cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Dialkyl Ether Formation by Nickel‐Catalyzed Cross‐Coupling of Acetals and Aryl Iodides

A new substrate class for nickel-catalyzed C(sp(3)) cross-coupling reactions is reported. α-Oxy radicals generated from benzylic acetals, TMSCl, and a mild reductant can participate in chemoselective cross-coupling with aryl iodides using a 2,6-bis(N-pyrazolyl)pyridine (bpp)/Ni catalyst. The mild, base-free conditions are tolerant of a variety of functional groups on both partners, thus representing an attractive C-C bond-forming approach to dialkyl ether synthesis. Characterization of a [(bpp)NiCl] complex relevant to the proposed catalytic cycle is also described.
Single-stage single-switch input-current-shaping technique with reduced switching loss

In this paper, a new single-stage, single-switch input-current-shaping (S/sup 4/ICS) technique which features substantially reduced turn-on switching loss of the switch in a S/sup 4/ICS flyback topology is described. In the proposed technique, the turn-on switching loss due to the discharging of the output capacitance of the switch is reduced by turning on the switch when its voltage is minimum. To achieve the turn-on loss reduction for a wide range of line and load conditions, the flyback transformer is continuously operated at the boundary of the continuous conduction mode (CCM) and discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) by employing a variable-frequency control. The performance of the new S/sup 4/ICS flyback technique was evaluated on a 70-W (20-V/3.5-A) experimental prototype.
Democracy, elites and power: John Dewey reconsidered

This essay demonstrates that the management and contestability of power is central to Dewey's understanding of democracy and provides a middle ground between two opposite poles within democratic theory: Either the masses become the genuine danger to democratic governance (ala Lippmann) or elites are described as bent on controlling the masses (ala Wolin). Yet, the answer to managing the relationship between them and the demos is never forthcoming. I argue that Dewey's response to Lippmann for how we ought to conceive of the relationship between citizens and elites if power is not to become arbitrary is located within a larger framework that avoids the problematic distinction Wolin draws between the demos and representative government. For Dewey, the legitimacy of decision-making, and, indeed, the security of freedom, is determined not merely by our actual involvement, but the extent to which non-participation does not preclude the future contestability of power. Contemporary Political Theory (2009) 8, 68-89. doi:10.1057/cpt.2008.25
An Analytical Design Model for Wound Rotor Synchronous Machines

Optimization-based design of electric machinery over a large design space requires the use of computationally efficient models to predict machine behavior. In this research, an analytical design model is developed for wound rotor synchronous machines, a key technology for power generation. The model is designed to be used in a rigorous multi-objective optimization algorithm, providing the trade-off between competing mass and loss objectives. A formalized approach is presented to calculate the field distribution, as well as qd -axis model parameters, terminal quantities, loss, and developed torque from design data containing material properties, stator and rotor geometries, and winding layout. The calculated parameters include resistances, inductances, and the back-EMF of the machine. The model is verified using finite element analysis and hardware experiment.
Instability theory of the Navier–Stokes–Poisson equations

The stability question of the Lane‐Emden stationary gaseous star configurations is an interesting problem arising in astrophysics. We establish both linear and nonlinear dynamical instability results for the Lane‐Emden solutions in the framework of the Navier‐Stokes‐Poisson system with adiabatic exponent 6 5 < < 4 3 .
Productive and Predatory Public Policies: Research Expenditures and Producer Subsidies in Agriculture

Governments are postulated to maximize a political preference function in choosing two policy instruments: research expenditures (a productive policy) that improve social welfare and production subsidies (a predatory policy) that incur deadweight losses. Each policy affects the distribution of income between producers and consumers. Governments determine the optimal mix of policies, taking into account interaction effects between research and subsidy expenditures. In addition to providing an explanation for underinvestment in research, the paper determines conditions under which research and subsidy policies are complementary. Such conditions are shown to characterize U.S. agriculture. Underinvestment in research is therefore less severe than in some other countries.
The Origins of Technology-Skill Complementarity

Current concern with the impact of new technologies on the wage structure motivates this study. We offer evidence that technology-skill and capital-skill (relative) complementarities existed in manufacturing early in this century and were related to the adoption of electric motors and particular production methods. Industries, from 1909 to 1929, with more capital per worker and a greater proportion of motive energy coming from purchased electricity employed relatively more educated blue-collar workers in 1940 and paid their production workers substantially more. We also find a strong positive association between changes in capital intensity and the nonproduction worker wage bill from 1909–1919 implying capital-skill complementarity as large as in recent years.
Convergence Rates for Differentially Private Statistical Estimation

