cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Double sequential defibrillation for out-of-hospital refractory ventricular fibrillation: A scoping review.

Abstract Background Double sequential defibrillation (DSD) has been proposed as a viable treatment option for patients in refractory ventricular fibrillation/pulseless ventricular tachycardia (VF/pVT) out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA). However, currently there is insufficient evidence to support a widespread implementation of this therapy. Study objectives The aim of this scoping review was to summarize the current available evidence of DSD for patients with refractory VF/pVT OHCA as well as to identify gaps in the literature that may require further research. Methods We conducted a comprehensive literature search of MEDLINE via PubMed, Embase via Ovid, and Scopus on August 19, 2019. We also checked reference lists of relevant papers to identify additional studies. Any controlled clinical study design (randomized controlled trials and non-randomized controlled trials), and observational studies (cohort studies and case-control studies) providing information on resuscitative parameters, survival rates and neurological outcomes in adults (≥ 18 years old) treated with DSD for refractory VF/pVT OHCA were included. Two investigators independently conducted the literature search, study selection, and data extraction. Results The search yielded 1612 unique records, of which 4 peer-reviewed articles were found relating to the research purpose, totaling 1061 patients of who 20.5% (n = 217) received DSD. Most studies evaluated if pre-hospital DSD was associated with improved survival to discharge after refractory VF/pVT. No randomized controlled trials were identified. Conclusion To date, it is difficult to conclude the real benefit of DSD for patients in refractory VF based on the available evidence. The findings of this scoping review suggest there is limited evidence to support at large-scale the use of DSD for refractory VF/pVT OHCA. Further research is needed to better characterize and understand the use of DSD for refractory VF/pVT, in order to implement best practices to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of care.
The NCAA, Fair Pay to Play, Antitrust Scrutiny, and the Need for Institutional Reform

This published keynote address explains why the NCAA's threat to ban member colleges that comply with California's Fair Pay to Play Act would violate Section One of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and why emerging state laws to grant college athletes the right to license their own names, images, and likenesses conforms with basic principles of liberty and fairness.
Reproducing Neural Ensemble Classifier for Semantic Relation Extraction inScientific Papers

Within the natural language processing (NLP) community, shared tasks play an important role. They define a common goal and allowthe the comparison of different methods on the same data. SemEval-2018 Task 7 involves the identification and classification of relationsin abstracts from computational linguistics (CL) publications. In this paper we describe an attempt to reproduce the methods and resultsfrom the top performing system at for SemEval-2018 Task 7. We describe challenges we encountered in the process, report on the resultsof our system, and discuss the ways that our attempt at reproduction can inform best practices.
A comprehensive survey of regulatory network inference methods using single-cell RNA sequencing data.

Gene regulatory network is a complicated set of interactions between genetic materials, which dictates how cells develop in living organisms and react to their surrounding environment. Robust comprehension of these interactions would help explain how cells function as well as predict their reactions to external factors. This knowledge can benefit both developmental biology and clinical research such as drug development or epidemiology research. Recently, the rapid advance of single-cell sequencing technologies, which pushed the limit of transcriptomic profiling to the individual cell level, opens up an entirely new area for regulatory network research. To exploit this new abundant source of data and take advantage of data in single-cell resolution, a number of computational methods have been proposed to uncover the interactions hidden by the averaging process in standard bulk sequencing. In this article, we review 15 such network inference methods developed for single-cell data. We discuss their underlying assumptions, inference techniques, usability, and pros and cons. In an extensive analysis using simulation, we also assess the methods' performance, sensitivity to dropout and time complexity. The main objective of this survey is to assist not only life scientists in selecting suitable methods for their data and analysis purposes but also computational scientists in developing new methods by highlighting outstanding challenges in the field that remain to be addressed in the future development.
Creative extraction: Black towns in white space:

This article interrogates the “anomalous” case of Black-founded towns, so-called because of their relative absence from discourse on Black place, their unique struggles for self-determined developm...
No need to go big: Teaching Framework concepts with small teaching

The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education encourages librarians to engage students with big ideas related to information creation, access, and use. One way that librarians may be able to do this is through a small teaching approach. In Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, James M. Lang uses insights from educational research to highlight small instructional interventions that support student learning. Although Lang does not specifically call out librarians as instructors, some of these strategies could be used to engage students with Framework concepts, even within a single session. In this essay, I focus on strategies in four areas—retrieving, predicting, connecting, and self-explaining. These were selected because they seem most applicable to a one-shot setting. For each, I describe models recommended by Lang and demonstrate how they could support increased understanding of Framework concepts. While none of these interventions by themselves may seem revolutionary to experienced instruction librarians, for some they may represent a new approach to intentionally teaching the Framework. While I have chosen to highlight only one Framework concept per category, there are likely ways to connect each strategy with any frame.
142. Implementing an Antimicrobial Stewardship Program in the Outpatient Setting

