cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A Comment on Weak Instrument Robust Tests in GMM and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve

The paper by Kleibergen andMavroeidis (2008a), hereafter KM, is an excellent survey of the current state of the art in the weak instrument robust econometrics for testing subsets of parameters in GMM, and provides an important and relevant application of the econometric theory to the analysis of the new Keynesian Phillips curve. We are extremely grateful to have the opportunity to comment on this very nice paper. Our comments will focus on the weak instrument robust tests for subsets of parameters, and in particular on the projection-based test that KM referred to as the Robins (2004) test. We show that KM’s implementation of the Robins test is inefficient, and provide an efficient implementation that performs nearly as well the MQLR test recommended by ∗Professor and Gary Waterman Distinguished Scholar, Department of Economics, University of Washington. Box 353330, Seattle, WA, 98195-3330. email: ezivot@u.washington.edu. Support from the Gary Waterman Distinguished Scholar Fund and the University of Washington Center for Statistics in the Social Sciences Seed Grant is gratefully acknowledged. †Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. email: saraswata_chaudhuri@unc.edu.
Tattoos & IP Norms

Introduction 512 I. A History of Tattoos 516 A. The Origins of Tattooing 516 B. Colonialism & Tattoos in the West 518 C. The Tattoo Renaissance 521 II. Law, Norms & Tattoos 525 A. Formal Legal Protection for Tattoos 525 B. Client Autonomy 532 C. Reusing Custom Designs 539 D. Copying Custom Designs 541 1. Defining Copying 542 2. Detection & Enforcement 549 3. The Harms of Copying 554 E. Copying Flash 557 F. Copying Other Visual Art 560 III. Explaining Tattoo Norms 567 A. Tattoo Culture 569 B. Tattoo Economics 575 1. Norms as Collective Self-Interest 577 2. Norms as Exclusionary Practices 581 IV. Lessons from the Tattoo Industry 584 A. The Role of Non-Legal Incentives 584 B. Customization & Service 587 Conclusion 590
Introduction to the Double-Beta Decay Experimental Program

This document gives an overview of the technical issues and goals facing future double-beta decay experiments.
Fair (and not so fair) division

Drawbacks of existing procedures are illustrated and a method of efficient fair division is proposed that avoids them. Given additive participants’ utilities, each item is priced at the geometric mean (or some other function) of its two highest valuations. The utilities are scaled so that the market clears with the participants’ purchases proportional to their entitlements. The method is generalized to arbitrary bargaining sets and existence is proved. For two or three participants, the expected utilities are unique. For more, under additivity, the geometric mean separates the prices where uniqueness holds and where it fails; it holds for the geometric mean except in one case where refinement is needed.
Accrual Accounting for Performance Evaluation

This paper examines alternative accrual accounting rules from an incentive and control perspective. For a range of common production, financing and investment decisions we consider alternative asset valuation rules. The criterion for distinguishing among these rules is that the corresponding performance measure should provide managers with robust incentives to make present value maximizing decisions. Such goal congruence is shown to require intertemporal matching of revenues and expenses, though the specific form of matching needed for control purposes generally differs from GAAP. The practitioner oriented literature on economic profit plans (EPP) has made various, and at times conflicting, recommendations regarding adjustments to the accounting rules used for external financial reporting. Our goal congruence approach provides a framework for comparing and evaluating these recommendations.
Information disclosure, firm growth, and the cost of capital

Abstract We study how information disclosure affects the cost of equity capital and investor welfare in a dynamic setting. We show that a firm’s cost of capital decreases (increases) in the precision of public disclosure if the firm’s growth rate is below (above) a certain threshold. The threshold growth rate is higher when the firm’s cash flows are more persistent, or when other firms in the economy are growing at low rates. While current shareholders always prefer maximum public disclosure, future shareholders’ welfare decreases (increases) in the precision of public disclosure if the firm’s growth rate is below (above) the threshold.
Debt, Operating Margin, and Investment In Workplace Safety

We investigate how a firm's financial performance affects workplace safety. We provide empirical estimates of the relationship between a firm's financial condition and its investment in workplace safety using plant-level proxies for safety performance from OSHA records for thirteen large U.S. industries for the period 1972-87. Our results suggest that, at the lowest levels of operating margins, firms with higher operating margins have safer workplaces. Firms with more debt also have safer workplaces, but only when operating margins are relatively low. These results are consistent with a number of theoretical models in which financial factors influence operating decisions.
Campaigning for the Bench: The Corrosive Effects of Campaign Speech?

