cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Showing People Behind Data: Does Anthropomorphizing Visualizations Elicit More Empathy for Human Rights Data?

We investigate the impact of using anthropomorphized data graphics over standard charts on viewers' empathy for, and prosocial behavior toward suffering populations, in the context of human rights narratives. We present a series of experiments conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk, in which we compare various forms of anthropomorphized data graphics-ranging from a single human figure that "fills up" to show proportional data, to separated groups of individual human beings-with a standard chart baseline. Each experiment uses two carefully crafted human rights data-driven stories to present the graphics. Contrary to our expectations, we consistently find that anthropomorphized data graphics and standard charts have very similar effects on empathy and prosocial behavior.
Sovereign Spreads and Contagion Risks in Asia

In the aftermath of the recent global financial turmoil, sovereign spreads have exhibited a significant degree of volatility. This paper explores how much of these movements in the spreads of Asian economies reflected shifts in global risk aversion or country-specific risks, directly from worsening fundamentals, or indirectly from spillovers originating in other sovereigns, or risks and uncertainty surrounding their exchange rates. This analysis finds that earlier in the crisis, the increase in market-implied contagion led to an increase of sovereign bond yields relative to the swaps. Higher-rated sovereign bonds in Asia benefited from the flight to quality that accompanied the increase in global risk aversion during this period. Once the systemic risks in the financial sectors worldwide were contained, the risk of sovereign spillovers eased, which, together with a fall in perceived currency-related risks, led to a fall in sovereign bond yields relative to swaps yields across the board. Comparing the situation to that of Europe, the present paper concludes that the debt crisis in the euro area has not affected the perception of sovereign risks of Asian economies. In fact, a fall in exchange rate and spillover risks, combined with stronger fundamentals, have led to a continued normalization of Asian sovereign spreads since the height of the financial crisis.
Landau singularities from the amplituhedron

We propose a simple geometric algorithm for determining the complete set of branch points of amplitudes in planar $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 4 super-Yang-Mills theory directly from the amplituhedron, without resorting to any particular representation in terms of local Feynman integrals. This represents a step towards translating integrands directly into integrals. In particular, the algorithm provides information about the symbol alphabets of general amplitudes. We illustrate the algorithm applied to the one- and two-loop MHV amplitudes.
Distributed temperature control via Geothermal Heat Pump systems in energy efficient buildings

Geothermal Heat Pump (GHP) systems are heating and cooling systems that use the ground as the temperature exchange medium. GHP systems are becoming more and more popular in recent years due to their high efficiency. Conventional control schemes of GHP systems are mainly designed for buildings with a single thermal zone. For large buildings with multiple thermal zones, those control schemes either lose efficiency or become costly to implement requiring a lot of real-time measurement, communication and computation. In this paper, we focus on developing energy efficient control schemes for GHP systems in buildings with multiple zones. We present a thermal dynamic model of a building equipped with a GHP system for floor heating/cooling and formulate the GHP system control problem as a resource allocation problem with the objective to maximize user comfort in different zones and to minimize the building energy consumption. We then propose real-time distributed algorithms to solve the control problem. Our distributed multi-zone control algorithms are scalable and do not need to measure or predict any exogenous disturbances such as the outdoor temperature and indoor heat gains. Thus, it is easy to implement them in practice. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes.
Structure of T Modules and Restricted Duals: The Classical and the Quantum Case

Abstract A concrete realization of Enright's T modules is obtained. This is used to show their self-duality. As a consequence, the restricted duals of Verma modules are also identified.
Effects of auditor-provided tax services on book-tax differences and on investors' mispricing of book-tax differences

Abstract Over the last decade, the joint provision of audit and non-audit services has been criticized for compromising auditor independence and affecting audit quality. Since 2005, the SEC has enacted rules restricting the types of non-audit services audit firms can provide clients. While most non-audit services are prohibited, a range of tax services are still allowed. Therefore, if compromises can emerge from allowing non-audit services, permitting tax services could be problematic. This study investigates the effect of auditor-provided tax services (ATS) on firms' levels of book-tax differences and on investors' mispricing of book-tax differences. Using a propensity-score matched sample from 2000 to 2013, I find strong evidence that firms acquiring ATS exhibit a low level of temporary book-tax differences, which in turn mitigate investors' levels of firms' mispricing. These results do not support regulators' claim that the provision of ATS compromises auditor independence. Instead, it suggests that purchasing ATS can improve overall accounting quality through knowledge spillover and thus help investors better price the value of firms.
Secret key generation with one communicator and a one-shot converse via hypercontractivity

