisions influence observed costs. In this study, we provide a comprehensive review of recent findings and insights, with a particular emphasis on the implications of cost management for understanding issues in cost, managerial, an...
Employee Narcissism’s Implications for Performance Management: A Review and Research Directions

The organizational literature reflects a growing interest in the personality trait of grandiose narcissism. Individuals high in grandiose narcissism are more arrogant, self-confident, and greedy, a...
The Disclosure Dilemma: Nuclear Intelligence and International Organizations

Scholars have long argued that international organizations solve information problems through increased transparency. This article introduces a distinct problem that instead requires such institutions to keep information secret. We argue that states often seek to reveal intelligence about other states' violations of international rules and laws but are deterred by concerns about revealing the sources and methods used to collect it. Properly equipped international organizations, however, can mitigate these dilemmas by analyzing and acting on sensitive information while protecting it from wide dissemination. Using new data on intelligence disclosures to the International Atomic Energy Agency and an analysis of the full universe of nuclear proliferation cases, we demonstrate that strengthening the Agency's intelligence protection capabilities led to greater intelligence sharing and fewer suspected nuclear facilities. However, our theory suggests that this solution gives informed states a subtle form of influence and is in tension with the normative goal of international transparency.
The curved kinetic boundary layer of active matter.

A body submerged in active matter feels the swim pressure through a kinetic accumulation boundary layer on its surface. The boundary layer results from a balance between translational diffusion and advective swimming and occurs on the microscopic length scale . Here , DT is the Brownian translational diffusivity, τR is the reorientation time and = U0τR is the swimmer's run length, with U0 the swim speed [Yan and Brady, J. Fluid. Mech., 2015, 785, R1]. In this work we analyze the swim pressure on arbitrary shaped bodies by including the effect of local shape curvature in the kinetic boundary layer. When δ ≪ L and ≪ L, where L is the body size, the leading order effects of curvature on the swim pressure are found analytically to scale as JSλδ2/L, where JS is twice the (non-dimensional) mean curvature. Particle-tracking simulations and direct solutions to the Smoluchowski equation governing the probability distribution of the active particles show that λδ2/L is a universal scaling parameter not limited to the regime δ, ≪ L. The net force exerted on the body by the swimmers is found to scale as Fnet/(n∞ksTsL2) = f(λδ2/L), where f(x) is a dimensionless function that is quadratic when x ≪ 1 and linear when x ∼ 1. Here, ksTs= ζU02τR/6 defines the ‘activity’ of the swimmers, with ζ the drag coefficient, and n∞ is the uniform number density of swimmers far from the body. We discuss the connection of this boundary layer to continuum mechanical descriptions of active matter and briefly present how to include hydrodynamics into this purely kinetic study.
Soldiers with Fortunes? Rethinking the Tax Treatment of Fallen Combatants

From the Revolutionary War to the battle against international terrorism, American history has been shaped by military conflict. That national history also reflects an ongoing effort to thank those who have served in our nation’s armed forces and to honor those who have fallen in combat. Like much in our national consciousness, such as our desires to incentivize energy efficiency, higher education, and home ownership, our quest to honor our fallen heroes has shaped modern tax policy. The tax code contains a litany of tax relief provisions targeted toward members of the nation’s military, including statutes providing relief from income and estate taxes for those who die in combat operations. In this article, I explore the origins, justification and operation of the estate tax relief offered to those who fall in combat (hereinafter the “combat exemption” or “the estate tax exemption”), currently codified in Section 2201 of the Internal Revenue Code (hereinafter “the Code”). I contend that while well-intentioned, the combat exemption is a poorly-targeted provision that does little to address the plight of those left behind by our fallen heroes. I urge Congress to abandon the provision and instead to offer greater, simplified, income tax relief to the families of those lost in combat.
Caenorhabditis elegans DBL-1/BMP Regulates Lipid Accumulation via Interaction with Insulin Signaling

Metabolic homeostasis is coordinately controlled by diverse inputs. Understanding these regulatory networks is vital to combating metabolic disorders. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has emerged as a powerful, genetically tractable model system for the discovery of lipid regulatory mechanisms. Here we introduce DBL-1, the C. elegans homolog of bone morphogenetic protein 2/4 (BMP2/4), as a significant regulator of lipid homeostasis. We used neutral lipid staining and a lipid droplet marker to demonstrate that both increases and decreases in DBL-1/BMP signaling result in reduced lipid stores and lipid droplet count. We find that lipid droplet size, however, correlates positively with the level of DBL-1/BMP signaling. Regulation of lipid accumulation in the intestine occurs through non-cell-autonomous signaling, since expression of SMA-3, a Smad signal transducer, in the epidermis (hypodermis) is sufficient to rescue the loss of lipid accumulation. Finally, genetic evidence indicates that DBL-1/BMP functions upstream of Insulin/IGF-1 Signaling in lipid metabolism. We conclude that BMP signaling regulates lipid metabolism in C. elegans through interorgan signaling to the Insulin pathway, shedding light on a less well-studied regulatory mechanism for metabolic homeostasis.
Regardless of Sex: Men, Women, and Power in Early Northern Europe

