cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Modular assembly of a protein nanotriangle using orthogonally interacting coiled coils

Synthetic protein assemblies that adopt programmed shapes would support many applications in nanotechnology. We used a rational design approach that exploits the modularity of orthogonally interacting coiled coils to create a self-assembled protein nanotriangle. Coiled coils have frequently been used to construct nanoassemblies and materials, but rarely with successful prior specification of the resulting structure. We designed a heterotrimer from three pairs of heterodimeric coiled coils that mediate specific interactions while avoiding undesired crosstalk. Non-associating pairs of coiled-coil units were strategically fused to generate three chains that were predicted to preferentially form the heterotrimer, and a rational annealing process led to the desired oligomer. Extensive biophysical characterization and modeling support the formation of a molecular triangle, which is a shape distinct from naturally occurring supramolecular nanostructures. Our approach can be extended to design more complex nanostructures using additional coiled-coil modules, other protein parts, or templated surfaces.
Verified Correctness and Security of mbedTLS HMAC-DRBG

We have formalized the functional specification of HMAC-DRBG (NIST 800-90A), and we have proved its cryptographic security-that its output is pseudorandom--using a hybrid game-based proof. We have also proved that the mbedTLS implementation (C program) correctly implements this functional specification. That proof composes with an existing C compiler correctness proof to guarantee, end-to-end, that the machine language program gives strong pseudorandomness. All proofs (hybrid games, C program verification, compiler, and their composition) are machine-checked in the Coq proof assistant. Our proofs are modular: the hybrid game proof holds on any implementation of HMAC-DRBG that satisfies our functional specification. Therefore, our functional specification can serve as a high-assurance reference.
The fable of the leeches, or: The single most unrealistic positive assumption of most economists

Most economists assume that markets depend on government to enforce contracts and rules against default or fraud. With small transactions, however, the cost to use the legal system far exceeds the value at stake in a contract, and even with large contracts, the legal system often cannot solve problems quickly enough to be helpful for companies. This article focuses on four real stories that illustrate how market participants solve problems privately rather than through law and then concludes with a fable to help illustrate that point.
Trading for peace

I examine the conditions under which trade can support peaceful coexistence and prosperity when particular social and ethnic groups are cheap targets of violence. A simple theoretical framework reveals that for a broad set of cases, while inter-group competition generates incentives for violence, the presence of non-replicable, non-expropriable inter-group complementarities becomes necessary to sustain peaceful coexistence over long time horizons. In addition to complementarity, two further conditions are important for deterring violence over time. When relatively mobile groups (e.g. immigrants) are vulnerable, a credible threat to leave can deter violence. When less mobile (indigenous) groups are vulnerable, high-monitoring costs that allow them to withhold production can improve their gains from trade. I describe the implications for indigenous entrepreneurship and cultural assimilation, the development of local institutions supporting inter-ethnic trust and immigration policies and policies aimed at mitigating conflict through financial innovations. I illustrate these implications using contemporary evidence and historical cases of organizations and institutions created to engender trade and support peace drawn from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Hashing-Based-Estimators for Kernel Density in High Dimensions

Given a set of points P&#x2284; R^d and a kernel k, the Kernel Density Estimate at a point x&#x220A;R^d is defined as \mathrm{KDE}_{P}(x)=\frac{1}{|P|}\sum_{y\in P} k(x,y). We study the problem of designing a data structure that given a data set P and a kernel function, returns approximations to the kernel density} of a query point in sublinear time}. We introduce a class of unbiased estimators for kernel density implemented through locality-sensitive hashing, and give general theorems bounding the variance of such estimators. These estimators give rise to efficient data structures for estimating the kernel density in high dimensions for a variety of commonly used kernels. Our work is the first to provide data-structures with theoretical guarantees that improve upon simple random sampling in high dimensions.
Can irrelevant benchmark information help when making business decisions under uncertainty? An empirical investigation of the newsvendor game

Firms often compensate employees based on their relative performance in the most recent business period. These firms need to consider what type of performance information to share with their employees in order to obtain better outcomes in the long run, without diminishing staff motivation. In this paper, we empirically investigate the impact of sharing irrelevant benchmark information (e.g., information about the interim winner's performance) when individuals are making repeated decisions under uncertainty. The decision-making context used is the newsvendor problem, which is a canonical framework for operations management decision making. The newsvendor problem occurs in many business contexts, such as buying fashion goods for retail, setting safety stock levels, setting target inventory levels for perishable goods, selecting the right capacity for a service facility, and overbooking customers. Theoretically, information about the interim winner's performance has no value for making improved decisions in future rounds, and it might even be misleading. Surprisingly, we find that displaying such irrelevant benchmark information results in significantly improved decisions overall, as compared to a control group; this additional display may motivate participants to perform better. We also identify two personality traits related to impulsivity which moderate this positive information display effect. Irrelevant benchmark information matters for decision making under uncertainty.Displaying such information significantly improves repetitive newsvendor decisions.Premeditation and urgency moderate the effect of such information on decision making.A pull-to-center bias is observed when displaying irrelevant benchmark information.
The simplest origin of the big bounce and inflation