A new model of multi-party secret key agreement is proposed, in which one terminal called the communicator can transmit public messages to other terminals before all terminals agree on a secret key. A single-letter characterization of the achievable region is derived in the stationary memoryless case. The new model generalizes some other (old and new) models of key agreement. In particular, key generation with an omniscient helper is the special case where the communicator knows all sources, for which we derive a zero-rate one-shot converse for the secret key per bit of communication.
Properties of hydrogen, helium, and silicon dioxide mixtures in giant planet interiors

Recent observations of Jupiter and Saturn provided by spacecraft missions, such as Juno and Cassini, compel us to revise and improve our models of giant planet interiors. Even though hydrogen and helium are by far the dominant species in these planets, heavy elements can play a significant role in the structure and evolution of the planet. For instance, giant-planet cores may be eroded by their surrounding fluid, which would result in a significantly increased concentration of heavy elements in the hydrogen-helium envelope. Furthermore, the heavy elements could inhibit convection by creating a stabilizing gradient of composition. In order to explore the effects of core erosion, we performed ab initio simulations to study structural, diffusion, and viscosity properties of dense multicomponent mixtures of hydrogen, helium, and silicon dioxide at relevant pressure-temperature conditions. We computed radial distribution functions to identify changes in the chemical behavior of the mixture and to reveal dissoc...
Comment Ranking Diversification in Forum Discussions

Viewing consumption of discussion forums with hundreds or more comments depends on ranking because most users only view top-ranked comments. When comments are ranked by an ordered score (e.g. number of replies or up-votes) without adjusting for semantic similarity of near-ranked comments, top-ranked comments are more likely to emphasize the majority opinion and incur redundancy. In this paper, we propose a top K comment diversification re-ranking model using Maximal Marginal Relevance (MMR) and evaluate its impact in three categories: (1) semantic diversity, (2) inclusion of the semantics of lower-ranked comments, and (3) redundancy, within the context of a HarvardX course discussion forum. We conducted a double-blind, small-scale evaluation experiment requiring subjects to select between the top 5 comments of a diversified ranking and a baseline ranking ordered by score. For three subjects, across 100 trials, subjects selected the diversified (75% score, 25% diversification) ranking as significantly (1) more diverse, (2) more inclusive, and (3) less redundant. Within each category, inter-rater reliability showed moderate consistency, with typical Cohen-Kappa scores near 0.2. Our findings suggest that our model improves (1) diversification, (2) inclusion, and (3) redundancy, among top K ranked comments in discussion forums of online courses.
Measuring the complexity of urban form and design

Complex systems have become a popular lens for analyzing cities, and complexity theory has many implications for urban performance and resilience. This paper develops a typology of measures and indicators for assessing the physical complexity of the built environment at the scale of urban design. It extends quantitative measures from city planning, network science, ecosystems studies, fractal geometry, statistical physics, and information theory to the analysis of urban form and qualitative human experience. Metrics at multiple scales are scattered throughout diverse bodies of literature and have useful applications in analyzing the adaptive complexity that both evolves and results from local design processes. In turn, they enable urban designers to assess resilience, adaptability, connectedness, and livability with an advanced toolkit. The typology developed here applies to empirical research of various neighborhood types and design standards. It includes temporal, visual, spatial, scaling, and connectivity measures of the urban form. Today, prominent urban design movements openly embrace complexity but must move beyond metaphor and inspiration to formalize what "complexity" is and how we can use it to assess both the world as-is as well as proposals for how it could be instead.
Reconfigurable media processing

Multimedia processing is becoming increasingly important with wide variety of applications ranging from multimedia cell phones to high definition interactive television. Media processing techniques typically involve the capture, storage, manipulation and transmission of multimedia objects such as text, handwritten data, audio objects, still images, 2D/3D graphics, animation and full-motion video. A number of implementation strategies have been proposed for processing multimedia data. These approaches can be broadly classified into two major categories, namely (i) general purpose processors with programmable media processing capabilities, and (ii) dedicated implementations (ASICs). We have performed a detailed complexity analysis of the recent multimedia standard (MPEG-4) which has shown the potential for reconfigurable computing, that adapts the underlying hardware dynamically in response to changes in the input data or processing environment. We therefore propose a methodology for designing a reconfigurable media processor. This involves hardware-software co-design implemented in the form of a parser, profiler, recurring pattern analyzer, spatial and temporal partitioner. The proposed methodology enables efficient partitioning of resources for complex and time critical multimedia applications.
Repairing Reed-Solomon Codes

