cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
ESP: a method to predict toxicity and pharmacological properties of chemicals using multiple MCASE databases.

We describe here the development of a computer program which uses a new method called Expert System Prediction (ESP), to predict toxic end points and pharmacological properties of chemicals based on multiple modules created by the MCASE artificial intelligence system. The modules are generally based on different biological models measuring related end points. The purpose is to improve the decision making process regarding the overall activity or inactivity of the chemicals and also to enable rapid in silico screening. ESP evaluates the significance of the biophores from a different viewpoint and uses this information for predicting the activity of new chemicals. We have used a unique encoding system to represent relevant features of a chemical in the form of a pattern vector and a genetic artificial neural network (GA-ANN) to gain knowledge of the relationship between these patterns and the overall pharmacological property. The effectiveness of ESP is illustrated in the prediction of general carcinogenici...
Afterimage—Mind Frame

"Afterimage - Mind Frame" is an interactive visual installation in which the 'medium' of the artwork is the mind. That is, it uses the physical phenomenon of afterimage in such a way that the viewer sees a familiar image in an empty picture frame. This is a gallery installation that allows audiences to experience first hand how afterimages work, by seeing a famous painting emerge on a blank canvas simply by focusing on the projection of seemingly random moving white dots. The abstract moving white blocks projected inside the picture frame play for a few seconds then go blank then play again and so on, continuously. When the array of blocks stops moving, an afterimage of a familiar famous painting is revealed in the otherwise blank frame. The array of tiny, moving blocks forms a very vague representation of the original image and although it is not very clear, the audience is eventually able to perceive a well-defined impression of the subject. This occurs because the afterimage forms as a result of a combination of physical and psychological processes. The former relates to how the vision system works and the latter relates to the fact that the original image is retrieved automatically from memory. The image formed by focusing on the moving white blocks projected in the frame is then combined neurologically with the memory of the original image from the brain. Therefore audiences don't see just the afterimage, but the afterimage plus the original image from their own memory, which fills in the details more fully as they remember the original image. "Afterimage - Mind Frame" encourages the audience to interact, and in a sense, the audience and the piece perform together. This allows for an uncanny glimpse of how perception and memory work together to form the world as they see it.
Flood Distribution Problems below Old River

Assuring safe passage of flood flows on Mississippi River below Old River requires that controlled system of natural streams and existing and planned artificial floodways be operated to distribute peak flows in accordance with design capacities of various system segments; factors influencing operation include stages and discharges, sedimentation problems, economic and commercial considerations, and adaptation to constantly changing hydraulic conditions.
Using pathchar to estimate Internet link characteristics

We evaluate pathchar, a tool that infers the characteristics of links along an Internet path (latency, bandwidth, queue delays). Looking at two example paths, we identify circumstances where pathchar is likely to succeed, and develop techniques to improve the accuracy of pathchar's estimates and reduce the time it takes to generate them. The most successful of these techniques is a form of adaptive data collection that reduces the number of measurements pathchar needs by more than 90% for some links.
Defending the Authoritarian Regime Online: China's “Voluntary Fifty-cent Army”

Recent studies on internet politics in China have gone beyond the once dominant control–liberalization perspective and directed intellectual attention to the varieties of online activism. Based on extensive in-depth online ethnographic work, this project explores the pluralization of online expression in Chinese cyberspace. Following a constituency of internet users who identify themselves as the “voluntary fifty-cent army,” the paper explores how these users acquire and consolidate their identity and combat criticism that targets the authoritarian regime. Analysis of the confrontational exchanges between the “voluntary fifty-cent army” and their opponents suggests that a perspective that goes beyond state censorship and regime-challenging activism is required in order to gain a better understanding of online expression in China. Close examination of why and how internet users may voluntarily defend the authoritarian regime also reveals how the dynamics in online discourse competition may work to the authoritarian regime's advantage.
Household Consumption Responses to SNAP Participation

Obesity is inordinately prevalent among food insecure households in the US. Some researchers have identified the consumption of unhealthy food a major source of this seemingly paradoxical relationship. One of the goals of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, is to encourage healthy eating behavior among low-income households. However, literature lacks conclusive evidence for the success of the program in achieving that goal. This paper exploits an underutilized source of variation, the early-2000s recession in the US, to determine the impact of SNAP participation on household Food Away From Home (FAFH) expenditures. A Difference in Difference model is constructed using high post-recession growth in SNAP caseloads as treatment. The results show that households in the treatment cohort significantly decrease consumption of FAFH relative to households in the control group. This provides evidence that SNAP participation leads households to make healthier eating choices.
Diastereoselective addition of Grignard reagents to α-epoxy N-sulfonyl hydrazones