Background Antimicrobial-resistant infections lead to increased morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. Among the most facile modifiable risk factors for developing resistance is inappropriate prescribing. The CDC estimates that 47 million (or ≥30% of) outpatient antibiotic prescriptions in the United States are unnecessary. This has provided impetus for expanding our antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP) into the outpatient setting. Initial goals included the following: continuous evaluation and reporting of antibiotic prescribing compliance; minimize underuse of antibiotics from delayed diagnoses and misdiagnoses; ensure proper drug, dose, and duration; improve the percentage of appropriate prescriptions.
Toll-like receptor activation of equine mesenchymal stromal cells to enhance antibacterial activity and immunomodulatory cytokine secretion.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate effects of Toll-like and nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptor (TLR, NLR) ligand stimulation of equine mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) on antibacterial and immunomodulatory properties in vitro. STUDY DESIGN Controlled laboratory study. SAMPLE POPULATION Equine bone-marrow-derived MSCs (three horses). METHODS MSCs were stimulated with TLR (polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid [pIC] and lipopolysaccharide [LPS]) and NLR agonists (γ-d-Glu-mDAP [IE-DAP]) for 2 h, and plated at 1 × 105 cells/well 24 h. MSC-conditioned media (MSC-CM) were collected and assessed for antimicrobial peptide cathelicidin/LL-37 production, bactericidal action against multidrug-resistant planktonic and biofilm Staphylococcus aureus and neutrophil phagocytosis. Bacterial growth was measured by plating bacteria and counting viable colonies, reading culture absorbance, and live-dead staining with confocal microscopy imaging. Following initial comparison of activating stimuli, TLR3-agonist pIC protocols (cell density during activation and plating, culture time, %serum) were further optimized for bactericidal activity and secretion of interleukin-8 (IL-8), monocyte-chemoattractant-protein (MCP-1), and cathelicidin/LL37. RESULTS MSCs stimulation with pIC (p = .004) and IE-DAP (p = .03) promoted increased bactericidal activity, evidenced by reduced viable planktonic colony counts. PIC stimulation (2 × 106 cells/ml, 2 h, 10 μg/ml) further suppressed biofilm formation (p = .001), enhanced neutrophil bacterial phagocytosis (p = .009), increased MCP-1 secretion (p < .0001), and enhanced cathelicidin/LL-37 production, which was apparent when serum concentration in media was reduced to 1% (p = .01) and 2.5% (p = .05). CONCLUSION TLR-3 pIC MSCs activation was most effective to enhance antibacterial and cytokine responses, which were affected by serum reduction. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE In vitro TLR-3 activation of equine MSCs tested here may be a strategy to improve antibacterial properties of MSCs to treat antibiotic-resistant infections.
Distress Disclosure across Social Media Platforms during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Untangling the Effects of Platforms, Affordances, and Audiences

Understanding how and why people share negative emotions and thoughts on social media has received much scholarly attention. Scholars have identified a variety of factors that affect disclosure behavior, but as platforms offer a wider range of affordances that enable more diverse user behaviors and nuanced audience segmentation, these influencing factors are increasingly intertwined. However, little is known about the interrelatedness of platform, affordance, and audience. Drawing on survey data of 470 American adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examines the interplay and relative strength of the factors influencing distress disclosure on social media. We introduce the concept of social media disclosure ecology as an analytical lens to understand online disclosure. The results suggest that perceived affordances (i.e., anonymity, persistence, visibility control) and relational closeness to audience separately and interactively predict the depth of distress disclosure, which in turn affects satisfaction with disclosure. This study contributes to the literature on online-disclosure and privacy, while providing implications for the design of social media to better support people in distress.
A multi-national test on self-reported compliance with COVID-19 public health measures: The role of individual age and gender demographics and countries' developmental status.

Abstract Rationale/objective The COVID-19 pandemic has brought far-reaching consequences on individual and societal levels. Social distancing and physical hygiene constitute effective public health measures to limit the spread of the virus. This study investigated age and gender demographics, in tandem with national levels of human development, as crucial factors influencing self-reported compliance with COVID-19-related public health measures. Methods The present study leveraged a large multi-national sample that ranged across the adult lifespan (18–100 years) and comprised 45,772 women and men from 66 countries/territories. Data were collected in Spring (2020) during the earlier phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Self-reports of compliance with two public health measures (spatial distancing and physical hygiene) were assessed via online survey. Human Development Index (HDI), developed by the United Nations Development Program, was used as a proxy of a country's achievement in key dimensions of human development. Results Older age, female gender, and lower HDI were independently associated with greater self-reported compliance. A significant three-way interaction further revealed that self-reported compliance was lowest in young males from well-developed countries, while highest among females across all ages from less-developed countries. Conclusion The study offers an integration of individual-level and country-level demographic predictors of self-reported compliance and allows for robust testing in a large multi-national adult lifespan sample for enhanced generalizability. The results highlight the potential of data-driven, tailored (i.e., towards specific demographics, countries) health campaigns and public policies in the fight against a global pandemic.
Youth with Connections to the Juvenile Justice System: A Priority Population for School Behavioral Health