Torsion is a geometrical object, required by quantum mechanics in curved spacetime, which may naturally solve fundamental problems of general theory of relativity and cosmology. The black-hole cosm...
Hardness of Rainbow Coloring Hypergraphs

A hypergraph is k-rainbow colorable if there exists a vertex coloring using k colors such that each hyperedge has all the k colors. Unlike usual hypergraph coloring, rainbow coloring becomes harder as the number of colors increases. This work studies the rainbow colorability of hypergraphs which are guaranteed to be nearly balanced rainbow colorable. Specifically, we show that for any Q,k >= 2 and \ell <= k/2, given a Qk-uniform hypergraph which admits a k-rainbow coloring satisfying: - in each hyperedge e, for some \ell_e <= \ell all but 2\ell_e colors occur exactly Q times and the rest (Q +/- 1) times, it is NP-hard to compute an independent set of (1 - (\ell+1)/k + \eps)-fraction of vertices, for any constant \eps > 0. In particular, this implies the hardness of even (k/\ell)-rainbow coloring such hypergraphs. The result is based on a novel long code PCP test that ensures the strong balancedness property desired of the k-rainbow coloring in the completeness case. The soundness analysis relies on a mixing bound based on uniform reverse hypercontractivity due to Mossel, Oleszkiewicz, and Sen, which was also used in earlier proofs of the hardness of \omega(1)-coloring 2-colorable 4-uniform hypergraphs due to Saket, and k-rainbow colorable 2k-uniform hypergraphs due to Guruswami and Lee.
How Common Are Intentional GAAP Violations? Estimates from a Dynamic Model

This paper uses data on detected misstatements—earnings restatements—and a dynamic model to estimate the extent of undetected misstatements that violate GAAP. The model features a CEO who can manipulate his firm's stock price by misstating earnings. I find the CEO's expected cost of misleading investors is low. The probability of detection over a five-year horizon is 13.91%, and the average misstatement, if detected, results in an 8.53% loss in the CEO's retirement wealth. The low expected cost implies a high fraction of CEOs who misstate earnings at least once at 60% with 2%–22% of CEOs starting to misstate earnings in each year 2003–2010, inflation in stock prices across CEOs who misstate earnings at 2.02%, and inflation in stock prices across all CEOs at 0.77%. Wealthier CEOs manipulate less, and the average misstatement is larger in smaller firms. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Association Between Medication Adherence and the Outcomes of Heart Failure.

Background Previous studies of heart failure patients demonstrated an association between cardiovascular medication adherence and hospitalizations or a composite end point of hospitalization and death. Few studies have assessed the impact of treatment adherence within large general medical populations that distinguish the health outcomes of emergency department visits, hospitalization, and death. Objective To determine the association of incremental cardiovascular medication adherence on emergency department visits, hospitalization, and death in adult heart failure patients in Indiana. Design Retrospective cohort study conducted using electronic health record data from the statewide Indiana Network for Patient Care between 2004 and 2009. Methods Patients were at least 18 years of age with a diagnosis of heart failure and prescribed at least one cardiovascular medication for heart failure. Adherence was measured as the proportion of days covered (PDC) using pharmacy transaction data. Clinical end points included emergency department visits, hospital admissions, length of hospital stay, and mortality. Generalized linear models were used to determine the effect of a 10% increase in PDC on clinical end points adjusting for age, sex, race, Charlson Comorbidity Index, and medications. Results Electronic health records were available for 55,312 patients (mean age ± standard deviation 68 ± 16 yrs; 54% women; 65% white). Mean PDC for all heart failure medications was 63% ± 23%. For every 10% increase in PDC, emergency department visits decreased 11% (rate ratio [RR] 0.89, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.89-0.89), hospital admissions decreased 6% (RR 0.94, 95% CI 0.94-0.94), total length of hospital stay decreased 1% (RR 0.99, 95% CI 0.99-1.00), and all-cause mortality decreased 9% (odds ratio 0.91; 95% CI 0.90-0.92). Conclusion Incremental medication adherence was associated with reductions in emergency department visits, hospital admissions, length of hospital stay, and all-cause mortality.
Doc2b Protects β-Cells Against Inflammatory Damage and Enhances Function