α-Substituted-β-hydroxy ketones are valuable intermediates, but their preparation by alkylation of enolates is difficult with hindered electrophiles. Now, a direct method for preparing α-substituted-β-hydroxy ketones — including those having α-quaternary centres — by addition of Grignard reagents to epoxyhydrazones has been developed, enabling the stereocontrolled incorporation of a wide range of carbon based substituents.
Visible Light Photoredox Cross-Coupling of Acyl Chlorides with Potassium Alkoxymethyltrifluoroborates: Synthesis of α-Alkoxyketones

A visible-light, single-electron-transfer (SET), photoredox cross-coupling for the synthesis of α-alkoxyketones has been developed. In this method, various aliphatic and aromatic acyl chlorides were successfully coupled with structurally diverse potassium alkoxymethyltrifluoroborates, producing the corresponding α-alkoxyketones with high yields. In this operationally simple and mild cross-coupling protocol, the desired ketones are obtained in one step from bench stable starting materials by a bond connection that is unique to both alkylboron chemistry and photoredox/Ni catalysis.
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF BEDS OF COATED FUEL PARTICLES.

The thermal conductivity of loose, pyrolytic carbon-coated fuel particles in helium was studied at temperatures from 1800 to 2700°F using a convenient comparative technique. The conductivities of c...
Power asymmetries and institutions: landscape conservation in central India

This article argues for revisiting the institutional architecture of wildlife conservation in light of two recent trends: Increased popularity of landscape-level approaches and the recognition that conservation interventions must address longstanding questions of forest and land rights of local residents. The inquiry draws upon primary research conducted in Kanha National Park and Tiger Reserve, which is world renowned for its rich flora and fauna, but is also the site of a longstanding struggle over land rights of Adivasis, India’s indigenous people. The institutional landscape of contemporary wildlife conservation regimes, this article shows, is a product of the interlocking of socioeconomic inequalities and the dominant models of wildlife conservation. The analysis presented here follows a political economy of institutions approach, which underlines how the social, economic, and political contexts shape institutional outcomes. Findings from this analysis will inform the proposals for transformational institutional interventions aimed to meet the triple bottom line of social justice, broad-based economic development, and ecological stewardship.
SpectroGene: A Tool for Proteogenomic Annotations Using Top-Down Spectra

In the past decade, proteogenomics has emerged as a valuable technique that contributes to the state-of-the-art in genome annotation; however, previous proteogenomic studies were limited to bottom-up mass spectrometry and did not take advantage of top-down approaches. We show that top-down proteogenomics allows one to address the problems that remained beyond the reach of traditional bottom-up proteogenomics. In particular, we show that top-down proteogenomics leads to the discovery of previously unannotated genes even in extensively studied bacterial genomes and present SpectroGene, a software tool for genome annotation using top-down tandem mass spectra. We further show that top-down proteogenomics searches (against the six-frame translation of a genome) identify nearly all proteoforms found in traditional top-down proteomics searches (against the annotated proteome). SpectroGene is freely available at http://github.com/fenderglass/SpectroGene.
Stereospecific synthesis of unsymmetrical (E)- and (Z)-1,2-difluorostilbenes

Abstract The synthesis of 1,2-difluorostilbenes via a Susuki reaction using a benzene/ethanol/water solvent mixture required long reaction times and generated significant quantities of a homo-coupled boronic acid product, which was difficult to separate. Therefore, we attempted 1,4-dioxane as a solvent for these reactions, which showed remarkable increased reaction rates and minimized the amount of homo-coupled products to aid in purification. Both ( E )- and ( Z )-1-chloro-1,2-difluorostyrenes stereospecifically gave the 1,2-difluorostilbenes in moderate to excellent yields. We investigated 4 protocols for the reaction. Protocols 2 and 3 were recommended for scale up, since the chlorostyrene starting material can be obtained in large quantities stereospecifically as described in previous reports. This work represents the first practical synthesis of unsymmetrical ( E )- and ( Z )-1,2-difluorostilbenes from readily available starting materials.
Zero Entropy Is Generic

Dan Rudolph showed that for an amenable group, Γ, the generic measure-preserving action of Γ on a Lebesgue space has zero entropy. Here, this is extended to nonamenable groups. In fact, the proof shows that every action is a factor of a zero entropy action! This uses the strange phenomena that in the presence of nonamenability, entropy can increase under a factor map. The proof uses Seward’s recent generalization of Sinai’s Factor Theorem, the Gaboriau–Lyons result and my theorem that for every nonabelian free group, all Bernoulli shifts factor onto each other.
Natural lightning

The present understanding of natural lightning is reviewed. Research on lightning has been motivated, in part, by the need to protect advanced ground-based and airborne systems that utilize low voltage, solid-state electronics; by the desire to prevent spectacular accidents, such as occurred in 1969 during the launch of Apollo 12 and in 1987 during the launch of Atlas-Centaur 67; and by the desire to elucidate the physics of one of nature's most impressive phenomena. The author discusses lightning sources, natural lightning, negative and positive cloud-to-ground lightning, upward lightning, cloud discharges, top-of-the cloud and clear air lightning, lightning avoidance and lightning protection. >
Image Segmentation using Two-Layer Pulse Coupled Neural Network with Inhibitory Linking Field