Differential privacy is a cryptographically-motivated definition of privacy which has gained significant attention over the past few years. Differentially private solutions enforce privacy by adding random noise to a function computed over the data, and the challenge in designing such algorithms is to control the added noise in order to optimize the privacy-accuracy-sample size tradeoff. This work studies differentially-private statistical estimation, and shows upper and lower bounds on the convergence rates of differentially private approximations to statistical estimators. Our results reveal a formal connection between differential privacy and the notion of Gross Error Sensitivity (GES) in robust statistics, by showing that the convergence rate of any differentially private approximation to an estimator that is accurate over a large class of distributions has to grow with the GES of the estimator. We then provide an upper bound on the convergence rate of a differentially private approximation to an estimator with bounded range and bounded GES. We show that the bounded range condition is necessary if we wish to ensure a strict form of differential privacy.
Convertible Fluorous Sulfonate Linker for the Synthesis of Diverse Library Scaffolds

Aryl perfluorooctanesulfonates (fluorous sulfonate) have been developed as triflates and nonaflates alternatives for Pd-catalyzed coupling reactions to form C-C, C-N, C-S, C-H, and C-CN bonds. They also serve as phase-tags for fluorous solid-phase extraction (F-SPE) to facilitate product purifications. Other synthetic techniques such as microwave reactions and multicomponent reactions are combined with the fluorous linker strategy to further increase synthetic efficiency. The utility of fluorous sulfonate linkers in the synthesis of biologically interested library scaffolds is summarized in this short review article.
Efficient Solution Methods for Strand Grid Applications

The strand-Cartesian grid approach offers many advantages in terms of automation, efficiency, and accuracy for complex moving-body problems, such as rotorcraft. In this study, the solution procedures for strand grids are investigated by testing a variety of explicit, implicit, and hybrid methods on canonical aerodynamics test cases involving inviscid and viscous flows in three dimensions. A novel multigrid algorithm is formulated that acts at both the nonlinear pseudotime level and the linear level using line Gauss–Seidel sweeps. Various approximations are tested for the Jacobian, and the impacts on memory and convergence are quantified. The major result is that implicit schemes with first-order approximate Jacobians employing few Gauss–Seidel sweeps are most efficient for strand grids. The improvement by using the multigrid algorithm is significant for all cases tested and indicates O(n) convergence.
A ligand assisted Claisen rearrangement

Abstract The Ireland ester enolate Claisen rearrangement gives rise to Z-trisubstituted alkenes via heteroatom mediated substrate pre-organization prior to rearrangement.
Structures of the BrF4(+) and IF4(+) Cations

The large discrepancies between the calculated and observed structures for BrF4+ and IF4+ (Christe, K. O.; Zhang, X.; Sheehy, J. A.; Bau, R. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2001, 123, 6338) prompted a redetermination of the crystal structures of BrF4+Sb2F11- (monoclinic, P21/c, a = 5.2289(6) A, b = 14.510(2) A, c = 14.194(2) A, β = 90.280(1)°, Z = 4) and IF4+SbF6- (orthorhombic, Ibca, a = 8.2702(9) A, b = 8.3115(9) A, c = 20.607(2) A, Z = 8). It is shown that for BrF4+, the large differences were mainly due to large errors in the original experimental data. For IF4+SbF6-, the geometry previously reported for IF4+ was reasonably close to that found in this study despite a very large R-factor of 0.15 and a refinement in an incorrect space group. The general agreement between the calculated and the redetermined geometries of BrF4+ and IF4+ is excellent, except for the preferential compression of one bond angle in each ion due to the influence of interionic fluorine bridges. In BrF4+, the fluorine bridges are equatorial an...
The 2007 TAC SCM Prediction Challenge

The TAC SCM Prediction Challenge presents an opportunity for agents designed for the full TAC SCM game to compete solely on their ability to make predictions. Participants are presented with situations from actual TAC SCM games and are evaluated on their prediction accuracy in four categories: current and future computer prices, and current and future component prices. This paper introduces the Prediction Challenge and presents the results from 2007 along with an analysis of how the predictions of the participants compare to each other.
RISK, IMPLICIT CONTRACTS AND THE FAMILY IN RURAL AREAS OF LOW-INCOME COUNTRIES

In this paper the role of family structure in mitigating income volatility in the absence of income insurance in low-income agricultural environments is discussed. Hypotheses concerning the relationship between the membership, size and composition of households and insurance-based income transfers are tested using longitudinal data from India. A test is also performed of whether a household's ability to reduce risk ex post via family arrangements affects its willingness tobear risk ex ante through its selection of formal tenancy contracts. The results support these hypotheses concerning the risk-mitigating roles of both household structure and share contracts, and indicate as well the importance of heterogeneity in risk-aversion across households
Matrix models and string world sheet duality

Abstract The scaling limits used recently to derive matrix models, and a certain analyticity assumption, are invoked to argue that the agreement between some matrix model calculations and supergravity is a consequence of string world sheet duality.
Phase shift sequences for an adding interferometer

Cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimetry has the potential to provide revolutionary advances in cosmology. Future experiments to detect the very weak B-mode signal in CMB polarization maps will require unprecedented sensitivity and control of systematic errors. Bolometric interferometry may provide a way to achieve these goals. In a bolometric interferometer (or other adding interferometer), phase shift sequences are applied to the inputs in order to recover the visibilities. Noise is minimized when the phase shift sequences corresponding to all visibilities are orthogonal. We present a systematic method for finding sequences that produce this orthogonality, approximately minimizing both the length of the time sequence and the number of discrete phase shift values required. When some baselines are geometrically equivalent, we can choose sequences that read out those baselines simultaneously, which has been shown to improve the signal-to-noise ratio.
Why Chinese print journalists embrace the Internet

Western media studies have largely presented the relationship between new and traditional media as adversarial, often claiming that the Internet challenges the survival of traditional journalism. Focusing on China, this article re-evaluates this relationship in a non-Western context. Relying on extensive interviews with Chinese journalists, we argue that the relationship between China’s print and Internet media is symbiotic. Although it does challenge traditional business models, the Internet also helps journalists improve their commercial competitiveness and presents new channels for resisting censorship and expanding the boundaries of permissible reporting.
Nonadaptive Mastermind Algorithms for String and Vector Databases, with Case Studies

In this paper, we study sparsity-exploiting Mastermind algorithms for attacking the privacy of an entire database of character strings or vectors, such as DNA strings, movie ratings, or social network friendship data. Based on reductions to nonadaptive group testing, our methods are able to take advantage of minimal amounts of privacy leakage, such as contained in a single bit that indicates if two people in a medical database have any common genetic mutations, or if two people have any common friends in an online social network. We analyze our Mastermind attack algorithms using theoretical characterizations that provide sublinear bounds on the number of queries needed to clone the database, as well as experimental tests on genomic information, collaborative filtering data, and online social networks. By taking advantage of the generally sparse nature of these real-world databases and modulating a parameter that controls query sparsity, we demonstrate that relatively few nonadaptive queries are needed to recover a large majority of each database.
Beam size measurements with noninterceptive off-axis screens

At the end of the Stanford Linear Accelerator the transverse distributions of small electron and positron beams (/spl sigmaspl ap/100 /spl mu/m) are measured by profile screens. To avoid constant interception and emittance blow-up of the production beams, the beams are deflected with fast magnets on to off-axis screens. One in a 1000 pulses is deflected. The required and achievable resolutions are described in another paper. Here we concentrate more on the magnets, the screen set-up, the readout, and signal processing of the video data. Together with the kicker magnet, two PCs, one for electrons, one for positrons, are triggered recording the next frame of the camera. Hardware and software process this information quickly producing a color-enhanced picture which is displayed in the control-room. With the resulting visual and digital information, the wakefield tails of the beam can be compensated using orbit oscillations. Minute by minute variations and slow drifts of the beam are recognizable. >
DOMINANCE OF LINKED FACTORS AS A MEANS OF ACCOUNTING FOR HETEROSIS

Page 469, line 29, for "types" read "type". Page 472, line 27, for "6 factors" read "9 factors". Page 475, table 3, heading for "chromsomes" read "chromosome
Enabling new mobile applications with location proofs

Location is rapidly becoming the next "killer application" as location-enabled mobile handheld devices proliferate. One class of applications that has yet-to-emerge are those in which users have an incentive to lie about their location. These applications cannot rely solely on the users' devices to discover and transmit location information because users have an incentive to cheat. Instead, such applications require their users to prove their locations. Unfortunately, today's mobile users lack a mechanism to prove their current or past locations. Consequently, these applications have yet to take off despite their potential.This paper presents location proofs - a simple mechanism that enables the emergence of mobile applications that require "proof" of a user's location. A location proof is a piece of data that certifies a receiver to a geographical location. Location proofs are handed out by the wireless infrastructure (e.g., a Wi-Fi access point or a cell tower) to mobile devices. The relatively short range of the wireless radios ensures that these devices are in physical proximity to the wireless transmitter. As a result, these devices are capable of proving their current or past locations to mobile applications. In this paper, we start by describing a mechanism to implement location proofs. We then present a set of six future applications that require location proofs to enable their core functionality.
The Scaling Attractor and Ultimate Dynamics for Smoluchowski’s Coagulation Equations

We describe a basic framework for studying dynamic scaling that has roots in dynamical systems and probability theory. Within this framework, we study Smoluchowski’s coagulation equation for the three simplest rate kernels K(x,y)=2, x+y and xy. In another work, we classified all self-similar solutions and all universality classes (domains of attraction) for scaling limits under weak convergence (Menon and Pego in Commun. Pure Appl. Math.57, 1197–1232, [2004]). Here we add to this a complete description of the set of all limit points of solutions modulo scaling (the scaling attractor) and the dynamics on this limit set (the ultimate dynamics). A key tool is Bertoin’s Levy-Khintchine representation formula for eternal solutions of Smoluchowski’s equation (Bertoin in Ann. Appl. Probab.12, 547–564, [2002a]). This representation linearizes the dynamics on the scaling attractor, revealing these dynamics to be conjugate to a continuous dilation, and chaotic in a classical sense. Furthermore, our study of scaling limits explains how Smoluchowski dynamics “compactifies” in a natural way that accounts for clusters of zero and infinite size (dust and gel).
Modeling of Seabed Interaction of Oceanographic Moorings in the Frequency Domain