Loss of functional β-cell mass is an early feature of type 1 diabetes. To release insulin, β-cells require soluble N-ethylmaleimide–sensitive factor attachment protein receptor (SNARE) complexes, as well as SNARE complex regulatory proteins like double C2 domain–containing protein β (Doc2b). We hypothesized that Doc2b deficiency or overabundance may confer susceptibility or protection, respectively, to the functional β-cell mass. Indeed, Doc2b+/− knockout mice show an unusually severe response to multiple-low-dose streptozotocin (MLD-STZ), resulting in more apoptotic β-cells and a smaller β-cell mass. In addition, inducible β-cell–specific Doc2b-overexpressing transgenic (βDoc2b-dTg) mice show improved glucose tolerance and resist MLD-STZ–induced disruption of glucose tolerance, fasting hyperglycemia, β-cell apoptosis, and loss of β-cell mass. Mechanistically, Doc2b enrichment enhances glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) and SNARE activation and prevents the appearance of apoptotic markers in response to cytokine stress and thapsigargin. Furthermore, expression of a peptide containing the Doc2b tandem C2A and C2B domains is sufficient to confer the beneficial effects of Doc2b enrichment on GSIS, SNARE activation, and apoptosis. These studies demonstrate that Doc2b enrichment in the β-cell protects against diabetogenic and proapoptotic stress. Furthermore, they identify a Doc2b peptide that confers the beneficial effects of Doc2b and may be a therapeutic candidate for protecting functional β-cell mass.
Smaller Text Classifiers with Discriminative Cluster Embeddings

Word embedding parameters often dominate overall model sizes in neural methods for natural language processing. We reduce deployed model sizes of text classifiers by learning a hard word clustering in an end-to-end manner. We use the Gumbel-Softmax distribution to maximize over the latent clustering while minimizing the task loss. We propose variations that selectively assign additional parameters to words, which further improves accuracy while still remaining parameter-efficient.
Cardiac metabolic effects of KNa1.2 channel deletion and evidence for its mitochondrial localization

Controversy surrounds the molecular identity of mitochondrial K+ channels that are important for protection against cardiac ischemia-reperfusion injury. Although KNa1.2 (sodium-activated potassium channel encoded by Kcn2) is necessary for cardioprotection by volatile anesthetics, electrophysiological evidence for a channel of this type in mitochondria is lacking. The endogenous physiological role of a potential mito-KNa1.2 channel is also unclear. In this study, single channel patch-clamp of 27 independent cardiac mitochondrial inner membrane (mitoplast) preparations from wild-type (WT) mice yielded 6 channels matching the known ion sensitivity, ion selectivity, pharmacology, and conductance properties of KNa1.2 (slope conductance, 138 ± 1 pS). However, similar experiments on 40 preparations from Kcnt2-/- mice yielded no such channels. The KNa opener bithionol uncoupled respiration in WT but not Kcnt2-/- cardiomyocytes. Furthermore, when oxidizing only fat as substrate, Kcnt2-/- cardiomyocytes and hearts were less responsive to increases in energetic demand. Kcnt2-/- mice also had elevated body fat, but no baseline differences in the cardiac metabolome. These data support the existence of a cardiac mitochondrial KNa1.2 channel, and a role for cardiac KNa1.2 in regulating metabolism under conditions of high energetic demand.-Smith, C. O., Wang, Y. T., Nadtochiy, S. M., Miller, J. H., Jonas, E. A., Dirksen, R. T., Nehrke, K., Brookes, P. S. Cardiac metabolic effects of KNa1.2 channel deletion and evidence for its mitochondrial localization.
Video-Based Assessments of Colonoscopy Inspection Quality Correlate With Quality Metrics and Highlight Areas for Improvement.

Background & Aims Adenoma detection rate (ADR) and serrated polyp detection rate (SDR) vary significantly among colonoscopists. Colonoscopy inspection quality (CIQ) is the quality with which a colonoscopist inspects for polyps and may explain some of this variation. We aimed to determine the relationship between CIQ and historical ADRs and SDRs in a cohort of colonoscopists and assess whether there is variation in CIQ components (fold examination, cleaning, and luminal distension) among colonoscopists with similar ADRs and SDRs. Methods We conducted a prospective observational study to assess CIQ among 17 high-volume colonoscopists at an academic medical center. Over 6 weeks, we video-recorded >28 colonoscopies per colonoscopist and randomly selected 7 colonoscopies per colonoscopist for evaluation. Six raters graded CIQ using an established scale, with a maximum whole colon score of 75. Results We evaluated 119 colonoscopies. The median whole-colon CIQ score was 50.1/75. Whole-colon CIQ score (r=0.71; P Conclusion In a prospective observational study, we found CIQ and CIQ components to correlate with ADR and SDR. Colonoscopists with similar ADRs and SDRs differ in their performance of the 3 CIQ components—specific, actionable feedback might improve colonoscopy technique.
Pressure dependence of the magic twist angle in graphene superlattices

The recently demonstrated unconventional superconductivity [Cao et al., Nature (London) 556, 43 (2018)] in twisted bilayer graphene (tBLG) opens the possibility for interesting applications of two-dimensional layers that involve correlated electron states. Here we explore the possibility of modifying electronic correlations by the application of uniaxial pressure on the weakly interacting layers, which results in increased interlayer coupling and a modification of the magic angle value and associated density of states. Our findings are based on first-principles calculations that accurately describe the height-dependent interlayer coupling through the combined use of density functional theory and maximally localized Wannier functions. We obtain the relationship between twist angle and external pressure for the magic angle flat bands of tBLG. This may provide a convenient method to tune electron correlations by controlling the length scale of the superlattice.
St. Louis’s “urban prairie”: Vacant land and the potential for revitalization

