cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Out of the outhouse: The impact of place‐based policies on dwelling characteristics in Appalachia

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) administers and partially funds investment projects designed to improve economic conditions in the Appalachian Region, an area of persistent poverty and reduced economic opportunity in the eastern US in and around the Appalachian mountains. Previous research on the effectiveness of ARC programs is mixed. We analyze the impact of ARC investment projects related to expanding sewerage and waste water treatment on dwelling characteristics. Results from a difference-in-differences model using a quasi experimental approach show that ARC investment projects improved access to running water, and increased sewer hook-ups and indoor bathrooms in dwellings.
Order of play advantage in sequential tournaments: Evidence from randomized settings in professional golf

Abstract In this paper we exploit naturally occurring randomized settings within a very large dataset of golf shots to test whether order of play matters in professional golf tournaments. We isolate two settings where professional golf competitors find themselves with virtually identical shots, implying the order of play is effectively random. These settings allow us to identify unbiased, causal estimates of the relevance of moving first or second in competition. We find robust evidence that the second-mover has a statistically (and economically) significant advantage, which we argue is consistent with a learning effect in competition.
Monitoring focal adhesion kinase phosphorylation dynamics in live cells

Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is a cytoplasmic non-receptor tyrosine kinase essential for a diverse set of cellular functions. Current methods for monitoring FAK activity in response to an extracellular stimulus lack spatiotemporal resolution and/or the ability to perform multiplex detection. Here we report on a novel approach to monitor the real-time kinase phosphorylation activity of FAK in live single cells by fluorescence lifetime imaging.
Combined Social and Spatial Coding in a Descending Projection from the Prefrontal Cortex

Social behaviors are crucial to all mammals. Although the prelimbic cortex (PL, part of medial prefrontal cortex) has been implicated in social behavior, it is not clear which neurons are relevant or how they contribute. We found that PL contains anatomically and molecularly distinct subpopulations that target three downstream regions that have been implicated in social behavior: the nucleus accumbens (NAc), amygdala, and ventral tegmental area. Activation of NAc-projecting PL neurons (PL-NAc), but not the other subpopulations, decreased the preference for a social target. To determine what information PL-NAc neurons convey, we selectively recorded from them and found that individual neurons were active during social investigation, but only in specific spatial locations. Spatially specific manipulation of these neurons bidirectionally regulated the formation of a social-spatial association. Thus, the unexpected combination of social and spatial information within the PL-NAc may contribute to social behavior by supporting social-spatial learning.
Blood Flow and Oxygen Uptake During Exercise

A model is developed for predicting oxygen uptake, muscle blood flow, and blood chemistry changes under exercise conditions. In this model, the working muscle mass system is analyzed. The conservation of matter principle is applied to the oxygen in a unit mass of working muscle under transient exercise conditions. This principle is used to relate the inflow of oxygen carried with the blood to the outflow carried with blood, the rate of change of oxygen stored in the muscle myoglobin, and the uptake by the muscle. Standard blood chemistry relations are incorporated to evaluate venous levels of oxygen, pH, and carbon dioxide.
Retrospective Cohort Mortality Study of Roman Catholic Priests

In order to test the hypothesis that Roman Catholic priests are at low risk for prostatic cancer because of their celibacy, a cohort of 10,026 men who were active or retired diocesan (parish) Roman Catholic priests in the United States on January 1, 1949 were followed until death, leaving the priesthood, or January 1, 1978. The overall standardized mortality ratio (SMR) was 103 and the SMR for cancer of the prostate was 81. Other interesting findings include increased SMRs for cancer of the larynx (147), cirrhosis of the liver (147), and diabetes (182) and decreased SMRs for lung cancer (59), emphysema (26), and suicide (13).
Characterizing compatibility and agreement of unrooted trees via cuts in graphs.