Behavioral health issues are disproportionately linked to juvenile justice-involved youth, with the majority of these youth experiencing elevated social, emotional, behavioral, and academic problems. Youth who experience early incarceration are often prone to recidivism and, even if they avoid the justice system after the initial offense, often experience numerous challenges later on. Schools can play an integral role in addressing risk factors that may predict classroom misbehavior or juvenile justice involvement, including untreated mental health issues. A range of themes are presented to improve identification of youth at risk for or involved in the juvenile justice system, matched with a continuum of effective supports corresponding to schools’ multi-tiered systems of support. Further, it is important to attend to the many transitions these students experience, along with challenges they experience in home and other environments. School behavioral health programs are well-positioned to promote prevention, early intervention, treatment, and other support for these youth and their families. However, schools often fail to attend to these youth and their needs, underscoring the public health significance of the agenda to enhance programming for students having or at-risk for juvenile justice involvement.
Intraperitoneal pretargeted radioimmunotherapy for colorectal peritoneal carcinomatosis.

Peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) is considered incurable, and more effective therapies are needed. Herein we test the hypothesis that GPA33-directed intracompartmental pretargeted radioimmunotherapy (PRIT) can cure colorectal PC. Nude mice were implanted intraperitoneally (i.p.) with luciferase-transduced GPA33-expressing SW1222 cells for aggressive PC (e.g., resected tumor mass 0.369 {plus minus} 0.246 g; n = 17 on day (d) 29). For GPA33-PRIT, we administered i.p. a high-affinity anti-GPA33/anti-DOTA bispecific antibody (BsAb), followed by clearing agent (i.v.), and lutetium-177 (Lu-177) or yttrium-86 (Y-86) radiolabeled DOTA-radiohapten (i.p.) for beta/gamma-emitter therapy and PET imaging, respectively. The DOTA-radiohaptens were prepared from S-2-(4-aminobenzyl)-1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane tetraacetic acid chelate (DOTA-Bn). Efficacy and toxicity of single- vs. three-cycle therapy were evaluated in mice 26-27 d post-tumor implantation. Single-cycle treatment ([177Lu]LuDOTA-Bn 111 MBq; tumor dose: 4992 cGy) significantly prolonged median survival (MS) approximately two-fold to 84.5 d in comparison with controls (P = 0.007). With three-cycle therapy (once weekly, total 333 MBq; tumor dose: 14975 cGy), 6/8 (75%) survived long-term (MS > 183 d). Furthermore, for these treated long-term survivors, one mouse was completely disease-free (microscopic "cure") at necropsy; the others showed stabilized disease, which was detectable during PET-CT using [86Y]DOTA-Bn. Treatment controls had MS ranging from 42-52.5 d (P < 0.001) and 19/20 mice succumbed to progressive i.p. disease by 69 d. Multi-cycle GPA33 DOTA-PRIT significantly prolongs survival with reversible myelosuppression and no chronic marrow (929 cGy to blood) or kidney (982 cGy) radiotoxicity, with TIs of 12 for blood and 12 for kidneys. MTD was not reached.
Guaranteed Sparse Recovery under Linear Transformation

We consider the following signal recovery problem: given a measurement matrix Φ ∈ Rn×p and a noisy observation vector c ∈ Rn constructed from c = Φθ* + e where e ∈ Rn is the noise vector whose entries follow i.i.d. centered sub-Gaussian distribution, how to recover the signal θ* if Dθ* is sparse under a linear transformation D ∈ Rm×p? One natural method using convex optimization is to solve the following problem: min θ 1/2||Φθ - c||2 + λ||Dθ||1. This paper provides an upper bound of the estimate error and shows the consistency property of this method by assuming that the design matrix Φ is a Gaussian random matrix. Specifically, we show 1) in the noiseless case, if the condition number of D is bounded and the measurement number n ≥ Ω(s log(p)) where s is the sparsity number, then the true solution can be recovered with high probability; and 2) in the noisy case, if the condition number of D is bounded and the measurement increases faster than s log(p), that is, s log(p) = o(n), the estimate error converges to zero with probability 1 when p and s go to infinity. Our results are consistent with those for the special case D = Ip×p (equivalently LASSO) and improve the existing analysis. The condition number of D plays a critical role in our analysis. We consider the condition numbers in two cases including the fused LASSO and the random graph: the condition number in the fused LASSO case is bounded by a constant, while the condition number in the random graph case is bounded with high probability if m/p (i.e., #edge/#vertex) is larger than a certain constant. Numerical simulations are consistent with our theoretical results.
Collective Guilt and Collective Guilt Feelings