As part of a larger project to understand the relative health and disorder of St. Louis's neighborhoods, this article presents estimates of the number of vacant parcels in the city. These estimates...
The Rise of Trump and the Death of Civility

According to supporters and opponents alike, Donald Trump has been an unconventional candidate and president. In this article, I evaluate the relationship between Trump’s unconventional behavior an...
A GPU-Oriented Algorithm Design for Secant-Based Dimensionality Reduction

Dimensionality-reduction techniques are a fundamental tool for extracting useful information from high-dimensional data sets. Because secant sets encode manifold geometry, they are a useful tool for designing meaningful data-reduction algorithms. In one such approach, the goal is to construct a projection that maximally avoids secant directions and hence ensures that distinct data points are not mapped too close together in the reduced space. This type of algorithm is based on a mathematical framework inspired by the constructive proof of Whitney's embedding theorem from differential topology. Computing all (unit) secants for a set of points is by nature computationally expensive, thus opening the door for exploitation of GPU architecture for achieving fast versions of these algorithms. We present a polynomial-time data-reduction algorithm that produces a meaningful low-dimensional representation of a data set by iteratively constructing improved projections within the framework described above. Key to our algorithm design and implementation is the use of GPUs which, among other things, minimizes the computational time required for the calculation of all secant lines. One goal of this report is to share ideas with GPU experts and to discuss a class of mathematical algorithms that may be of interest to the broader GPU community.
The Distributional Impacts of Cigarette Taxation in Bangladesh

Despite the obvious positive health impacts of tobacco taxation, an argument raised against it is that poor households bear the burden of the increased prices because of their higher share of spending on tobacco. This report includes estimates of the distributional impacts of price rises on cigarettes under various scenarios using the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2016/17. One contribution of this analysis is to quantify the impacts by allowing price elasticities to vary across consumption deciles. This shows that an increase in the price of cigarettes in Bangladesh has small consumption impacts and does not significantly change the poverty rate or consumption inequality. These findings stem from relatively even cigarette consumption patterns between less and more welloff households. These results hold even if one considers some small substitution through the use of bidis, which are largely consumed by the poor. The short-term consumption impacts are also negligible compared with the estimated gains because of savings in medical costs and the greater number of productive years of life.
Real-Time Index Authentication for Event-Oriented Surveillance Video Query using Blockchain

Information from surveillance video is essential for situational awareness (SAW). Nowadays, a prohibitively large amount of surveillance data is being generated continuously by ubiquitously distributed video sensors. It is very challenging to immediately identify the objects of interest or zoom in suspicious actions from thousands of video frames. Making the big data indexable is critical to tackle this problem. It is ideal to generate pattern indexes in a real-time, on-site manner on the video streaming instead of depending on the batch processing at the cloud centers. The modern edge-fog-cloud computing paradigm allows implementation of time sensitive tasks at the edge of the network. The on-site edge devices collect the information sensed in format of frames and extracts useful features. The near-site fog nodes conduct the contextualization and classification of the features. The remote cloud center is in charge of more data intensive and computing intensive tasks. However, exchanging the index information among devices in different layers raises security concerns where an adversary can capture or tamper with features to mislead the surveillance system. In this paper, a blockchain enabled scheme is proposed to protect the index data through an encrypted secure channel between the edge and fog nodes. It reduces the chance of attacks on the small edge and fog devices. The feasibility of the proposal is validated through intensive experimental analysis.
Do Financial Incentives Crowd Out Intrinsic Motivation to Perform on Standardized Tests

Abstract Financial incentives linked to academic performance have been proposed as a potentially cost-effective way to support improvement. However, a large literature across disciplines finds that extrinsic incentives, once removed, may crowd out intrinsic motivation on subsequent, similar tasks. We conduct a field experiment where students, parents, and tutors are offered incentives designed to encourage student preparation for a high-stakes state standardized test. The incentives reward performance on a separate low-stakes preparatory assessment designed to measure the same skills as the high-stakes test. Performance on the high-stakes test itself, however, is not incentivized. We find substantial treatment effects on the incented tests but no effect on the non-incented test. We also find suggestive evidence that the incentives crowd out intrinsic motivation to perform well on the non- incented test, but this effect is only temporary. One year later, treated students perform better than those in control on the same non-incented test.
Reduced order derivation of the two-dimensional band structure of a mixed-mode resonator array

In this paper, the 2D band structure of a mixed-mode metamaterial resonator array for in-plane waves is investigated. The band structure in the interior and on the boundary of the irreducible Brill...
Knot invariants from Laplacian matrices

A checkerboard graph of a special diagram of an oriented link is made a directed, edge-weighted graph in a natural way so that a principal submatrix of its Laplacian matrix is a Seifert matrix of t...
Mining Novel Multivariate Relationships in Time Series Data Using Correlation Networks