A new era has emerged in the ways in which candidates for state judicial office campaign. In the past, judicial elections were largely devoid of policy content, with candidates typically touting their judicial experience and other preparation for serving as a judge. Today, in many if not most states, such campaigns are relics of the past. Modern judicial campaigns have adopted many of the practices of candidates for other types of political office, including soliciting campaign contributions, using attack ads, and even making promises about how they will decide issues if elected to the bench. Not surprisingly, this new style of judicial campaigning has caused considerable consternation among observers of the courts, with many fearing that such activity will undermine the very legitimacy of legal institutions. Such fears, however, are grounded in practically no rigorous empirical evidence on the effects of campaign activity on public evaluations of judicial institutions. The purpose of this article is to investigate the effects of campaign activity on the perceived legitimacy of courts. Using survey data drawn from Kentucky, I use both post hoc and experimental methods to assess whether public perceptions of courts are influenced by various sorts of campaign activity. In general, my findings are that different types of campaign activity have quite different consequences. For instance, policy pronouncements by candidates do not undermine judicial legitimacy, whereas policy promises do. Throughout the analysis, I compare perceptions of courts and legislatures, and often find that courts are far less unique than many ordinarily assume. I conclude this article with a discussion of the implications of the findings for the contemporary debate over the use of elections to select judges to the high courts of many of the American states.
Doping Quantum Spin Liquids on the Kagome Lattice

We review recent density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) studies of lightly doped quantum spin liquids (QSLs) on the kagome lattice. While a number of distinct conducting phases, including high-temperature superconductivity, have been theoretically anticipated we find instead a tendency toward fractionalized insulating charge-density-wave (CDW) states. In agreement with earlier work (Jiang, Devereaux, and Kivelson, Phys. Rev. Lett. ${\bf 119}$, 067002 (2017)), results for the $t$-$J$ model reveal that starting from a fully gapped QSL, light doping leads to CDW long-range order with a pattern that depends on lattice geometry and doping concentration such that there is one doped-hole per CDW unit cell, while the spin-spin correlations remain short-ranged. Alternatively, this state can be viewed as a stripe crystal or Wigner crystal of spinless holons, rather than doped holes. From here, by studying generalized versions of the $t$-$J$ model, we extend these results to light doping of other types of QSLs, including critical and chiral QSLs. Our results suggest that doping these QSLs also leads to insulating states with long-range CDW orders. While the superconducting correlations are short-ranged, they can be significantly enhanced by second-neighbor electron hopping. The relevance of our numerical results to Kagome materials is also discussed.
Entrepreneurship and Post‐socialist Growth*

We use a rich regional data set to obtain a statistical characterization of the relationship between entrepreneurial activity and economic growth within post-Soviet Russia. Russia is a useful laboratory for evaluating links between entrepreneurial activity and growth because of the striking variation in initial conditions, the adoption of policy reforms, and entrepreneurial activity observed across its large number of regions in the early stages of transition. Russia has also experienced striking regional variation in subsequent growth. Conditional on variations in initial conditions and policy reform measures, regional entrepreneurial activity exhibits a statistically and quantitatively significant relationship with subsequent economic growth.
Empirical tax research in accounting

This paper traces the development of archival, microeconomic-based, empirical income tax research in accounting over the last 15 years.The paper details three major areas of research: (i) the coordination of tax and non-tax factors, (ii) the effects of taxes on asset prices, and (iii) the taxation of multijurisdictional (international and interstate) commerce.Methodological concerns of particular interest to this field also are discussed.The paper concludes with a discussion of possible directions for future research. r 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: M41; H25; K34; G32; F23
Inflation targeting regimes

Abstract This paper divides the monetary frameworks of countries that use an inflation target to define their monetary framework into three different regimes: (i) full-fledged inflation targeting, (ii) implicit price stability anchor, and (iii) inflation targeting lite. The regimes are differentiated by the clarity and credibility of the commitment to the inflation target. The revealed preference for different regimes is related empirically to cross-country structural differences in economic and financial development. Policy implications of moving from one regime to another are drawn, especially for emerging market countries aiming at full-fledged inflation targeting.
Overvaluation and earnings management

Abstract Consistent with Jensen’s [Jensen, M., 2005. Agency costs of overvalued equity. Financial Management 34, 5–19] agency-costs-of-overvalued-equity prediction, we find that overvaluation is statistically and economically related to subsequent income-increasing earnings management. This relation is robust to a series of tests that address potential endogeneity concerns, including omitted variable bias and reverse causality. The agency costs of overvalued equity are substantial. Overvaluation-induced income-increasing earnings management is negatively related to future abnormal stock returns and operating performance, and this negative relation becomes more pronounced as prior overvaluation intensifies. Among the most overvalued firms, those with high discretionary accruals underperform those with low discretionary accruals during the following year by 11.88% as measured by the three-factor alphas, and by 12.87% points as measured by industry-adjusted unmanaged EBITDA-to-assets ratio.
"Land is Life, Land is Power": Landlessness, Exclusion, and Deprivation in Nepal