In chapter 32 of Gisla saga, two bounty hunters come to the wife of the outlawed Gisli and offer her sixty ounces of silver to reveal the whereabouts of her husband. At first Au5r resists, but then, eyeing the coins and muttering that "cash is a widow's best comfort," she asks to have the money counted out. The men do so. AuZtr pronounces the silver adequate and asks whether she may do with it what she wants. By all means, Eyjolfr replies. Then:
Maternal Proteins That Are Phosphoregulated upon Egg Activation Include Crucial Factors for Oogenesis, Egg Activation and Embryogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster

Egg activation is essential for the successful transition from a mature oocyte to a developmentally competent egg. It consists of a series of events including the resumption and completion of meiosis, initiation of translation of some maternal mRNAs and destruction of others, and changes to the vitelline envelope. This major change of cell state is accompanied by large scale alteration in the oocyte's phosphoproteome. We hypothesize that the cohort of proteins that are subject to phosphoregulation during egg activation are functionally important for processes before, during, or soon after this transition, potentially uniquely or as proteins carrying out essential cellular functions like those they do in other (somatic) cells. In this study, we used germline-specific RNAi to examine the function of 189 maternal proteins that are phosphoregulated during egg activation in Drosophila melanogaster We identified 53 genes whose knockdown reduced or abolished egg production and caused a range of defects in ovarian morphology, as well as 51 genes whose knockdown led to significant impairment or abolishment of the egg hatchability. We observed different stages of developmental arrest in the embryos and various defects in spindle morphology and aberrant centrosome activities in the early arrested embryos. Our results, validated by the detection of multiple genes with previously-documented maternal effect phenotypes among the proteins we tested, revealed 15 genes with newly discovered roles in egg activation and early embryogenesis in Drosophila. Given that protein phosphoregulation is a conserved characteristic of this developmental transition, we suggest that the phosphoregulated proteins may provide a rich pool of candidates for the identification of important players in the egg-to-embryo transition.
Change management that works : making impacts in challenging environments

Achieving better governance has been a central problem for development. When public services are not delivered as intended, reform action becomes necessary and that involves deliberate activities to change laws, structures, and processes to improve public sector performance and benefit public service users. The key challenge is that changes in the design of the institution or its procedures do not necessarily translate into immediate changes in the behavior of relevant actors. A central problem of public sector reform is ensuring that changes in laws and policies also prompts changes in the way that people work, so that service delivery improves. There is no one-size-fits-all approach ensuring that change happens the desirable way; however, experiences from the field suggest that a useful combination of political economy analysis with change management tools can help to maximize positive impacts. Different contexts will require different approaches to change management, and therefore political economy analysis can be used productively to design a targeted change management strategy that builds on existing strengths and opportunities. Greater integration of political economy analysis into change management assessments has been helpful in deepening understanding of attitudes to change within these particular contexts. This has allowed more effective leveraging of the opportunities for reform through the more systematic tailoring of change management strategies to different sets of issues emerging among particular groups of actors. Cambodia and Indonesia, the case studies presented in the paper, help to illustrate this.
Identification of piRNA Binding Sites Reveals the Argonaute Regulatory Landscape of the C. elegans Germline.

piRNAs (Piwi-interacting small RNAs) engage Piwi Argonautes to silence transposons and promote fertility in animal germlines. Genetic and computational studies have suggested that C. elegans piRNAs tolerate mismatched pairing and in principle could target every transcript. Here we employ in vivo cross-linking to identify transcriptome-wide interactions between piRNAs and target RNAs. We show that piRNAs engage all germline mRNAs and that piRNA binding follows microRNA-like pairing rules. Targeting correlates better with binding energy than with piRNA abundance, suggesting that piRNA concentration does not limit targeting. In mRNAs silenced by piRNAs, secondary small RNAs accumulate at the center and ends of piRNA binding sites. In germline-expressed mRNAs, however, targeting by the CSR-1 Argonaute correlates with reduced piRNA binding density and suppression of piRNA-associated secondary small RNAs. Our findings reveal physiologically important and nuanced regulation of individual piRNA targets and provide evidence for a comprehensive post-transcriptional regulatory step in germline gene expression.
Achievable Rate Region for Three User Discrete Broadcast Channel Based on Coset Codes