In many domains, there is significant interest in capturing novel relationships between time series that represent activities recorded at different nodes of a highly complex system. In this paper, we introduce multipoles, a novel class of linear relationships between more than two time series. A multipole is a set of time series that have strong linear dependence among themselves, with the requirement that each time series makes a significant contribution to the linear dependence. We demonstrate that most interesting multipoles can be identified as cliques of negative correlations in a correlation network. Such cliques are typically rare in a real-world correlation network, which allows us to find almost all multipoles efficiently using a clique-enumeration approach. Using our proposed framework, we demonstrate the utility of multipoles in discovering new physical phenomena in two scientific domains: climate science and neuroscience. In particular, we discovered several multipole relationships that are reproducible in multiple other independent datasets and lead to novel domain insights.
Relationship journeys in the internet of things: a new framework for understanding interactions between consumers and smart objects

Consumers’ interactions with smart objects have a relational nature, and extensive research has supported the “relationship metaphor” as a fruitful way to understand consumer responses to consumption objects. But, smart objects pose unique challenges for considering the emergence of consumer–object relationships, because their degrees of agency, autonomy, and authority lend them their own unique capacities for interaction. We present a new framework for consumer–object relationships based on the circumplex model of interpersonal complementarity and situated in assemblage theory and object-oriented ontology. Consumer–object relationship styles are defined in terms of two foundational dimensions of behavior, agency, and communion, based on the expressive roles played by consumer and object. The overlay of assemblage theory provides a conceptually rich understanding of the space of master–servant, partner, and unstable relationship styles, along with their concomitant positive (enabling) versus negative (constraining) consumer experiences. The model’s underlying geometry supports extensive empirical work and provides a powerful managerial framework for measuring and tracking consumer–object relationships and the journeys they take over time.
Simulating the Nanomechanical Response of Cyclooctatetraene Molecules on a Graphene Device

We investigate the atomic and electronic structures of cyclooctatetraene (COT) molecules on graphene and analyze their dependence on external gate voltage using first-principles calculations. The external gate voltage is simulated by adding or removing electrons using density functional theory calculations. This allows us to investigate how changes in carrier density modify the molecular shape, orientation, adsorption site, diffusion barrier, and diffusion path. For increased hole doping, COT molecules gradually change their shape to a more flattened conformation and the distance between the molecules and graphene increases while the diffusion barrier drastically decreases. For increased electron doping, an abrupt transition to a planar conformation at a carrier density of -8 × 1013 e/cm2 is observed. These calculations imply that the shape and mobility of adsorbed COT molecules can be controlled by externally gating graphene devices.
Integrated In Vivo Quantitative Proteomics and Nutrient Tracing Reveals Age-Related Metabolic Rewiring of Pancreatic β Cell Function.

Pancreatic β cell physiology changes substantially throughout life, yet the mechanisms that drive these changes are poorly understood. Here, we performed comprehensive in vivo quantitative proteomic profiling of pancreatic islets from juvenile and 1-year-old mice. The analysis revealed striking differences in abundance of enzymes controlling glucose metabolism. We show that these changes in protein abundance are associated with higher activities of glucose metabolic enzymes involved in coupling factor generation as well as increased activity of the coupling factor-dependent amplifying pathway of insulin secretion. Nutrient tracing and targeted metabolomics demonstrated accelerated accumulation of glucose-derived metabolites and coupling factors in islets from 1-year-old mice, indicating that age-related changes in glucose metabolism contribute to improved glucose-stimulated insulin secretion with age. Together, our study provides an in-depth characterization of age-related changes in the islet proteome and establishes metabolic rewiring as an important mechanism for age-associated changes in β cell function.
Hydroxybiphenylamide GroEL/ES inhibitors are potent antibacterials against planktonic and biofilm forms of Staphylococcus aureus.

We recently reported the identification of a GroEL/ES inhibitor (1, N-(4-(benzo[ d]thiazol-2-ylthio)-3-chlorophenyl)-3,5-dibromo-2-hydroxybenzamide) that exhibited in vitro antibacterial effects against Staphylococcus aureus comparable to vancomycin, an antibiotic of last resort. To follow up, we have synthesized 43 compound 1 analogs to determine the most effective functional groups of the scaffold for inhibiting GroEL/ES and killing bacteria. Our results identified that the benzothiazole and hydroxyl groups are important for inhibiting GroEL/ES-mediated folding functions, with the hydroxyl essential for antibacterial effects. Several analogs exhibited >50-fold selectivity indices between antibacterial efficacy and cytotoxicity to human liver and kidney cells in cell culture. We found that MRSA was not able to easily generate acute resistance to lead inhibitors in a gain-of-resistance assay and that lead inhibitors were able to permeate through established S. aureus biofilms and maintain their bactericidal effects.
Functional responsibilities of municipal government: Metropolitan disparities and instruments of intergovernmental management:

This paper examines the functional responsibilities of municipal government, in the context of intergovernmental interactions in metropolitan areas of the USA. It presents an operationalisation of ...
On Automatically Proving the Correctness of math.h Implementations

