cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Spatial effects and house price dynamics in the USA

While an understanding of spatial spillovers and feedbacks in housing markets could provide valuable information for location decisions, little known research has examined this issue for the US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). Also, it is unknown whether there can be differences in the spatial effects before and after a major housing “bust”. In this paper we examine spatial effects in house price dynamics. Using panel data from 363 US MSAs for 1996 to 2013, we find that there are significant spatial diffusion patterns in the growth rates of urban house prices. Lagged price changes of neighboring areas show greater effects after the 2007–08 housing crash than over the entire sample period of 1996–2013. In general, the findings are robust to controlling for potential endogeneity, and for various spatial weights specifications (including contiguity weights and migration flows). These results underscore the importance of considering spatial spillovers in MSA-level studies of housing price growth.
Chinese Imports: What's Behind the Slowdown?

Real imports in China have decelerated significantly over the last two years to below4 percent (yoy) from double-digit growth in previous years. Weaker investment, partly due to progress in rebalancing from investment to consumption, has been the main factor accounting for about 40-50 percent of slowdown during this period. Weaker exports also account for about 40 percent of slowdown, of which about a quarter is due to stronger RMB. Onshoring - substitution of imported intermediate inputs with domestic production - has not been an additional drag over this period but it continues to slow import growth at a similar pace as previous periods. There is large uncertainty about the impact of rebalancing on the import slowdown due to difficulties in identifying the counterfactual nonrebalancing path.
LUTE (Local Unpruned Tuple Expansion): Accurate Continuously Flexible Protein Design with General Energy Functions and Rigid Rotamer-Like Efficiency

Most protein design algorithms search over discrete conformations and an energy function that is residue-pairwise, i.e., a sum of terms that depend on the sequence and conformation of at most two residues. Although modeling of continuous flexibility and of non-residue-pairwise energies significantly increases the accuracy of protein design, previous methods to model these phenomena add a significant asymptotic cost to design calculations. We now remove this cost by modeling continuous flexibility and non-residue-pairwise energies in a form suitable for direct input to highly efficient, discrete combinatorial optimization algorithms like DEE/A* or Branch-Width Minimization. Our novel algorithm performs a local unpruned tuple expansion (LUTE), which can efficiently represent both continuous flexibility and general, possibly non-pairwise energy functions to an arbitrary level of accuracy using a discrete energy matrix. We show using 47 design calculation test cases that LUTE provides a dramatic speedup in both single-state and multistate continuously flexible designs.
THE ROLE OF LANDMARKS: FOLLOWING THE ANATOMY

Introduction All current methods of cup placement use anterior pelvic plane (APP) as the reference. However, the majority of studies investigating the measurement of anteversion (AV) and abduction angles (AA) are inaccurate since the effect of pelvic tilt and obliquity are not considered. The aim of this study was to describe a reproducible, novel technique for functional cup positioning using internal and external bony landmarks and the transverse acetabular ligament (TAL). Methods The pelvic obliquity and tilt are measured on the pre-operative weight bearing AP and lateral pelvic radiographs. Intra-operatively, the highest point of the iliac crest is identified and a line is drawn to the middle of the greater trochanter with knee flexed to 90 degrees and leg thigh horizontal to the floor, parallel to the APP. The cup is placed parallel to the TAL and inside the anterior acetabular wall notch, and then is adjusted for the femoral anteversion, pelvic tilt and obliquity. The angle between the drawn line and the cup handle is the operative anteversion. 78 consecutive total hip replacements (76 patients) were performed using this technique. The functional cup orientation was measured on post-operative weight bearing pelvic radiographs using EBRA software. Results The mean follow-up was 1.2 ± 0.3 years. There were no fracture, dislocation or infection. The mean functional AV and AA were 17.9° ± 4.7° (7.8–28.7) and 41.7° ± 3.8° (33.4–50), respectively. The mean pelvic tilt and obliquity were −3.1° ± 9.7° (−25–9) and −1.5° ± 3.2° (−9.9–7.4), respectively. 96% of functional AV and 100% of functional AA measurements were within the safe zone. Discussion and Conclusion This is an easy, accurate, and reproducible technique, which uses bony landmarks and TAL, adjusted for femoral anteversion and pelvis tilt and obliquity. Weight-bearing radiographs should be used to standardise the measurements with the goal to reproduce the functional cup orientation within the safe zone.
Novelty Learning via Collaborative Proximity Filtering

The vast majority of recommender systems model preferences as static or slowly changing due to observable user experience. However, spontaneous changes in user preferences are ubiquitous in many domains like media consumption and key factors that drive changes in preferences are not directly observable. These latent sources of preference change pose new challenges. When systems do not track and adapt to users' tastes, users lose confidence and trust, increasing the risk of user churn. We meet these challenges by developing a model of novelty preferences that learns and tracks latent user tastes. We combine three innovations: a new measure of item similarity based on patterns of consumption co-occurrence; model for spontaneous changes in preferences; and a learning agent that tracks each user's dynamic preferences and learns individualized policies for variety. The resulting framework adaptively provides users with novelty tailored to their preferences for change per se.
SIMULTANEOUS BILATERAL TKA: SAFE, EFFECTIVE AND COST-EFFICIENT – OPPOSES