A simple empirical model for the interaction of a catenary mooring with the seabed is investigated in the frequency domain. The moorings that are considered here are low-pretension moorings often used in shallow waters. In these moorings, the catenary stiffness is more important than the elastic stiffness. The lower portion of the mooring is replaced by a mass–spring–damper system to include the effects of inertia, damping, and stiffness whereas the inertia and damping terms often have been neglected in previous studies. In this paper, the definitions of low-pretension and high-pretension moorings are clarified, and the parameters that determine whether the catenary or elastic stiffness is dominant are identified. The paper discusses the determination of the equivalent mass, stiffness, and damping as functions of static variables in these moorings, and the contribution of these terms toward the dynamic tension. It is shown that without the inertia term, the quadratic trend of the dynamic tension amplitude...
Synthesis and mechanical properties of Nb2AlC and (Ti,Nb)2AlC

Abstract In this paper we report on the fabrication and characterization of Nb 2 AlC (actual Nb:Al:C ratios: 52.5±0.5, 24.0±0.2 and 23.5±0.5 at.%, respectively) and (Ti,Nb) 2 AlC (actual Ti:Nb:Al:C atomic ratios: 24.4±0.5, 27.3±0.5, 24.0±0.3 and 24.4±0.5 at.%, respectively). Polycrystalline, fully dense, predominantly single-phase samples of Nb 2 AlC, (average grain size ≈14±2 μm) were fabricated by reactive hot isostatic pressing of Nb, graphite, and Al 4 C 3 at 1600 °C for 8 h and 100 MPa. The identical procedure resulted in predominantly single-phase samples—with an average grain size of 45 μm—of (Ti,Nb) 2 AlC. To obtain finer-grained (≈15±3 μm) samples of the solid solution the powder mixtures were hot pressed at 1450 °C for 24 h. The a and c lattice parameters of Al-poor Nb 2 AlC samples are, respectively, 3.107±0.001 and 13.888±0.001 A; the corresponding values for the solid solution are 3.077±0.001 and 13.790±0.001 A. Since the hardness of the solid solution (5.8 GPa) is in between those of Nb 2 AlC (6.1 GPa) and Ti 2 AlC, and, at comparable grain sizes, Nb 2 AlC is stronger, we conclude that no solid solution strengthening occurs in this system. All samples explored in this work are quite damage tolerant and thermal shock resistant. A 300 N Vickers indentation in a 1.5 mm thick, four-point bend bar decreases the strengths by anywhere from 25 to 50% depending on grain size. Quenching in water from 1200 °C reduces the four-point flexural strength by 40 to 70%; i.e., it is not catastrophic. Both compositions are strain rate sensitive. Like Ti 3 SiC 2 and ice, and for the same reasons, the compressive stress of the Nb 2 AlC sample decrease with decreasing strain rate. In contradistinction, and for reasons that are not understood, the strengths of the (Ti,Nb) 2 AlC samples decrease with increasing strain rates. The grain growth kinetics of Nb 2 AlC are quite sluggish; no appreciable grain growth was observed even after annealing at 1600 °C for 16 h.
Database Management Systems In Engineering

Most engineering-related software addresses specific problems. These problems are typically computation-intensive and limited in scope. Until relatively recently this approach has been an effective use of computer and human resources. However, in the future, engineering and manufacturing processes will need more integrated product development environments. Both cultural and procedural changes are needed to support the engineering environments of the future, and these changes will require integrated software systems. Databases are essential for integrating software and for reliably sharing data among diverse groups of people and applications. Database technology will be an integral part of the emerging software environments. In this article the application of database technology to engineering problems is examined for different levels of complexity within the computing environment. This introduction provides some background on the topic and includes the description of an example that is used throughout the article. In the first section, the use of database technology for standalone applications is considered. Mechanisms for data representation to support engineering applications are particularly important for implementing engineering software. The second section discusses database techniques for managing changes within the software environment. The third section discusses considerations for supporting multiple engineers working cooperatively. The state of database technology is discussed in the concluding section. Keywords: engineering problem; database schema; physical organization; change management; schema evolution; cooperative engineering environment; tools; standard interfaces; commercial databases; state-of-the-art
Planning and control for cooperative manipulation and transportation with aerial robots