Background: Deciding whether there is a single tree —a supertree— that summarizes the evolutionary information in a collection of unrooted trees is a fundamental problem in phylogenetics. We consider two versions of this question: agreement and compatibility. In the first, the supertree is required to reflect precisely the relationships among the species exhibited by the input trees. In the second, the supertree can be more refined than the input trees. Testing for compatibility is an NP-complete problem; however, the problem is solvable in polynomial time when the number of input trees is fixed. Testing for agreement is also NP-complete, but it is not known whether it is fixedparameter tractable. Compatibility can be characterized in terms of the existence of a specific kind of triangulation in a structure known as the display graph. Alternatively, it can be characterized as a chordal graph sandwich problem in a structure known as the edge label intersection graph. No characterization of agreement was known. Results: We present a simple and natural characterization of compatibility in terms of minimal cuts in the display graph, which is closely related to compatibility of splits. We then derive a characterization for agreement. Conclusions: Explicit characterizations of tree compatibility and agreement are essential to finding practical algorithms for these problems. The simplicity of the characterizations presented here could help to achieve this goal.
Increased spinal height using propped slouched sitting postures: Innovative ways to rehydrate intervertebral discs.

Abstract Background Upright and slouched sitting are frequently adopted postures associated with increased intradiscal pressure, spinal height loss and intervertebral disc pathology. Objectives To examine the effects of two sustained propped slouched sitting (PSS) postures on spinal height after a period of trunk loading. Methods Thirty-four participants without a history of low back pain (LBP) were recruited (age 24.4 ± 1.6 years). Subjects sat in (1) PSS without lumbar support and (2) PSS with lumbar support for 10 min, after a period of trunk loading. Spinal height was measured using a stadiometer. Results Mean spinal height increase during PSS without lumbar support was 2.94 ± 3.63 mm and with lumbar support 4.74 ± 3.07 mm. Conclusions Both PSS with and without lumbar support significantly increased spinal height after a period of trunk loading ( p
Reported Effects vs. Revealed-Preference Estimates: Evidence from the propensity to spend tax rebates

We evaluate the consistency of two methods for estimating the effect of an economic policy: (i) asking people how the policy caused them to change their behavior (reported effects) and (ii) inferring this change using data on behavior and differences in treatment across people (revealed-preference estimates). Both methods are widely used to measure spending caused by increases in liquidity. Using federal stimulus payments disbursed quasi-randomly in 2008, we find larger revealed-preference estimates of spending propensities for households who report greater spending responses, and the methods produce similar average propensities. But evidence is mixed on the relationship between spending propensities and liquidity.
A systematic review of the bimanual examination as a test for ovarian cancer

Context An annual bimanual pelvic examination remains widely recommended for healthy women, but its inclusion may discourage attendance. Our goal was to determine the accuracy of the pelvic examination as a screening test for ovarian cancer and to distinguish benign from malignant lesions. Evidence acquisition PubMed was searched to identify studies evaluating the accuracy of the bimanual pelvic examination for ovarian cancer diagnosis. Data regarding study design, study quality, and test accuracy were abstracted. Heterogeneity was evaluated and meta-analysis performed where appropriate, including bivariate receiver operating characteristic curves. Evidence synthesis Eight studies in screening populations ( n =36,599) and seven studies in symptomatic patients ( n =782) were identified. Search was completed in November 2013; included studies were published between 1988 and 2009. Screening studies were homogeneous; the summary estimates of sensitivity and specificity of the pelvic examination as a screening test for ovarian cancer were 0.44 and 0.98 (positive likelihood ratio, 24.7; negative likelihood ratio, 0.57). For distinguishing benign versus malignant lesions, there was considerable heterogeneity, with a range of sensitivity from 0.43 to 0.93 and specificity from 0.53 to 0.91. Conclusions The bimanual pelvic examination lacks accuracy as a screening test for ovarian cancer and as a way to distinguish benign from malignant lesions. In a typical screening population, the positive predictive value of an abnormal pelvic examination is only 1% (95% CI=0.67%, 3.0%). Its inclusion in a health maintenance examination cannot be justified on the basis of using it to screen for ovarian cancer.
Multiscale Variability of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer during DYNAMO