For 3 decades surgeons have vigorously debated whether it is reasonable to offer simultaneous bilateral total knee replacement (TKA) to patients. Even after this substantial period of time there remain no randomised clinical trials that have addressed this issue and thus, it remains difficult to fully evaluate both the relative risks and the absolute risks of bilateral simultaneous versus staged bilateral knee replacement. What has emerged over the past couple of decades, however, is an understanding that there is a subset of patients with substantial comorbidities such as pre-existent cardiac disease and advanced age for whom bilateral simultaneous knee replacement seems unwise. For younger or otherwise healthy patients the debate continues in 2016 and seems to be focused less on the data itself than on how individual surgeons come to reconcile the differences between Relative Risk and Absolute Risk. When data is pooled from multiple retrospective studies of simultaneous versus staged bilateral TKA there are 2 clear trends that appear in the data. First, the relative risk of certain substantial complications (cardiac, thromboembolic, neurologic, gastrointestinal, and death) seems to be higher after simultaneous bilateral TKA than after staged bilateral TKA. Oakes and Hanssen highlighted these differences in Relative Risk noting that for each of those 5 outcomes there was a 2 to 5 times greater incidence of these complications after bilateral versus unilateral TKA. At the same time, however, it is clear that for most medically uncomplicated patients the Absolute Risk of a major complication is still fairly low — it is likely that >93% of such patients can undergo simultaneous bilateral TKA without encountering a major complication. Individual surgeons and individual patients often view those kinds of statistics in markedly disparate ways. One set of surgeons and patients will view the Relative Risk as most important and be decidedly concerned about the 2–5 times higher risk of certain complications. Another set of patients and surgeons will look at the Absolute Risk as most important and determine that it is decidedly most likely (>93%) that an individual healthy patient will make it through bilateral simultaneous TKA without major medical complications. Overall the conclusions of Oakes and Hanssen from a decade ago remain relevant in 2016: the overall risk of a peri-operative complication is higher with simultaneous bilateral TKA … and this is particularly true for the risk of peri-operative death. While some surgeons and some patients will decide that the increases in Relative Risk is offset by the fairly low Absolute Risk of complications and thus, feel comfortable with bilateral simultaneous TKA, other patients and other surgeons will not.
Leveraging Citation Networks to Visualize Scholarly Influence Over Time

Assessing the influence of a scholar's work is an important task for funding organizations, academic departments, and researchers. Common methods, such as measures of citation counts, can ignore much of the nuance and multidimensionality of scholarly influence. We present an approach for generating dynamic visualizations of scholars' careers. This approach uses an animated node-link diagram showing the citation network accumulated around the researcher over the course of the career in concert with key indicators, highlighting influence both within and across fields. We developed our design in collaboration with one funding organization---the Pew Biomedical Scholars program---but the methods are generalizable to visualizations of scholarly influence. We applied the design method to the Microsoft Academic Graph, which includes more than 120 million publications. We validate our abstractions throughout the process through collaboration with the Pew Biomedical Scholars program officers and summative evaluations with their scholars.
Evaluation of the grand-canonical partition function using expanded Wang-Landau simulations. V. Impact of an electric field on the thermodynamic properties and ideality contours of water.

Using molecular simulation, we assess the impact of an electric field on the properties of water, modeled with the SPC/E potential, over a wide range of states and conditions. Electric fields of the order of 0.1 V/A and beyond are found to have a significant impact on the grand-canonical partition function of water, resulting in shifts in the chemical potential at the vapor-liquid coexistence of up to 20%. This, in turn, leads to an increase in the critical temperatures by close to 7% for a field of 0.2 V/A, to lower vapor pressures, and to much larger entropies of vaporization (by up to 35%). We interpret these results in terms of the greater density change at the transition and of the increased structural order resulting from the applied field. The thermodynamics of compressed liquids and of supercritical water are also analyzed over a wide range of pressures, leading to the determination of the Zeno line and of the curve of ideal enthalpy that span the supercritical region of the phase diagram. Rescaling the phase diagrams obtained for the different field strengths by their respective critical properties allows us to draw a correspondence between these systems for fields of up to 0.2 V/A.
Coherent Spectroscopy of Semiconductors

The coherent optical response of semiconductors has been the subject of substantial research over the last couple of decades. The interest has been motivated by unique aspects of the interaction between light and semiconductors that are revealed by coherent techniques. The ability to probe the dynamics of charge carriers has been a significant driver. This paper presents a review of selected results in coherent optical spectroscopy of semiconductors.
A Guide to Teaching Data Science

