cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
CRIMINAL RECORD, CHARACTER EVIDENCE, AND THE CRIMINAL TRIAL

The question addressed here is whether evidence concerning defendants' past criminal records should be introduced at their trials because such evidence reveals their character and thus reveals whether they are the kinds of persons likely to have committed the crimes with which they are currently charged. I strongly caution against the introduction of such evidence for a number of reasons. First, the link between defendants' past criminal records and claims about their standing dispositions to think and act is tenuous, at best. Second, noncharacter, or trace, evidence should have primacy in determining the guilt or innocence of defendants. Third, character evidence will vary in its freshness and specificity. Other things being equal, only relatively fresh and specific character evidence has probative value. Moreover, such evidence will have greater probative value in criminal cases where the issue before the court is whether a crime has been committed than in cases where the issue is whether it was the defendant who committed the crime. Finally, we might be more sanguine about the introduction of fresh and specific character evidence under conditions likely to work against its misuse or misinterpretation. However, the relevant conditions may not often be satisfied in the real world of criminal trials and defendants.
Do Churches Matter? Towards an Institutional Understanding of the Religion Clauses

In recent years, several prominent scholars have called attention to the importance and role of "First Amendment institutions" and there is a growing body of work informed by an appreciation for what Professor Balkin calls the "infrastructure of free expression." The freedom of expression, he suggests, requires "more than mere absence of government censorship or prohibition to thrive; [it] also require[s] institutions, practices and technological structures that foster and promote [it]." The intuition animating this scholarship, then, is that the freedom of expression is not only enjoyed by and through, but also depends on the existence and flourishing of, certain institutions, newspapers, political parties, interest groups, libraries, expressive associations, universities and so on. These "First Amendment institutions" are free-speech actors, but they also play a structural - or, again, an "infrastructural" role in clearing out and protecting the civil-society space within which the freedom of speech can be well exercised. These institutions are not only conduits for expression, they are also "the scaffolding around which civil society is constructed, in which personal freedoms are exercised, in which loyalties are formed and transmitted, and in which individuals flourish. Similar "infrastructural" claims can and should be proposed with respect to the freedom of religion. Like the freedom of speech, religious freedom has and requires an infrastructure. Like free expression, it is not exercised only by individuals; like free expression, its exercise requires more than an individual with something to say; like free expression, it involves more than protecting a solitary conscience. The freedom of religion is not only lived and experienced through institutions, it is also protected and nourished by them. Accordingly, the theories and doctrines we use to understand, apply and enforce the First Amendment's religious-freedom provisions should reflect and respect this fact. If we want to understand well the content and implications of our constitutional commitment to religious liberty, we need to ask, as Professors Lupu and Tuttle have put it, whether "religious entities occupy a distinctive place in our constitutional order[.]"
APOSTASY THROUGH DOUBT AND DISSENT

What if instead of studying religions by texts, history, and practices we studied them by what they fear? I first had this thought in considering philosophical differences between Plato's Republic and Laws. What accounted for the shift from the profound idealism of the Republic to the apparent authoritarianism of the Laws? The standard answer is that Plato was born in a time of troubles, at the tail end of the oligarchic regime of the Thirty Tyrants, who took hold of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian Wars. As recounted in the Apology, it was a regime that was famously and vigorously opposed by Plato's great teacher, Socrates. Socrates is absent from Plato's last dialogue, the Laws, written as an older man, after a stint in prison for having opposed another tyrant. In the Laws, the contemplation of ideal forms in Republic gives way to promulgation of detailed laws to achieve unity, harmony, and a perhaps tenuous peace. Most imperative of all is the need to avoid the chaos of war and tyranny. The philosopher is gone—Plato has lawyered up.
Estimation of Jump Tails

We propose a new and flexible non-parametric framework for estimating the jump tails of Ito semimartingale processes. The approach is based on a relatively simple-to-implement set of estimating equations associated with the compensator for the jump measure, or its "intensity", that only utilizes the weak assumption of regular variation in the jump tails, along with in-fill asymptotic arguments for directly estimating the "large" jumps. The procedure assumes that the "large" sized jumps are identically distributed, but otherwise allows for very general dynamic dependencies in jump occurrences, and importantly does not restrict the behavior of the "small" jumps, nor the continuous part of the process and the temporal variation in the stochastic volatility. On implementing the new estimation procedure with actual high-frequency data for the S&P 500 aggregate market portfolio, we find strong evidence for richer and more complex dynamic dependencies in the jump tails than hitherto entertained in the literature.
Market (in)attention and the strategic scheduling and timing of earnings announcements