INTRODUCTION 932 I. LEGAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT OF LAND RIGHTS IN NEPAL 937 A. Overview 938 B. Nepal’s International Obligations 940 C. Codified Discrimination 945 D. Land and Property in Nepali Law 949 1. The Traditional Legal Framework: State Landlordism 949 a. Overview of the Raikar System 949 b. Tenants Rights 952 c. Bonded Labor 953 2. Dismantling Raikar: Changes and Status Quo ...... 955 a. Overview 955 b. Emergence of Private Property Rights 956 c. Land Ceilings 959 d. Rights and Registration and “Invisible Landlessness” 960 e. Tenure Security 962 f. Indigenous Rights in Land 962 E. Land, Conflict, and the New Nepal 963 1. Overview 963 2. Land and Conflict 963 3. Transition and Nepal’s New Constitution 966
Suspect CEOs, unethical culture, and corporate misbehavior

Abstract We show that firms with Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) who personally benefit from options backdating are more likely to engage in other corporate misbehaviors, suggestive of an unethical corporate culture. These firms are more likely to commit financial fraud to overstate earnings. They acquire more private companies, which could perpetuate their frauds, and their acquisitions are met with lower market responses. These misbehaviors are concentrated in firms with externally hired suspect CEOs, consistent with outside CEOs having greater discretion to shape firm culture. The costs of these misbehaviors are reflected in larger stock price declines during a market correction and increased CEO replacement.
How Changes in Social Security Affect Recent Retirement Trends

Descriptive data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) suggest that men aged 65 to 69 years were about 6 percentage points less likely to be retired in 2004 than in 1992, and data from the CPS and the Health and Retirement Study suggest a corresponding difference of 3 percentage points between 1998 and 2004. Changes in Social Security rules that were phased in between 1992 and 2004 increase full-time work by those aged 65 to 67 by a bit less than 2 percentage points, raising full-time work by those aged 65 to 67 by about 9%. Altogether, the changes in Social Security benefits increase labor force participation by those aged 65 to 67 by between 1.4 and 2.2 percentage points, or 2% to 4%, depending on age. About one sixth of the increase in labor force participation between 1998 and 2004 for married men aged 65 to 67 is due to changes in Social Security.
DO DEALERS INFER INFORMATION FROM ORDER FLOW

I examine strategic behavior among dealers in the NASDAQ market and document that there is a lead quote-setting dealer in each security and that the quotes posted by this leader are informative. Other dealers free-ride this information by following the lead quote-setting dealer. The lead dealer can be identified by two information signals: (1) percentage of time spent on the inside market (i.e., posting inside quotes), and (2) trade volume transacted. Dealers that free-ride the leader's quotes quickly update their posted quotes in the same direction as the leader's quote change. My findings suggest that directing trade to the lead dealer may be more advantageous than randomly routing trade.
Copyright and Generic Entry in Book Publishing

Taking works off copyright promotes their availability, but it also allows generic entry to dissipate producer surplus. This paper examines the effect of a copyright on the availability and price of books when incentives to create new works are not affected. Evaluating the welfare impact of the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, I find that a copyright significantly limits the availability of works, leading to a decrease in consumer surplus, which is significantly larger than any increases in profits to copyright holders. Without changing incentives to create new content, the copyright extension was economically inefficient.
The Intersection of Factual Causation and Damages

This article began as an examination of knotty puzzles at the intersection of causation and damages law. Thus, for example, consider a pregnant woman who is injured in a train crash that results in the premature delivery of her baby who is born with several deficits due to prematurity. May the railroad reduce the pain and suffering damages for which it would otherwise be liable to the mother by pointing to the pain and suffering of labor at full term that the mother would have incurred? The question of whether this is a matter of damages law or causation law is not cataclysmic, but is important because of the current Balkanization of the Third Restatement of Torts into several different projects, each with separate jurisdiction. The article explains the argument that has occurred between the two Reporters for the Physical Harm portion of the Third Restatement and why the author, not surprisingly, believes his view that this is a matter of damages law is the better one. In the process, however, the article confronts an overlapping question - the matter of overdetermined harm. Thus, when two forces, acting independently, are each sufficient to cause the harm, neither is a classic sine qua non cause. Both are treated as causes, however, at least if each is tortious. But what if one is of innocent origin? The debate over that question has raged in legal circles for a century. Both of the earlier Restatements held that the tortious force was a cause and subject to liability. The article explains why that resolution cannot sit comfortably with the treatment of damages cases that involve duplicated harm such as the early-delivery hypothetical described above. Indeed, the article concludes that the earlier Restatements were right that both the innocent and tortious forces are causes, but as a matter of damages law, the actor responsible for the tortious force should not be liable. This has important implications both for the current Physical Harm Restatement project and for any future project that addresses damages as part of the Third Restatement of Torts.
Sovereignty, Identity, and the Apparatus of Death