For over a decade, the Pulse Coupled Neural Network (PCNN) based algorithms have been used for image segmentation. Though there are several versions of the PCNN based image segmentation methods, almost all of them use singlelayer PCNN with excitatory linking inputs. There are four major issues associated with the single-burst PCNN which need attention. Often, the PCNN parameters including the linking coefficient are determined by trial and error. The segmentation accuracy of the single-layer PCNN is highly sensitive to the value of the linking coefficient. Finally, in the single-burst mode, neurons corresponding to background pixels do not participate in the segmentation process. This paper presents a new 2-layer network organization of PCNN in which excitatory and inhibitory linking inputs exist. The value of the linking coefficient and the threshold signal at which primary firing of neurons start are determined directly from the image statistics. Simulation results show that the new PCNN achieves significant improvement in the segmentation accuracy over the widely known Kuntimad’s single burst image segmentation approach. The two-layer PCNN based image segmentation method overcomes all three drawbacks of the single-layer PCNN.
Approximate Personalized PageRank on Dynamic Graphs

We propose and analyze two algorithms for maintaining approximate Personalized PageRank (PPR) vectors on a dynamic graph, where edges are added or deleted. Our algorithms are natural dynamic versions of two known local variations of power iteration. One, Forward Push, propagates probability mass forwards along edges from a source node, while the other, Reverse Push, propagates local changes backwards along edges from a target. In both variations, we maintain an invariant between two vectors, and when an edge is updated, our algorithm first modifies the vectors to restore the invariant, then performs any needed local push operations to restore accuracy. For Reverse Push, we prove that for an arbitrary directed graph in a random edge model, or for an arbitrary undirected graph, given a uniformly random target node t, the cost to maintain a PPR vector to t of additive error e as k edges are updated is O(k + d/e, where d is the average degree of the graph. This is O(1) work per update, plus the cost of computing a reverse vector once on a static graph. For Forward Push, we show that on an arbitrary undirected graph, given a uniformly random start node s, the cost to maintain a PPR vector from s of degree-normalized error e as k edges are updated is O(k + 1/e, which is again O(1) per update plus the cost of computing a PPR vector once on a static graph.
Ag3Fe(VO4)2 and AgFeV2O7: Synthesis, Structure, and Electrochemical Characteristics of Two New Silver Iron(III) Vanadates†

The structural features and electrochemical properties of two new silver iron(III) vanadates have been determined, and their relevance to cathode materials for primary lithium battery devices is reported. Ag3Fe(VO4)2 (SFVO-1) and AgFeV2O7 (SFVO-2) were isolated via a pseudoternary (Ag2O−Fe2O3−V2O5) system at 600 °C. The crystallographic data of the phases are the following: Ag3Fe(VO4)2 monoclinic C2/c (no. 15), a = 9.771(2) A, b = 5.153(1) A, c = 14.325(3) A, β = 93.85(3)o, V = 719.7(2) A3, Z = 4; AgFeV2O7, triclinic, P1 (no. 2), a = 5.603(1) A, b = 7.485(2) A, c = 7.644(2) A, α = 65.07(3)o, β = 89.48(3)o, γ = 78.98(3)o, V = 284.4(1) A3, Z = 2. The single crystal X-ray diffraction studies show that the Ag+ cations reside in the open space of layered (SFVO-1) and channeled (SFVO-2) Fe−O−V frameworks. The extended electrochemical capacity above 2 V (vs Li/Li+) in these phases is consistent with their higher (Ag++Fe3+)/V5+ ratios, compared to the corresponding Ag+/V5+ in Ag2V4O11 (SVO). The discharge voltag...
Analysis of Nonlinear Optical and Dynamic Gain Effects of Moderate-Power, Pulse-Position-Modulated, Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers for Deep-Space Applications

Self-phase modulation and stimulated Raman scattering are analyzed and limit the usable data-format space. Output pulse energy variation and square-pulse distortion, as large as 28% and 21% respectively, primarily depend on symbol duration.
Ultimate Tensile Properties of Elastomers. I. Characterization by a Time and Temperature Independent Failure Envelope

Abstract The tensile stress at break (σb) and the associated ultimate strain (eb) of an elastomer depend on (1) the chemical and topological characteristics of the polymeric network, and (2) the test conditions under which rupture is observed. To separate these effects, the ultimate tensile properties can often be characterized by a “failure envelope” defined by values of σb and eb determined at various strain rates over a wide temperature range. Provided time—temperature superposition is applicable, such data superpose on a plot of log σbT0/T versus log eb, where T is the test temperature (absolute) and T0 is an arbitrarily selected reference temperature. The resulting failure envelope is independent of time (strain rate) and temperature and thus it depends only on basic characteristics of the polymeric network. To illustrate the characterization method, data on two styrene-butadiene gum vulcanizates, SBR-I and SBR-II, were analyzed. For SBR-I, values of σb and eb obtained over extensive ranges of strain...
Tuning the Magnetic Properties of New Layered Iron Chalcogenides (BaF)2Fe2–xQ3 (Q = S, Se) by Changing the Defect Concentration on the Iron Sublattice