AbstractDemand for data science education is surging and traditional courses offered by statistics departments are not meeting the needs of those seeking training. This has led to a number of opinion pieces advocating for an update to the Statistics curriculum. The unifying recommendation is that computing should play a more prominent role. We strongly agree with this recommendation, but advocate the main priority is to bring applications to the forefront as proposed by Nolan and Speed (1999). We also argue that the individuals tasked with developing data science courses should not only have statistical training, but also have experience analyzing data with the main objective of solving real-world problems. Here, we share a set of general principles and offer a detailed guide derived from our successful experience developing and teaching a graduate-level, introductory data science course centered entirely on case studies. We argue for the importance of statistical thinking, as defined by Wild and Pfannkuc...
Bubbles, wage rigidity, and persistent slumps

Abstract We embed downward wage rigidity into a rational bubble model. We analytically characterize how the collapse of bubbles can interact with wage rigidity to generate deep and protracted recessions with involuntary unemployment, such as those in Japan or Spain.
Trading network and systemic risk in the energy market

This paper evaluates the effect of energy trading networks on the volatility of coal, oil, natural gas, and electricity. This research conducts a longitudinal analysis using a time series of static coal trading networks to generate a dynamic trading network, and uses the component causality index as a leading indicator of systemic risk. This research finds out that the component causality index, based on degree centrality, anticipates or moves together with coal volatility and in less degree with gas and electricity volatility during the period 2007–14. The broad impact of this research lies in the understanding of mechanisms of the instability and risk of the energy sector as a result of a complex interaction of the network of producers and traders.
Hand-powered ultralow-cost paper centrifuge

A hand-powered centrifuge made of two paper discs, string and wooden handles is shown to achieve rotational speeds of 125,000 r.p.m., separate pure plasma from whole blood in less than 1.5 minutes and isolate malaria parasites in 15 minutes.
A comparison between the irradiation damage response of spinel and zirconia due to Xe ion bombardment

Abstract The mechanical properties of Xe-implanted spinel and cubic zirconia surfaces, as determined by nano-indentation measurements, are distinct and the differences can be related to their microstructures. Upon Xe 2+ ion irradiation to high dose at cryogenic temperature (120 K), the Young’s modulus of irradiated spinel falls dramatically until the modulus is only about 3/4 the un-irradiated value. The maximum modulus occurs concurrent with the formation of a metastable crystalline phase of spinel. The subsequent elastic softening at higher Xe 2+ doses is an indication of the onset of amorphization of the spinel. Xe-implanted zirconia surfaces behave differently, in all cases showing almost no change in elastic modulus with increasing Xe 2+ ion dose. This is consistent with microstructural observations of Xe-implanted zirconia crystals which, unlike spinel, show no change in crystal structure with increasing ion dose. The hardness of both spinel and zirconia increases slightly for low Xe 2+ ion doses. At higher doses, zirconia shows little change in hardness, while the hardness of the implanted spinel falls by more than a factor of two. The initial increase in hardness of both spinel and zirconia is consistent with point defect accumulation and the precipitation of small interstitial clusters, while the drop in hardness of spinel at high Xe 2+ ion doses is due to the formation of an amorphous phase.
Optimality and Natural Selection in Markets

Abstract We ask if natural selection in markets favors profit-maximizing firms and, if so, is there a difference between the predictions of models which assume all firms are profit maximizers and the predictions of models which explicitly take account of population dynamics in the market. We show that market selection favors profit maximizing firms, but we also show that the long-run behavior of evolutionary market models is nonetheless not consistent with equilibrium models based on the profit-maximization hypothesis. Dynamic equilibrium paths with market selection are not Pareto optimal, nor even asymptotically optimal. The discrepancy arises because the dynamics created by firm evolution causes prices to vary over time and the resulting dynamical system need not have stable steady states.
Confidence intervals for finite difference solutions

ABSTRACTAlthough applications of Bayesian analysis for numerical quadrature problems have been considered before, it is only very recently that statisticians have focused on the connections between statistics and numerical analysis of differential equations. In line with this very recent trend, we show how certain commonly used finite difference schemes for numerical solutions of ordinary and partial differential equations can be considered in a regression setting. Focusing on this regression framework, we apply a simple Bayesian strategy to obtain confidence intervals for the finite difference solutions. We apply this framework on several examples to show how the confidence intervals are related to truncation error and illustrate the utility of the confidence intervals for the examples considered.
Herding on Earnings News: The Role of Institutional Investors in Post–Earnings-Announcement Drift

We examine the role of institutional investors underlying post–earnings-announcement drift (PEAD). Our results show that while institutional investors generally herd on earnings news, such correlat...
Identification of a Hierarchy of Multipotent Hematopoietic Progenitors in Human Cord Blood.