Ten years after the genocide in Rwanda, the government issued broad new laws outlawing the use of ethnic categories, with a view to uniting all Rwandans under a single Rwandan identity. This self-erasure of ethnic identity is deployed primarily within the borders of the state, to enable reconciliation after the genocide in 1994. Outside the borders, the state deploys ethnic identity as one of the rationales for its cross-border wars (in the Democratic Republic of Congo). The question posed by this brief essay is: what is the relation between the legal elision of identity within, the juridico-political deployment of identity without, and the category of identity (and its elision) to the legitimization of sovereign power? What is the nexus between the posit, or promise, of universal (post-identitarian) identity and the violence of the state? The essay uses the Rwandan story to critique the view, implicit in theories of modern sovereignty, that the quest for neutral or universal (human) identity, similar to the metaphysical quest for pure being, is the means toward solving the problem of law's violence as it pertains to ethnic, racial, political, and other identity. The Rwandan example posits an alternative story: that the neutral juridical subject engenders a complex rationale for the violence of and through the law.
Institutional trading, information production, and corporate spin-offs

We use a large sample of transaction-level institutional trading data to analyze, for the first time in the literature, the role of institutional investors as producers of information around corporate spin-offs. Our results may be summarized as follows. First, there is a significant imbalance in post-spin-off institutional trading between the equity of new parent firms versus subsidiaries, suggesting that spin-offs increase institutional investors' welfare by relaxing a trading constraint. This imbalance in institutional trading is driven by differences in information asymmetry across the two spun-off firm divisions. Second, institutional trading around spin-offs has significant predictive power for the announcement effect of a spin-off and for post-spin-off long-run stock returns. Third, institutional investors are able to realize significant abnormal profits by trading in the subsidiary firm equity in the first quarter post-spin-off. Overall, we show that spin-offs enhance information production by institutional investors, who profit from this enhanced information production.
Beyond the Search for Certainty: Addressing the Cross-Border Resolution Gap

This Article compares the development of cross-border solutions for resolving and reorganizing commercial entities to those solutions available for financial institutions. This Article argues that the resolution regime for financial institutions needs to move forward from the existing international best practices approach, embodied in the Financial Stability Board (FSB) Key Attributes for Resolution Regimes, to a more formal legal framework for cross-border resolution, similar to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law for Cross-Border Insolvency. In doing so, this Article identifies a gap in the international infrastructure for resolutions. While UNCITRAL promulgated a model law to provide for cross-border insolvencies in 1997, there has been reluctance to take a similar path with regard to the resolution of international financial institutions, even though the stakes are very high. This Article addresses possible reasons for this reluctance, draws lessons from the commercial sphere, and explores the relevance of the UNCITRAL Model Law framework to financial institutions. This Article also analyzes the recent FSB initiative on cross-border resolution and the recently promulgated International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) Resolution Stay Protocol that seek to promote certainty in the application of resolution measures across borders. This Article argues that these primarily contract-based initiatives are important contributions to the standardization and improvement of the standards on the treatment of financial contracts in insolvency and resolution. However, the initiatives are still incomplete. Addressing the cross-border gap requires the recognition of goals beyond certainty, in the design of a cross-border framework for financial institutions.
The Perils of Theory

As I recall, Professor Clark had more sense than to be my student at Columbia, but I heard a lot about him from admiring colleagues. Clearly he has fulfilled the promise they saw, and this remarkable Symposium is only one indicator of that. The article to which our attention is properly drawn, more than two and a quarter centuries into our nation’s history, has an originalist base, tightly and persuasively focused on original understandings of the Supremacy Clause.2 Professor Clark lays out a cogent account of the Clause’s politics and the centrality of its language to the most fundamental of constitutional compromises, that between the large states and the smaller states fearing domination in a world of simple democracy. It was not only, he argues, that the smaller states won Senate representation by state, not population, that could never be changed by amendment; it was also, and perhaps more importantly, that their own capacity to govern their
Taking the Pulse of the Real Economy Using Financial Statement Analysis: Implications for Macro Forecasting and Stock Valuation

ABSTRACT: In this study, we hypothesize and find that financial statement analysis of firm profitability drivers applied at the aggregate level yields timely insights that are relevant for forecasting real economic activity. We first show that focusing on the 100 largest firms offers a cost-effective way to extract information embedded in accounting profitability data of the entire stock market portfolio. We then show that accounting profitability data aggregated across the 100 largest firms have predictive content for subsequent real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. We also show that stock market returns have predictive content for future real GDP growth, while their predictive power varies with the length of the measurement window with annual stock market returns being the most powerful. Importantly, we find that the predictive content of our indices of aggregate accounting profitability drivers is incremental to that of annual stock market returns. An in-depth investigation of consensus survey fore...
Insider trading before accounting scandals