Effecting and controlling ferromagnetic-like properties in semiconductors has proven to be a complex problem, especially when approaching room temperature. Here, we demonstrate the important role of defects in the magnetic properties of semiconductors by reporting the structures and properties of the iron chalcogenides (BaF)2Fe2–xQ3 (Q = S, Se), which exhibit anomalous magnetic properties that are correlated with defects in the Fe-sublattice. The compounds form in both long-range ordered and disordered polytypes of a new structure typified by the alternate stacking of fluorite (BaF)22+ and (Fe2–xQ3)2– layers. The latter layers exhibit an ordered array of strong Fe–Fe dimers in edge-sharing tetrahedra. Given the strong Fe–Fe interaction, it is expected that the Fe–Fe dimer is antiferromagnetically coupled, yet crystals exhibit a weak ferromagnetic moment that orders at relatively high temperature: below 280–315 K and 240–275 K for the sulfide and selenide analogues, respectively. This transition temperatur...
Evaluating the Economic Impacts of an Evolving Swine Industry: The Importance of Regional Size and Structure

This paper analyzes the economic impacts of swine operations at the county and state level, with attention to how those impacts are affected by the underlying economic structure of the region. Two sizes of farrow-to-finish operations and finishing-only operations were analyzed using IMPLAN. The relative impacts were compared to the effects of recent changes in industry structure. The larger operations provide less in economic benefits to the local county than a larger number of smaller operations. The differences were comparable to the impacts of the small unit exits over the past 4 years.
Carbon–Carbon Bond-Forming Reactions of α-Thioaryl Carbonyl Compounds for the Synthesis of Complex Heterocyclic Molecules

Strategies for the formation of carbon–carbon bonds from the α-thioaryl carbonyl products of substituted lactams are described. Although direct functionalization is possible, a two step process of oxidation and magnesium-sulfoxide exchange has proven optimal. The oxidation step results in the formation of two diastereomers that exhibit markedly different levels of stability toward elimination, which is rationalized on the basis of quantum mechanical calculations and X-ray crystallography. Treatment of the sulfoxide with i-PrMgCl results in the formation of a magnesium enolate that will undergo an intramolecular Michael addition reaction to form two new stereogenic centers. The relationship between the substitution patterns of the sulfoxide substrate and the efficiency of the magnesium exchange reaction are also described.
Flameholding Analyses in Supersonic Flow

Flameholding in supersonic flow depends on the local conditions in the recirculation region and the mass transfer into and out o f this region. Large gradients in local gas composition and temperature exist in the recirculation region. Hence stability parameter correlations developed for premixed flames cannot be used to determine the blowout stability limits for non -premixed flames encountered in practical devices. In the present investigation, mixture samples at different locations in the recirculation region and the shear layer formed behind a rearward facing step have been extracted and analyzed by a mass spectrometer to determin e the local distribution of species concentration. Tests are performed with and without combustion. In combustion tests, the extracted samples are passed through a cooling jacket to quench the reactions and freeze the species composition coming out of the combustion chamber. The difference between the local mass fraction of injected gas within the recirculation region determined from mass spectroscopy and the global mass fraction based on the total mass of air and injected gas is thus identified. The inform ation will help formulate a stability parameter for non -premixed flames and for computational model validation.
Non-Hydride Group V Sources for Omvpe

A major limitation to the continuing development of organometallic vapor phase epitaxy (OMVPE) for the growth of II/V semiconductor materials is the hazard posed by the hydride sources, AsH3 and PH3, which are virtually universally used, in high pressure cylinders, as the group V source materials for the growth of the highest quality materials. The set of stringent requirements for an organometallic group V source, which includes a high vapor pressure (>50 Torr) and freedom from undesirable carbon contamination, eliminates most commonly available non-hydride group V sources. Recent research on newly developed sources has shown considerable promise. The entire area of group V sources, including the elemental sources, for OMVPE growth of II/V materials will be reviewed. The sources with no hydrogen atoms attached to the group V atom, the elemental, trimethyl-V, and triethyl-V, sources all appear to give unacceptably high carbon incorporation, as does dimethylarsine. Diethylarsine, which has one H attached to the As, produces high quality GaAs. Tertiarybutylarsine (TBAs) and tertiarybutylphosphine (TBP) appear to be promising source materials. TBP has a very low toxicity, a vapor pressure ideal for OMVPE growth, and the pyrolysis occurs at lower temperatures than for PH3. No carbon contamination can be attributed to the TBP. Control of the As/P ratio in OMVPE grown GaAsP is much improved for TBP as compared with PH3 due to the more rapid pyrolysis. TBAs has similar attributes including a favorable vapor pressure and lower pyrolysis temperature than AsH3. The substitution of TBAs for AsH3 results in no observable increase in carbon in the epitaxial GaAs. Phenylarsine is a similar source, with a phenyl radical substituted for a single H atom on AsH3. The vapor pressure of phenylarsine is quite low and the pyrolysis temperature is expected to be some what lower than that for AsH3. Limited results indicate that carbon incorporation in GaAs is acceptable only when TEGa is the group V source.
Unavoidable patterns