Can collectives feel guilt with respect to what they have done? It hasbeen claimed that they cannot. Yet in everyday discourse collectives areoften held to feel guilt, criticized because they do not, and so on.Among other things, this paper considers what such so-called collectiveguilt feelings amount to. If collective guilt feelings are sometimesappropriate, it must be the case that collectives can indeed beguilty. The paper begins with an account of what it is for a collectiveto intend to do something and to act in light of that intention.According to this account, and in senses that are explained, there is acollective that intends to do something if and only if the members of agiven population are jointly committed to intend as a body to do thatthing. A related account of collective belief is also presented. It isthen argued that, depending on the circumstances, a group's action canbe free as opposed to coerced, and that the idea that a collective assuch can be guilty of performing a wrongful act makes sense. The ideathat a group might feel guilt may be rejected because it is assumed thatto feel guilt is to experience a ``pang'' or ``twinge'' of guilt –nothing more and nothing less. Presumably, though, there must becognitions and perhaps behavior involved. In addition, the primacy, eventhe necessity, of ``feeling-sensations'' to feeling guilt in theindividual case has been questioned. Without the presumption that it isalready clear what feeling guilt amounts to, three proposals as to thenature of collective guilt feelings are considered. A ``feeling ofpersonal guilt'' is defined as a feeling of guilt over one's own action.It is argued that it is implausible to construe collective guiltfeelings in terms of members' feelings of personal guilt. ``Membershipguilt feelings'' involve a group member's feeling of guilt over what hisor her group has done. It is argued that such feelings are intelligibleif the member is party to the joint commitment that lies at the base ofthe relevant collective intention and action. However, an account ofcollective guilt in terms of membership guilt feelings is found wanting.Finally, a ``plural subject'' account of collective guilt feelings isarticulated, such that they involve a joint commitment to feel guilt asa body. The parties to a joint commitment of the kind in question may asa result find themselves experiencing ``pangs'' of the kind associatedwith personal and membership guilt feelings. Since these pangs, byhypothesis, arise as a result of the joint commitment to feel guilt as abody, they might be thought of as providing a kind of phenomenology forcollective guilt. Be that as it may, it is argued the plural subjectaccount has much to be said for it.
Preventing aspiration in older adults with dysphagia.

TARGET POPULATION: Dysphagia is common in persons with neurologic diseases such as stroke, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. The older adult with one of these conditions is at even greater risk for aspiration because the dysphagia is superimposed on the slowed swallowing rate associated with normal aging. Conditions that suppress the cough reflex (such as sedation) further increase the risk for aspiration.
Gender-related differences in gene expression of the lacrimal gland.

Significant, gender-associated differences are known to occur in the structural profile, functional capacity, secretory activity and disease susceptibility (e.g. Sjogren’s syndrome) of the lacrimal gland.1 These differences include variations between males and females in the appearance, size, density, vesicular content and turnover of acinar epithelial cells, the quantity of intranuclear inclusions, the prominence of nucleoli, the frequency of intercellular channels, the number of capillary endothelial pores, the population density of lymphocytes, the expression of secretory immunity, the response to neural stimulation, the production, amount, activity and/or affinity of various proteins, enzymes and receptors, the secretion of specific proteins, and the susceptibility to viral replication, focal adenitis and autoimmune disease.1
DICESC: Optimal Policy in a Stochastic Control Framework

The effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission to climate change are uncertain; how does this uncertainty affect the optimal carbon abatement policy? Tackling this classic problem is challenging; not only does it require integrated assessment analyses that consolidate an adequate representation of both climate and economy, but also a sensible understanding of hedging incentives and decision making under uncertainty. In the Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) community, this representation is severely restricted by computational burdens and model intractability (Webster, Santen, and Parpas, 2012). I provide a minimal framework that relies on the transparency of mathematical programming, to assess precautionary mitigation as a means to hedge against the risk and uncertainty of climate catastrophes. The scope of the paper encompasses the following: assessment of optimal abatement under parameter uncertainty and endogenous learning; decomposition of optimal abatement with respect to mitigatory incentives; assessment of policy sensitivity to assumed distributions of uncertain temperature thresholds. I introduce DICESC, a multistage stochastic control version of Nordhaus’ DICE model to demonstrate that policy optimization in which the hazard rates of climate catastrophes can be controlled significantly increases incentives for precautionary abatement. Despite the drastic level increase in precautionary abatement the proposed formulation achieves, I stress the importance of understanding the distributive properties of uncertainty for the robust assessment of optimal policy.
On the Road of Good Intentions: Justice Brennan and the Religion Clauses