Abstract Mouse hematopoiesis is initiated by long-term hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) that differentiate into a series of multipotent progenitors that exhibit progressively diminished self-renewal ability. In human hematopoiesis, populations enriched for HSC have been identified, as have downstream lineage-committed progenitors, but not multipotent progenitors. Previous reports indicate that human HSC are enriched in Lin-CD34+CD38- cord blood and bone marrow, and express CD90. We demonstrate that the Lin-CD34+CD38- fraction of cord blood and bone marrow can be subdivided into three subpopulations: CD90+CD45RA-, CD90-CD45RA-, and CD90-CD45RA+. While, the function of the CD90- subpopulations is unknown, the CD90+CD45RA- subpopulation presumably contains HSC. We report here in vitro and in vivo functional studies of these three subpopulations from normal human cord blood. In vitro, CD90+CD45RA- cells formed all types of myeloid colonies in methylcellulose and were able to replate with 70% efficiency. CD90-CD45RA- cells also formed all types of myeloid colonies, but replated with only 33% efficiency. CD90-CD45RA+ cells failed to form myeloid colonies in methylcellulose. In liquid culture, CD90+CD45RA- cells gave rise to all three subpopulations; CD90-CD45RA- cells gave rise to both CD90- subpopulations, but not CD90+ cells; CD90-CD45RA+ cells gave rise to themselves only. These data establish an in vitro differentiation hierarchy from CD90+CD45RA- to CD90-CD45RA- to CD90-CD45RA+ cells among Lin-CD34+CD38- cord blood. In vivo, xenotransplantation of CD90+CD45RA- cells into NOD/SCID/IL-2R?-null newborn mice resulted in long-term multilineage engraftment with transplantation of as few as 10 purified cells. Secondary transplants from primary engrafted mice also resulted in long-term multilineage engraftment, indicating the presence of self-renewing HSC. Transplantation of CD90-CD45RA- cells also resulted in long-term multilineage engraftment; however, secondary transplants did not reliably result in long-term engraftment, indicating a reduced capacity for self-renewal. Transplantation of CD90-CD45RA+ cells did not result in any detectable human hematopoietic cells, indicating that the function of these cells is undetermined. Finally, transplantation of limiting numbers of CD90-CD45RA- cells (less than 100) resulted in multilineage human engraftment at 4 weeks, that was no longer detectable by 12 weeks. Thus, the CD90-CD45RA- subpopulation is capable of multilineage differentiation while exhibiting limited self-renewal ability. We believe this study represents the first prospective identification of a population of human multipotent progenitors, Lin-CD34+CD38-CD90-CD45RA- cord blood.
Boundary value problems for some fully nonlinear elliptic equations

We consider a Yamabe-type problem on locally conformally flat compact manifolds with boundary. The main technique we used is to derive boundary C 2 estimates directly from boundary C 0 estimates. We will control the third derivatives on the boundary instead of constructing a barrier function. This result is a generalization of the work by Escobar.
Gender-from-Iris or Gender-from-Mascara?

Predicting a person's gender based on the iris texture has been explored by several researchers. This paper considers several dimensions of experimental work on this problem, including person-disjoint train and test, and the effect of cosmetics on eyelash occlusion and imperfect segmentation. We also consider the use of multi-layer perceptron and convolutional neural networks as classifiers, comparing the use of data-driven and hand-crafted features. Our results suggest that the gender-from-iris problem is more difficult than has so far been appreciated. Estimating accuracy using a mean of N person-disjoint train and test partitions, and considering the effect of makeup - a combination of experimental conditions not present in any previous work - we find a much weaker ability to predict genderfrom-iris texture than has been suggested in previous work.
INTELLIGENT HOME RISK-BASED MONITORING SOLUTIONS FOR POST ARTHROPLASTY SURVEILLANCE