We study the performance of Reed–Solomon (RS) codes for the exact repair problem in distributed storage. Our main result is that, in some parameter regimes, Reed–Solomon codes are optimal regenerating codes, among maximum distance separable (MDS) codes with linear repair schemes. Moreover, we give a characterization of MDS codes with linear repair schemes, which holds in any parameter regime, and which can be used to give non-trivial repair schemes for RS codes in other settings. More precisely, we show that for $k$ -dimensional RS codes whose evaluation points are a finite field of size $n$ , there are exact repair schemes with bandwidth $(n-1)\log ((n-1)/(n-k))$ bits, and that this is optimal for any MDS code with a linear repair scheme. In contrast, the naive (commonly implemented) repair algorithm for this RS code has bandwidth $k\log (n)$ bits. When the entire field is used as evaluation points, the number of nodes $n$ is much larger than the number of bits per node (which is $O(\log (n))$ ), and so this result holds only when the degree of sub-packetization is small. However, our method applies in any parameter regime, and to illustrate this for high levels of sub-packetization, we give an improved repair scheme for a specific (14,10)-RS code used in the facebook hadoop analytics cluster.
MODIS Retrieval of Aerosol Optical Depth over Turbid Coastal Water

We present a new approach to retrieve Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) over the turbid coastal water. This approach supplements the operational Dark Target (DT) aerosol retrieval algorithm that currently does not conduct AOD retrieval in shallow waters that have visible sediments or sea-floor (i.e., Class 2 waters). Over the global coastal water regions in cloud-free conditions, coastal screening leads to ~20% unavailability of AOD retrievals. Here, we refine the MODIS DT algorithm by considering that water-leaving radiance at 2.1 µm to be negligible regardless of water turbidity, and therefore the 2.1 µm reflectance at the top of the atmosphere is sensitive to both change of fine-mode and coarse-mode AODs. By assuming that the aerosol single scattering properties over coastal turbid water are similar to those over the adjacent open-ocean pixels, the new algorithm can derive AOD over these shallow waters. The test algorithm yields ~18% more MODIS-AERONET collocated pairs for six AERONET stations in the coastal water regions. Furthermore, comparison of the new retrieval with these AERONET observations show that the new AOD retrievals have equivalent or better accuracy than those retrieved by the MODIS operational algorithm's over coastal land and non-turbid coastal water product. Combining the new retrievals with the existing MODIS operational retrievals yields an overall improvement of AOD over those coastal water regions. Most importantly, this refinement extends the spatial and temporal coverage of MODIS AOD retrievals over the coastal regions where 60% of human population resides. This expanded coverage is crucial for better understanding of impact of aerosol particles on coastal air quality and climate.
Human-Computer Interaction in Context: Physician Interaction with Automated Intravenous Controllers in the Heart Room

Abstract One result of recent research on human error and disaster is that the design of the human-machine system, defined broadly, modulates the potential for erroneous action. Clumsy space use of technological powers can create additional mental burdens or other constraints on human performance that can increase the chances of erroneous actions by people especially in high workload, high tempo operations. This paper describes studies of a computer based automated device that combine critical incident analysis, bench test evaluations of the device, and field observation in order to understand physician-device interaction in the context of heart surgery. The results link, for the same device, user group and context, three findings. First, the device exhibits classic human-computer interaction flaws such as lack of feedback on device state and behavior. Second, these HCI flaws actually do increase the potential for erroneous actions and increase the potential for erroneous assessments of device state and behavior. The potential for erroneous state assessment is especially troublesome because it impairs the user’s ability to detect and recover from misassemblies, misoperations and device failures. Third, these data plus critical incident studies directly implicate the increased potential for erroneous setup and the decreased ability to detect errors as one kind of important contributor to actual incidents. The increased potential for error that emanates from poor human-computer interaction is one type of latent failure that can be activated and progress towards disaster given the presence of other potentiating factors in Reason’s model of the anatomy of disasters.
Software design patterns for TinyOS

We present design patterns used by software components in the TinyOS sensor network operating system. They differ significantly from traditional software design patterns because of the constraints of sensor networks and to TinyOS's focus on static allocation and whole-program composition. We describe how nesC has evolved to support these design patterns by including a few simple language primitives and optimizations.
SPATIAL UNCERTAINTY MANAGEMENT FOR A MOBILE ROBOT AND ITS ROLE IN EXPECTATION-BASED PERCEPTION

Abstract The Autonomous Robot Architecture (AuRA) incorporates an Uncertainty Management Subsystem that is used to guide perceptual processing. Expectations generated from a spatial uncertainty map provide windows into incoming video images that are used for the recognition and tracking of landmarks. This system takes advantage of a priori world knowledge to control the growth of uncertainty as well as to predict landmark location.
Targeted Debt Relief and the Origins of Financial Distress: Experimental Evidence from Distressed Credit Card Borrowers