Associate Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan took the oath of office on October 16, 1956. At the time of Justice Brennan’s appointment to the Supreme Court, the Court had decided only a few cases involving the religion clauses of the first amendment, and judicial interpretation of the religion clauses had been sparing. In the thirty-four years of Justice Brennan’s tenure, the Court worked several revolutions in religion clause jurisprudence—revolutions guided by a sense of the needs of a changing society. Justice Brennan was one of several architects of a new order in establishment clause interpretation, and was the architect in reframing the constitutional view of the free exercise clause. In particular, the all-embracing interpretation of the establishment clause eventually was a catalyst used by a revisionist Supreme Court in 1990 to complete a revolution in free exercise jurisprudence. However, that revolution returned the legal interpretation of the free exercise of religion to an older order of things, and the middle level of generality used to evaluate establishment clause claims neither fostered the higher level goals of the Court nor created a specific understanding for governmental officials to guide their conduct. In other words, the good intentions by which the Supreme Court, including Justice Brennan, decided religion clause cases for much of the period between 1956 and 1990 have led to suspicion, misunderstanding, and confusion, not enlightenment, tolerance, and respect. So while Justice Brennan’s religion clause opinions were calculated to work a revolution in the sense of creating a new order, ultimately, this revolution sowed the seeds of a return to an older order. This revolution, which created Court-based protection for religious belief from legislative interference, appears destined to revolve into a situation in which religious belief is protected only through limited forms of legislative grace.
THE IMAGE OF BLACK PEOPLE IN BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION

The "ad hoc evaluation" of Brown v. Board of Education (i.e., the preoccupation with the immediate result of the case) has had more portentous consequences for the evolution of an authentically radical Black consciousness than it has had for the impassive American jurisprudential tradition (Wechsler, 1959). Though one can sympathize with the Negro leadership's acceptance of a narrow conceptualization of Brown in light of its customary proclivity to integrate, it remains incredible that Brown is universally regarded as having established the fountainhead of racial equality. Certainly this socially determined shortsightedness of the dominant Negro leadership class bespeaks its historic intellectual and social paralysis (Cruse, 1968; Kilson, n.d.). Apparently Brown desublimated the heretofore repressed fantasies of integrationists, perpetuating their remarkable insensitivity to the real needs of the burgeoning Black nation. The "ad hoc evaluation" of Brown fostered a national indulgence in the mirage(s) of pluralist egalitarianism, diverting Black consciousness from authentic struggle and impelling it toward the quixotic vision of "Black and white
The Deadweight Costs of Public Transit Subsidies

This paper determines the deadweight loss of operating and capital subsidies offered US public transit systems by extending previous research by Tullock (1997). It develops a method for calculating deadweight loss and using 2006 data for 227 single mode bus transit systems it estimates cost and share equations to obtain the coefficients needed to calculate this loss. It finds that deadweight loss from the subsidies is 6.83% of total cost or $0.861 million on the average and that operating subsidy accounts for $0.780 million of it while capital subsidy’s share is $0.0503 million. A further decomposition of the deadweight loss among its sources using regression shows that the incentive tier of the federal operating subsidy, federal labor protection (Section 13(c)), fleet size, and the number of maintenance facilities owned are positively associated with it while leasing instead of owning maintenance facilities and absence of dedicated funding sources are negatively associated with it.
Maturity: The Handiwork of Evolution.

This author seeks a definition of maturity that is all-inclusinve of the social, emotional, spiritual, and moral spheres, as evidence for evolutionary pressures toward higher functioning.
Interaction of a finite-span synthetic jet near the tip of a sweptback wing

An experimental investigation was performed to study the three-dimensional flow interaction of a finite-span (aspect ratio of 18) synthetic jet located near the tip of a sweptback wing (cross-sectional profile of NACA 4421, aspect ratio of 4, and sweep angle of 30°) at a Reynolds number of 105 and at three angles of attack of 0°, 9°, and 15.5° (covering the range of attached to separated flow in the vicinity of the synthetic jet). Three blowing ratios were considered as 0.8, 1.2, and 2. Stereoscopic particle image velocimetry data were collected at multiple 2-D planes in the vicinity of the jet’s orifice, which were then used to reconstruct the flow volume, and the effect of the jet’s blowing ratio was analyzed using time-averaged and phase-averaged statistics. The study showed that the flow field in the vicinity of the synthetic jet orifice becomes highly three-dimensional and is governed by the streamwise structures that are associated with the finite span of the orifice (edge vortices). Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the baseline flow field that develops over a swept-back configuration (characterized by spanwise and streamwise vorticity components) is responsible for the immediate breakdown of the coherent structures that are introduced by the synthetic jet orifice and for the formation of the secondary flow structures that were seen in the time-averaged flow field. Moreover, the presence of a tip vortex results in the development of a non-uniform (in the spanwise direction) spanwise boundary layer that becomes more pronounced with increasing angle of attack. Consequently, the development of the flow structures is altered. Finally, the present work suggests that the location of the synthetic jet along the span is not as important (as the angle of attack and the blowing ratio) in the overall formation and evolution of the flow structures issued from the jet. However, the size and strength of these structures are affected by the jet’s spanwise location.
Globalization and Redistribution: Feasible Egalitarianism in a Competitive World