Abstract We examine insider trading in a sample of more than 500 firms involved in accounting scandals revealed by earnings-decreasing restatements, and in a control sample of non-restating firms. Managers who sell stock while earnings are misstated potentially commit two crimes, earnings manipulation and insider trading, and their selling increases investor scrutiny and the likelihood of the manipulation being revealed. We examine the purchases, sales and net sales of five groups of corporate insiders during the misstated period and a pre-misstated period, using a difference-in-differences approach. Using several measures of the level of insider trading, we estimate cross-sectional regressions that control for other determinants of the level of insider trading. For the full sample of restating firms, we find weak evidence that top managers of misstating firms sell more stock during the misstated period than during the pre-misstated period, relative to the control sample. But in a number of subsamples where insiders had greater incentives to sell before the revelation of accounting problems, we find strong evidence that top managers of restating firms sell substantially more stock during the misstated period. These findings suggest that managers' desire to sell their stockholdings at inflated prices is a motive for earnings manipulation. Our finding that insiders brazenly trade on a crime for which they are potentially culpable suggests that insider trading is more widespread in the market than has been found in the prior literature.
From Health Care Law to the Social Determinants of Health: A Public Health Law Research Perspective

' Professor of Law, Temple University Beasley School of Law, and Director of the National Program Office of the Public Health Law Research Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The author thanks David Hoffman, Jennifer Ibrahim, Michelle Mello, Jeffrey Swanson, Alexander Wagenaar, and Jennifer Wood for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this Article. The author's work was supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The opinions expressed in this Article are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Foundation.
Sovereign Immunity and Interstate Government Tort

This paper argues that the Supreme Court made a serious mistake last term, when, in a case of interstate government tort, it tore up useful options that should be available to each state for the rare cases in which they would be of service. In seeking to insulate a state from liability when its employee intrudes on a sister state’s territory and causes injury there, the Court unthinkingly stripped all the states of power, in cases of interstate government tort, to try injuries occurring on their own territory to their own residents—an unprecedented disregard of a state’s acknowledged traditional interests. Indeed, the Court went beyond interstate government tort and seemed to say that the Constitution prohibits litigation against a state in all cases, whether to enforce state or federal law, whether in state or federal courts. It is argued that the Court’s originalist and structural reasons for this sweeping view cannot withstand scrutiny. Moreover, the Court’s decision contravenes the actual interests even of defendant states, which typically meet their tort responsibilities. Real damage has been done, but it is argued that conservative and liberal views on judicial review of government action in time may well converge to put an end to judicial abnegations of the duty to place government at all levels under the rule of law.
Partially Observed Dynamic Tensor Response Regression

In modern data science, dynamic tensor data prevail in numerous applications. An important task is to characterize the relationship between dynamic tensor datasets and external covariates. However,...
Trajectory Prediction using Equivariant Continuous Convolution

Trajectory prediction is a critical part of many AI applications, for example, the safe operation of autonomous vehicles. However, current methods are prone to making inconsistent and physically unrealistic predictions. We leverage insights from fluid dynamics to overcome this limitation by considering internal symmetry in trajectories. We propose a novel model, Equivariant Continous COnvolution (ECCO) for improved trajectory prediction. ECCO uses rotationally-equivariant continuous convolutions to embed the symmetries of the system. On two real-world vehicle and pedestrian trajectory datasets, ECCO attains competitive accuracy with significantly fewer parameters. It is also more sample efficient, generalizing automatically from few data points in any orientation. Lastly, ECCO improves generalization with equivariance, resulting in more physically consistent predictions. Our method provides a fresh perspective towards increasing trust and transparency in deep learning models.
The functional relevance of task-state functional connectivity.