AbstractProperties of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) over the central Indian Ocean are investigated using sounding data obtained during the Dynamics of the MJO (DYNAMO) field campaign in 2011/12. Observations from Gan Island on Addu Atoll, the R/V Revelle, and Male in the Maldives are used to determine the frequency of well-mixed layers and their mean thermodynamic and wind profiles. Well-mixed boundary layers or mixed layers were observed 68% of the time from the three sites, ranging from ~100-m depth in recovering convective downdraft wakes to ~925 m in undisturbed conditions, with a mean depth of 508 m. At Revelle, the site most representative of the open ocean, the ABL displayed a distinct signal of modulation by the October and November MJOs, with mixed-layer depths gradually increasing through the suppressed phases as the sea surface temperature (SST) increased leading up to the active phases, followed by frequent ABL stabilization and shallow mixed layers in recovering wakes. A distinct diurn...
Emplacement dynamics and timescale of a Holocene flow from the Cima Volcanic Field (CA): Insights from rheology and morphology

Abstract We present a rheological and morphological study of a Holocene lava flow emitted by a monogenetic cinder cone in the Cima Volcanic Field, eastern California. Our field observations focused on surface morphology, which transitions from smooth core extrusions near the vent to jagged ‘a’ā blocks over the majority of the flow, and on channel and levee dimensions. We collected airborne photogrammetry data and used it to generate a digital elevation model. From this, the total flow volume was estimated and surface roughness was quantified in terms of standard deviation of the real surface (5 cm resolution) from the software-generated 1 m-average plane. Sample textural analyses revealed that the near-vent portion of the flow is significantly more crystalline (ϕxtal = 0.95 ± 0.04) than the main flow body (ϕxtal = 0.66 ± 0.11). The rheology of Cima lavas was determined experimentally by concentric cylinder viscometry between 1550 °C and 1160 °C, including the first subliquidus rheology measurements for a continental intraplate trachybasaltic lava. The experimentally determined effective viscosity increases from 54 Pa·s to 1361 Pa·s during cooling from the liquidus (~ 1230 °C) to 1160 °C, where crystal fraction is 0.11. The lava viscosity over this range is still lower than most basaltic melts, due to the high alkali content of Cima lavas (~ 6 wt% Na2O + K2O). Monte Carlo simulations were used to account for and propagate experimental uncertainties, and to determine which rheological model (Bingham, power law, or Herschel-Bulkley) provides the best-fit of the obtained rheological data. Results suggest that Bingham and Herschel-Bulkley models are statistically indistinguishable from each other, and that both fit the data better than a power law model. By combining field observations and experimental results, we reconstructed the eruption temperature and few days-long emplacement history of the Cima flow.
An expert system for the prediction of student performance in an initial computer science course

This paper assesses the potential of one approach to predicting student performance in an introductory computer science class using information about students' preparation, attitudes and study habits. An expert system has been utilized for this purpose. The expert system accepts data related to seven different categories of preparation, belief and attitude and, through the partial activation of multiple rules, predicts an outcome for each student on the post-test (which should correlate with and is used as a surrogate for the student's final course grade). This paper presents two different implementation approaches for the proposed system and then characterizes the performance of the second (chosen) one, demonstrating its suitability for predicting student performance (subject to a level of error).
The Earned Income Tax Credit

IRLE IRLE WORKING PAPER March 2015 The Earned Income Tax Credit Austin Nichols and Jesse Rothstein Cite as: Austin Nichols and Jesse Rothstein. (2015). “The Earned Income Tax Credit”. IRLE Working Paper No. 113-15. http://irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/113-15.pdf irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers
Radiation-enhanced delivery of systemically administered amphiphilic-CpG oligodeoxynucleotide