We investigate whether managers “hide” bad news by announcing earnings during periods of low attention, or by providing less forewarning of an upcoming earnings announcement. Our findings are consistent with managers reporting bad news after market hours, on busy days, and with less advance notice, and with earnings receiving less attention in these settings. Paradoxically, our findings indicate that managers also report bad news on Fridays, but we do not find lower attention on Fridays. Further, we find negative returns when the market is notified of an upcoming Friday earnings announcement, which is consistent with investors inferring forthcoming bad news.
Is Tort Law a Form of Institutionalized Revenge

INTRODUCTION 129 I. DO TORT REMEDIES INFLICT HARM? 130 II. ARE PLAINTIFFS MOTIVATED TO SEEK TORT REMEDIES BY A DESIRE TO INFLICT HARM? 133 III. IS TORT LAW A FORM OF INSTITUTIONALIZED REVENGE? 134
Applying a Sovereign Agency Theory of the Law of Armed Conflict

Abstract The current bifurcated conflict classification paradigm for applying the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) has lost its usefulness. Regulation of state militaries was orignally based on the principle that the armed forces of a state were acting as the sovereign agents of the state and were granted privileges and given duties based on that grant of agency. These privileges and duties became the bases for the formulation of the modern LOAC. During the twentieth century, the LOAC became bifurcated, with the complete LOAC applying only to armed conflicts between sovereigns and only few provisions of the law applying to armed conflicts that were not between sovereigns. This bifurcation has led to a lack of clarity for the sovereign's agents in LOAC application and given states the ability to manipulate which law applies to application of force through their agents. The applicability of the LOAC should no longer be based on the manipulable and unclear conflict classification paradigm, but should instead return to its foundations in the sovereign's grant of agency. Thus, anytime a sovereign applies violent force through its armed forces, those armed forces should apply the full LOAC to their actions, regardless of the type or classification of the conflict. Table of Contents I. Introduction .686 II. The Current Bifurcated Paradigm 692 III. Ineffectiveness of the Bifurcation 702 IV. The Sovereign Agency Theory of LOAC Applicability 707 A. Sovereignty and the Development of the LOAC.... ...707 B. Sovereign Agency Applicability 710 C. The No-Law Zone 710 D. The "Not Armed Conflict" Claim 711 E. Special Armed Conflicts 713 F. Disaster Relief: Non-Application 714 V. Benefits of the Sovereign Agency Theory. .715 A. Avoiding the IAC/NIAC Debate 715 B. More Robust Baseline of Protections ^^ C. Clarity through Application to Armed Forces........ ...71 6 D. A Manageable Approach 719 E. Issues 720 1. Areas of special concern. 720 2. Reciprocity with non-state actors. 721 3. Working with law enforcement 722 VI. The Way Ahead 723 A. State Practice 723 B. International Jurisprudence 724 C. Scholars …
A census of zeta functions of quartic K3 surfaces over F_2

We compute the complete set of candidates for the zeta function of a K surface over consistent with the Weil and Tate conjectures, as well as the complete set of zeta functions of smooth quartic surfaces over . These sets differ substantially, but we do identify natural subsets which coincide. This gives some numerical evidence towards a Honda–Tate theorem for transcendental zeta functions of K surfaces; such a result would refine a recent theorem of Taelman, in which one must allow an uncontrolled base field extension.
Creating Space for Silence in Law School Collaborations

edness; apprehension; dominance; emotional stability; liveliness; openness to change; perfectionism; privateness; reasoning; rule consciousness; self-reliance; sensitivity; social boldness; tension; vigilance; warmth); Raymond B. Cattell, A First Approximation to Nature-Nurture Ratios for Eleven Primary Personality Factors in Objective Tests, 54 J. aBnorMal & soc. Psychol. 143 (1957); John M. Digman, Personality Structure: Emergence of the Five-Factor Model, 41 ann. rev. Psychol. 417 (1990); About Personality, supra note 87 (identifying the “Big Five” personality model: extroversion; agreeableness; conscientiousness; neuroticism; and openness). 89. About Personality, supra note 87.
The Normativity of Copying in Copyright Law