We consider the planning and control of multiple aerial robots manipulating and transporting a payload in three dimensions via cables. Individual robot control laws and motion plans enable the control of the payload (position and orientation) along a desired trajectory. We address the fact that robot configurations may admit multiple payload equilibrium solutions by developing constraints for the robot configuration that guarantee the existence of a unique payload pose. Further, we formulate individual robot control laws that enforce these constraints and enable the design of non-trivial payload motion plans. Finally, we propose two quality measures for motion plan design that minimize individual robot motion and maximize payload stability along the trajectory. The methods proposed in the work are evaluated through simulation and experimentation with a team of three quadrotors.
in vivo gene expression and the adaptive response: from pathogenesis to vaccines and antimicrobials

Microbial pathogens possess a repertoire of virulence determinants that each make unique contributions to fitness during infection. Analysis of these in vivo-expressed functions reveals the biology of the infection process, encompassing the bacterial infection strategies and the host ecological and environmental retaliatory strategies designed to combat them (e.g. thermal, osmotic, oxygen, nutrient and acid stress). Many of the bacterial virulence functions that contribute to a successful infection are normally only expressed during infection. A genetic approach was used to isolate mutants that ectopically expressed many of these functions in a laboratory setting. Lack of DNA adenine methylase (Dam) in Salmonella typhimurium abolishes the preferential expression of many bacterial virulence genes in host tissues. Dam- Salmonella were proficient in colonization of mucosal sites but were defective in colonization of deeper tissue sites. Additionally, Dam- mutants were totally avirulent and effective as live vaccines against murine typhoid fever. Since dam is highly conserved in many pathogenic bacteria that cause significant morbidity and mortality worldwide, Dams are potentially excellent targets for both vaccines and antimicrobials.
Re: “Neonatal Bilirubin Levels and Childhood Asthma in the US Collaborative Perinatal Project, 1959–1965”

We read with interest the paper by Huang et al. (1) suggesting that neonatal jaundice is associated with childhood asthma. Using data from the Collaborative Perinatal Project (CPP), Huang et al. examined whether the associations between neonatal jaundice and childhood asthma could be due to phototherapy (which was unavailable at the time of the CPP) or a high bilirubin level itself, but the accompanying commentary (2) raised the issue of a potential common cause for both childhood asthma and hyperbilirubinemia, among other possible explanations. We suggest that such a common cause is likely to be maternal asthma, based on our recent findings on the neonatal health of infants born to mothers with asthma (3). We found an increased risk of hyperbilirubinemia (odds ratio = 1.09, 95% confidence interval: 1.04, 1.14) associated with maternal asthma after adjustment for detailed demographic and clinical information from a large US cohort study of electronic medical records. Given that maternal asthma is known to increase the risk of asthma among offspring (4), maternal asthma is a plausible common cause that has not (to our knowledge) been considered in the literature. These relationships are bound to be complex, and careful attention is needed to properly model the potential confounders and mediators of maternal-infant-childhood associations (5). In this case, Huang et al. adjusted their results for maternal allergic conditions (1), but this is a poor proxy for maternal asthma, since about half of current asthma is nonallergic and perhaps 30% of nonasthmatics have a common allergy response. On the other hand, we recognize that the differences between asthma diagnosis and treatment in the 1960s and in the present day add further complexity to the interpretation of these findings. This is an intriguing area of research, and given the high prevalence of asthma in contemporary pregnancy cohorts, it merits further attention.
Solid Propellant Grain Design and Burnback Simulation Using a Minimum Distance Function

DOI: 10.2514/1.22937 A fast computational method for simulating the evolution of the burning surface of a complex, three-dimensional solid rocket motor propellant grain has been developed using a signed minimum distance function. The minimum distance function is calculated using stereo-lithography surface information from a computer-aided-design file and propellant surface burnback is simulated by manipulation of the initial minimum distance function. Variable time steppingandmultiplespatialgridsfurtherreducecomputationtimerequirements. Resultsindicatethatthismethod gives adequate accuracy with acceptable computation time for time scales of the full motor burn. The resulting code (Rocgrain) allows for motor grain design by user-friendly commercial computer-aided-design programs and for coupling with internal flow codes. This enables a single geometric tool to be used for describing the propellant grain geometry for both grain design and internal flowfield analysis. The Rocgrain code can be coupled with a variety of flowfield codes ranging in complexity from simple zero-dimensional to more sophisticated computational fluid dynamics analysis (e.g., nonlinear acoustic instability).
Accelerating the training of feedforward neural networks using generalized Hebbian rules for initializing the internal representations