Along with vaccines and checkpoint blockade, immune adjuvants may have an important role in tumor immunotherapy. Oligodeoxynucleotides containing unmethylated cytidyl guanosyl dinucleotide motifs (CpG ODN) are TLR9 ligands with attractive immunostimulatory properties, but intratumoral administration has been required to induce an effective anti-tumor immune response. Following on recent studies with radiation-targeted delivery of nanoparticles, we examined enhanced tumor-specific delivery of amphiphile-CpG, an albumin-binding analog of CpG ODN, following systemic administration 3days after tumor irradiation. The combination of radiation and CpG displayed superior tumor control over either treatment alone. Intravital imaging of fluorescently labeled amphiphilic-CpG revealed increased accumulation in irradiated tumors along with decreased off-target accumulation in visceral organs. Within 48h after amphiphile-CpG administration, immune activation could be detected by increased Granzyme B and Interferon gamma activity in the tumor as well as in circulating monocytes and activated CD8+ T cells. Using radiotherapy to enhance the targeting of CpG to tumors may help advance this once promising therapy to clinical relevance.
Diverse friendship networks and heterogeneous peer effects on adolescent misbehaviors

ABSTRACTThis study estimates peer effects in diverse friendship networks by friend types. Evidence from friendship networks for 57,351 U.S. high school adolescents demonstrates that adolescents are more likely to make friends with someone of the same immigrant status or ethnicity (‘similar friends’) than those with different backgrounds (‘dissimilar friends’) and they interact more with their similar friends. Both types of friends influence adolescents' misbehaviors of smoking and drinking; yet similar friends have greater influences. Various potential mechanisms are contested, and the results suggest that higher interactions with similar friends can explain the heterogeneous peer effects.
Introducing the Content Acquisition Podcast Professional Development Process: Supporting Vocabulary Instruction for Inclusive Middle School Science Teachers:

Improving inclusive middle school science teachers’ vocabulary instruction is a critical step toward helping those professionals support the learning needs of all students. In this Institute of Edu...
Load Transfer Restoration with Diamond Grinding on Rigid Pavements: Short-Term and Long-Term Effectiveness

AbstractKnowledge of pavement treatment effectiveness aids highway agencies in a variety of functions, including treatment comparisons, project prioritization, maintenance schedule development, and...
Discovery of a New Song Mode in Drosophila Reveals Hidden Structure in the Sensory and Neural Drivers of Behavior

Deciphering how brains generate behavior depends critically on an accurate description of behavior. If distinct behaviors are lumped together, separate modes of brain activity can be wrongly attributed to the same behavior. Alternatively, if a single behavior is split into two, the same neural activity can appear to produce different behaviors. Here, we address this issue in the context of acoustic communication in Drosophila. During courtship, males vibrate their wings to generate time-varying songs, and females evaluate songs to inform mating decisions. For 50 years, Drosophila melanogaster song was thought to consist of only two modes, sine and pulse, but using unsupervised classification methods on large datasets of song recordings, we now establish the existence of at least three song modes: two distinct pulse types, along with a single sine mode. We show how this seemingly subtle distinction affects our interpretation of the mechanisms underlying song production and perception. Specifically, we show that visual feedback influences the probability of producing each song mode and that male song mode choice affects female responses and contributes to modulating his song amplitude with distance. At the neural level, we demonstrate how the activity of four separate neuron types within the fly's song pathway differentially affects the probability of producing each song mode. Our results highlight the importance of carefully segmenting behavior to map the underlying sensory, neural, and genetic mechanisms.
A Wideband Receiver Employing PWM-Based Harmonic Rejection Downconversion