For well-known reasons, a reduction of impediments to international flows of goods, and factors of production — commonly termed globalization — may enhance allocative efficiency both globally and within national economies, and the associated competition among nation states may contribute to governmental accountability.1 However, globalization is also thought to raise the economic costs of programmes by the nation state to redistribute income to the poor and to provide economic security for their populations. Among the reasons is the fact that the more internationally mobile factors of production — capital and professional labour — tend to be owned by the rich, and a nation-specific tax on a mobile factor induces national output-reducing relocations of these factors. Similar reasoning demonstrates the high cost of attempting to alter the relative prices of factors of production, for example, by raising the wage relative to the return to capital through trade union bargaining. Even Pareto-improving insurance-based policies are compromised, as cross-border mobility of citizens allow the lucky to escape the tax costs of supporting the unlucky, thereby reintroducing the problem of adverse selection plaguing private insurance and which public insurance was thought to avoid.
Solving Nonlinear Aeronautical Problems Using the Carleman Linearization Method

Many problems in aeronautics can be described in terms of nonlinear systems of equations. Carleman developed a technique to linearize such equations that could lead to analytical solutions of nonlinear problems. Nonlinear problems are difficult to solve in closed form and therefore the construction of such solutions is usually nontrivial. This research will apply the Carleman linearization technique to three model problems: a two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) ballistic trajectory, Blasius' boundary layer, and Van der Pol's equation and evaluate how well the technique can adequately approximate the solutions of these ordinary differential equations.
Inflation Targeting in Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and in General

One major objective of this chapter is to discuss arrangements and experiences in four countries that have recently adopted explicit inflation targets as guides for the conduct of monetary policy. The countries in question are Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, all of which adopted official inflation targets between 1990 and 1993.1 As these countries instituted their inflation targets with substantially different legislative provisions and targeting procedures, their experiences should eventually provide useful information concerning the design of effective central bank arrangements. But too little time has passed to date for such conclusions to be drawn with any confidence, so in the meantime it will be necessary to base tentative evaluations of inflation targeting on theoretical analysis and more generalized historical experiences. The second major objective of this chapter, accordingly, is to provide an analytical discussion of this type of the more important strengths and weaknesses of inflation targeting schemes.
Optimal Monte Carlo estimation of belief network inference

We present two Monte Carlo sampling algorithms for probabilistic inference that guarantee polynomial-time convergence for a larger class of network than current sampling algorithms provide. These new methods are variants of the known likelihood weighting algorithm. We use of recent advances in the theory of optimal stopping rules for Monte Carlo simulation to obtain an inference approximation with relative error e and a small failure probability δ. We present an empirical evaluation of the algorithms which demonstrates their improved performance.
Multi-sensor signal fusion-based modulation classification by using wireless sensor networks

Automatic modulation classification AMC is applied as the intermediate step between signal detection and demodulation to identify modulation schemes. AMC is a challenging task, especially in a non-cooperative environment, owing to the lack of prior information on the transmitted signal at the receiver. The proposed modulation classification scheme based on multi-sensor signal fusion makes the premise that the combined signal from multiple sensors provides a more accurate description than any one of the individual signals alone. Multi-sensor signal fusion offers increased reliability and huge processing gains in overall performance as compared with the single sensor, thus making AMC of weak signals in non-cooperative communication environment more reliable and successful. Signal-to-noise ratio improvement through multi-sensor signal fusion is studied by using second-order and fourth-order moments method. The classification performance based on multi-sensor signal fusion is investigated in the additive white Gaussian noise channel as well as the flat fading channel and is evaluated in terms of correct classification probability by taking the effects of timing synchronization, phase jitter, phase offset, and frequency offset into consideration, respectively. Through Monte Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed multi-sensor signal fusion-based AMC algorithm can greatly outperform other existing AMC methods.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Evaluation of Communicative Competence: The ACTFL Provisional Proficiency Guidelines

THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING PROFESSION, more than any other it seems to me, is in perpetual search for new slogans.' I recall the comment of a colleague back in 1971, when I was a newcomer to the profession and interested in exploring the concept of communicative competence.2 "Communicative competence," he said to me, "that'll be a good topic for a year or two. Then what are you going to do?" My colleague did not foresee the exploration and discussion that would ensue. Today, more than a decade later, interest in the concept of communicative competence has not only not waned, it continues to grow and has led to the elaboration of descriptive models that have in turn provided frameworks for further research into the nature and acquisition of second-language proficiency.3 The pre-eminence of communicative competence as a focus of discussions of second-language teaching and evaluation was nowhere more apparent than at the October 1984 TOEFL Invitational Conference at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton. The conference was held to consider revision
Heterogeneity in income processes

Macroeconomists are increasingly interested in heterogeneity in individuals' preferences and in the income risk that they face. Previous empirical papers have focused on only one or a few aspects of heterogeneity. In this paper, we estimate the entire joint distribution of risk preferences and income processes. Our model allows individual-specific trends, persistence and volatility of income and permits all of these characteristics to be correlated with the individual's risk preferences. We find substantial heterogeneity in all parameters of the income process. These findings potentially have substantial implications for the conclusions of microfounded macro models.
A sampling-based approach to computing equilibria in succinct extensive-form games

A central task of artificial intelligence is the design of artificial agents that act towards specified goals in partially observed environments. Since such environments frequently include interaction over time with other agents with their own goals, reasoning about such interaction relies on sequential game-theoretic models such as extensive-form games or some of their succinct representations such as multi-agent influence diagrams. The current algorithms for calculating equilibria either work with inefficient representations, possibly doubly exponential in the number of time steps, or place strong assumptions on the game structure. In this paper, we propose a sampling-based approach, which calculates extensive-form correlated equilibria with small representations without placing such strong assumptions. Thus, it is practical in situations where the previous approaches would fail. In addition, our algorithm allows control over characteristics of the target equilibrium, e.g., we can ask for an equilibrium with high social welfare. Our approach is based on a multiplicative-weight update algorithm analogous to AdaBoost, and Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. We prove convergence guarantees and explore the utility of our approach on several moderately sized multi-player games.
Poly-Locality in Quantum Computing

A polynomial depth quantum circuit affects, by definition, a poly-local unitary transformation of a tensor product state space. It is a reasonable belief [Fe], [L], [FKW] that, at a fine scale, these are precisely the transformations which will be available from physics to solve computational problems. The poly-locality of a discrete Fourier transform on cyclic groups is at the heart of Shor's factoring algorithm. We describe a class of poly-local transformations, which include the discrete orthogonal wavelet transforms, in the hope that these may be helpful in constructing new quantum algorithms. We also observe that even a rather mild violation of poly-locality leads to a model without one-way functions, giving further evidence that poly-locality is an essential concept.
Foreword: Calcified Tissue International and Musculoskeletal Research Special Issue: Bone Material Properties and Skeletal Fragility.

Skeletal fragility, and to a large extent the risk of fracture, is dependent on three general properties of a bone: the amount of bone (mass), the way the mass is distributed (architecture/geometry), and the material properties (characteristics of the mineral, collagen, non-collagenous proteins, skeletal hydration, and interaction among these constituents) of the tissue that compose the bone (Figure 1). Of these three broad characteristics, bone mass has received the greatest attention as a predictor of fracture in large part because it is the easiest to measure in a clinical setting. DEXA measurements of bone mineral density (BMD) have become the standard measure of skeletal health, and alone is used as the definition for pathology: one is diagnosed with osteoporosis if the BMD is greater than 2.5 standard deviations below the young adult mean for a Caucasian woman, regardless of other compensatory characteristics of the bone that may offset the lower BMD. Even so, most scientists who study bone understand the importance of architecture, both the connectivity of the trabecular lattice, as well as the importance of cortical width, thickness, and porosity to bone's rigidity. Architectural features are not completely independent of bone mass (eg loss of bone will affect trabecular connectivity), but can be (section modulus can increase even as bone mass declines). Thus, BMD does not provide a complete picture of fracture risk. Moreover, architectural features are more difficult to measure in a clinical setting and only recently have they been utilized, in combination with BMD, to try to assess fracture risk. One example of this is the recent use of the trabecular bone score (TBS), which integrates trabecular texture analysis with BMD values.
Network monitoring for security and forensics

Networked environment has grown hostile over the years. In order to guarantee the security of networks and the resources attached to networks it is necessary to constantly monitor and analyze network traffic. Increasing network bandwidth, however, prohibits the recording and analysis of raw network traffic. In this paper we discuss some challenges facing network monitoring and present monitoring strategies to alleviate the challenges.
Fast Detection of Scanning Worm Infections