Let F"k denote the family of 2-edge-colored complete graphs on 2k vertices in which one color forms either a clique of order k or two disjoint cliques of order k. Bollobas conjectured that for every @e>0 and positive integer k there is n(k,@e) such that every 2-edge-coloring of the complete graph of order n>=n(k,@e) which has at least @e(n2) edges in each color contains a member of F"k. This conjecture was proved by Cutler and Montagh, who showed that n(k,@e)<4^k^/^@e. We give a much simpler proof of this conjecture which in addition shows that n(k,@e)<@e^-^c^k for some constant c. This bound is tight up to the constant factor in the exponent for all k and @e. We also discuss similar results for tournaments and hypergraphs.
Kinetically controlled E-selective catalytic olefin metathesis

A major shortcoming in olefin metathesis, a chemical process that is central to research in several branches of chemistry, is the lack of efficient methods that kinetically favor E isomers in the product distribution. Here we show that kinetically E-selective cross-metathesis reactions may be designed to generate thermodynamically disfavored alkenyl chlorides and fluorides in high yield and with exceptional stereoselectivity. With 1.0 to 5.0 mole % of a molybdenum-based catalyst, which may be delivered in the form of air- and moisture-stable paraffin pellets, reactions typically proceed to completion within 4 hours at ambient temperature. Many isomerically pure E-alkenyl chlorides, applicable to catalytic cross-coupling transformations and found in biologically active entities, thus become easily and directly accessible. Similarly, E-alkenyl fluorides can be synthesized from simpler compounds or more complex molecules.
Practical Pd(II)-Catalyzed C-H Alkylation with Epoxides: One-Step Syntheses of 3,4-Dihydroisocoumarins.

Pd(II)-catalyzed ortho-alkylation of benzoic acids with both terminal and internal epoxides affords 3,4-dihydroisocoumarins in one step. The presence of potassium countercations is crucial for this reaction. Monoprotected amino acid ligands significantly promote this reaction, enabling the development of a practical C–H alkylation reaction using 0.5 mol % Pd catalyst. The inversion of stereochemistry in the C–H alkylation step is consistent with a redox-neutral SN2 nucleophilic ring-opening process as opposed to a Pd(II)/Pd(IV) pathway.
AutoMan: a platform for integrating human-based and digital computation

Humans can perform many tasks with ease that remain difficult or impossible for computers. Crowdsourcing platforms like Amazon's Mechanical Turk make it possible to harness human-based computational power at an unprecedented scale. However, their utility as a general-purpose computational platform remains limited. The lack of complete automation makes it difficult to orchestrate complex or interrelated tasks. Scheduling more human workers to reduce latency costs real money, and jobs must be monitored and rescheduled when workers fail to complete their tasks. Furthermore, it is often difficult to predict the length of time and payment that should be budgeted for a given task. Finally, the results of human-based computations are not necessarily reliable, both because human skills and accuracy vary widely, and because workers have a financial incentive to minimize their effort.This paper introduces AutoMan, the first fully automatic crowdprogramming system. AutoMan integrates human-based computations into a standard programming language as ordinary function calls, which can be intermixed freely with traditional functions. This abstraction lets AutoMan programmers focus on their programming logic. An AutoMan program specifies a confidence level for the overall computation and a budget. The AutoMan runtime system then transparently manages all details necessary for scheduling, pricing, and quality control. AutoMan automatically schedules human tasks for each computation until it achieves the desired confidence level; monitors, reprices, and restarts human tasks as necessary; and maximizes parallelism across human workers while staying under budget.
Nonmanipulable Selections from a Tournament

A tournament is a binary dominance relation on a set of alternatives. Tournaments arise in many contexts that are relevant to AI, most notably in voting (as a method to aggregate the preferences of agents). There are many works that deal with choice rules that select a desirable alternative from a tournament, but very few of them deal directly with incentive issues, despite the fact that game-theoretic considerations are crucial with respect to systems populated by selfish agents. We deal with the problem of the manipulation of choice rules by considering two types of manipulation. We say that a choice rule is emph{monotonic} if an alternative cannot get itself selected by losing on purpose, and emph{pairwise nonmanipulable} if a pair of alternatives cannot make one of them the winner by reversing the outcome of the match between them. Our main result is a combinatorial construction of a choice rule that is monotonic, pairwise nonmanipulable, and onto the set of alternatives, for any number of alternatives besides three.
Predicting Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke: The FINRISK Calculator