We study the drivers of financial distress using a large-scale field experiment that offered randomly selected borrowers a combination of (i) immediate payment reductions to target short-run liquidity constraints and (ii) delayed interest write-downs to target long-run debt constraints. We identify the separate effects of the payment reductions and interest write-downs using both the experiment and cross-sectional variation in treatment intensity. We find that the interest write-downs significantly improved both financial and labor market outcomes, despite not taking effect for three to five years. In sharp contrast, there were no positive effects of the more immediate payment reductions. These results run counter to the widespread view that financial distress is largely the result of short-run constraints.
Licensing long-distance wh -in-situ in Malayalam

It is generally thought that wh-in-situ, like overt movement, is potentially unbounded. At the same time, certain languages have been argued to disallow long-distance wh-in-situ. This paper argues that even in languages that show apparent clause-boundedness effects, wh-in-situ, like wh-movement, can in principle cross an arbitrary number of clauses. Failure to license a wh-phrase across a clause boundary, when it occurs, can be shown to result from the interaction between wh-agreement and independent operations affecting embedded clauses. Evidence will be drawn primarily from Malayalam (Dravidian), which has been argued to disallow long-distance wh-in-situ with finite embedded clauses. I will show that the relevant factor for wh-licensing is not finiteness, but Ā-movement of embedded clauses, an operation that is common with finite CPs. The core of the problem lies in the fact that interrogative C is a generalized [Ā]-probe that can interact with a number of featurally more specific goals, including the [Ā]-features on the head of the moving clause. It will be shown that this approach can account for a number of facts about Malayalam wh-question formation, including selective transparency of certain finite clauses for long-distance wh-licensing.
A New Bowel Preparation for Elective Colon and Rectal Surgery: A Prospective, Randomized Clinical Trial

A two-day cathartic/enema preparation with oral administration of erythromycin and neomycin was compared with an orthograde lavage preparation with oral administration of metronidazole and neomycin in a prospective randomized trial in 300 and 293 eligible patients, respectively, who were undergoing elective colon and rectal surgery. Patients were assessed for infections at six weeks after discharge from the hospital. The major infection rate was less than 1% and the minor infection rate was less than 4%. The overall infection rate was 4.2%. The type of bowel preparation used, the type of operation, and the addition of systemic antibiotic therapy did not affect infection rates significantly. We conclude that this one-day lavage technique, as described, is a safe, effective, economical, and preferred method of colonic preparation for elective colon and rectal surgery.
Action of Prolactin in Regressing Prostate: Independent of Action Mediated by Androgen Receptors

Hyperprolactinemia, achieved by grafting pituitaries under the renal capsule, has been shown to cause a delay in the rate of castration-induced prostatic regression in rats. The mechanism of this prolactin action is not established, although it has been suggested that the action of prolactin in the rat prostate is mediated through the action of androgen. To explore the possibility that a small amount of residual endogenous androgen present in the prostate at the time of castration acts synergistically with prolactin to cause this delay in prostatic regression, Flutamide has been used in the present study in an attempt to inhibit this residual androgen effect by blocking its interaction with androgen receptors. Two experiments were conducted. In experiment 1, daily sc injections of Flutamide (25 mg/kg) for 7 days to castrated rats supplemented with dihydrotestosterone-filled silastic tubing either 1 or 4 cm long completely suppressed both prostatic weight and protein content to the level that was normally observed in castrated rats receiving empty tubings. Furthermore, treatment of Flutamide to castrated rats did not cause an increase in prostatic weight and protein content over those of castrated rats treated with the vehicle only. These results indicate that Flutamide, at this dosage, is a potent antiandrogen and that the compound itself does not have any androgenic activity in the rat prostate. In experiment 2, adult male rats were castrated and received two female pituitaries grafted under the renal capsule. One week later, their serum prolactin levels increased from 20 +/- 3 ng/ml to 102 +/- 8 ng ml. This elevated level of serum prolactin was associated with a delay in the rate of prostatic regression. Administration of Flutamide, at a dose (25 mg/kg) which completely suppressed prostatic growth, failed to inhibit the delay in prostatic regression in castrated rats bearing the pituitary grafts. Since Flutamide inhibits the androgen action in the prostate by blocking the binding of intracellular dihydrotestosterone to androgen receptors, the failure of Flutamide to block the effect of prolactin suggests that the prolactin action in regressing prostates is not mediated by androgen receptors.
Undiversion in Children With Renal Failure

Four children with moderate and 9 with severe chronic renal failure and cutaneous ureterostomies or vesicostomies underwent undiversion to facilitate the eradication of urinary tract infection, reestablish bladder function, and to avoid ablating posterior urethral valves in a dry urethra. This allowed for proper preparation for renal transplantation. In addition, for the less severe cases for whom renal transplantation was more remote, the psychosocial benefits of undiversion were equally important. There were three complications that were easily managed. In four cases of moderate chronic renal failure and in seven cases of severe renal failure not requiring hemodialysis, there was no deterioration of renal function following undiversion. Two patients were on hemodialysis prior to undiversion. The urinary tract became sterile in 12 patients. These preliminary results suggest that chronic renal failure is not a contraindication for urinary undiversion and that this procedure may facilitate future management of the patient, including renal transplantation.
Nonurographic Evaluation of Renal Calculous Disease