Not all copying constitutes copyright infringement. Quite independent of fair use, copyright law requires that an act of copying be qualitatively and quantitatively significant enoughor “substantially similar”for it to be actionable. Originating in the nineteenth century, and entirely the creation of courts, copyright’s requirement of “substantial similarity” has thus far received little attention as an independently meaningful normative dimension of the copyright entitlement. This Article offers a novel theory for copyright’s substantial-similarity requirement by placing it firmly at the center of the institution and its various goals and purposes. As a common-law-style device that mirrors the functioning of other areas of private law, such as tort law, substantial similarity remains an unappreciated source of flexibility and pluralism in copyright law. It allows courts to modulate the copyright entitlement’s operational robustness by altering the amount of exclusivity that a work obtains, based on different criteria, and thereby introduces “thickness” as an altogether new dimension of the entitlement. It also renders the adjudication of copyright infringement overtly pluralistic by sequencing the introduction of incommensurable values into the inquiry in a particular, reasoned order. As a mechanism of conceptual Copyright © 2012 by Shyamkrishna Balganesh. † Assistant Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School. Many thanks to Stephanos Bibas, Cary Coglianese, Richard Epstein, Wendy Gordon, Leo Katz, Jody Kraus, Mark Lemley, Saul Levmore, Irene Lu, David Nimmer, Gideon Parchomovsky, Jennifer Rothman, Ben Zipursky, and participants at the Loyola Los Angeles IP Theory Colloquium, and a Penn Law Faculty Workshop for helpful comments, discussions, and suggestions. Responsibility for all errors remains with the author. BALGANESH IN PRINTER PROOF FINAL REVISED (DO NOT DELETE) 10/29/2012 10:51 AM 204 DUKE LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 62:203 sequencing—a multicriterion decision-making process long known to the common law—substantial similarity allows copyright law to affirm both utilitarian and personality-based considerations, while prioritizing the former over the latter systemically. Viewing copyright law through the lens of substantial similarity sheds new light on the compatibility of the institution’s goals and purposes, copyright’s structure as a “property” right, and the role of courts within its overall scheme.
Advertising, Breadth of Ownership, and Liquidity

We provide empirical evidence that a firm's overall visibility with investors, as measured by its product market advertising, has important consequences for the stock market. Specifically we show that firms with greater advertising expenditures, ceteris paribus, have a larger number of both individual and institutional investors, and better liquidity of their common stock. Our findings are robust to a variety of methodological approaches and to various measures of liquidity. These results sug
Deadly statistics: quantifying an ‘unacceptable risk’ in capital punishment

In Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment precludes capital punishment for intellectually disabled offenders. Death-penalty states responded with laws defining intellectual disability in various ways. In Hall v. Florida, the Court narrowly struck down the use of a measured IQ of 70 to mark the upper limit of intellectual disability because it created “an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed.” But the Court was unclear if not inconsistent in its description of an upper limit that would be acceptable. Four dissenting Justices accused the majority not only of misconstruing the Eighth Amendment, but also of misunderstanding elementary statistics and psychometrics. This article uses more complete statistical reasoning to explicate the Court’s concept of unacceptable risk. It describes better ways to control the risk of error than the Court’s confidence intervals, and it argues that, to the extent that the Eighth Amendment allows any quantitative cut score in determining an offender’s intellectual disability, these more technically appropriate methods are constitutionally permissible.
First price auctions: Monotonicity and uniqueness

I study monotonicity and uniqueness of the equilibrium strategies in a two-person first price auction with affiliated signals. Existing results establish uniqueness within the class of non-decreasing bidding strategies. I show that there is an effectively unique Nash equilibrium within the class of piecewise monotone strategies. The main result is that in equilibrium, the strategies must be strictly increasing within the support of winning bids. This result provides the missing link for the analysis of uniqueness in two-person first price auctions. The analysis applies to asymmetric environments as well and does not require risk neutrality.
Fixed and Random Effects in Stochastic Frontier Models

Received stochastic frontier analyses with panel data have relied on traditional fixed and random effects models. We propose extensions that circumvent two shortcomings of these approaches. The conventional panel data estimators assume that technical or cost inefficiency is time invariant. Second, the fixed and random effects estimators force any time invariant cross unit heterogeneity into the same term that is being used to capture the inefficiency. Inefficiency measures in these models may be picking up heterogeneity in addition to or even instead of inefficiency. A fixed effects model is extended to the stochastic frontier model using results that specifically employ the nonlinear specification. The random effects model is reformulated as a special case of the random parameters model. The techniques are illustrated in applications to the U.S. banking industry and a cross country comparison of the efficiency of health care delivery.
Role of media in curbing corruption: the case of Uganda under President Yoweri K. Museveni during the "no-party" system

Free, independent and hard-hitting media can play an important role in curbing corruption. Media in Uganda has enjoyed considerable freedom in this regard since Museveni came to power in 1986. The evolving power structure and a changing media landscape, however, have presented both challenges and opportunities for media's watchdog role on corruption. This paper will explore how this environment defined such role between 1986 and 2006 during Museveni's "no-party" rule. It argues that, although media won important battles to promote accountability in public offices, the regime's complex power structure has consistently challenged their role as an instrument of public accountability.
Protecting a bosonic qubit with autonomous quantum error correction