The FINRISK risk calculator predicts 10-year risk for coronary heart disease, stroke incidence, and their combination. The model is based on 10-year cohort follow-up from 3 different cohorts in 1982, 1987, and 1992 from a random population sample in 3 areas in Finland. Coronary heart disease, stroke, and their combination are predicted by smoking, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, diabetes, and family history. The Internet-based calculator is commonly used in Finland in health services to assess the need for hypertension and hypercholesterolemia treatment and is used also in patients' counseling.
Time series momentum and volatility scaling

Moskowitz, Ooi, and Pedersen (2012) show that time series momentum delivers a large and significant alpha for a diversified portfolio of international futures contracts. We find that their results are largely driven by volatility-scaling returns (or the so-called risk parity approach to asset allocation) rather than by time series momentum. Without scaling by volatility, time series momentum and a buy-and-hold strategy offer similar cumulative returns, and their alphas are not significantly different. This similarity holds for most sectors and for a combined portfolio of futures contracts. Cross-sectional momentum also offers a higher (similar) alpha than unscaled (scaled) time series momentum.
Transformation Chemistry of Gold Nanoclusters: From One Stable Size to Another.

Controlling nanoparticles with atomic precision has long been a major dream of nanochemists. This dream has first been realized in the case of gold nanoparticles. We previously discussed a size-focusing methodology for the syntheses of atomically precise gold nanoclusters protected by thiolate ligands (referred to as Aun(SR)m, where n and m represent the exact numbers of gold atoms and surface ligands). This methodology led to molecularly pure nanoclusters such as Au25(SR)18, Au38(SR)24, Au144(SR)60, and many others in recent work. In this Perspective article, we shall further discuss a new methodology for controlling the size and structure of nanoclusters through ligand-exchange-induced transformation of Aun(SR)m nanoclusters. Notable examples include the transformations of Au25(SR)18 to Au28(SR′)20, Au38(SR)24 to Au36(SR′)24, and Au144(SR)60 to Au133(SR′)52. Total structures of the new nanoclusters have also been attained. The transformation processes are remarkable and resemble the organic transformati...
Insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor regulates repair of ultraviolet B-induced DNA damage in human keratinocytes in vivo

The activation status of the insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor (IGF-1R) regulates the cellular response of keratinocytes to ultraviolet B (UVB) exposure, both in vitro and in vivo. Geriatric skin is deficient in IGF-1 expression resulting in an aberrant IGF-1R-dependent UVB response which contributes to the development of aging-associated squamous cell carcinoma. Furthermore, our lab and others have reported that geriatric keratinocytes repair UVB-induced DNA damage less efficiently than young adult keratinocytes. Here, we show that IGF-1R activation influences DNA damage repair in UVB-irradiated keratinocytes. Specifically, in the absence of IGF-1R activation, the rate of DNA damage repair following UVB-irradiation was significantly slowed (using immortalized human keratinocytes) or inhibited (using primary human keratinocytes). Furthermore, inhibition of IGF-1R activity in human skin, using either ex vivo explant cultures or in vivo xenograft models, suppressed DNA damage repair. Primary keratinocytes with an inactivated IGF-1R also exhibited lower steady-state levels of nucleotide excision repair mRNAs. These results suggest that deficient UVB-induced DNA repair in geriatric keratinocytes is due in part to silenced IGF-1R activation in geriatric skin and provide a mechanism for how the IGF-1 pathway plays a role in the initiation of squamous cell carcinoma in geriatric patients.
Alcohol and fat promote steatohepatitis: a critical role for fat-specific protein 27/CIDEC

Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is a major public health problem worldwide and is the leading cause of end-stage liver disease. While the ultimate control of ALD will require the prevention of alcohol abuse, better understanding of the mechanisms of alcohol-induced liver injury may lead to treatments of fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and prevention or delay of occurrence of cirrhosis. The elucidation and the discovery of several new concepts in ALD pathogenesis have raised our understanding on the complex mechanisms and the potential in developing the new strategies for therapeutic benefits. In this review, we provide the most up-to-date information on the basic molecular mechanisms focusing on the role of fat-specific protein 27/CIDEC in the pathogenesis of ALD.
Who is More Free? A Comparison of the Decision-Making of Private and Public School Principals

ABSTRACTWhile substantial school choice research focuses on student achievement outcomes, little has explored the mechanisms involved in producing such outcomes. We present a comparative analysis of private and public school principals using data from the School and Staffing Survey (SASS) 2011–2012. We add to the literature by examining the differences in private and public school principals’ abilities to influence important decisions at their schools from a nationally representative sample of 9,230 school principals. Results indicate that private school leadership exhibits more autonomy in influencing school level policies, perhaps explaining private school advantages.
Sentiment Composition of Words with Opposing Polarities