This paper presents an unsupervised learning scheme for initializing the internal representations of feedforward neural networks, which accelerates the convergence of supervised learning algorithms. It is proposed in this paper that the initial set of internal representations can be formed through a bottom-up unsupervised learning process applied before the top-down supervised training algorithm. The synaptic weights that connect the input of the network with the hidden units can be determined through linear or nonlinear variations of a generalized Hebbian learning rule, known as Oja's rule. Various generalized Hebbian rules were experimentally tested and evaluated in terms of their effect on the convergence of the supervised training process. Several experiments indicated that the use of the proposed initialization of the internal representations significantly improves the convergence of gradient-descent-based algorithms used to perform nontrivial training tasks. The improvement of the convergence becomes significant as the size and complexity of the training task increase.
Decoupling of the Right-handed Neutrino Contribution to the Higgs Mass in Supersymmetric Models

Recently, it has been argued that in the supersymmetric extension of the seesaw-extended Standard Model, heavy right-handed neutrinos and sneutrinos may give corrections as large as a few GeV to the mass of the lightest neutral CP-even Higgs boson, even if the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters are of order the electroweak scale. The presence of such large corrections would render precise Higgs masses incalculable from measurable low-energy parameters. We show that this is not the case: decoupling is preserved in the appropriate sense and right-handed (s)neutrinos, if they exist, have negligible impact on the physical Higgs masses.
Patch ideals and Peterson varieties

Patch ideals encode neighbourhoods of a variety in GL n /B. For Peterson varieties we determine generators for these ideals and show they are complete intersections, and thus Cohen–Macaulay and Gorenstein. Consequently, we We conjecture that the tangent cones are Cohen–Macaulay, and that their h-polynomials are nonnegative and upper-semicontinuous. Similarly, we use patch ideals to briey analyze other examples of torus invariant subvarieties of GL n /B, including Richardson varieties and Springer fibers.
2′-Fluoro-4′-thio-2′,3′-unsaturated Nucleosides: Anti-HIV Activity, Resistance Profile, and Molecular Modeling Studies

Both D- and L-2'-fluoro-4'-thio-2',3'-unsaturated nucleosides were synthesized and their anti-HIV activity against the drug sensitive virus and lamivudine-resistant mutant (M184V) were evaluated. In vitro antiviral evaluation indicated that the L-isomers are more potent than the D-isomers, but unfortunately all were cross-resistant with 3TC. Molecular modeling studies revealed that the unnatural sugar moiety of the L-nucleosides as well as 4'-sulfur atom of the D-isomer has a steric conflict with the bulky side chain of valine 184, resulting in cross-resistance.
The Security of All-or-Nothing Encryption: Protecting against Exhaustive Key Search

We investigate the all-or-nothing encryption paradigm which was introduced by Rivest as a new mode of operation for block ciphers. The paradigm involves composing an all-or-nothing transform (AONT) with an ordinary encryption mode. The goal is to have secure encryption modes with the additional property that exhaustive key-search attacks on them are slowed down by a factor equal to the number of blocks in the ciphertext. We give a new notion concerned with the privacy of keys that provably captures this key-search resistance property. We suggest a new characterization of AONTs and establish that the resulting all-or-nothing encryption paradigm yields secure encryption modes that also meet this notion of key privacy. A consequence of our new characterization is that we get more efficient ways of instantiating the all-or-nothing encryption paradigm. We describe a simple block-cipher-based AONT and prove it secure in the Shannon Model of a block cipher. We also give attacks against alternate paradigms that were believed to have the above keysearch resistance property.
Controlling multipotent stromal cell migration by integrating “course-graining” materials and “fine-tuning” small molecules via decision tree signal-response modeling

Biomimetic scaffolds have been proposed as a means to facilitate tissue regeneration by multipotent stromal cells (MSCs). Effective scaffold colonization requires a control of multiple MSC responses including survival, proliferation, differentiation, and migration. As MSC migration is relatively unstudied in this context, we present here a multi-level approach to its understanding and control, integratively tuning cell speed and directional persistence to achieve maximal mean free path (MFP) of migration. This approach employs data-driven computational modeling to ascertain small molecule drug treatments that can enhance MFP on a given materials substratum. Using poly(methyl methacrylate)- graft-poly(ethylene oxide) polymer surfaces tethered with epidermal growth factor (tEGF) and systematically adsorbed with fibronectin, vitronectin, or collagen-I to present hTERT-immortalized human MSCs with growth factor and extracellular matrix cues, we measured cell motility properties along with signaling activities of EGFR, ERK, Akt, and FAK on 19 different substrate conditions. Speed was consistent on collagen/tEGF substrates, but low associated directional persistence limited MFP. Decision tree modeling successfully predicted that ERK inhibition should enhance MFP on collagen/tEGF substrates by increasing persistence. Thus, we demonstrated a two-tiered approach to control MSC migration:materials-based “coarse-graining” complemented by small molecule“fine-tuning”.
The Standardized World Income Inequality Database