A key challenge for healthcare delivery in OECD countries is the projected significant increases in populations over the age of 65 years. Australia for example will experience an increase of 16.4% by 2015 while Canada will experience an increase of 16%, UK an increase of 17.9% and US an increase of 14.3% during the same time period (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010). Increases of such magnitude will have significant and far reaching implications for healthcare delivery, labour force participation, housing and demand for skilled labour (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010). Given the impending economic impact of providing healthcare services to this projected increase of seniors, examination of technology solutions that serve to provide effective and efficient healthcare delivery during the peri and postoperative care process are highly desired and help those desiring to age in place. Recent studies have demonstrated rapid growth in the number of seniors using computers in the US and other developed countries and is projected to increase further (Jimison et al., 2006). This technology adoption leads to further growth in the potential for health monitoring technologies (Clifford and Clifton, 2012) with the key aim being the maintenance of a seniors' autonomy through understanding how he or she can manage his or her individual health problem and what necessary actions should be taken and when (Ludwig et al., 2012). Projections by the Congressional Budget Office for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid transfers as a percentage of GDP show the share of output spent on seniors' care programs in US rising from 7.6% in 2000 to 13.9% in 2030 to 21.1% in 2075 (Zhang et al., 2009, Falls, 2008). Despite the increased number of home monitoring technologies in age care contexts, there are several challenges that have to be met before integrating such services into the practice, as a real-life application (Ludwig et al., 2012). As the incidence of arthroplasty surgery is projected to increase over six fold between 2010 and 2030 in the US (Kurtz, Ong, Lau, Mowat, & Halpern, 2007), the post arthroplasty period represents a challenging environment for the adoption of new monitoring technologies to optimize the rehabilitative and recovery process. This study develops a framework for post-arthroplasty monitoring through the application of the intelligence continuum (Wickramasinghe and Schaffer, 2006) to the post-arthroplasty care process including an analysis of the risks and complications. The benefits, barriers and critical elements of designing the theory based framework for home-monitoring technologies provides the structural framework for clinical application of the monitoring modalities. The entire arthroplasty process is included in order to provide appropriate management governance (figure 1) with the following metrics:
Blockchains and distributed ledgers in retrospective and perspective

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce blockchains and distributed ledgers and describe their potential applications to money and banking. Design/Methodology/Approach The analysis compares public and private ledgers and outlines the suitability of various types of ledgers for different purposes. Furthermore, a few historical prototypes of blockchains and distributed ledgers are presented, and results of their hard forking are illustrated. Next, some potential applications of distributed ledgers to trading, clearing and settlement, payments, trade finance, etc. are outlined. Findings Monetary circuits are argued to be natural applications for blockchains. Finally, the role of digital currencies in modern society is articulated and various forms of digital cash, such as central bank issued electronic cash, bank money, Bitcoin and P2P money, are compared and contrasted.
The Capacity of a Quantum Channel for Simultaneous Transmission of Classical and Quantum Information

An expression is derived characterizing the set of admissible rate pairs for simultaneous transmission of classical and quantum information over a given quantum channel, generalizing both the classical and quantum capacities of the channel. Although our formula involves regularization, i.e. taking a limit over many copies of the channel, it reduces to a single-letter expression in the case of generalized dephasing channels. Analogous formulas are conjectured for the simultaneous public-private capacity of a quantum channel and for the simultaneously 1-way distillable common randomness and entanglement of a bipartite quantum state.
Intertemporal Non-separability and Dynamic Oligopoly

We construct a framework for modeling dynamic Cournot oligopoly. We consider models where utility maximizing consumers give rise to demand functions that depend on current and prior period prices. Future demand depends on the current price and consumers, and firms must take this into account when making their decisions. Focusing on problems that yield dynamic demand functions that are linear in current and prior period price, we characterize the unique Markov perfect equilibrium in linear strategies. We then demonstrate the applicability of our framework through a series of practical examples.
CAD Adjacency Computation Using Validated Numerics

We present an algorithm for computation of cell adjacencies for well-based cylindrical algebraic decomposition. Cell adjacency information can be used to compute topological operations e.g. closure, boundary, connected components, and topological properties e.g. homology groups. Other applications include visualization and path planning. Our algorithm determines cell adjacency information using validated numerical methods similar to those used in CAD construction, thus computing CAD with adjacency information in time comparable to that of computing CAD without adjacency information. We report on implementation of the algorithm and present empirical data.
Analysis of a Local Search Heuristic for Facility Location Problems

In this paper, we study approximation algorithms for several NP-hard facility location problems. We prove that a simple local search heuristic yields polynomial-time constant-factor approximation bounds for metric versions of the uncapacitated k-median problem and the uncapacitated facility location problem. (For the k-median problem, our algorithms require a constant-factor blowup in the parameter k.) This local search heuristic was first proposed several decades ago and has been shown to exhibit good practical performance in empirical studies. We also extend the above results to obtain constant-factor approximation bounds for the metric versions of capacitated k-median and facility location problems.
Network-Based Coverage of Mutational Profiles Reveals Cancer Genes

Summary A central goal in cancer genomics is to identify the somatic alterations that underpin tumor initiation and progression. While commonly mutated cancer genes are readily identifiable, those that are rarely mutated across samples are difficult to distinguish from the large numbers of other infrequently mutated genes. We introduce a method, nCOP, that considers per-individual mutational profiles within the context of protein-protein interaction networks in order to identify small connected subnetworks of genes that, while not individually frequently mutated, comprise pathways that are altered across (i.e., "cover") a large fraction of individuals. By analyzing 6,038 samples across 24 different cancer types, we demonstrate that nCOP is highly effective in identifying cancer genes, including those with low mutation frequencies. Overall, our work demonstrates that combining per-individual mutational information with interaction networks is a powerful approach for tackling the mutational heterogeneity observed across cancers.
Verification of long wavelength electromagnetic modes with a gyrokinetic-fluid hybrid model in the XGC code