We consider the problem of developing coding techniques and deriving achievable rate regions for discrete memoryless broadcast channels with three receivers (3-DBC). We begin by identifying a novel vector additive 3-DBC for which we characterize an upper bound on the the largest achievable rate region based on unstructured codes, henceforth referred to as $\pmb {\mathscr {U}}\mathcal {M}$ -region. We propose a coding technique based on coset codes that yield an achievable rate triple not contained within $\pmb {\mathscr {U}}\mathcal {M}$ -region. We generalize the proposed coding technique using a new ensemble of codes— partitioned coset codes (PCC)—containing both empirical and algebraic properties, and evaluate its performance to derive an achievable rate region for the general 3-DBC. The new elements in this derivation are binning and joint typicality encoding and decoding of statistically correlated PCCs. We validate the utility of this technique by identifying non-additive instances of 3-DBC for which the proposed coding techniques based on PCC yield strictly larger rates.
Diabetes is associated with increased prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection: Findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2011-2012

Abstract Aims We aim to determine the association between prediabetes and diabetes with latent TB using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data. Methods We performed a cross-sectional analysis of 2011–2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data. Participants ≥20 years were eligible. Diabetes was defined by glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) as no diabetes (≤5.6% [38 mmol/mol]), prediabetes (5.7–6.4% [39–46 mmol/mol]), and diabetes (≥6.5% [48 mmol/mol]) combined with self-reported diabetes. Latent TB infection was defined by the QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In Tube (QFT-GIT) test. Adjusted odds ratios (aOR) of latent TB infection by diabetes status were calculated using logistic regression and accounted for the stratified probability sample. Results Diabetes and QFT-GIT measurements were available for 4958 (89.2%) included participants. Prevalence of diabetes was 11.4% (95%CI 9.8–13.0%) and 22.1% (95%CI 20.5–23.8%) had prediabetes. Prevalence of latent TB infection was 5.9% (95%CI 4.9–7.0%). After adjusting for age, sex, smoking status, history of active TB, and foreign born status, the odds of latent TB infection were greater among adults with diabetes (aOR 1.90, 95%CI 1.15–3.14) compared to those without diabetes. The odds of latent TB in adults with prediabetes (aOR 1.15, 95%CI 0.90–1.47) was similar to those without diabetes. Conclusions Diabetes is associated with latent TB infection among adults in the United States, even after adjusting for confounding factors. Given diabetes increases the risk of active TB, patients with co-prevalent diabetes and latent TB may be targeted for latent TB treatment.
Screening in the Upper Elementary Grades: Identifying Fourth-Grade Students At-Risk for Failing the State Reading Assessment.

This study examined the predictive validity and classification accuracy of individual- and group-administered screening measures relative to student performance on a year-end state reading assessme...
A Systematic Process for Evaluating Structured Perfect Bayesian Equilibria in Dynamic Games With Asymmetric Information

We consider both finite-horizon and infinite-horizon versions of a dynamic game with $N$ selfish players who observe their types privately and take actions that are publicly observed. Players’ types evolve as conditionally independent Markov processes, conditioned on their current actions. Their actions and types jointly determine their instantaneous rewards. In dynamic games with asymmetric information, a widely used concept of equilibrium is perfect Bayesian equilibrium (PBE) which consists of a strategy and belief pair that simultaneously satisfy sequential rationality and belief consistency. In general, there does not exist a universal algorithm that decouples the interdependence of strategies and beliefs over time in calculating PBE. In this paper, for the finite-horizon game with independent types, we develop a two-step backward–forward recursive algorithm that sequentially decomposes the problem (w.r.t. time) to obtain a subset of PBEs, which we refer to as structured Bayesian perfect equilibria (SPBE). In such equilibria, a player's strategy depends on his/her history only through a common public belief and its current private type. The backward recursive part of this algorithm defines an equilibrium generating function. Each period in the backward recursion involves solving a fixed-point equation on the space of probability simplexes for every possible belief on types. Using this function, equilibrium strategies and beliefs are generated through a forward recursion. We then extend this methodology to the infinite-horizon model, where we propose a time-invariant single-shot fixed-point equation, which in conjunction with a forward recursive step, generates the SPBE. Sufficient conditions for the existence of SPBE are provided. With our proposed method, we find equilibria that exhibit signaling behavior. This is illustrated with the help of a concrete public goods example.
Pediatric sacral nerve stimulator explanation due to complications or cure: a survival analysis.