Industry standard implementations of {\tt math.h} claim (often without formal proof) tight bounds on floating-point errors. We demonstrate a novel static analysis that proves these bounds and verifies the correctness of these implementations. Our key insight is a reduction of this verification task to a set of mathematical optimization problems that can be solved by off-the-shelf computer algebra systems. We use this analysis to prove the correctness of implementations in Intel’s math library automatically. Prior to this work, these implementations could only be verified with significant manual effort.
Sex Differences in Risk and Resilience: Stress Effects on the Neural Substrates of Emotion and Motivation

Risk for stress-sensitive psychopathologies differs in men and women, yet little is known about sex-dependent effects of stress on cellular structure and function in corticolimbic regions implicated in these disorders. Determining how stress influences these regions in males and females will deepen our understanding of the mechanisms underlying sex-biased psychopathology. Here, we discuss sex differences in CRF regulation of arousal and cognition, glucocorticoid modulation of amygdalar physiology and alcohol consumption, the age-dependent impact of social stress on prefrontal pyramidal cell excitability, stress effects on the prefrontal parvalbumin system in relation to emotional behaviors, contributions of stress and gonadal hormones to stress effects on prefrontal glia, and alterations in corticolimbic structure and function after cessation of chronic stress. These studies demonstrate that, while sex differences in stress effects may be nuanced, nonuniform, and nonlinear, investigations of these differences are nonetheless critical for developing effective, sex-specific treatments for psychological disorders.
Computational thinking with the web crowd using CodeMapper

It has been argued that computational thinking should precede computer programming in the course of a career in computing. This argument is the basis for the slogan "logic first, syntax later" and the development of many cryptic syntax removed programming languages such as Scratch!, Blockly and Visual Logic. The goal is to focus on the structuring of the semantic relationships among the logical building blocks to yield solutions to computational problems. In this paper, we introduce a new programming platform, called the CodeMapper, in which learners are able to build computational logic in independent modules and aggregate them to create complex modules. CodeMapper is an abstract development environment in which rapid visual prototyping of systems is possible by combining already developed independent modules in logical steps.
The Economic Assimilation of Irish Famine Migrants to the United States

Abstract The repeated failure of Ireland's potato crop in the late 1840s led to a major famine and sparked a surge in migration to the US. We build a new dataset of Irish immigrants and their sons by linking males from 1850 to 1880 US census records. For comparison, we also link German and British immigrants, their sons, and males from US native-headed households. We document a decline in the observable human capital of famine-era Irish migrants compared to pre-famine Irish migrants and to other groups in the 1850 census, as well as worse labor market outcomes. The disparity in labor market outcomes persists into the next generation when immigrants’ and natives’ sons are compared in 1880. Nonetheless, we find strong evidence of intergenerational convergence in that famine-era Irish sons experienced a much smaller gap in occupational status in 1880 than their fathers did in 1850. The disparities are even smaller when the Irish children are compared to those from observationally similar native white households. A descriptive analysis of mobility for the children of the famine Irish indicates that having a more Catholic surname and being born in Ireland were associated with less upward mobility. Our results contribute to literatures on immigrant assimilation, refugee migration, and the Age of Mass Migration.
Refugee Admissions and Public Safety: Are Refugee Settlement Areas More Prone to Crime?

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of refugees worldwide rose to 25.9 million in 2018. Despite the increased need for refugee resettlements, resistance to th...
Should neurologists diagnose and manage functional neurologic disorders? It is complicated.

Whereas only neurologists can “rule in” functional neurologic disorders (FNDs)—using physical signs and semiologic features—their role in follow-up care remains debated. We outlined the arguments for and against a neurologist9s primary role in both assessing and managing FNDs. Favorable arguments include the following: (1) FND presents neurologically, and thus, only neurologists can ascertain the etiology of new neurologic deficits appearing on follow-up, and (2) neurologic encounters facilitate acceptance of diagnosis and enhance treatment engagement. Counter arguments include the following: (1) FND is a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition codified psychiatric disorder with largely psychiatric treatments, and (2) neurologists can reassess patients if new neurologic symptoms develop without playing a primary follow-up role. Although more research is needed to clarify optimal approaches, neurologic expertise could be leveraged for diagnostic and coordinating roles if the pool of neurologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, physical and occupational therapists, and other allied clinicians trained in the interdisciplinary care of FNDs is substantially increased.
Finding integral diagonal pairs in a two dimensional $\mathcal{N}$set

According to Nathanson, an n-dimensional N-set is a compact subset A of ℝ n such that for every x ∈ ℝ n there is y E A with y — x ∈ ℤ n . We prove that every two dimensional N-set A must contain distinct points x, y such that x — y is in ℤ 2 and x — y is neither horizontal nor vertical. This answers a question of P. Hegarty and M. Nathanson.
Cross‐modality (CT‐MRI) prior augmented deep learning for robust lung tumor segmentation from small MR datasets