In this paper, we explore sentiment composition in phrases that have at least one positive and at least one negative word—phrases like happy accident and best winter break. We compiled a dataset of such opposing polarity phrases and manually annotated them with real-valued scores of sentiment association. Using this dataset, we analyze the linguistic patterns present in opposing polarity phrases. Finally, we apply several unsupervised and supervised techniques of sentiment composition to determine their efficacy on this dataset. Our best system, which incorporates information from the phrase’s constituents, their parts of speech, their sentiment association scores, and their embedding vectors, obtains an accuracy of over 80% on the opposing polarity phrases.
Fracture size and transmissivity correlations: Implications for transport simulations in sparse three‐dimensional discrete fracture networks following a truncated power law distribution of fracture size

We characterize how different fracture size-transmissivity relationships influence flow and transport simulations through sparse three-dimensional discrete fracture networks. Although it is generally accepted that there is a positive correlation between a fracture's size and its transmissivity/aperture, the functional form of that relationship remains a matter of debate. Relationships that assume perfect correlation, semi-correlation, and non-correlation between the two have been proposed. To study the impact that adopting one of these relationships has on transport properties, we generate multiple sparse fracture networks composed of circular fractures whose radii follow a truncated power law distribution. The distribution of transmissivities are selected so that the mean transmissivity of the fracture networks are the same and the distributions of aperture and transmissivity in models that include a stochastic term are also the same. We observe that adopting a correlation between a fracture size and its transmissivity leads to earlier breakthrough times and higher effective permeability when compared to networks where no correlation is used. While fracture network geometry plays the principal role in determining where transport occurs within the network, the relationship between size and transmissivity controls the flow speed. These observations indicate DFN modelers should be aware that breakthrough times and effective permeabilities can be strongly influenced by such a relationship in addition to fracture and network statistics. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
On the Efficient Representation and Execution of Deep Acoustic Models.

In this paper we present a simple and computationally efficient quantization scheme that enables us to reduce the resolution of the parameters of a neural network from 32-bit floating point values to 8-bit integer values. The proposed quantization scheme leads to significant memory savings and enables the use of optimized hardware instructions for integer arithmetic, thus significantly reducing the cost of inference. Finally, we propose a "quantization aware" training process that applies the proposed scheme during network training and find that it allows us to recover most of the loss in accuracy introduced by quantization. We validate the proposed techniques by applying them to a long short-term memory-based acoustic model on an open-ended large vocabulary speech recognition task.
5-Azacitidine Monotherapy Followed By Related Haploidentical Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Achieves Durable Remission in a Pediatric Patient with Acute Undifferentiated Leukemia Refractory to High Dose Chemotherapy

Patients with acute leukemias of undifferentiated lineage (AUL) generally have guarded prognosis. Here, we describe the first reported pediatric patient with AUL refractory to high-dose chemotherapy who achieved clinical remission with ALL maintenance therapy and 5-azacitidine. His induction remission was followed by consolidation with reduced toxicity haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). At 9 months post-HSCT, the patient is alive and in remission. This combination therapy of remission induction with ALL maintenance therapy and 5-azacitidine and consolidation with reduced toxicity haploidentical HSCT is novel and promising for patients who lack conventional donors and are not candidates for myeloablative therapy.
Approximating multicut and the demand graph

In the minimum Multicut problem, the input is an edge-weighted supply graph G = (V, E) and a demand graph H = (V, F). Either G and H are directed (Dir-MulC) or both are undirected (Undir-MulC). The goal is to remove a minimum weight set of supply edges E' ⊆ E such that in G − E' there is no path from s to t for any demand edge (s, t) ∈ F. Undir-MulC admits O(log k)-approximation where k is the number of edges in H while the best known approximation for Dir-MulC is min{k, O(|V|11/23)}. These approximations are obtained by proving corresponding results on the multicommodity flow-cut gap. In this paper we consider the role that the structure of the demand graph plays in determining the approximability of Multicut. We obtain several new positive and negative results.In undirected graphs our main result is a 2-approximation in nO(t) time when the demand graph excludes an induced matching of size t. This gives a constant factor approximation for a specific demand graph that motivated this work, and is based on a reduction to uniform metric labeling and not via the flow-cut gap.In contrast to the positive result for undirected graphs, we prove that in directed graphs such approximation algorithms can not exist. We prove that, assuming the Unique Games Conjecture (UGC), that for a large class of fixed demand graphs Dir-MulC cannot be approximated to a factor better than the worst-case flow-cut gap. As a consequence we prove that for any fixed k, assuming UGC, Dir-MulC with k demand pairs is hard to approximate to within a factor better than k. On the positive side, we obtain a k approximation when the demand graph excludes certain graphs as an induced subgraph. This generalizes the known 2 approximation for directed Multiway Cut to a larger class of demand graphs.
Marketplace Plan Payment Options for Dealing with High-Cost Enrollees