Summary Introduction Historically, there have been few treatment options for children with severe refractory bladder and bowel dysfunction (BBD). Sacral neuromodulation (SNM) continues to show promising results in this challenging pediatric population with recalcitrant lower urinary tract symptoms. At the authors institution, they have begun offering explantation to those with persistent improvement after >6 months of having device turned off. The authors hypothesized that (1) SNM explantation for cure increases with extended follow-up and (2) those explanted for cure would have improved symptoms and quality of life when compared to those explanted for complication. Materials & methods The authors retrospectively reviewed all consecutive patients aged Results Of 67 children who underwent a first stage procedure, 62 (92.5%) underwent a second stage procedure. 61 met inclusion criteria (68.9% female, 29.5% with previous filum section, median age at implantation 10.3 years). During follow-up (median 2.3 years), 12 patients (19.7%) had the SNM exchanged/revised because of lead fracture/breakage and return of urinary symptoms. To date, 50 patients remain with their SNM implanted, and 11 have been explanted. Adjusting for follow-up time, the risk of explantation was 6.5% at 2 years (2.2% for cure, 4.3% for complications) ( Figure 1 ). Explantation increased to 24.5% at 3 years (16.5% for cure, 8.0% for complications) and 40.4% at 4 years (32.4% for cure, 8.0% for complications). Questionnaires were collected on patients after explant (median 2.2 years), with improvement in those explanted for cure compared to complication ( Figure 2 ). Discussion Sacral neuromodulation explantation for cure is a novel concept previously not described in the literature. Limitations of this study include the relatively small numbers and lack of objective data in the cohort that remains with SNM device implanted. Conclusion Sacral neuromodulation is a safe, viable option for the pediatric patient with refractory bladder dysfunction. Furthermore, SNM explantation for cure is an option with increasing likelihood after 2 years.
Consumption, contact and copulation: how pathogens have shaped human psychological adaptations

Disgust is an emotion intimately linked to pathogen avoidance. Building on prior work, we suggest disgust is an output of programmes that evolved to address three separate adaptive problems: what t...
Genome-wide association study of habitual physical activity in over 377,000 UK Biobank participants identifies multiple variants including CADM2 and APOE.

Physical activity (PA) protects against a wide range of diseases. Habitual PA appears to be heritable, motivating the search for specific genetic variants that may inform efforts to promote PA and target the best type of PA for each individual. We used data from the UK Biobank to perform the largest genome-wide association study of PA to date, using three measures based on self-report (nmax = 377,234) and two measures based on wrist-worn accelerometry data (nmax = 91,084). We examined genetic correlations of PA with other traits and diseases, as well as tissue-specific gene expression patterns. With data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC; n = 8,556) study, we performed a meta-analysis of our top hits for moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA). We identified ten loci across all PA measures that were significant in both a basic and a fully adjusted model (p < 5 × 10−9). Upon meta-analysis of the nine top hits for MVPA with results from ARIC, eight were genome-wide significant. Interestingly, among these, the rs429358 variant in the APOE gene was the most strongly associated with MVPA, whereby the allele associated with higher Alzheimer’s risk was associated with greater MVPA. However, we were not able to rule out possible selection bias underlying this result. Variants in CADM2, a gene previously implicated in obesity, risk-taking behavior and other traits, were found to be associated with habitual PA. We also identified three loci consistently associated (p < 5 × 10−5) with PA across both self-report and accelerometry, including CADM2. We found genetic correlations of PA with educational attainment, chronotype, psychiatric traits, and obesity-related traits. Tissue enrichment analyses implicate the brain and pituitary gland as locations where PA-associated loci may exert their actions. These results provide new insight into the genetic basis of habitual PA, and the genetic links connecting PA with other traits and diseases.
Mission Analysis and Component-Level Sensitivity Study of Hybrid-Electric General-Aviation Propulsion Systems

The system-level capabilities and component-level sensitivities of hybrid-electric propulsion systems were analyzed by modeling a twin-engine general-aviation aircraft. The flight-performance model...
Distributed nonconvex constrained optimization over time-varying digraphs

This paper considers nonconvex distributed constrained optimization over networks, modeled as directed (possibly time-varying) graphs. We introduce the first algorithmic framework for the minimization of the sum of a smooth nonconvex (nonseparable) function—the agent’s sum-utility—plus a difference-of-convex function (with nonsmooth convex part). This general formulation arises in many applications, from statistical machine learning to engineering. The proposed distributed method combines successive convex approximation techniques with a judiciously designed perturbed push-sum consensus mechanism that aims to track locally the gradient of the (smooth part of the) sum-utility. Sublinear convergence rate is proved when a fixed step-size (possibly different among the agents) is employed whereas asymptotic convergence to stationary solutions is proved using a diminishing step-size. Numerical results show that our algorithms compare favorably with current schemes on both convex and nonconvex problems.
Ultrafast manipulation of mirror domain walls in a charge density wave