To build a universal quantum computer from fragile physical qubits, effective implementation of quantum error correction (QEC)1 is an essential requirement and a central challenge. Existing demonstrations of QEC are based on an active schedule of error-syndrome measurements and adaptive recovery operations2,3,4,5,6,7 that are hardware intensive and prone to introducing and propagating errors. In principle, QEC can be realized autonomously and continuously by tailoring dissipation within the quantum system1,8,9,10,11,12,13,14, but so far it has remained challenging to achieve the specific form of dissipation required to counter the most prominent errors in a physical platform. Here we encode a logical qubit in Schrodinger cat-like multiphoton states15 of a superconducting cavity, and demonstrate a corrective dissipation process that stabilizes an error-syndrome operator: the photon number parity. Implemented with continuous-wave control fields only, this passive protocol protects the quantum information by autonomously correcting single-photon-loss errors and boosts the coherence time of the bosonic qubit by over a factor of two. Notably, QEC is realized in a modest hardware setup with neither high-fidelity readout nor fast digital feedback, in contrast to the technological sophistication required for prior QEC demonstrations. Compatible with additional phase-stabilization and fault-tolerant techniques16,17,18, our experiment suggests quantum dissipation engineering as a resource-efficient alternative or supplement to active QEC in future quantum computing architectures. A logical qubit encoded in multi-photon states of a superconducting cavity is protected with autonomous correction of certain quantum errors by tailoring the dissipation it is exposed to.
In-flight range optimization of multicopters using multivariable extremum seeking with adaptive step size

Limited flight range is a common problem for multicopters. To alleviate this problem, we propose a method for finding the optimal speed and heading of a multicopter when flying a given path to achieve the longest flight range. Based on a novel multivariable extremum seeking controller with adaptive step size, the method (a) does not require any power consumption model of the vehicle, (b) can adapt to unknown disturbances, (c) can be executed online, and (d) converges faster than the standard extremum seeking controller with constant step size. We conducted indoor experiments to validate the effectiveness of this method under different payloads and initial conditions, and showed that it is able to converge more than 30% faster than the standard extremum seeking controller. This method is especially useful for applications such as package delivery, where the size and weight of the payload differ for different deliveries and the power consumption of the vehicle is hard to model.
Deep Neural Tangent Kernel and Laplace Kernel Have the Same RKHS

We prove that the reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces (RKHS) of a deep neural tangent kernel and the Laplace kernel include the same set of functions, when both kernels are restricted to the sphere Sd−1. Additionally, we prove that the exponential power kernel with a smaller power (making the kernel more non-smooth) leads to a larger RKHS, when it is restricted to the sphere Sd−1 and when it is defined on the entire Rd.
The largest $(k,\ell )$-sum-free subsets

Let M(2,1)(N) be the infimum of the largest sum-free subset of any set of N positive integers. An old conjecture in additive combinatorics asserts that there is a constant c = c(2, 1) and a function ω(N) → ∞ as N → ∞, such that cN + ω(N) < M(2,1)(N) < (c + o(1))N. The constant c(2, 1) is determined by Eberhard, Green, and Manners, while the existence of ω(N) is still wide open. In this paper, we study the analogous conjecture on (k, )-sum-free sets and restricted (k, )-sum-free sets. We determine the constant c(k, ) for every (k, )-sum-free sets, and confirm the conjecture for infinitely many (k, ).
An in vivo method for diversifying the functions of therapeutic antibodies

V(D)J recombination generates mature B cells that express huge repertoires of primary antibodies as diverse immunoglobulin (Ig) heavy chain (IgH) and light chain (IgL) of their B cell antigen receptors (BCRs). Cognate antigen binding to BCR variable region domains activates B cells into the germinal center (GC) reaction in which somatic hypermutation (SHM) modifies primary variable region-encoding sequences, with subsequent selection for mutations that improve antigen-binding affinity, ultimately leading to antibody affinity maturation. Based on these principles, we developed a humanized mouse model approach to diversify an anti-PD1 therapeutic antibody and allow isolation of variants with novel properties. In this approach, component Ig gene segments of the anti-PD1 antibody underwent de novo V(D)J recombination to diversify the anti-PD1 antibody in the primary antibody repertoire in the mouse models. Immunization of these mouse models further modified the anti-PD1 antibodies through SHM. Known anti-PD1 antibodies block interaction of PD1 with its ligands to alleviate PD1-mediated T cell suppression, thereby boosting antitumor T cell responses. By diversifying one such anti-PD1 antibody, we derived many anti-PD1 antibodies, including anti-PD1 antibodies with the opposite activity of enhancing PD1/ligand interaction. Such antibodies theoretically might suppress deleterious T cell activities in autoimmune diseases. The approach we describe should be generally applicable for diversifying other therapeutic antibodies.
Counterexamples to the Low-Degree Conjecture

A conjecture of Hopkins (2018) posits that for certain high-dimensional hypothesis testing problems, no polynomial-time algorithm can outperform so-called "simple statistics", which are low-degree polynomials in the data. This conjecture formalizes the beliefs surrounding a line of recent work that seeks to understand statistical-versus-computational tradeoffs via the low-degree likelihood ratio. In this work, we refute the conjecture of Hopkins. However, our counterexample crucially exploits the specifics of the noise operator used in the conjecture, and we point out a simple way to modify the conjecture to rule out our counterexample. We also give an example illustrating that (even after the above modification), the symmetry assumption in the conjecture is necessary. These results do not undermine the low-degree framework for computational lower bounds, but rather aim to better understand what class of problems it is applicable to.
The Impact of Orography on the African Easterly Wave Stormtrack