Resting-state functional connectivity has provided substantial insight into intrinsic brain network organization, yet the functional importance of task-related change from that intrinsic network organization remains unclear. Indeed, such task-related changes are known to be small, suggesting they may have only minimal functional relevance. Alternatively, despite their small amplitude, these task-related changes may be essential for the ability of the human brain to adaptively alter its functionality via rapid changes in inter-regional relationships. We used activity flow mapping—an approach for building empirically derived network models—to quantify the functional importance of task-state functional connectivity (above and beyond resting-state functional connectivity) in shaping cognitive task activations in the (female and male) human brain. We found that task-state functional connectivity could be used to better predict independent fMRI activations across all 24 task conditions and all 360 cortical regions tested. Further, we found that prediction accuracy was strongly driven by individual-specific functional connectivity patterns, while functional connectivity patterns from other tasks (task-general functional connectivity) still improved predictions beyond resting-state functional connectivity. Additionally, since activity flow models simulate how task-evoked activations (which underlie behavior) are generated, these results may provide mechanistic insight into why prior studies found correlations between task-state functional connectivity and individual differences in behavior. These findings suggest that task-related changes to functional connections play an important role in dynamically reshaping brain network organization, shifting the flow of neural activity during task performance. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Human cognition is highly dynamic, yet the functional network organization of the human brain is highly similar across rest and task states. We hypothesized that, despite this overall network stability, task-related changes from the intrinsic (resting-state) network organization of the brain strongly contribute to brain activations during cognitive task performance. Given that cognitive task activations emerge through network interactions, we leveraged connectivity-based models to predict independent cognitive task activations using resting-state versus task-state functional connectivity. This revealed that task-related changes in functional network organization increased prediction accuracy of cognitive task activations substantially, demonstrating their likely functional relevance for dynamic cognitive processes despite the small size of these task-related network changes.
Post-transcriptional regulation of redox homeostasis by the small RNA SHOxi in haloarchaea

While haloarchaea are highly resistant to oxidative stress, a comprehensive understanding of the processes regulating this remarkable response is lacking. Oxidative stress-responsive small non-codi...
Computer vision approach to characterize size and shape phenotypes of horticultural crops using high-throughput imagery

Abstract For many horticultural crops, variation in quality (e.g., shape and size) contributes significantly to the crop’s market value. Metrics characterizing less subjective harvest quantities (e.g., yield and total biomass) are routinely monitored. In contrast, metrics quantifying more subjective crop quality characteristics such as ideal size and shape remain difficult to characterize objectively at the production-scale due to the lack of modular technologies for high-throughput sensing and computation. Several horticultural crops are sent to packing facilities after having been harvested, where they are sorted into boxes and containers using high-throughput scanners. These scanners capture images of each fruit or vegetable being sorted and packed, but the images are typically used solely for sorting purposes and promptly discarded. With further analysis, these images could offer unparalleled insight on how crop quality metrics vary at the industrial production-scale and provide further insight into how these characteristics translate to overall market value. At present, methods for extracting and quantifying quality characteristics of crops using images generated by existing industrial infrastructure have not been developed. Furthermore, prior studies that investigated horticultural crop quality metrics, specifically of size and shape, used a limited number of samples, did not incorporate deformed or non-marketable samples, and did not use images captured from high-throughput systems. In this work, using sweetpotato (SP) as a use case, we introduce a computer vision algorithm for quantifying shape and size characteristics in a high-throughput manner. This approach generates 3D model of SPs from two 2D images captured by an industrial sorter 90 degrees apart and extracts 3D shape features in a few hundred milliseconds. We applied the 3D reconstruction and feature extraction method to thousands of image samples to demonstrate how variations in shape features across SP cultivars can be quantified. We created a SP shape dataset containing SP images, extracted shape features, and qualitative shape types (U.S. No. 1 or Cull). We used this dataset to develop a neural network-based shape classifier that was able to predict Cull vs. U.S. No. 1 SPs with 84.59% accuracy. In addition, using univariate Chi-squared tests and random forest, we identified the most important features for determining qualitative shape type (U.S. No. 1 or Cull) of the SPs. Our study serves as a key step towards enabling big data analytics for industrial SP agriculture. The methodological framework is readily transferable to other horticultural crops, particularly those that are sorted using commercial imaging equipment.
DECaNT: Simulation tool for diffusion of excitons in carbon nanotube films

We present the numerical tool DECaNT (Diffusion of Excitons in Carbon NanoTubes) that simulates exciton transport in thin films of carbon nanotubes. Through a mesh of nanotubes generated using the Bullet Physics C++ library, excitons move according to an ensemble Monte Carlo algorithm, with the scattering rates that account for tube chirality, orientation, and distance. We calculate the diffusion tensor from the position–position correlation functions and analyze its anisotropy and dependence on the film composition, morphology, and defect density.
Signatures of global symmetry violation in relative entropies and replica wormholes

It is widely believed that exact global symmetries do not exist in theories that admit quantum black holes. Here we propose a way to quantify the degree of global symmetry violation in the Hawking radiation of a black hole by using certain relative entropies. While the violations of global symmetry that we consider are non-perturbative effects, they nevertheless give $$ \mathcal{O} $$ (1) contributions to the relative entropy after the Page time. Furthermore, using “island” formulas, these relative entropies can be computed within semi-classical gravity, which we demonstrate with explicit examples. These formulas give a rather precise operational sense to the statement that a global charge thrown into an old black hole will be lost after a scrambling time. The relative entropies considered here may also be computed using a replica trick. At integer replica index, the global symmetry violating effects manifest themselves as charge flowing through the replica wormhole.
B Lymphocytes, but Not Dendritic Cells, Efficiently HIV-1 Trans Infect Naive CD4+ T Cells: Implications for the Viral Reservoir.