Domain walls (DWs) are singularities in an ordered medium that often host exotic phenomena such as charge ordering, insulator-metal transition, or superconductivity. The ability to locally write and erase DWs is highly desirable, as it allows one to design material functionality by patterning DWs in specific configurations. We demonstrate such capability at room temperature in a charge density wave (CDW), a macroscopic condensate of electrons and phonons, in ultrathin 1T-TaS2. A single femtosecond light pulse is shown to locally inject or remove mirror DWs in the CDW condensate, with probabilities tunable by pulse energy and temperature. Using time-resolved electron diffraction, we are able to simultaneously track anti-synchronized CDW amplitude oscillations from both the lattice and the condensate, where photoinjected DWs lead to a red-shifted frequency. Our demonstration of reversible DW manipulation may pave new ways for engineering correlated material systems with light.
Constraint Estimation and Derivative-Free Recovery for Robot Learning from Demonstrations

Learning from human demonstrations can facilitate automation but is risky because the execution of the learned policy might lead to collisions and other failures. Adding explicit constraints to avoid unsafe states is generally not possible when the state representations are complex. Furthermore, enforcing these constraints during execution of the learned policy can be challenging in environments where dynamics are difficult to model such as push mechanics in grasping. In this paper, we propose Derivative-Free Recovery (DFR), a two-phase method for generating robust policies from demonstrations in robotic manipulation tasks where the system comes to rest at each time step. In the first phase, we use support estimation of supervisor demonstrations and treat the support as implicit constraints on states. We also propose a time-varying modification for sequential tasks. In the second phase, we use this support estimate to derive a switching policy that employs the learned policy in the interior of the support and switches to a recovery policy to steer the robot away from the boundary of the support if it drifts too close. We present additional conditions, which linearly bound the difference in state at each time step by the magnitude of control, allowing us to prove that the robot will not violate the constraints using the recovery policy. A simulated pushing task in MuJoCo suggests that DFR can reduce collisions by 83%. On a physical line tracking task using a da Vinci Surgical Robot and a moving Stewart platform, DFR reduced collisions by 84%.
Product Quality and Entering Through Tying: Experimental Evidence

Dominant platform businesses often develop products in adjacent markets to complement their core business. One common approach used to gain traction in these adjacent markets has been to pursue a t...
The Imbalances of the Bretton Woods System 1965 to 1973: U.S. Inflation, the Elephant in the Room

This paper argues that the key deep underlying fundamental for the growing international imbalances leading to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system between 1971 and 1973 was rising U.S. inflation since 1965. It was driven in turn by expansionary fiscal and monetary policies ---the elephant in the room. What was kept in the background at the Camp David meeting on August 15, 1971 when President Richard Nixon closed the U.S. gold window, as well as imposing a 10 % surcharge on all imports and a ninety day wage price freeze—was that U.S. inflation, driven by macro policies, was the main problem facing the Bretton Woods System, and that for political and doctrinal reasons was not directly addressed. Instead President Nixon blamed the rest of the world rather than correcting mistaken U.S. policies. In addition, at the urging of Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur F. Burns, Nixon adopted wage and price controls to mask the inflation, hence punting the problem into the future. This paper revisits the story of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the origins of the Great Inflation. Based on historical narratives and conversations with the Honorable George P. Shultz, a crucial player in the events of the period 1969 to 1973, I argue the case that the pursuit of sound monetary and fiscal policies could have avoided much of the turmoil in the waning years of Bretton Woods. Moreover, I point out some of the similarities between the imbalances of the 1960s and 1970s—especially fiscal and the use of tariff protection as a strategic tool, as well as some differences—relatively stable monetary policy and floating exchange rates.
Phase retrieval using alternating minimization in a batch setting

Abstract This paper considers the problem of phase retrieval, where the goal is to recover a signal z ∈ C n from the observations y i = | a i ⁎ z | , i = 1 , 2 , ⋯ , m . While many algorithms have been proposed, the alternating minimization algorithm is still one of the most commonly used and the simplest methods. Existing works have proved that when the observation vectors { a i } i = 1 m are sampled from a complex normal distribution C N ( 0 , I ) , the alternating minimization algorithm recovers the underlying signal with a good initialization when m = O ( n ) , or with random initialization when m = O ( n 2 ) , and it is conjectured that random initialization succeeds with m = O ( n ) [26] . This work proposes a modified alternating minimization method in a batch setting and proves that when m = O ( n log 5 ⁡ n ) , the proposed algorithm with random initialization recovers the underlying signal with high probability. The proof is based on the observation that after each iteration of alternating minimization, with high probability, the correlation between the direction of the estimated signal and the direction of the underlying signal increases.
Natural Proofs