Purpose Accurate tumor segmentation is a requirement for magnetic resonance (MR)-based radiotherapy. Lack of large expert annotated MR datasets makes training deep learning models difficult. Therefore, a cross-modality (MR-CT) deep learning segmentation approach that augments training data using pseudo MR images produced by transforming expert-segmented CT images was developed. Methods Eighty-one T2-weighted MRI scans from 28 patients with non-small cell lung cancers (nine with pretreatment and weekly MRI and the remainder with pre-treatment MRI scans) were analyzed. Cross-modality model encoding the transformation of CT to pseudo MR images resembling T2w MRI was learned as a generative adversarial deep learning network. This model was used to translate 377 expert segmented non-small cell lung cancer CT scans from the Cancer Imaging Archive into pseudo MRI that served as additional training set. This method was benchmarked against shallow learning using random forest, standard data augmentation, and three state-of-the art adversarial learning-based cross-modality data (pseudo MR) augmentation methods. Segmentation accuracy was computed using Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), Hausdorff distance metrics, and volume ratio. Results The proposed approach produced the lowest statistical variability in the intensity distribution between pseudo and T2w MR images measured as Kullback-Leibler divergence of 0.069. This method produced the highest segmentation accuracy with a DSC of (0.75 ± 0.12) and the lowest Hausdorff distance of (9.36 mm ± 6.00 mm) on the test dataset using a U-Net structure. This approach produced highly similar estimations of tumor growth as an expert (P = 0.37). Conclusions A novel deep learning MR segmentation was developed that overcomes the limitation of learning robust models from small datasets by leveraging learned cross-modality information using a model that explicitly incorporates knowledge of tumors in modality translation to augment segmentation training. The results show the feasibility of the approach and the corresponding improvement over the state-of-the-art methods.
The near field interaction between a sound pulse and a jet shear layer

The in-flow and near field of a jet which is excited by an axial mass source located in the potential core is simulated numerically, taking due account of the jet spreading, and experimentally, using a shock-tube driver. Comparison is made for both excited and unexcited jets. It is shown that many of the features observed experimentally are consequences of the instability of the mean flow profile and not of turbulence. This instability is shown to be a significant amplifier of low frequency sound. The terms responsible for this amplification are those describing action between the fluctuating velocities and the gradient of the mean flow, which were identified by Ribner as the shear noise terms. The results demonstrate that a primary component of the observed shear noise in jets is generated by the mean profile instability.
Pedigrees, Sequential Sampling†

Families are frequently selected for genetic epidemiologic study based upon (i) initial ascertainment of (affected) individuals, and (ii) subsequent intrafamilial sampling of (subsets of) relatives of those individuals. Such procedures must be taken into consideration when writing genetic likelihoods, estimating genetic parameters, or performing statistical tests based on ascertained pedigree data. Keywords: intrafamilial sampling; ascertainment; genetic parameter estimation; likelihood
Novel word learning at 21 months predicts receptive vocabulary outcomes in later childhood.

Several aspects of early language skills, including parent-report measures of vocabulary, phoneme discrimination, speech segmentation, and speed of lexical access predict later childhood language outcomes. To date, no studies have examined the long-term predictive validity of novel word learning. We examined whether individual differences in novel word learning at 21 months predict later childhood receptive vocabulary outcomes rather than generalized cognitive abilities. Twenty-eight 21-month-olds were taught novel words using a modified version of the Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm. Seventeen children (range 7–10 years) returned to participate in a longitudinal follow-up. Novel word learning in infancy uniquely accounted for 22% of the variance in childhood receptive vocabulary but did not predict later childhood visuospatial ability or non-verbal IQ. These results suggest that the ability to associate novel sound patterns to novel objects, an index of the process of word learning, may be especially important for long-term language mastery.
The Information Provision in the Corporate Acquisition Process: Why Target Firms Obtain Multiple Fairness Opinions

ABSTRACT Using a hand-collected dataset for takeovers from 1996 to 2013, I examine why some target firms obtain a second fairness opinion and the associated wealth effects of doing so. I find that ...
Deep Compressed Sensing.

Compressed sensing (CS) provides an elegant framework for recovering sparse signals from compressed measurements. For example, CS can exploit the structure of natural images and recover an image from only a few random measurements. CS is flexible and data efficient, but its application has been restricted by the strong assumption of sparsity and costly reconstruction process. A recent approach that combines CS with neural network generators has removed the constraint of sparsity, but reconstruction remains slow. Here we propose a novel framework that significantly improves both the performance and speed of signal recovery by jointly training a generator and the optimisation process for reconstruction via meta-learning. We explore training the measurements with different objectives, and derive a family of models based on minimising measurement errors. We show that Generative Adversarial Nets (GANs) can be viewed as a special case in this family of models. Borrowing insights from the CS perspective, we develop a novel way of improving GANs using gradient information from the discriminator.
A review of sediment diversion in the Mississippi River Deltaic Plain