A harmonic rejection (HR) receiver that utilizes discrete-level pulsewidth modulation (PWM) to implement a sinusoidal local oscillator (LO) with intrinsic HR is demonstrated. The PWM-LO is employed in a switching mixer. The receiver can be configured to provide additional HR, by employing multi-phase paths, with appropriate baseband gain coefficients. The PWM generator employs parallel delay-locked loops to implement a three-level natural-sampling dual-edge PWM sinusoidal LO signal, with rejection of the third, fifth, and seventh LO harmonics. Gain control using LO-path pulsewidth control is demonstrated. The design is implemented in a 40-nm CMOS process. The receiver gain with HR is 26.4–30.1 dB in multi-phase LO configuration and 28–31.8 dB in single-phase configuration. The double-sideband noise figure at peak gain is 5.8 dB. The design demonstrates worst case HR3 and HR5 ratios of 47 and 49 dB without calibration for $f_{\mathrm{ LO}}=100$ MHz in the multi-phase configuration, with a total power dissipation of 41.1 mW. With calibration, a single-phase peak harmonic rejection ratio (HRR) higher than 73 dB for the third, fifth, and seventh LO harmonics is demonstrated. Gain dependence of the HRR is studied.
Learning-by-Moving: Can Reconfiguring Spatial Proximity Between Organizational Members Promote Individual-level Exploration?

This research proposes that individual-level exploration can be promoted by reconfiguring the spatial proximity between organizational members’ workspaces. To test this idea, I exploit a natural ex...
Investigation of Percussion Drills for Geothermal Applications

A series of tests was conducted to provide data for an economic evaluation of percussion drilling in geothermal reservoirs. Penetration rate, operation on aqueous foam, and high temperature vulnerabilities of downhole percussion tools are described.
NanoMod: a computational tool to detect DNA modifications using Nanopore long-read sequencing data.

Recent advances in single-molecule sequencing techniques, such as Nanopore sequencing, improved read length, increased sequencing throughput, and enabled direct detection of DNA modifications through the analysis of raw signals. These DNA modifications include naturally occurring modifications such as DNA methylations, as well as modifications that are introduced by DNA damage or through synthetic modifications to one of the four standard nucleotides. To improve the performance of detecting DNA modifications, especially synthetically introduced modifications, we developed a novel computational tool called NanoMod. NanoMod takes raw signal data on a pair of DNA samples with and without modified bases, extracts signal intensities, performs base error correction based on a reference sequence, and then identifies bases with modifications by comparing the distribution of raw signals between two samples, while taking into account of the effects of neighboring bases on modified bases (“neighborhood effects”). We evaluated NanoMod on simulation data sets, based on different types of modifications and different magnitudes of neighborhood effects, and found that NanoMod outperformed other methods in identifying known modified bases. Additionally, we demonstrated superior performance of NanoMod on an E. coli data set with 5mC (5-methylcytosine) modifications. In summary, NanoMod is a flexible tool to detect DNA modifications with single-base resolution from raw signals in Nanopore sequencing, and will facilitate large-scale functional genomics experiments that use modified nucleotides.
Effects of three non-confrontational handling techniques on the behavior of horses during a simulated mildly aversive veterinary procedure.

Abstract In a randomized between-subjects design, we evaluated the effectiveness of each of three non-confrontational handling interventions compared to no intervention control on the behavior of horses during a single-trial simulated mildly aversive health care scenario. These handling interventions included withers scratching (WITHERS, n = 12), face and eye rubbing (EYES, n = 12), and feeding (FEED, n = 12) for comparison with no intervention control (CON, n = 12). The simulated health care scenario included confinement in a novel clinical environment away from pasture mates, along with a 3-min exposure to a mildly aversive auditory stimulus (electric sheep shears hand held at a standard 3 m from the horse, 85 dB at ear level of horse). Sessions were video recorded for subsequent detailed quantitative evaluation of avoidance/stress behavior responses during the 3-min auditory stimulus. Additionally, heart rate was telemetrically recorded at 5-s intervals during the 3-min auditory stimulus. Mean (+/− SE) avoidance/stress response frequency was 13.7 (3.2) for FEED, 26.9 (2.7) for EYES, 30.4 (5.2) for WITHERS, and 44.2 (5.3) for CON. FEED, EYES and WITHERS each differed significantly from CON (P
Southern Ocean Heat Uptake, Redistribution, and Storage in a Warming Climate: The Role of Meridional Overturning Circulation