We introduce the notion ofnaturalproof. We argue that the known proofs of lower bounds on the complexity of explicit Boolean functions in nonmonotone models fall within our definition of natural. We show, based on a hardness assumption, that natural proofs can not prove superpolynomial lower bounds for general circuits. Without the hardness assumption, we are able to show that they can not prove exponential lower bounds (for general circuits) for the discrete logarithm problem. We show that the weaker class ofAC0-natural proofs which is sufficient to prove the parity lower bounds of Furst, Saxe, and Sipser, Yao, and Hastad is inherently incapable of proving the bounds of Razborov and Smolensky. We give some formal evidence that natural proofs are indeed natural by showing that every formal complexity measure, which can prove superpolynomial lower bounds for a single function, can do so for almost all functions, which is one of the two requirements of a natural proof in our sense.
Finance education and social preferences: Experimental evidence

Abstract What impact does a finance education have on the social preferences and the resulting behaviors of individuals? Experiments of a free riding game are conducted where a wealth-creating investment decision is made. The contribution benefits the group, but the incentives are such that an individual, lacking social preferences, would rather make no contribution and free ride off others. It is shown that as one’s education in finance increases, less free riding occurs and more wealth is generated. Thus, education provided in finance promotes pro-social choices that generate wealth even when external incentives are absent.
Truth and Justice, Inquiry and Advocacy, Science and Law

. There is tension between the adversarialism of the U.S. legal culture and the investigative procedures of the sciences, and between the law's concern for finality and the open-ended fallibilism of science. A long history of attempts to domesticate scientific testimony by legal rules of admissibility has left federal judges with broad screening responsibilities; recent adaptations of adversarialism in the form of court-appointed experts have been criticized as “inquisitorial,” even “undemocratic.” In exploring their benefits and disadvantages, it would make sense to look to the experience of other legal systems.
Active Learning on Center Stage: Theater as a Tool for Medical Education

Introduction Knowledge and skill development related to communication must incorporate both affective and behavioral components, which are often difficult to deliver in a learning activity. Using t...
Rival Hierarchies and the Origins of Nuclear Technology Sharing

In the 1950s, the United States and Soviet Union abandoned secrecy and began sharing nuclear technology internationally. Soon thereafter, the two superpowers worked together to create the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to place safeguards on nuclear assistance, and eventually added other non-proliferation measures. What explains these decisions? Conventional accounts are incomplete. We argue that an international hierarchy framework offers a fuller explanation for the superpowers’ behavior and identify three distinct mechanisms through which rival hierarchies can influence the internal workings of one another: competitive shaming, outbidding, and inter-hierarchy cooperation. We then probe the plausibility of our argument by investigating multiple observable implications in our case study of nuclear politics. We show that Soviet competitive shaming motivated the United States’ Atoms for Peace program, which sought to strengthen the loyalty of client states or attract new ones. In response, the Soviet Union attempted to outbid the United States with its own technology-sharing program. Ultimately, Moscow and Washington cooperated on the IAEA to limit the risks that nuclear sharing posed to their own dominant positions vis-a-vis subordinate states.
Asymptotic Limits of Privacy in Bayesian Time Series Matching

Various modern and highly popular applications make use of user data traces in order to offer specific services, often for the purpose of improving the user’s experience while using such applications. However, even when user data is privatized by employing privacy-preserving mechanisms (PPM), users’ privacy may still be compromised by an external party who leverages statistical matching methods to match users’ traces with their previous activities. In this paper, we obtain the theoretical bounds on user privacy for situations in which user traces are matchable to sequences of prior behavior, despite anonymization of data time series. We provide both achievability and converse results for the case where the data trace of each user consists of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) random samples drawn from a multinomial distribution, as well as the case that the users’ data points are dependent over time and the data trace of each user is governed by a Markov chain model.
TIRA: toolbox for interval reachability analysis

This paper presents TIRA, a Matlab library gathering several methods for the computation of interval over-approximations of the reachable sets for both continuous- and discrete-time nonlinear systems. Unlike other existing tools, the main strength of interval-based reachability analysis is its simplicity and scalability, rather than the accuracy of the over-approximations. The current implementation of TIRA contains four reachability methods covering wide classes of nonlinear systems, handled with recent results relying on contraction/growth bounds and monotonicity concepts. TIRA's architecture features a central function working as a hub between the user-defined reachability problem and the library of available reachability methods. This design choice offers increased extensibility of the library, where users can define their own method in a separate function and add the function call in the hub function.
Exact Methods for Categorical Data