ABSTRACT Insight into the establishment and maintenance of HIV-1 infection in resting CD4+ T cell subsets is critical for the development of therapeutics targeting the HIV-1 reservoir. Although the frequency of HIV-1 infection, as quantified by the frequency of HIV-1 DNA, is lower in CD4+ naive T cells (TN) than in the memory T cell subsets, recent studies have shown that TN harbor a large pool of replication-competent virus. Interestingly, however, TN are highly resistant to direct (cis) HIV-1 infection in vitro, in particular to R5-tropic HIV-1, as TN do not express CCR5. In this study, we investigated whether TN could be efficiently HIV-1 trans infected by professional antigen-presenting B lymphocytes and myeloid dendritic cells (DC) in the absence of global T cell activation. We found that B cells, but not DC, have a unique ability to efficiently trans infect TNin vitro. In contrast, both B cells and DC mediated HIV-1 trans infection of memory and activated CD4+ T cells. Moreover, we found that TN isolated from HIV-1-infected nonprogressors (NP) harbor significantly disproportionately lower levels of HIV-1 DNA than TN isolated from progressors. This is consistent with our previous finding that antigen-presenting cells (APC) derived from NP do not efficiently trans infect CD4+ T cells due to alterations in APC cholesterol metabolism and cell membrane lipid raft organization. These findings support that B cell-mediated trans infection of TN with HIV-1 has a more profound role than previously considered in establishing the viral reservoir and control of HIV-1 disease progression. IMPORTANCE The latent human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) reservoir in persons on antiretroviral therapy (ART) represents a major barrier to a cure. Although most studies have focused on the HIV-1 reservoir in the memory T cell subset, replication-competent HIV-1 has been isolated from TN, and CCR5-tropic HIV-1 has been recovered from CCR5neg TN from ART-suppressed HIV-1-infected individuals. In this study, we showed that CCR5neg TN are efficiently trans infected with R5-tropic HIV-1 by B lymphocytes, but not by myeloid dendritic cells. Furthermore, we found that TN isolated from NP harbor no or significantly fewer copies of HIV-1 DNA than those from ART-suppressed progressors. These findings support that B cell-mediated trans infection of TN with HIV-1 has a more profound role than previously considered in establishing the viral reservoir and control of HIV-1 disease progression. Understanding the establishment and maintenance of the HIV-1 latent reservoir is fundamental for the design of effective treatments for viral eradication.
Valuation rings are derived splinters

We give three proofs that valuation rings are derived splinters: a geometric proof using absolute integral closure, a homological proof which reduces the problem to checking that valuation rings are splinters (which is done in the second author’s PhD thesis and which we reprise here), and a proof by approximation which reduces the problem to Bhatt’s proof of the derived direct summand conjecture. The approximation property also shows that smooth algebras over valuation rings are splinters.
Uncertainty quantification for Multiphase-CFD simulations of bubbly flows: a machine learning-based Bayesian approach supported by high-resolution experiments

Abstract In this paper, we developed a machine learning-based Bayesian approach to inversely quantify and reduce the uncertainties of multiphase computational fluid dynamics (MCFD) simulations for bubbly flows. The proposed approach is supported by high-resolution two-phase flow measurements, including those by double-sensor conductivity probes, high-speed imaging, and particle image velocimetry. Local distributions of key physical quantities of interest (QoIs), including the void fraction and phasic velocities, are obtained to support the Bayesian inference. In the process, the epistemic uncertainties of the closure relations are inversely quantified while the aleatory uncertainties from stochastic fluctuations of the system are evaluated based on experimental uncertainty analysis. The combined uncertainties are then propagated through the MCFD solver to obtain uncertainties of the QoIs, based on which probability-boxes are constructed for validation. The proposed approach relies on three machine learning methods: feedforward neural networks and principal component analysis for surrogate modeling, and Gaussian processes for model form uncertainty modeling. The whole process is implemented within the framework of an open-source deep learning library PyTorch with graphics processing unit (GPU) acceleration, thus ensuring the efficiency of the computation. The results demonstrate that with the support of high-resolution data, the uncertainties of MCFD simulations can be significantly reduced. The proposed approach has the potential for other applications that involve numerical models with empirical parameters.
Strain Mapping with THz Metamaterial Composites

Terahertz metamaterials with strain-sensitive junctions are introduced to identify structurally compromised regions of composite materials. Spatially mapping the local polarimetric metamaterial response visualizes and records regions of stress extrema experienced by visibly opaque materials.
A simple GAP-canceling algorithm for the generalized maximum flow problem