While excretory urography has been useful in the evaluation of patients with renal calculi, it does have certain limitations. These include (a) poor differentiation of calculi from other causes of radiolucent filling defects within the renal collecting system, (b) poor visualization because of decreased renal function, and (c) possible contraindication in patients with a history of significant allergic reaction. Computed tomography (CT) and ultrasound are noninvasive techniques which have proved to be useful in the evaluation of nonopaque calculi. The greater density discrimination of CT allows stones to be visualized as areas of increased density without the need for intravenous contrast material. On ultrasound, calculi appear as echogenic areas with posterior acoustical shadowing. These imaging modalities have also been useful for preoperative assessment of the position of renal calculi, intraoperative localization of calculi, and determination of the response of a calculus to dissolution therapy.
A complete basis of helicity operators for subleading factorization

Factorization theorems underly our ability to make predictions for many processes involving the strong interaction. Although typically formulated at leading power, the study of factorization at subleading power is of interest both for improving the precision of calculations, as well as for understanding the all orders structure of QCD. We use the SCET helicity operator formalism to construct a complete power suppressed basis of hard scattering operators for e+e− → dijets, e−p → e− jet, and constrained Drell-Yan, including the first two subleading orders in the amplitude level power expansion. We analyze the field content of the jet and soft function contributions to the power suppressed cross section for e+e− → dijet event shapes, and give results for the lowest order matching to the contributing operators. These results will be useful for studies of power corrections both in fixed order and resummed perturbation theory.
An orthogonal test of the $L$-functions Ratios Conjecture, II

We test the predictions of (a weakened version of) the L-functions Ratios Conjecture for the family of cuspidal newforms of weight k and level N , with either k fixed and N → ∞ through the primes or N = 1 and k → ∞. We study the main and lower order terms in the 1-level density. We provide evidence for the Ratios Conjecture by computing and confirming its predictions up to a power savings in the family’s cardinality, at least for test functions whose Fourier transforms are supported in (−2, 2). We do this both for the weighted and unweighted 1-level density (where in the weighted case we use the Petersson weights), thus showing that either formulation may be used. These two 1-level densities differ by a term of size 1/ log(kN). Finally, we show that there is another way of extending the sums arising in the Ratios Conjecture, leading to a different answer (although the answer is such a lower order term that it is hopeless to observe which is correct).
Uncertainty analysis of decomposing polyurethane foam

Abstract Sensitivity/uncertainty analyses are necessary to determine where to allocate resources for improved predictions in support of our nation’s nuclear safety mission. Yet, sensitivity/uncertainty analyses are not commonly performed on complex combustion models because the calculations are time consuming, CPU intensive, nontrivial exercises that can lead to deceptive results. To illustrate these ideas, a variety of sensitivity/uncertainty analyses were used to determine the uncertainty associated with thermal decomposition of polyurethane foam exposed to high radiative flux boundary conditions. The polyurethane used in this study is a rigid closed-cell foam used as an encapsulant. The response variable was chosen as the steady-state decomposition front velocity. Four different analyses are presented, including (1) an analytical mean value (MV) analysis, (2) a linear surrogate response surface (LIN) using a constrained latin hypercube sampling (LHS) technique, (3) a quadratic surrogate response surface (QUAD) using LHS, and (4) a direct LHS (DLHS) analysis using the full grid and time step resolved finite element model. To minimize the numerical noise, 50 μm elements and approximately 1 ms time steps were required to obtain stable uncertainty results. The complex, finite element foam decomposition model used in this study has 25 input parameters that include chemistry, polymer structure, and thermophysical properties. The surrogate response models (LIN and QUAD) are shown to give acceptable values of the mean and standard deviation when compared to the fully converged DLHS model.
Complexity of the genomic landscape of renal cell carcinoma: Implications for targeted therapy and precision immuno-oncology.