Abstract One of the proposed methods for restoring the disappearing Mississippi Delta is sediment diversion which uses channels and structures to divert water and sediment from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers into adjacent basins. This study presents a comprehensive review of geological and physical aspects of sediment dynamics in the Mississippi River Deltaic Plain (MRDP), with special reference to diversion studies over the past two decades. We synthesize these studies, present the current understanding of sediment diversions in the context of sediment dynamics, identify multiple key knowledge gaps, and make recommendations for future studies. To maximize net land building in the MRDP, management strategies should be focused on (a) enhancing river sediment delivery (both mud and sand), (b) increasing sediment retention in receiving basins and (c) minimizing erosion in bays and estuaries. Compared with extensive studies of land building, there have been relatively fewer studies of erosional processes. A heterogeneous coastal geological framework, cohesive sediment erodibility and subsidence together play complicated yet critical roles in future sediment dynamics in bays and estuaries of the MRDP. Sediment retention rates are highly sensitive to spatial and temporal scales, types of sediments and delivery season. Sediment diversions to seaward receiving basins provide more surge protection but tend to have lower sediment retention due to active coastal processes. Structures and devices that improve sediment retention, trap sediments, dissipate waves, and build living shorelines should be explored and cost-to-benefit analysis is needed. Long-term planning should consider more landward diversions, strategic community relocation, and nonlinear response of the complex sedimentary system of the MRDP.
Some remarks on direct solid fuel combustion using chemical looping processes

Direct solid fuel combustion using the concept of chemical looping is a novel approach projected to have higher energy efficiency than conventional and competing technologies in a carbon-constrained scenario. The concept is first discussed by presenting a thermodynamic analysis on oxygen carrier material selection. Iron-based material is considered as a promising candidate, and its salient features in the context of solid fueled chemical looping combustion (CLC) are introduced. The CLC reactor configurations are compared based on the modes of reducer design and operation, which significantly affects the whole system performance. A brief review on recent experimental studies indicates that initial results for the solid fueled CLC technologies are promising. An optimal reducer configuration that provides effective gas–solid contacting pattern, and the need for favorable thermodynamics of the oxygen carrier medium were identified as the important challenges for an eventual chemical looping combustion with solid fuels commercial scale-demonstration.
Mapping Molecular Datasets Back to the Brain Regions They are Extracted from: Remembering the Native Countries of Hypothalamic Expatriates and Refugees.

This article focuses on approaches to link transcriptomic, proteomic, and peptidomic datasets mined from brain tissue to the original locations within the brain that they are derived from using digital atlas mapping techniques. We use, as an example, the transcriptomic, proteomic and peptidomic analyses conducted in the mammalian hypothalamus. Following a brief historical overview, we highlight studies that have mined biochemical and molecular information from the hypothalamus and then lay out a strategy for how these data can be linked spatially to the mapped locations in a canonical brain atlas where the data come from, thereby allowing researchers to integrate these data with other datasets across multiple scales. A key methodology that enables atlas-based mapping of extracted datasets—laser-capture microdissection—is discussed in detail, with a view of how this technology is a bridge between systems biology and systems neuroscience.
Reactions of boranes and metallaboranes with phosphines

This paper reports extensions of the well-established field of phosphine-borane chemistry. Linked clusters, for example, {((PPh 3 ) 2 (CO)OsB 4 H 7 -3-BH 2 -PPh 2 ) 2 ((Fe(C 5 H 4 ) 2 )}, are formed in reactions of rigid backboned bidentate phosphines with {2,2,2-(PPh 3 ) 2 (CO)- nido-2-OsB 5 H 9 ). Reaction of bidentate phosphines with the unsaturated clusters (8,8-(PPh 3 ) 2 -nido-8,7-RhSB 9 H 10 ) and (9,9-(PPh 3 ) 2 -nido-9,7,8-RhC 2 B 8 H 11 ) leads to the iso- lation of novel species such as {1-(PPh 3 )(1,3-(µ-dppm))-closo-1,2-RhSB 9 H 8 }, with a dppm molecule bridging adjacent metal and boron vertices in the cage, (1,1-(η 2 -dppe)-3-(η 1 -dppm)- closo-1,2-RhSB 9 H 8 ), a mixed ligand system, and {9,9-η 2 -((η 2 -BH 3 )PPh 2 PCH 2 PPh 2 )-nido- 9,7,8-RhC 2 B 8 H 11 } which contains a bidentate dppmBH 3 moiety. The formation of bidentate phosphine-linked main group transition-metal moieties such as (BH 3 � PPh 2 (CH) n PPh 2 � IrCp*Cl 2 ) is also described as is an example of a bidentate phosphine-polyhedral borane adduct (NR 4 )(B 11 H 12 � (dppm)) in which the borane cage is isoelectronic with (B 11 H 14 ) - . Finally, a novel oxidative coupling reaction promoted by Cp 2 ZrCl 2 /n-BuLi to form the new nonaborane cage system, arachno-B 9 H 11 � (PPh 3 ) 2 , an unusual homolog of the well-known species B 10 H 12 � (PPh 3 ) 2 , is reported.