We give a simple primal algorithm for the generalized maximum flow problem that repeatedly finds and cancels generalized augmenting paths (GAPs). We use ideas of Wallacher (A generalization of the minimum-mean cycle selection rule in cycle canceling algorithms, 1991) to find GAPs that have a good trade-off between the gain of the GAP and the residual capacity of its arcs; our algorithm may be viewed as a special case of Wayne’s algorithm for the generalized minimum-cost circulation problem (Wayne in Math Oper Res 27:445–459, 2002). Most previous algorithms for the generalized maximum flow problem are dual-based; the few previous primal algorithms (including Wayne in Math Oper Res 27:445–459, 2002) require subroutines to test the feasibility of linear programs with two variables per inequality (TVPIs). We give an O(mn) time algorithm for finding negative-cost GAPs which can be used in place of the TVPI tester. This yields an algorithm with O(m log(mB/e)) iterations of O(mn) time to compute an e-optimal flow, or O(m 2 log (mB)) iterations to compute an optimal flow, for an overall running time of O(m 3 nlog(mB)). The fastest known running time for this problem is $$\tilde{O}(m^2n\log B)$$, and is due to Radzik (Theor Comput Sci 312:75–97, 2004), building on earlier work of Goldfarb et al. (Math Oper Res 22:793–802, 1997).
The Pope's Copyright? Aligning Incentives with Reality by Using Creative Motivation to Shape Copyright Protection

In the United States utilitarian theory posits that granting an exclusive right in creative expression will provide a necessary incentive to invest in the creation and distribution of expressive works. It is feared that without this incentive there would be insufficient motivation for creation. Indeed, it appears that the U.S. adheres completely to the notion that "no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." Yet the creation of many works, such as emails and papal decrees, ordinarily are not motivated by monetary incentives. Nevertheless, current copyright protection fails to account for the creator's motivation in determining the level of protection of the copyrighted work. Despite its extremely low threshold, copyright protection is not cost-free: granting exclusive rights in expression makes subsequent expression more costly, imposes wealth distribution costs, and creates distributive consequences affecting opportunities for expression. Society should avoid shouldering these costs when they are unnecessary. If copyright law is designed to guard against underproduction of intangible assets then it is entirely appropriate to provide less protection when there is little risk of underproduction. This article argues for less robust copyright protection for differently motivated works. Well-documented industry capture of the legislative process in the field of copyright law makes legislative recalibration of the scope of protection unlikely. This article provides a more realistic approach: courts should incorporate a motivational inquiry when determining the level of similarity needed to demonstrate non-literal infringement and should also expressly consider creator motivations when analyzing the second and fourth fair use factors. Reducing the robustness of copyright protection for differently motivated works will decrease the costs to society and better facilitate the underlying goal of copyright law: the promotion of knowledge and learning.
Online High-Dimensional Change-Point Detection using Topological Data Analysis

Topological Data Analysis (TDA) is a rapidly growing field, which studies methods for learning underlying topological structures present in complex data representations. TDA methods have found recent success in extracting useful geometric structures for a wide range of applications, including protein classification, neuroscience, and time-series analysis. However, in many such applications, one is also interested in sequentially detecting changes in this topological structure. We propose a new method called Persistence Diagram based Change-Point (PD-CP), which tackles this problem by integrating the widely-used persistence diagrams in TDA with recent developments in nonparametric change-point detection. The key novelty in PD-CP is that it leverages the distribution of points on persistence diagrams for online detection of topological changes. We demonstrate the effectiveness of PD-CP in an application to solar flare monitoring.
ICT BANKING STRATEGIES DESIGNED TO GROW AND RETAIN E-COMMERCE: ALTERNATE DELIVERY CHANNELS' CUSTOMER BASE

The following is a summary of potential Information Communication Technology (ICT) strategies that can be employed to position banks to be successful in developing alternate delivery channels. The goal of this document is to highlight what ICT Technologies and high-level processes, objectives, and tasks managers can accomplish that would contribute to the success of their alternate delivery channels' goals.
Global symmetry, Euclidean gravity, and the black hole information problem

In this paper we argue for a close connection between the non-existence of global symmetries in quantum gravity and a unitary resolution of the black hole information problem. In particular we show how the essential ingredients of recent calculations of the Page curve of an evaporating black hole can be used to generalize a recent argument against global symmetries beyond the AdS/CFT correspondence to more realistic theories of quantum gravity. We also give several low-dimensional examples of quantum gravity theories which do not have a unitary resolution of the black hole information problem in the usual sense, and which therefore can and do have global symmetries. Motivated by this discussion, we conjecture that in a certain sense Euclidean quantum gravity is equivalent to holography.