Cross-national research on the causes and consequences of income inequality has been hindered by the limitations of existing inequality datasets: greater coverage across countries and over time is available from these sources only at the cost of significantly reduced comparability across observations. The goal of the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) is to overcome these limitations. A custom missing-data algorithm was used to standardize the United Nations University's World Income Inequality Database and data from other sources; data collected by the Luxembourg Income Study served as the standard. The SWIID provides comparable Gini indices of gross and net income inequality for 173 countries for as many years as possible from 1960 to the present along with estimates of uncertainty in these statistics. By maximizing comparability for the largest possible sample of countries and years, the SWIID is better suited to broadly cross-national research on income inequality than previously available sources. In any papers or publications that use the SWIID, authors are asked to cite the article of record for the data set and give the version number as follows: Solt, Frederick. 2009. "Standardizing the World Income Inequality Database." Social Science Quarterly 90(2):231-242. SWIID Version 3.1, December 2011.
RTGEN-an algorithm for automatic generation of reservation tables from architectural descriptions

Reservation Tables (RTs) have long been used to detect conflicts between operations that simultaneously access the same architectural resource. Traditionally, these RTs have been specified explicitly by the designer. However, the increasing complexity of modern processors makes the manual specification of RTs cumbersome and error prone. Furthermore, manual specification of such conflict information is infeasible for supporting rapid architectural exploration. In this paper, we present an algorithm to automatically generate RTs from a high-level processor description with the goal of avoiding manual specification of RTs, resulting in more concise architectural specifications and also supporting faster turnaround time in design space exploration. We demonstrate the utility of our approach on a set of experiments using the TI C6201 very long instruction word digital signal processor and DLX processor architectures, and a suite of multimedia and scientific applications.
SEQUOIA 2000-a reflection on the first three years

The purpose of the SEQUOIA 2000 project is to build a better computing environment for global change researchers. Such researchers investigate issues such as global warming, ozone depletion, environment toxification, and species extinction, and are members of Earth Sciences Departments at Universities and National Laboratories. SEQUOIA 2000 is the Digital Equipment Corporation flagship research project for the 1990's. We describe the SEQUOIA 2000 project and its implementation efforts during the first three years. Included are the objectives we had, how we chose to address them and some of the lessons we learned from this endeavour. >
A dynamic geometry-based shared space interaction framework for parallel scientific applications

While large-scale parallel/distributed simulations are rapidly becoming critical research modalities in academia and industry, their efficient and scalable parallel implementations present many challenges A key challenge is the dynamic and complex communication/coordination patterns required by these applications, which depend on states of the phenomenon being modeled and are determined by the specific numerical formulation, the domain decomposition and/or sub-domain refinement algorithms used, and are known only at runtime In this paper, we present a dynamic geometry-based shared-space interaction framework for scientific applications The framework provides the flexibility of shared-space coordination models while enabling scalable implementations The design, prototype implementation and experimental evaluation using an adaptive multi-block oil reservoir simulation are presented.
Feeling Blue? Go Online: An Empirical Study of Social Support Among Patients

In this paper, we investigate whether social support exchanged in an online healthcare community benefits patients' mental health. We propose a nonhomogeneous Partially Observed Markov Decision Process POMDP model to examine the latent health outcomes for online health community members. The transition between different health states is modeled as a probability function that incorporates different forms of social support that patients exchange via discussion board posts. We find that patients benefit from learning from others and that their participation in the online community helps them to improve their health and to better engage in their disease self-management process. Our results also reveal differences in the influence of various forms of social support exchanged on the evolution of patients' health conditions. We find evidence that informational support is the most prevalent type in the online healthcare community. Nevertheless, emotional support plays the most significant role in helping patients move to a healthier state. Overall, the influence of social support is found to vary depending on patients' health conditions. Finally, we demonstrate that our proposed POMDP model can provide accurate predictions for patients' health states and can be used to recover missing or unavailable information on patients' health conditions.
Revenue optimal auction for single-minded buyers

We study the problem of characterizing revenue optimal auctions for single-minded buyers. We identify revenue optimal auctions with a simple structure, if the conditional distribution of any buyer's valuation is nondecreasing, in the hazard rates ordering of probability distributions, as a function of the bundle the buyer is interested in. The revenue optimal auction is given by the solution of a maximum weight independent set problem. We provide a novel graphical construction of the weights and highlight important properties of the resulting auction.
A forward method for optimal stochastic nonlinear and adaptive control

A computational approach is taken to solve the optimal partially observed nonlinear stochastic control problem. The approach is to systematically solve the stochastic dynamic programming equations forward in time, using a nested stochastic approximation technique. Although computationally intensive, this provides a straightforward numerical solution for this class of problems and provides an alternative to the usual 'curse of dimensionality' associated with solving the dynamic programming equation backwards in time. In particular, the 'curse' is seen to take a new form, where the amount of computation depends on the amount of uncertainty in the problem and the length of the horizon. As a matter of more practical interest, it is shown that the cost degrades monotonically as the complexity of the algorithm is reduced. This provides a strategy for suboptimal control with clear performance/computation trade-offs. A numerical study focusing on a generic optimal stochastic adaptive control example is included to demonstrate the feasibility of the method. >
A classification and modeling of the quality of contextual information in smart spaces