Exact tests evaluate the significance of a test statistic by using the test statistic's empirically derived sampling distribution instead of a theoretical sampling distribution. Preference for exact tests may occur in situations in which the sample size is small, or when the data have distributional deficiencies. Two well-known exact tests, Pitman's test and Fisher's test, are described. Keywords: asymptotic theory; nonparametric statistics; sampling distribution; resampling procedures; the bootstrap; Pitman test; Fisher's exact test; contingency table; hypergeometric distribution
Outcomes of patients with metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma treated with second-line VEGFR-TKI after first-line immune checkpoint inhibitors.

575Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) are being increasingly utilized in front-line (1L) setting of metastatic clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (mccRCC). Limited data exist on responses ...
Multiscale flow-vegetation-sediment feedbacks in low-gradient landscapes

Abstract Low-gradient fluvial landscapes (1–50 cm km−1) occupy diverse settings (inland, tidal, and deltaic wetlands, large-river floodplains, lowland streams) but share many commonalities. Because of low flow energies, these landscapes have abundant vegetation that is submersed or frequently inundated. Their sediment loads are predominantly fine, with large loads transported in suspension. The complexities of fluvial-vegetation interactions and fine sediment transport have made these landscapes relatively poorly studied in the field of geomorphology, yet the importance of understanding their dynamics is paramount: these landscapes will be among the first inundated by rising seas and/or are presently the focus of the world's largest restoration projects. In this synthesis, interactions between flow, vegetation, and sediment documented in inland and tidal marshes, chalk and Coastal Plain streams, large river floodplains, and deltas are reviewed and classified into feedback processes occurring over a range of five spatiotemporal scales. Despite different morphologic appearances, the feedback processes governing the coevolution of landscapes and vegetation are broadly consistent across settings, though modified in their effects by life-history traits of vegetation, characteristics of the sediment supply, external boundary forcing, and initial conditions. Longitudinally elongated patches are common in many settings, arising from stress divergence feedbacks. However, their ultimate morphology is strongly dependent upon the activation of patch- or multipatch-scale feedbacks, which depends on initial densities at the time of colonization. Generally, flow-vegetation-sediment feedbacks play a dominant role in landscape morphology when the setting is depositional and little initial topographic differentiation is present. In that case, these feedbacks can explain the apparently paradoxical emergence of high sinuosities or parallel drainage in very low gradients. Importantly for management, flow-vegetation-sediment interactions may activate a chain of positive feedbacks that engages progressively larger scales, resulting in massive destruction of marsh vegetation or topographic homogenization. Interrupting these feedbacks requires intervention over all scales activated.
Human Intestinal Enteroids With Inducible Neurogenin-3 Expression as a Novel Model of Gut Hormone Secretion

Background & Aims Enteroendocrine cells (EECs) are specialized epithelial cells that produce molecules vital for intestinal homeostasis, but because of their limited numbers, in-depth functional studies have remained challenging. Human intestinal enteroids (HIEs) that are derived from intestinal crypt stem cells are biologically relevant in an in vitro model of the intestinal epithelium. HIEs contain all intestinal epithelial cell types; however, similar to the intestine, HIEs spontaneously produce few EECs, which limits their study. Methods To increase the number of EECs in HIEs, we used lentivirus transduction to stably engineer jejunal HIEs with doxycycline-inducible expression of neurogenin-3 (NGN3), a transcription factor that drives EEC differentiation (tetNGN3-HIEs). We examined the impact of NGN3 induction on EECs by quantifying the increase in the enterochromaffin cells and other EEC subtypes. We functionally assessed secretion of serotonin and EEC hormones in response to norepinephrine and rotavirus infection. Results Treating tetNGN3-HIEs with doxycycline induced a dose-dependent increase of chromogranin A (ChgA)-positive and serotonin-positive cells, showing increased enterochromaffin cell differentiation. Despite increased ChgA-positive cells, other differentiated cell types of the epithelium remained largely unchanged by gene expression and immunostaining. RNA sequencing of doxycycline-induced tetNGN3-HIEs identified increased expression of key hormones and enzymes associated with several other EEC subtypes. Doxycycline-induced tetNGN3-HIEs secreted serotonin, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide, peptide YY, and ghrelin in response to norepinephrine and rotavirus infection, further supporting the presence of multiple EEC types. Conclusions We have combined HIEs and inducible-NGN3 expression to establish a flexible in vitro model system for functional studies of EECs in enteroids and advance the molecular and physiological investigation of EECs.
Firm innovation in transition economies: The role of formal versus informal finance