As an alternative option to kinetic electrons, the gyrokinetic total-f particle-in-cell (PIC) code XGC1 has been extended to the MHD/fluid type electromagnetic regime by combining gyrokinetic PIC ions with massless drift-fluid electrons analogous to Chen and Parker [Phys. Plasmas 8, 441 (2001)]. Two representative long wavelength modes, shear Alfven waves and resistive tearing modes, are verified in cylindrical and toroidal magnetic field geometries.
No buck for the bang: revisiting the military-growth nexus

This paper investigates the empirical relationship between military spending and economic growth in a large panel of advanced and developing countries over the period 1984–2014, with a particular focus on whether the growth impact of military expenditures varies with the type and level of security threats. Although there is extensive literature on the military-growth nexus, there is still no consensus on the nature and magnitude of this relationship. Using an expansive dataset and controlling for country-specific effects and potential endogeneity, we revisit this issue and reach two firm conclusions. First, military spending has no statistically significant direct (positive) effect on growth. Second, the nature and level of security threats do not alter the relationship between military spending and growth. Overall, the empirical results documented in the study suggest that military spending is simply not important or large enough in most countries to have a meaningful impact on growth.
What’s so Hot about Electrons in Metal Nanoparticles?

Metal nanoparticles are excellent light absorbers. The absorption processes create highly excited electron–hole pairs, and recently there has been interest in harnessing these hot charge carriers for photocatalysis and solar energy conversion applications. The goal of this Perspective is to describe the dynamics and energy distribution of the charge carriers produced by photon absorption and the implications for the photocatalysis mechanism. We will also discuss how spectroscopy can be used to provide insight into the coupling between plasmons and molecular resonances. In particular, the analysis shows that the choice of material and shape of the nanocrystal can play a crucial role in hot electron generation and coupling between plasmons and molecular transitions. The detection and even calculation of many-body hot-electron processes in the plasmonic systems with continuous spectra of electrons and short lifetimes are challenging, but at the same time they are very interesting from the points of view of b...
Parameter Estimation by Nonlinear Smoothing for Fault Monitoring on Rocket Engines

Abstract Nonlinear parameter estimation algorithms based upon the extended Kalman filter are designed for the problem of estimating some of the parameters that describe the dynamics of a reusable space propulsion system. In this paper, the results of applying these algorithms to simulated data and to test firing data from the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) are presented. The parameters that are estimated are among those likely to change when some common engine degradations occur. The SSME operating at its 100% Rated Power Level is used as the baseline system. All estimator designs are based upon a reduced-order dynamic model of the SSME. The simulated data used to drive the algorithms is generated by a high fidelity transient simulation of the SSME with small magnitude random “dither” signals applied to the inputs and with substantial random noise added to the measured outputs. The results for a healthy SSME indicate good parameter estimation accuracy. However, the algorithms fail to track the correct parameter values when parameter changes representing engine degradations are introduced if the change results in a significant change in the values of dynamic variables that are not included in the reduced order model used to design the estimator. Preliminary results of using hot fire data from the SSME are also presented. These results indicate that the estimator produces valid results when it is driven with real data, but that it must incorporate logic to change the estimator design as the commanded power level of the engine changes.
Sustainability Standards and Stakeholder Engagement: Lessons From Carbon Markets:

Stakeholders play an increasingly active role in private governance, including development of standards for measuring sustainability. Building on prior studies focused on standards and stakeholder ...
Direct Comparison of Two Mechanized Systems for Identification of Gram-Negative Bacilli. Autobac ID System versus the Auto Microbic System (With EBC Plus)

The Auto Microbic System (AMS) is an almost completely automated system, capable of identifying Enterobacteriaceae after 8 hours, and some glucose nonfermenters after 13 hours of incubation. The Autobac ID system is a mechanized, computer- assisted system capable of identifying Enterobacteriaceae and many nonfermentative gram-negative bacilli within 3–6 hours. The present report combines the results of two independent studies, both of which evaluated the AMS and the Autobac ID system, compared with standard reference tests. Among the 1,510 isolates that were tested, both systems reported equivocal identifications (low confidence values) with 5–6% of the strains. AMS produced fewer erroneous identifications (3.8% vs . 4.9%) but more equivocal test results (5.7% vs . 4.9%). Reproducibility of the two systems was compared by triplicate testing of 88 selected strains in both laboratories. AMS was somewhat more reproducible than the Autobac ID system. The AMS was capable of identifying more species with greater accuracy and reproducibility, but the Autobac ID system was more rapid. Both systems demonstrated excellent accuracy and reproducibility and both could be used efficiently in the clinical laboratory.
From universal service to universal connectivity