Abstract The topic of tumoral heterogeneity at the genetic level has become relevant in various solid origin tumors, particularly in an age of targeted treatment. Renal cell carcinoma is known for a sizable subset of tumors presenting at advanced clinical stage, further highlighting the importance and timeliness of this topic and its potential impact on adjuvant therapy. Recent studies have shown that molecular aberrations in renal cell carcinoma go beyond known truncal mutations and that downstream, subclonal aberrations are spatially heterogenous. Intratumoral heterogeneity as well as the differences in the molecular landscape between primary and metastatic lesions remains underappreciated, often due to inadequate sampling of tumors. The overall effect of these factors on the efficacy of current treatment options in renal cell carcinoma remains unknown; however, several recent studies have attempted to elucidate the extent and impact genetic heterogeneity in renal cell neoplasia may have on patient treatment and prognosis.
Relationships between simple asphalt mixture cracking tests using Ndesign specimens and fatigue cracking at FHWA’s accelerated loading facility

Current methods and criteria for asphalt mix design and quality assurance testing are unable to discern the true impact of recycled materials such as RAP, recycled shingles, ground tyre rubber, re-...
Development of a new methodology to effectively predict the fracture properties of RAP mixtures

The existing design method for reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) mixtures assumes virgin and RAP binders fully blend. However, full blending may not occur and the impact of partial blending on mixture cracking performance is still unclear. A previous study revealed that RAP gradation, which is not currently considered from the standpoint of binder blending, controls the distribution of RAP binder within a mixture and consequently affects cracking performance. The objective of this study was to develop a methodology that overcomes the uncertainty of blending and effectively predicts fracture properties of RAP mixtures. This methodology is based on the evaluation of the interstitial component (IC) of a mixture (i.e. the fine portion that governs cracking performance) by means of a direct tension test named interstitial component direct tension (ICDT) test. Two RAP sources and four RAP contents were considered. ICDT specimens were produced by blending the fine portion of RAP and virgin aggregate with virgin b...
Marker-free method for accurate alignment between correlated light, cryo-light, and electron cryo-microscopy data using sample support features.

Abstract Combining fluorescence microscopy with electron cryo-tomography allows, in principle, spatial localization of tagged macromolecular assemblies and structural features within the cellular environment. To allow precise localization and scale integration between the two disparate imaging modalities, accurate alignment procedures are needed. Here, we describe a marker-free method for aligning images from light or cryo-light fluorescence microscopy and from electron cryo-microscopy that takes advantage of sample support features, namely the holes in the carbon film. We find that the accuracy of this method, as judged by prediction errors of the hole center coordinates, is better than 100 nm.
Consumer forecast revisions: Is information really so sticky?

Abstract Previous studies using consumer survey data on inflation expectations find that consumers revise their inflation forecasts approximately once every eight months, suggesting that information is quite “sticky.” However, in the consumer survey data analyzed, respondents take the survey twice with a six-month gap, and responses are reported to the nearest integer. Both the low frequency and the rounding result in overestimation of information stickiness. Higher-frequency unrounded data reveals that consumers revise their inflation expectations far more frequently—about five times in an eight month period.
Connecting the Dots: Privacy Leakage via Write-Access Patterns to the Main Memory

Data-dependent access patterns of an application to an untrusted storage system are notorious for leaking sensitive information about the user's data. Previous research has shown how an adversary capable of monitoring both read and write requests issued to the memory can correlate them with the application to learn its sensitive data. However, information leakage through only the write access patterns is less obvious and not well studied in the current literature. In this work, we demonstrate an actual attack on power-side-channel resistant Montgomery's ladder based modular exponentiation algorithm commonly used in public key cryptography. We infer the complete 512-bit secret exponent in $\mathbf{\sim 3.5}$ ∼ 3 . 5 minutes by virtue of just the write access patterns of the algorithm to the main memory. In order to learn the victim algorithm's write access patterns under realistic settings, we exploit a compromised DMA device to take frequent snapshots of the application's address space, and then run a simple differential analysis on these snapshots to find the write access sequence. The attack has been shown on an Intel Core(TM) i7-4790 3.60GHz processor based system. We further discuss a possible attack on McEliece public-key cryptosystem that also exploits the write-access patterns to learn the secret key.
Superconformal Bottom-Up Cobalt Deposition in High Aspect Ratio Through Silicon Vias

This work demonstrates void-free cobalt filling of 56 μm tall, annular Through Silicon Vias (TSVs) using a mechanism that couples suppression breakdown and surface topography to achieve controlled bottom-up deposition. The chemistry, a Watts electrolyte containing a dilute suppressing additive, and processes are described. This work extends understanding and application of the additive-derived S-shaped Negative Differential Resistance (S-NDR) mechanism, including previous demonstrations of superconformal filling of TSVs with nickel, copper, zinc and gold.
Egg viability decreases rapidly with time since ovulation in the rainbow darter Etheostoma caeruleum: implications for the costs of choosiness.

Egg viability in the rainbow darter Etheostoma caeruleum, a fish apparently lacking female mate choice, was found to decline rapidly after ovulation. It was observed that the majority of a female's clutch may fail to hatch if she is prevented from mating for as little as 6 h. These data suggest that exercising female mate preferences may be selectively disfavoured in E. caeruleum due to the high cost of delaying mating.
Associations of the Top 20 Alzheimer Disease Risk Variants With Brain Amyloidosis.