We examined the sensitivity of African easterly waves (AEWs) to elevated terrain over North Africa using a numerical weather prediction model. We formed five ensembles of simulated AEW activity with orographic features independently reduced in four key regions. The ensemble members consisted of 10 consecutive AEW seasons simulated separately. From the ensembles, the southern AEW stormtrack was most sensitive to the reduction of the Ethiopian highlands. Energy budgets showed that diminished diabatic heating associated with precipitating convection was the likely driver of the weaker AEWs. Baroclinic overturning was the dominant pathway for this response. The northern AEW stormtrack was most sensitive to the reduction of the Hoggar and Tibesti mountains. In this case, a reduction in the vertical shear and diminished baroclinic energy conversions from the background state was associated with weaker AEWs. Through terrain reduction, our results provide a view of thermodynamic and dynamic feedback in AEWs that is complementary to what has been shown in past studies.
Associations between Statin use and changes in pain, function and structural progression: a longitudinal study of persons with knee osteoarthritis

Objectives Recently published research suggests that statins may have beneficial structural effects in persons with knee osteoarthritis (OA). The potential effects of statins on patient-reported knee pain and function have not been examined. We studied a large prospective community-based cohort of persons with knee OA to determine if statin usage was associated with changes in knee structure, pain and function trajectories. Methods Data were obtained from the Osteoarthritis Initiative using a subset of 2207 persons with radiographically suspected or confirmed knee OA. The changes in Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index (WOMAC) Pain and Physical Function scores, pain intensity and Kellgren-Lawrence radiographic grade over 4 years were examined. Data from persons were coded based on whether they were incident users of statins over the 4-year period. Outcome trajectories and probability of statin use were examined over the 4-year study period using parallel processing growth curve modelling. The analysis adjusted for potential confounders and determined if statin use predicted outcome trajectories. Results Statin users accounted for 6.7% of the sample in year 1 and 16.4% in year 4. Statin use was not associated with improvements in knee pain, function or structural progression trajectories. The only significant finding indicated that increased duration of statin use was associated with worsening in WOMAC Physical Function scores over the study period (β=0.161, p=0.005). Conclusions Statin use was not associated with improvements in knee pain, function or structural progression over the 4-year study period.
A Multiplicatively Symmetrized Version of the Chung-Diaconis-Graham Random Process

This paper considers random processes of the form $$X_{n+1}=a_nX_n+b_n\pmod p$$ where p is odd, $$X_0=0$$ , $$(a_0,b_0), (a_1,b_1), (a_2,b_2),\ldots $$ are i.i.d., and $$a_n$$ and $$b_n$$ are independent with $$P(a_n=2)=P(a_n=(p+1)/2)=1/2$$ and $$P(b_n=1)=P(b_n=0)=P(b_n=-1)=1/3$$ . This can be viewed as a multiplicatively symmetrized version of a random process of Chung, Diaconis, and Graham. This paper shows that order $$(\log p)^2$$ steps suffice for $$X_n$$ to be close to uniformly distributed on the integers mod p for all odd p while order $$(\log p)^2$$ steps are necessary for $$X_n$$ to be close to uniformly distributed on the integers mod p.
Magnetic Texture in Insulating Single Crystal High Entropy Oxide Spinel Films

Magnetic insulators are important materials for a range of next-generation memory and spintronic applications. Structural constraints in this class of devices generally require a clean heterointerf...
Tattoos, Tickets, and Other Tawdry Behavior: How Universities Use Federal Law to Hide their Scandals

This Article seeks to expose the inappropriate, if not improper, inversion of FERPA by universities falsely in the name of “student privacy.” As will be seen, universities do not hesitate to embrace student-athletes’ FERPA waivers when the news is good: Academic All-Americans should have their grades trumpeted to the mountaintops, or at least on ESPN. Bad boys and girls, however, particularly those whose behavior initiates NCAA investigations or criminal charges, are routinely and aggressively shielded by the university. This Article will demonstrate that the use of “student privacy” and FERPA defenses by universities are not genuinely invoked for student well-being, but, rather, are interposed to prevent further bad press for the institution.
Computational Modeling for the Activation Cycle of G-proteins by G-protein-coupled Receptors