AbstractTwo of the three elements of the ACA's “premium stabilization program,” reinsurance and risk corridors, are set to expire in 2017, leaving risk adjustment alone to protect plans against risk of high-cost cases. This paper considers potential modifications of the HHS risk adjustment methodology to maintain plan protection against risk from high-cost cases within the current regulatory framework. We show analytically that modifications of the transfer formula and of the risk adjustment model itself are mathematically equivalent to a conventional actuarially fair reinsurance policy. Furthermore, closely related modifications of the transfer formula or the risk adjustment model can improve on conventional reinsurance by figuring transfers or estimating risk adjustment model weights recognizing the presence of a reinsurance function. In the empirical section, we estimate risk adjustment models with an updated and selected version of the data used to calibrate the federal payment models, and show, using...
Potential Output in Asia: Some Forward-Looking Scenarios

This paper presents estimates of potential output growth for a sample of 26 Asian economies and projects potential output growth through 2040 under several scenarios. Results suggest that in the absence of further capital deepening, and assuming continued total factor productivity growth at recent rates, potential output growth across economies could slow from a median of 4.6% during 2010–2015 to 2.7% between 2035 and 2040. Demographic trends and an assumed stabilization in capital–output ratios account for most of the slowing. Much better outcomes are possible if trends are supported by policy. Better total factor productivity growth could raise potential output by between 11% and 24% by 2040, while lower unemployment and higher participation rates could boost potential output by 10% or more in some South Asian economies. An improved investment climate could add between 6% and 10% to potential output in most economies, while accelerating structural convergence (moving labor from lower to higher productiv...
Sea level rise and inundation of island interiors: Assessing impacts of lake formation and evaporation on water resources in arid climates

Coasts of many low-lying islands will be inundated should sea level rise by 1 m by 2100 as projected, thereby decreasing water resources through aquifer salinization. A lesser known impact occurs if rising sea-level elevates water tables above interior topographic lows to form lakes. Impacts of lake formation on water resources, however, remain unquantified. Here we use hydrological models, based on islands in the Bahamian archipelago, to demonstrate that, on islands with negative water budgets, evaporation following lake inundation can cause more than twice the loss of fresh groundwater resources relative to an equivalent amount of coastal inundation. This result implies that in dry climates, low-lying islands with inland depressions could face substantially greater threats to their water resources from sea-level rise than previously considered.
SAMSA: a comprehensive metatranscriptome analysis pipeline.

Although metatranscriptomics—the study of diverse microbial population activity based on RNA-seq data—is rapidly growing in popularity, there are limited options for biologists to analyze this type of data. Current approaches for processing metatranscriptomes rely on restricted databases and a dedicated computing cluster, or metagenome-based approaches that have not been fully evaluated for processing metatranscriptomic datasets. We created a new bioinformatics pipeline, designed specifically for metatranscriptome dataset analysis, which runs in conjunction with Metagenome-RAST (MG-RAST) servers. Designed for use by researchers with relatively little bioinformatics experience, SAMSA offers a breakdown of metatranscriptome transcription activity levels by organism or transcript function, and is fully open source. We used this new tool to evaluate best practices for sequencing stool metatranscriptomes. Working with the MG-RAST annotation server, we constructed the Simple Annotation of Metatranscriptomes by Sequence Analysis (SAMSA) software package, a complete pipeline for the analysis of gut microbiome data. SAMSA can summarize and evaluate raw annotation results, identifying abundant species and significant functional differences between metatranscriptomes. Using pilot data and simulated subsets, we determined experimental requirements for fecal gut metatranscriptomes. Sequences need to be either long reads (longer than 100 bp) or joined paired-end reads. Each sample needs 40–50 million raw sequences, which can be expected to yield the 5–10 million annotated reads necessary for accurate abundance measures. We also demonstrated that ribosomal RNA depletion does not equally deplete ribosomes from all species within a sample, and remaining rRNA sequences should be discarded. Using publicly available metatranscriptome data in which rRNA was not depleted, we were able to demonstrate that overall organism transcriptional activity can be measured using mRNA counts. We were also able to detect significant differences between control and experimental groups in both organism transcriptional activity and specific cellular functions. By making this new pipeline publicly available, we have created a powerful new tool for metatranscriptomics research, offering a new method for greater insight into the activity of diverse microbial communities. We further recommend that stool metatranscriptomes be ribodepleted and sequenced in a 100 bp paired end format with a minimum of 40 million reads per sample.
Decomposing Joint Distributions via Reweighting Functions: An Application to Intergenerational Economic Mobility

We introduce a method that extends the traditional Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to both the full distribution of an outcome of interest and to settings where group membership varies along a continu...