Importance Late-onset Alzheimer disease (AD) is highly heritable. Genome-wide association studies have identified more than 20 AD risk genes. The precise mechanism through which many of these genes are associated with AD remains unknown. Objective To investigate the association of the top 20 AD risk variants with brain amyloidosis. Design, Setting, and Participants This study analyzed the genetic and florbetapir F 18 data from 322 cognitively normal control individuals, 496 individuals with mild cognitive impairment, and 159 individuals with AD dementia who had genome-wide association studies and 18 F-florbetapir positron emission tomographic data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), a prospective, observational, multisite tertiary center clinical and biomarker study. This ongoing study began in 2005. Main Outcomes and Measures The study tested the association of AD risk allele carrier status (exposure) with florbetapir mean standard uptake value ratio (outcome) using stepwise multivariable linear regression while controlling for age, sex, and apolipoprotein E e4 genotype. The study also reports on an exploratory 3-dimensional stepwise regression model using an unbiased voxelwise approach in Statistical Parametric Mapping 8 with cluster and significance thresholds at 50 voxels and uncorrected P Results This study included 977 participants (mean [SD] age, 74 [7.5] years; 535 [54.8%] male and 442 [45.2%] female) from the ADNI-1, ADNI-2, and ADNI–Grand Opportunity. The adenosine triphosphate–binding cassette subfamily A member 7 ( ABCA7 ) gene had the strongest association with amyloid deposition (χ 2 = 8.38, false discovery rate–corrected P ABCA7 in the asymptomatic and early symptomatic disease stages, suggesting an association with rapid amyloid accumulation. The fermitin family homolog 2 ( FERMT2 ) gene had a stage-dependent association with brain amyloidosis ( FERMT2 × diagnosis χ 2 = 3.53, false discovery rate–corrected P = .05), which was most pronounced in the mild cognitive impairment stage. Conclusions and Relevance This study found an association of several AD risk variants with brain amyloidosis. The data also suggest that AD genes might differentially regulate AD pathologic findings across the disease stages.
Contact Issues of GaN Technology

In this paper, we discuss the issue of fabricating reliable and reproducible ohmic contacts on AlGaN HFET structures. During the course of our investigation of fabricating contacts to HFETs, we found that the contact properties could vary significantly from one sample to another, even though they were nominally the same. This problem was prominently manifested in the ohmic contact behavior. The origin of this problem was traced back to the variation of the HFET structure during growth. In this paper, we report an attempt to fabricate reproducible ohmic contacts of these structures.
Does Fair Value Accounting Provide More Useful Financial Statements than Current GAAP for Banks

ABSTRACT Standard setters contend that fair value accounting yields the most relevant measurement for financial instruments. We examine this claim by comparing the value relevance of banks' financi...
Distributional Inclusion Vector Embedding for Unsupervised Hypernymy Detection

Modeling hypernymy, such as poodle is-a dog, is an important generalization aid to many NLP tasks, such as entailment, relation extraction, and question answering. Supervised learning from labeled hypernym sources, such as WordNet, limits the coverage of these models, which can be addressed by learning hypernyms from unlabeled text. Existing unsupervised methods either do not scale to large vocabularies or yield unacceptably poor accuracy. This paper introduces distributional inclusion vector embedding (DIVE), a simple-to-implement unsupervised method of hypernym discovery via per-word non-negative vector embeddings which preserve the inclusion property of word contexts. In experimental evaluations more comprehensive than any previous literature of which we are aware—evaluating on 11 datasets using multiple existing as well as newly proposed scoring functions—we find that our method provides up to double the precision of previous unsupervised methods, and the highest average performance, using a much more compact word representation, and yielding many new state-of-the-art results.
Computational aspects of heat transfer in structures via transfinite element formulations

The paper presents a generalized Transform Method based Finite Element methodology for thermal analysis with emphasis on the computational aspects of heat transfer in structures. The purpose of this paper is to present an alternate methodology for thermal analysis of structures and therein outline the advantages of the approach in comparison with conventional finite element schemes and existing practices. The overall goals of the research, however, are aimed first toward enhanced thermal formulations and therein to provide avenues for subsequent interdisciplinary thermal/structural analysis via a common numerical methodology. Basic concepts of the approach for thermal analysis is described with emphasis on a Laplace Transform based finite element methodology. Highlights and characteristic features of the approach are described via generalized formulations and applications to several problems. Results obtained demonstrate excellent agreement in comparison with analytic and/or conventional finite element solutions with savings in computational times and model sizes. Potential of the approach for interdisciplinary thermal/structural problems are also identified.
Mechanisms of Directed Self-Assembly in Cylindrical Hole Confinements