Worm detection and response systems must act quickly to identify and quarantine scanning worms, as when left unchecked such worms have been able to infect the majority of vulnerable hosts on the Internet in a matter of minutes [9]. We present a hybrid approach to detecting scanning worms that integrates significant improvements we have made to two existing techniques: sequential hypothesis testing and connection rate limiting. Our results show that this two-pronged approach successfully restricts the number of scans that a worm can complete, is highly effective, and has a low false alarm rate.
Improved Evaluation of Sommerfeld Integrals for Microstrip Antenna Problems

An improved technique for accurate evaluation of the Sommerfeld integrals appearing in the G zx component single layer microstrip Green's function is described here that utilizes closed-form evaluation of the infinite tail, and numerical integration of a finite integral. The overall method avoids: (a) any pole calculations, and, (b) the traditional large argument approximation of the Bessel function of the Sommerfeld integrand. Initial numerical results from this proposed method are included. Since the method avoids any pole calculations, it can be expected to provide improvement for full-wave analysis of a wider class of microstrip patches on electrically thick substrates.
The effects of joint taxation of married couples on labor supply and non-wage income ☆

Abstract The United States changed its tax treatment of married couples in 1948, from a system in which each spouse paid taxes on his or her own income to a system in which a married couple is taxed as a unit. The switch from separate to joint taxation changed incentives for labor supply and asset ownership. This paper investigates the effects of the conversion to joint taxation, taking advantage of a natural experiment created by cross-state variation in property laws. Married individuals in states with community property laws had always been taxed as if each spouse had earned half of the couple's income, and thus were unaffected by the 1948 legal change. Comparing the behavior of highly-educated taxpayers in affected and unaffected states indicates that the tax change is associated with a decline of approximately 2 percentage points in the employment rate of married women, consistent with the higher first-dollar tax rates they faced after 1948. Women married to self-employed men were also less likely to have non-wage income after 1948, reflecting pre-1948 allocation of family assets to wives for tax purposes. The effects of joint taxation on married men's labor force participation and non-wage income holding are generally not statistically significant.
Normal and feature approximations from noisy point clouds

We consider the problem of approximating normal and feature sizes of a surface from point cloud data that may be noisy. These problems are central to many applications dealing with point cloud data. In the noise-free case, the normals and feature sizes can be approximated by the centers of a set of unique large Delaunay balls called polar balls. In presence of noise, polar balls do not necessarily remain large and hence their centers may not be good for normal and feature size approximations. Earlier works suggest that some large Delaunay balls can play the role of polar balls. However, these results were short in explaining how the big Delaunay balls should be chosen for reliable approximations and how the approximation error depends on various factors. We provide new analyses that fill these gaps. In particular, they lead to new algorithms for practical and reliable normal and feature approximations.
Assessing the learning curve of robotic sacrocolpopexy

Introduction and hypothesis The aim was to evaluate the learning curve of robotic sacrocolpopexy, adjusted for surgical risk.
I don't want to think about it now: decision theory with costly computation

Computation plays a major role in decision making. Even if an agent is willing to ascribe a probability to all states and a utility to all outcomes, and maximize expected utility, doing so might present serious computational problems. Moreover, computing the outcome of a given act might be difficult. In a companion paper we develop a framework for game theory with costly computation, where the objects of choice are Turing machines. Here we apply that framework to decision theory. We show how well-known phenomena like first-impression-matters biases (i.e., people tend to put more weight on evidence they hear early on), belief polarization (two people with different prior beliefs, hearing the same evidence, can end up with diametrically opposed conclusions), and the status quo bias (people are much more likely to stick with what they already have) can be easily captured in that framework. Finally, we use the framework to define some new notions: value of computational information (a computational variant of value of information) and computational value of conversation.
Airports, Air Pollution, and Contemporaneous Health

We link daily air pollution exposure to measures of contemporaneous health for communities surrounding the twelve largest airports in California. These airports are some of the largest sources of air pollution in the US, and they experience large changes in daily air pollution emissions depending on the amount of time planes spend idling on the tarmac. Excess airplane idling, measured as residual daily taxi time, is due to network delays originating in the Eastern US. This idiosyncratic variation in daily airplane taxi time significantly impacts the health of local residents, largely driven by increased levels of carbon monoxide (CO) exposure. We use this variation in daily airport congestion to estimate the population dose-response of health outcomes to daily CO exposure, examining hospitalization rates for asthma, respiratory, and heart-related emergency room admissions. A one standard deviation increase in daily pollution levels leads to an additional $540 thousand in hospitalization costs for respiratory and heart-related admissions for the 6 million individuals living within 10 km (6.2 miles) of the airports in California. These health effects occur at levels of CO exposure far below existing Environmental Protection Agency mandates, and our results suggest there may be sizable morbidity benefits from lowering the existing CO standard.