In this paper, we survey five different computational modeling methods. For comparison, we use the activation cycle of G-proteins that regulate cellular signaling events downstream of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) as a driving example. Starting from an existing Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) model, we implement the G-protein cycle in the stochastic Pi-calculus using SPiM, as Petri-nets using Cell Illustrator, in the Kappa Language using Cellucidate, and in Bio-PEPA using the Bio-PEPA eclipse plug in. We also provide a high-level notation to abstract away from communication primitives that may be unfamiliar to the average biologist, and we show how to translate high-level programs into stochastic Pi-calculus processes and chemical reactions.
Infrared atomic hydrogen line formation in luminous stars

Infrared atomic hydrogen lines observed in luminous stars, generally attributed to compact circumstellar H II regions, can also be formed in the winds likely to emanate from these stars. Implications are discussed for the class of obscured infrared point sources showing these lines, and an illustrative model is derived for the BN object in Orion. Such stellar winds should also produce weak, but detectable, radio emission.
Music SketchNet: Controllable Music Generation via Factorized Representations of Pitch and Rhythm

Author(s): Chen, Ke; Wang, Cheng-i; Berg-Kirkpatrick, Taylor; Dubnov, Shlomo | Abstract: Drawing an analogy with automatic image completion systems, we propose Music SketchNet, a neural network framework that allows users to specify partial musical ideas guiding automatic music generation. We focus on generating the missing measures in incomplete monophonic musical pieces, conditioned on surrounding context, and optionally guided by user-specified pitch and rhythm snippets. First, we introduce SketchVAE, a novel variational autoencoder that explicitly factorizes rhythm and pitch contour to form the basis of our proposed model. Then we introduce two discriminative architectures, SketchInpainter and SketchConnector, that in conjunction perform the guided music completion, filling in representations for the missing measures conditioned on surrounding context and user-specified snippets. We evaluate SketchNet on a standard dataset of Irish folk music and compare with models from recent works. When used for music completion, our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art both in terms of objective metrics and subjective listening tests. Finally, we demonstrate that our model can successfully incorporate user-specified snippets during the generation process.
The Mortgage Interest Deduction: Revenue and Distributional Effects

Conventional estimates of the size and distribution of the mortgage interest deduction (MID) in the personal income tax fail to account for potentially important responses in household behavior, an...
Unidirectional flocks in hydrodynamic Euler alignment system II: singular models

In this note we continue our study of unidirectional solutions to hydrodynamic Euler alignment systems with strongly singular communication kernels $\phi(x):=|x|^{-(n+\alpha)}$ for $\alpha\in(0,2)$. The solutions describe unidirectional parallel motion of agents governing multi-dimensional collective behavior of flocks. Here, we consider the range $1<\alpha<2$ and establish the global regularity of smooth solutions, together with a full description of their long time dynamics. Specifically, we develop the flocking theory of these solutions and show long time convergence to traveling wave with rapidly aligned velocity field.
SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 spike variants bind human ACE2 with increased affinity.

SARS-CoV2 being highly infectious has been particularly effective in causing widespread infection globally and more variants of SARS-CoV2 are constantly being reported with increased genomic surveillance. In particular, the focus is on mutations of Spike protein, which binds human ACE2 protein enabling SARS-CoV2 entry and infection. Here we present a rapid experimental method leveraging the speed and flexibility of Mircoscale Thermopheresis (MST) to characterize the interaction between Spike Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) and human ACE2 protein. The B.1.351 variant harboring three mutations, (E484K, N501Y, and K417N) binds the ACE2 at nearly five-fold greater affinity than the original SARS-COV-2 RBD. We also find that the B.1.1.7 variant, binds two-fold more tightly to ACE2 than the SARS-COV-2 RBD.
Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online

Controversial understandings of the coronavirus pandemic have turned data visualizations into a battleground. Defying public health officials, coronavirus skeptics on US social media spent much of 2020 creating data visualizations showing that the government’s pandemic response was excessive and that the crisis was over. This paper investigates how pandemic visualizations circulated on social media, and shows that people who mistrust the scientific establishment often deploy the same rhetorics of data-driven decision-making used by experts, but to advocate for radical policy changes. Using a quantitative analysis of how visualizations spread on Twitter and an ethnographic approach to analyzing conversations about COVID data on Facebook, we document an epistemological gap that leads pro- and anti-mask groups to draw drastically different inferences from similar data. Ultimately, we argue that the deployment of COVID data visualizations reflect a deeper sociopolitical rift regarding the place of science in public life.
A Liouville theorem on asymptotically Calabi spaces

In this paper, we will study harmonic functions on the complete and incomplete spaces with nonnegative Ricci curvature which exhibit inhomogeneous collapsing behaviors at infinity. The main result states that any nonconstant harmonic function on such spaces yields a definite exponential growth rate which depends explicitly on the geometric data at infinity.
Combined microwave and laser Rayleigh scattering diagnostics for pin-to-pin nanosecond discharges