The directed self-assembly of block copolymers in cylindrical holes is a promising technology for lithographic patterning, particularly in the context of vertical interconnect accesses. While the hole-shrink process for single cylinders has been extensively explored, the proliferation of morphological defects remains a significant technological barrier. We use a coarse-grained model to explore morphologies that form within cylindrical confinements for combinations of template surface energies. We identify metastable defect morphologies, in addition to the desired cylindrical morphology, in majority-wetting sidewall templates. We use our coarse-grained model and the string method to identify transition pathways between defective morphologies and the cylindrical morphology to elucidate the mechanism of defect annihilation within the confinements; the transition pathway from a disordered state is also identified. This work demonstrates that the minimum free energy path for the formation of a cylinder goes th...
Firm entry, product repositioning and welfare

Abstract We show that the entry of a second firm in a horizontally differentiated market (ala Hotelling) may harm consumers as prices increase and consumer’s surplus possibly decrease. We first derive the price and the consumer’s surplus of a monopoly which is located at the center of the market. When a second firm enters the market the first firm repositions and the two firms locate at their equilibrium points. Although competition adds to variety and increases consumer’s surplus, the post entry increase in price may outweight the gains from extra variety and make consumers worse off.
The evolution of nesting behaviour in Peromyscus mice

Structures built by animals, such as nests, often can be considered extended phenotypes that facilitate the study of animal behaviour. For rodents, nest building is both an important form of behavioural thermoregulation and a critical component of parental care. Changes in nest structure or the prioritization of nesting behaviour are therefore likely to have consequences for survival and reproduction, and both biotic and abiotic environmental factors are likely to influence the adaptive value of such differences. Here we first develop a novel assay to investigate interspecific variation in the nesting behaviour of deer mice (genus Peromyscus). Using this assay, we find that, while there is some variation in the complexity of the nests built by Peromyscus mice, differences in the latency to begin nest construction are more striking. Four of the seven taxa examined here build nests within an hour of being given nesting material, but this latency to nest is not related to ultimate differences in nest structure, suggesting that the ability to nest is relatively conserved within the genus, but species differ in their prioritization of nesting behaviour. We also find that latency to nest is not correlated with body size, climate or the construction of burrows that create microclimates. However, the four taxa with short nesting latencies all have monogamous mating systems, suggesting that differences in nesting latency may be related to social environment. This detailed characterization of nesting behaviour within the genus provides an important foundation for future studies of the genetic and neurobiological mechanisms that contribute to the evolution of behaviour.
Machine Learning @ Amazon

In this talk, I will first provide an overview of key problem areas where we are applying Machine Learning techniques within Amazon such as product demand forecasting, product search, and information extraction from reviews, and associated technical challenges. I will then talk about two specific applications where we use a variety of methods to learn semantically rich representations of data: question answering where we use deep learning techniques and product size recommendations where we use probabilistic models. Rajeev Rastogi is a Director of Machine Learning at Amazon where he is developing ML platforms and applications for the e-commerce domain. Previously, he was Vice President of Yahoo! Labs Bangalore and the founding Director of the Bell Labs Research Center in Bangalore, India. Rajeev is an ACM Fellow and a Bell Labs Fellow. He is active in the fields of databases, data mining, and networking, and has served on the program committees of several conferences in these areas. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the CACM, VLDB Journal and ACM Computing Surveys, and has been an Associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering in the past. He has published over 125 papers, and holds over 50 patents. Rajeev received his B. Tech degree from IIT Bombay, and a PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas, Austin.
Algorithms and Theory for Multiple-Source Adaptation

We present a number of novel contributions to the multiple-source adaptation problem. We derive new normalized solutions with strong theoretical guarantees for the cross-entropy loss and other similar losses. We also provide new guarantees that hold in the case where the conditional probabilities for the source domains are distinct. Moreover, we give new algorithms for determining the distribution-weighted combination solution for the cross-entropy loss and other losses. We report the results of a series of experiments with real-world datasets. We find that our algorithm outperforms competing approaches by producing a single robust model that performs well on any target mixture distribution. Altogether, our theory, algorithms, and empirical results provide a full solution for the multiple-source adaptation problem with very practical benefits.
On simultaneous linearization

Given a uniformly quasiregular mapping, there is typically no reason to assume any relationship between linearizers at different repelling periodic points. However, in the current paper we prove that in the case where the uqr map arises as a solution of a Schroder equation then, with some further natural assumptions, if L is a linearizer at one repelling periodic point, then $$L\circ T$$ is a linearizer at another repelling periodic point, where T is a translation. In this sense we say L simultaneously linearizes f. In the plane, an example would be that $$e^z$$ simultaneously linearizes $$z^2$$ . Our methods utilize generalized derivatives for quasiregular mappings, including a chain rule and inverse derivative formula which may be of independent interest.