Abstract In this study, I investigate the association between firm innovation and formal versus informal finance for 5,982 firms in 30 transition economies. I also examine whether the association between firm innovation and formal versus informal finance differs between developed and developing countries. I find that access to formal finance is associated with greater firm innovation. I find no evidence that informal finance promotes innovation. Formal finance is more effective in fostering innovation in developing countries. By establishing a link between formal finance and innovation, I provide evidence on a potential channel through which formal finance contributes to firm growth. The findings also show the limitation of using informal finance in promoting firm innovation even for smaller firms in developing countries who substantially use financing from informal sources.
Distinct Phenotypes Induced by Three Degrees of Transverse Aortic Constriction in Mice.

Transverse aortic constriction (TAC) is a well-established model of pressure overload-induced cardiac hypertrophy and failure in mice. The degree of constriction “tightness” dictates the TAC severity and is determined by the gauge (G) of needle used. Though many reports use the TAC model, few studies have directly compared the range of resulting phenotypes. In this study adult male mice were randomized to receive TAC surgery with varying degrees of tightness: mild (25G), moderate (26G) or severe (27G) for 4 weeks, alongside sham-operated controls. Weekly echocardiography and terminal haemodynamic measurements determined cardiac remodelling and function. All TAC models induced significant, severity-dependent left ventricular hypertrophy and diastolic dysfunction compared to sham mice. Mice subjected to 26G TAC additionally exhibited mild systolic dysfunction and cardiac fibrosis, whereas mice in the 27G TAC group had more severe systolic and diastolic dysfunction, severe cardiac fibrosis, and were more likely to display features of heart failure, such as elevated plasma BNP. We also observed renal atrophy in 27G TAC mice, in the absence of renal structural, functional or gene expression changes. 25G, 26G and 27G TAC produced different responses in terms of cardiac structure and function. These distinct phenotypes may be useful in different preclinical settings.
Turning the corner on procedural justice theory: exploring reverse causality with an experimental vignette in a longitudinal survey

Traditional police procedural justice theory argues that citizen perceptions of fair treatment by police officers increase police legitimacy, which leads to an increased likelihood of legal compliance. Recently, Nagin and Telep (2017) criticized these causal assumptions, arguing that prior literature has not definitively ruled out reverse causality—that is, legitimacy influences perceptions of fairness and/or compliance influences perceptions of both fairness and legitimacy. The goal of the present paper was to explore this critique using experimental and correlational methodologies within a longitudinal framework. Adolescents completed a vignette-based experiment that manipulated two aspects of officer behavior linked to perceptions of fairness: voice and impartiality. After reading the vignette, participants rated the fairness and legitimacy of the officer within the situation. At three time points prior to the experiment (1, 17, and 31 months), participants completed surveys measuring their global perceptions of police legitimacy and self-reported delinquency. Data were analyzed to assess the extent to which global legitimacy and delinquency predicted responses to the vignette net of experimental manipulations and controls. Both experimental manipulations led to higher perceptions of situational procedural justice and officer legitimacy. Prior perceptions of police legitimacy did not predict judgments of situational procedural justice; however, in some cases, prior engagement in delinquency was negatively related to situational procedural justice. Prior perceptions of legitimacy were positively associated with situational perceptions of legitimacy regardless of experimental manipulations. This study showed mixed support for the case of reverse causality among police procedural justice, legitimacy, and compliance.
Pediatric Orthopaedic Consults From Chiropractic Care

Abstract Alternative medicine in pediatrics is expanding, with chiropractic now a common choice for families seeking alternative medical care. Currently, there is sparse information in the literature exploring the role of chiropractic in orthopaedic pathology. The objective of this case series is to present pediatric patients who received treatment from chiropractors and orthopaedic physicians as well as to review the respective existing research. Data collected included chiropractic diagnosis, orthopaedic diagnosis, imaging studies, treatments, and complications. Twenty-three patients were studied. Scoliosis, Legg-Calve-Perthes disease, developmental dysplasia of the hip, cerebral palsy, skeletal dysplasia, and slipped capital femoral epiphysis were diagnoses included. Children had multiple sessions of chiropractic for management of these conditions. The parents' perception for chiropractic was positive in every case. Delayed referral, misdiagnosis, adverse events from manipulative therapy, and ineffective treatments were observed in the present study. More research is indicated to validate chiropractic in children with orthopaedic pathology. (Journal of Surgical Orthopaedic Advances 27(1):58-63, 2018).