In this work, the temporal decay of electrons produced by an atmospheric pin-to-pin nanosecond discharge operating in the spark regime was measured via a combination of microwave Rayleigh scattering (MRS) and laser Rayleigh scattering (LRS). Due to the initial energy deposition of the nanosecond pulse, a variation in the local gas density occurs on the timescale of electron decay. Thus, the assumption of a constant collisional frequency is no longer applicable when electron number data are extracted from MRS measurements. To recalibrate MRS measurements throughout the electron decay period, temporally resolved LRS measurements of the local gas density were performed over the event duration. The local gas density was calculated to be 30% of the ambient level during the later stages of electron decay, and it recovers at about 1 ms after discharge. A shock front traveling approximately 500 m/s was additionally observed. Coupled with plasma volume calibration via temporally resolved intensified charge-coupled device imaging, the corrected decay curves of the electron number and electron number density are presented with a measured peak electron number density of 4.5 × 1015 cm−3 and a decay rate of ∼(0.1–0.35) × 107 s−1. A hybrid MRS and LRS diagnostic technique can be applied for a broad spectrum of atmospheric-pressure microplasmas where a variation in the gas number density is expected due to energy deposition in the discharge.
Home food procurement impacts food security and diet quality during COVID-19.

Home food procurement (HFP) (i.e. gardening, fishing, foraging, hunting, backyard livestock and canning) have historically been important ways that people obtain food. Recently, some HFP activities have grown (e.g. gardening), while other activities (e.g. hunting) have become less common in the United States. Anecdotally, COVID-19 has sparked an increase in HFP evidenced by increased hunting licenses and shortages in seeds and canning supplies. HFP may have positive benefits for food security and diet quality, though research beyond gardening is especially limited in high-income countries. We examine HFP activities since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and their relationship to food security and dietary quality using multivariable logit models and matching analysis with a statewide representative survey (n = 600) of residents of Vermont, United States. We find 29% of respondent households classified as food insecure since COVID-19, and higher prevalence of food insecurity among those experiencing a negative job change since COVID-19, households earning less than $50,000 annually, Hispanic and multi-race respondents. Nearly 35% of respondents engaged in HFP activities since the COVID-19 pandemic began; the majority of those gardened, and more than half pursued HFP activities more intensely than before the pandemic or for the first time. Food insecure households were more likely to pursue HFP more intensely, including more gardening, fishing, foraging, and hunting. Respondents who were food insecure, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, those with a negative job disruption, and larger households all had greater odds of increased intensity of HFP during the COVID-19 pandemic. HFP was significantly associated with eating greater amounts of fruits and vegetables; however, this effect was only significant for food secure households. Overall, these results suggest that HFP activities have increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and may be an important safety net for food insecure households. However, HFP for food insecure households does not translate into the same higher fruit and vegetable intake as found among food secure HFP households, suggesting this population may be trying to maintain intake, or that they may have potential important resource or technical assistance needs. Long-term, HFP activities may have important food security and diet quality impacts, as well as conservation implications, which should be more thoroughly explored. Regardless, the increased interest and intensity of HFP demonstrates opportunities for educational and outreach efforts.
Extensions of Dupire Formula: Stochastic Interest Rates and Stochastic Local Volatility

We derive generalizations of Dupire formula to the cases of general stochastic drift and/or stochastic local volatility. First, we handle a case in which the drift is given as difference of two stochastic short rates. Such a setting is natural in foreign exchange context where the short rates correspond to the short rates of the two currencies, equity single-currency context with stochastic dividend yield, or commodity context with stochastic convenience yield. We present the formula both in a call surface formulation as well as total implied variance formulation where the latter avoids calendar spread arbitrage by construction. We provide derivations for the case where both short rates are given as single factor processes and present the limits for a single stochastic rate or all deterministic short rates. The limits agree with published results. Then we derive a formulation that allows a more general stochastic drift and diffusion including one or more stochastic local volatility terms. In the general setting, our derivation allows the computation and calibration of the leverage function for stochastic local volatility models.
Human-collective visualization transparency

Interest in collective robotic systems has increased rapidly due to the potential benefits that can be offered to operators, such as increased safety and support, who perform challenging tasks in high-risk environments. The limited human-collective transparency research has focused on how the design of the models (i.e., algorithms), visualizations, and control mechanisms influence human-collective behaviors. Traditional collective visualizations have shown all of the individual entities composing a collective, which may become problematic as collectives scale in size and heterogeneity, and tasks become more demanding. Human operators can become overloaded with information, which will negatively affect their understanding of the collective’s current state and overall behaviors, which can cause poor teaming performance. This manuscript contributes to the human-collective domain by analyzing how visualization transparency influences remote supervision of collectives. The visualization transparency analysis expands traditional transparency assessments by focusing on how operators with different individual capabilities are impacted, their comprehension, the interface usability, and the human-collective team’s performance. Metrics that effectively assess visualization transparency of collectives are identified, and design guidance can inform future real-world human-collective systems designs. The individual agent and abstract screen-based visualizations were analyzed while remotely supervising sequential best-of-n decision-making tasks involving four collectives, composed of 200 entities each, 800 in total. The abstract visualization provided better transparency by enabling operators with different individual differences and capabilities to perform relatively the same and promoted higher human-collective performance.
Bi-criteria multiple knapsack problem with grouped items