Two features of the century-old policy goal of promoting universal telephone service in the United States have been enduring. Policymakers have focused on (1) wireline telephone (and more recently, fixed-line broadband) services and (2) households. The widespread adoption of mobile telephones compels a fresh examination of this focus. We construct a new measure of universal connectivity which accounts for consumers’ choices of communications technologies and for their geographic mobility over the course of the day. This measure, in turn, compels a conceptual and empirical investigation of the determinants of mobile telephone diffusion within families. Our estimations of intra-household demand for mobile service permit us to develop simulations that estimate the economic impact of modernizing a key element of existing universal service policy (viz., the Lifeline Program) to reflect the goal of improving individual connectivity. We find that a policy expansion from a single subsidy per household to multiple subsidies per eligible household members would increase mobile subscriptions by 2.25 million and Lifeline costs by $250 million.
Urinary Fistulas after Partial Nephrectomy: Treatment by Segmental Renal Embolization

A cause of urinary fistula after partial nephrectomy is the isolation of a residual calix and its feeding parenchyma from the resected part of the collecting system. This complication is more likely in the case of anomalous caliceal systems. We describe two patients, one with a duplex system and one with a horseshoe kidney, who developed urinary fistulas after partial nephrectomy. These fistubas were successfully treated by segmental embolization of the vessels supplying the residual responsible renal parenchyma.
Retroperitoneal Malignant Fibrous Histiocytoma Presenting With Inferior Vena Caval Obstruction

A 54-year-old-man presented with inferior vena caval obstruction. At autopsy, a retroperitoneal malignant fibrous histiocytoma was noted to have invaded the inferior vena cava. Such a clinical presentation is quite unusual for a retroperitoneal sarcoma.
Physically driven patchy O2 changes in the North Atlantic Ocean simulated by the CMIP5 Earth system models

The subpolar North Atlantic is a key region for the oceanic uptake of heat, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Centennial oxygen (O2) changes are investigated in the upper 700 m of the North Atlantic Ocean using a subset of Earth System Models (ESMs) included in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5. The climatological distributions of dissolved O2 averaged for the recent past period (1975-2005) are generally well captured although the convective activity differs among the models in space and strength, and most models show a cold bias south of Greenland. By the end of the 21st century, all models predict an increase in depth-integrated temperature of 2-3oC, resultant solubility decrease, weakened vertical mass transport, decreased nutrient supply into the euphotic layer, and weakened export production. Despite an overall tendency of the North Atlantic to lose oxygen, patchy regions of O2 increase are observed due to the weakening of the North Atlantic Current (NAC) causing a regional solubility increase (the warming hole effect) and a decrease in the advection of subtropical, low-O2 waters into the subpolar regions (the nutrient stream effect). Additionally, a shift in the NAC position contributes to localized O2 changes near the boundaries of water masses. The net O2 change reflects the combination of multiple factors leading to highly heterogeneous and model-dependent patterns. Our results imply that changes in the strength and position of the NAC will likely play crucial roles in setting the pattern of O2 changes in future projections.
Optimal Regulation of Financial Intermediaries

I characterize the optimal financial regulation policy in an economy where financial intermediaries trade capital assets on behalf of households, but must retain an equity stake to align incentives. Financial regulation is necessary because intermediaries cannot be excluded from privately trading in capital markets. They don't internalize that high asset prices force everyone to bear more risk. The socially optimal allocation can be implemented with a tax on asset holdings. I derive a sufficient statistic for the externality in terms of observable variables, valid for heterogeneous intermediaries and asset classes, and arbitrary aggregate shocks. I use market data on leverage and volatility of intermediaries' equity to measure the externality, which co-moves with the business cycle.
Transcription-Replication Conflict Orientation Modulates R-Loop Levels and Activates Distinct DNA Damage Responses.

Conflicts between transcription and replication are a potent source of DNA damage. Co-transcriptional R-loops could aggravate such conflicts by creating an additional barrier to replication fork progression. Here, we use a defined episomal system to investigate how conflict orientation and R-loop formation influence genome stability in human cells. R-loops, but not normal transcription complexes, induce DNA breaks and orientation-specific DNA damage responses during conflicts with replication forks. Unexpectedly, the replisome acts as an orientation-dependent regulator of R-loop levels, reducing R-loops in the co-directional (CD) orientation but promoting their formation in the head-on (HO) orientation. Replication stress and deregulated origin firing increase the number of HO collisions leading to genome-destabilizing R-loops. Our findings connect DNA replication to R-loop homeostasis and suggest a mechanistic basis for genome instability resulting from deregulated DNA replication, observed in cancer and other disease states.
Quality Control versus Innovation in Research on Marketing