Reliable contextual information should be generated to provide pervasive services to the occupant in smart spaces. This is difficult for several reasons. First, the number of ways to describe an event or an object is unlimited and there is no standard regarding granularity of context information in context classification schemes. Second, the quality of a given piece of contextual information is not guaranteed by uncertainty. In this paper, we propose a pragmatic context classification and a generalized context modeling scheme based on sensor fusion techniques. To make a pragmatic context classification, we introduce two approaches, “occupant-centered pragmatic approach” and “relation-dependency” approach. To improve the quality of given contextual information by reducing uncertainty, we introduce “state-space based sensor fusion modeling” as a generalized context modeling. Finally, we show an example within the applied scenario as an evidential network.
Neonatal hyperoxic lung injury favorably alters adult right ventricular remodeling response to chronic hypoxia exposure.

The development of pulmonary hypertension (PH) requires multiple pulmonary vascular insults, yet the role of early oxygen therapy as an initial pulmonary vascular insult remains poorly defined. Her...
U.S. Bank Deregulation in Historical Perspective

This book shows how and why deregulation has transformed the size, structure and geographic range of US banks, the scope of banking services, and the nature of bank-customer relationships. Over recent decades the characteristics that had made American banks different - the fragmented geographical structure of the industry, which restricted the scale of banks and their ability to compete with one another, and strict limits on the kinds of products and services commercial banks could offer - have virtually been eliminated. Understanding the origins and persistence of the unique banking regulations that defined US banking for over a century lends an important perspective on the economic and political causes and consequences of the current process of deregulation. History helps to define the political constituencies for and against deregulation, the political process through which bank regulations are determined, and the way deregulation is likely to affect future bank performance and stability.
Mechanics of direct wafer bonding

Direct wafer bonding is a manufacturing process that is used in the fabrication of electronic, optical and mechanical microsystems. The initial step in the process requires that the wafers are sufficiently smooth, flat and compliant such that short-range surface forces can elastically deform the wafers and bring the surfaces into complete contact. Analytical and computational mechanics models of this adhesion process as well as experiments that validate these models are presented in this work. An energy-based analysis is used to develop the models that allow acceptable limits of wafer-scale flatness variations to be predicted. The analytical models provide basic insight into the process while the finite-element-based model reported provides a method to analyse a broad range of realistic cases, including the bonding of wafers with etch patterns and arbitrary geometries. Experiments, in which patterned silicon wafers with different magnitudes of wafer-scale shape variations were bonded, were performed and the results demonstrate that the proposed models can accurately predict the size and shape of the bonded area based on the wafer geometry, elastic properties and work of adhesion.
Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment

This paper examines the short-run impacts of a change in residential neighborhood on the well-being of low-income families, using evidence from a program in which eligibility for a housing voucher was determined by random lottery. We examine the experiences of households at the Boston site of Moving To Opportunity (MTO), a demonstration program in five cities. Families in high poverty public housing projects applied to MTO and were assigned by lottery to one of three groups: Experimental-offered mobility counseling and a Section 8 subsidy valid only in a Census tract with a poverty rate of less than 10 percent; Section 8 Comparison-offered a geographically unrestricted Section 8 subsidy; or Control-offered no new assistance, but continued to be eligible for public housing. Our quantitative analyses of program impacts uses data on 540 families from a baseline survey at program enrollment, a follow-up survey administered l to 3.5 years after random assignment, and state administrative data on earnings and welfare receipt. 48 percent of the Experimental group and 62 percent of the Section 8 Comparison group moved through the MTO program. One to three years after program entry, families in both treatment groups were more likely to be residing in neighborhoods with low poverty rates and high education levels than were families in the Control group. However, while members of the Experimental group were much more likely to be residing in suburban communities than were those in the Section 8 group, the lower program take-up rate among the Experimental group resulted in more families remaining in the most distressed communities. Households in both treatment groups experienced improvements in multiple measures of well-being relative to the Control group including increased safety, improved health among household heads, and fewer behavior problems among boys. Experimental group children were also less likely to be a victim of a personal crime, to be injured, or to experience an asthma attack. There are no significant impacts of either MTO treatment on the employment, earnings, or welfare receipt of household heads in the first three years after random assignment.
UNHCR's Executive Committee Conclusion on Children at Risk

UNHCR's Executive Committee Conclusion No. 107 on Children at Risk, adopted in October 2007, provides operational guidance for states, UNHCR, and other relevant agencies and partners on the protection of children affected by forced displacement and statelessness who are at heightened risk. Recognizing these risks, the Conclusion outlines the main aspects of a comprehensive child protection system. It is divided into fundamentals of child protection, identification of children at risk, and prevention, response, and solutions.