The multiple knapsack problem with grouped items aims to maximize rewards by assigning groups of items among multiple knapsacks, without exceeding knapsack capacities. Either all items in a group are assigned or none at all. We study the bi-criteria variation of the problem, where capacities can be exceeded and the second objective is to minimize the maximum exceeded knapsack capacity. We propose approximation algorithms that run in pseudo-polynomial time and guarantee that rewards are not less than the optimal solution of the capacity-feasible problem, with a bound on exceeded knapsack capacities. The algorithms have different approximation factors, where no knapsack capacity is exceeded by more than 2, 1, and $$1/2$$ times the maximum knapsack capacity. The approximation guarantee can be improved to $$1/3$$ when all knapsack capacities are equal. We also prove that for certain cases, solutions obtained by the approximation algorithms are always optimal—they never exceed knapsack capacities. To obtain capacity-feasible solutions, we propose a binary-search heuristic combined with the approximation algorithms. We test the performance of the algorithms and heuristics in an extensive set of experiments on randomly generated instances and show they are efficient and effective, i.e., they run reasonably fast and generate good quality solutions.
Energy Release in the Solar Atmosphere from a Stream of Infalling Prominence Debris

Recent high-resolution and high-cadence extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) imaging has revealed a new phenomenon, impacting prominence debris, where prominence material from failed or partial eruptions can impact the lower atmosphere, releasing energy. We report a clear example of energy release and EUV brightening due to infalling prominence debris that occurred on 2011 September 7-8. The initial eruption of material was associated with an X1.8-class flare from AR 11283, occurring at 22:30 UT on 2011 September 7. Subsequently, a semicontinuous stream of this material returned to the solar surface with a velocity v greater than 150 km/s, impacting a region remote from the original active region between 00:20 and 00:40 UT on 2011 September 8. Using the Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, the differential emission measure of the plasma was estimated throughout this brightening event. We found that the radiated energy of the impacted plasma was L(sub rad) approx. 10(exp 27) erg, while the thermal energy peaked at approx.10(exp 28) erg. From this we were able to determine the mass content of the debris to be in the range 2 x 10(exp 14) less than m less than 2 x 10(exp 15) g. Given typical prominence masses, the likely debris mass is toward the lower end of this range. This clear example of a prominence debris event shows that significant energy release takes place during these events and that such impacts may be used as a novel diagnostic tool for investigating prominence material properties.
Network Scaffolding for Efficient Stabilization of the Chord Overlay Network

Overlay networks, where nodes communicate with neighbors over logical links consisting of zero or more physical links, have become an important part of modern networking. From data centers to IoT devices to Internet-based applications, overlay networks are used to organize a diverse set of processes for efficient operations like searching and routing. Many of these overlay networks operate in fragile environments where processes are susceptible to faults which may perturb the logical network topology. Self-stabilizing overlay networks have been proposed as one way to manage these faults, promising to build or restore a particular topology from any initial configuration or after the occurrence of any transient faults. Designing efficient self-stabilizing algorithms for many topologies, however, is not an easy task. For non-trivial topologies that have desirable properties like low diameter and robust routing in the face of node or link failures, self-stabilizing algorithms to date have had at least linear running time or space requirements. In this brief announcement, we sketch an algorithm for building a Chord network that has polylogarithmic time and space complexity.
Correlative Channel-Aware Fusion for Multi-View Time Series Classification.

Multi-view time series classification (MVTSC) aims to improve the performance by fusing the distinctive temporal information from multiple views. Existing methods for MVTSC mainly aim to fuse multi-view information at an early stage, e.g., by extracting a common feature subspace among multiple views. However, these approaches may not fully explore the unique temporal patterns of each view in complicated time series. Additionally, the label correlations of multiple views, which are critical to boosting, are usually under-explored for the MVTSC problem. To address the aforementioned issues, we propose a Correlative Channel-Aware Fusion (C$^2$AF) network. First, C$^2$AF extracts comprehensive and robust temporal patterns by a two-stream structured encoder for each view, and derives the intra-view/inter-view label correlations with a concise correlation matrix. Second, a channel-aware learnable fusion mechanism is implemented through CNN to further explore the global correlative patterns. Our C$^2$AF is an end-to-end framework for MVTSC. Extensive experimental results on three real-world datasets demonstrate the superiority of our C$^2$AF over the state-of-the-art methods. A detailed ablation study is also provided to illustrate the indispensability of each model component.