Brownlie and Saren (this issue) claim that “few innovative papers appear in the top marketing journals.” They attribute this problem to incentive structures. They ask what steps might be taken by the various stakeholders to encourage the development and transmission of useful innovative ideas. Presumably, this means findings that might contribute to better practices in marketing management. I address the first two issues (the problem and why it occurs) by using empirical search by myself and others. 1 then speculate about the third issue-procedures for improving the publication prospects for useful innovations.
Variability in fitness effects can preclude selection of the fittest

Evolutionary biologists often predict the outcome of natural selection on an allele by measuring its effects on lifetime survival and reproduction of individual carriers. However, alleles affecting traits like sex, evolvability, and cooperation can cause fitness effects that depend heavily on differences in the environmental, social, and genetic context of individuals carrying the allele. This variability makes it difficult to summarize the evolutionary fate of an allele based solely on its effects on any one individual. Attempts to average over this variability can sometimes salvage the concept of fitness. In other cases evolutionary outcomes can only be predicted by considering the entire genealogy of an allele, thus limiting the utility of individual fitness altogether. We describe a number of intriguing new evolutionary phenomena that have emerged in studies that explicitly model long-term lineage dynamics and discuss implications for the evolution of infectious diseases.
Cocompact Cubulations of Mixed 3-Manifolds

In this paper, we complete the classification of which compact 3-manifolds have a virtually compact special fundamental group by addressing the case of mixed 3-manifolds. A compact aspherical 3-manifold is mixed if has at least one JSJ torus and at least one hyperbolic block. We show the fundamental group of a mixed manifold M is virtually compact special iff M is chargeless, i.e. each interior Seifert fibered block has a trivial Euler number relative to the fibers of adjacent blocks.
To recognize the tyranny of distance: A spatial reading of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt:

Distance—physical, material distance—is an obviously spatial concept, but one rarely engaged by legal or feminist geographers. We take up this oversight in relation to the 2016 U.S. Supreme Court d...
The Role of Political Education in the Formation of Teachers as Community Organizers: Lessons From a Grassroots Activist Organization:

Based on a 3-year qualitative case study of political education projects within an urban teacher-led grassroots activist organization, this article explores the formation of grassroots political ed...
Schooling and productivity growth: evidence from a dual growth accounting application to U.S. states

This paper exploits the dual growth accounting framework to determine the effect of schooling on total-factor productivity (TFP) growth for U.S. states over 1980–2010. The paper contributes to the literature by constructing TFP growth measures, in the process, both real wage growth and real user cost growth measures at the state level. The growth accounting exercise reveals that states display considerable heterogeneity in TFP growth with both real wage growth and real user cost growth equally contributing to it. While our econometric estimates reveal significant TFP growth effects associated with college education, they are considerably lower in magnitude when compared to the earlier studies. Productivity growth effects associated with high school education remain insignificant. Our empirical findings are further validated by the use of instrumental variable estimation to address the endogeneity of the schooling variables and are also robust to the inclusion of a rich set of control variables, alternative TFP growth measures as well as to the tests to draw robust inferences in the presence of weak instruments.
Turbulent boundary layers absent mean shear

We perform an experimental study to investigate the turbulent boundary layer above a stationary solid glass bed in the absence of mean shear. High Reynolds number horizontally homogeneous isotropic turbulence is generated via randomly actuated synthetic jet arrays (RASJA – Variano & Cowen J. Fluid Mech. vol. 604, 2008, pp. 1–32). Each of the arrays is controlled by a spatio-temporally varying algorithm, which in turn minimizes the formation of secondary mean flows. One array consists of an grid of jets, while the other is a array. Particle image velocimetry measurements are used to study the isotropic turbulent region and the boundary layer formed beneath as the turbulence encounters a stationary wall. The flow is characterized with statistical metrics including the mean flow and turbulent velocities, turbulent kinetic energy, integral scales and the turbulent kinetic energy transport equation, which includes the energy dissipation rate, production and turbulent transport. The empirical constant in the Tennekes (J. Fluid Mech. vol. 67, 1975, pp. 561–567) model of Eulerian frequency spectra is calculated based on the dissipation results and temporal frequency spectra from acoustic Doppler velocimetry measurements. We compare our results to prior literature that addresses mean shear free turbulent boundary layer characterizations via grid-stirred tank experiments, moving-bed experiments, rapid-distortion theory and direct numerical simulations in a forced turbulent box. By varying the operational parameters of the randomly actuated synthetic jet array, we also find that we are able to control the turbulence levels, including integral length scales and dissipation rates, by changing the mean on-times in the jet algorithm.
Theoretical Studies of ZnO and Related MgxZn1−xO Alloy Band Structures

First principles calculations are carried out for ZnO, MgO and ZnMgO2 in various crystal structures. The nature of the valence band ordering in ZnO is shown to depend strongly on the Zn3d band position. MgO in the wurtzitic form is found to gave an unusual 5-fold coordiated structure. The band gap dependence in the alloy system is found to be in fair agreement with experimental data and the band-offset is predicted to be type I.