Abstract Climate models show that most of the anthropogenic heat resulting from increased atmospheric CO2 enters the Southern Ocean near 60°S and is stored around 45°S. This heat is transported to ...
Mortgage finance and culture

Using a nationally representative sample of 12,344 immigrants from 41 different countries of ancestry living in Spain in 2007, we find that the higher the housing‐loan penetration in the country of ancestry, the higher the likelihood of having a mortgage in Spain. Similarly, the higher the mortgage depth in the country of ancestry, the higher the present value of the monthly mortgage payments. Our results suggest that social norms regarding mortgage finance in the country of ancestry matter in determining immigrants’ mortgage finance in the host country. More specifically, the effect of social norms on the decision to have a mortgage (the extensive margin) and the amount of the mortgage payments (the intensive margin) is about one third and tenth the size of the effect of having a college degree on mortgage debt, respectively. Evidence of strong persistence of culture among those with longer tenure in the host country, those who immigrated as children or young adults, and second‐generation immigrants suggests that vertical transmission of beliefs (from parents to children) is a plausible channel of transmission. Perhaps most importantly, we find that cultural attitudes regarding property rights are most relevant when explaining individuals’ decision to get a mortgage, but those regarding credit information matter most when explaining the amount of the mortgage debt.
Architecture of the U6 snRNP reveals specific recognition of 3'-end processed U6 snRNA

The spliceosome removes introns from precursor messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) to produce mature mRNA. Prior to catalysis, spliceosomes are assembled de novo onto pre-mRNA substrates. During this assembly process, U6 small nuclear RNA (snRNA) undergoes extensive structural remodeling. The early stages of this remodeling process are chaperoned by U6 snRNP proteins Prp24 and the Lsm2–8 heteroheptameric ring. We now report a structure of the U6 snRNP from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The structure reveals protein–protein contacts that position Lsm2–8 in close proximity to the chaperone “active site” of Prp24. The structure also shows how the Lsm2–8 ring specifically recognizes U6 snRNA that has been post-transcriptionally modified at its 3′ end, thereby elucidating the mechanism by which U6 snRNPs selectively recruit 3′ end-processed U6 snRNA into spliceosomes. Additionally, the structure reveals unanticipated homology between the C-terminal regions of Lsm8 and the cytoplasmic Lsm1 protein involved in mRNA decay. The spliceosome removes introns from precursor messenger RNAs to produce mature mRNAs. Here the authors report a U6 snRNP crystal structure that provides insight on how the 3′ phosphate of U6 snRNA is recognized by the Lsm2–8 complex and how the U6 snRNP proteins sequester and protect the active site RNA until it is assembled into the spliceosome.
A Noncanonical Metal Center Drives the Activity of the Sediminispirochaeta smaragdinae Metallo-β-lactamase SPS-1

In an effort to evaluate whether a recently reported putative metallo-β-lactamase (MβL) contains a novel MβL active site, SPS-1 from Sediminispirochaeta smaragdinae was overexpressed, purified, and characterized using spectroscopic and crystallographic studies. Metal analyses demonstrate that recombinant SPS-1 binds nearly 2 equiv of Zn(II), and steady-state kinetic studies show that the enzyme hydrolyzes carbapenems and certain cephalosporins but not β-lactam substrates with bulky substituents at the 6/7 position. Spectroscopic studies of Co(II)-substituted SPS-1 suggest a novel metal center in SPS-1, with a reduced level of spin coupling between the metal ions and a novel Zn1 metal binding site. This site was confirmed with a crystal structure of the enzyme. The structure shows a Zn2 site that is similar to that in NDM-1 and other subclass B1 MβLs; however, the Zn1 metal ion is coordinated by two histidine residues and a water molecule, which is held in position by a hydrogen bond network. The Zn1 metal is displaced nearly 1 A from the position reported in other MβLs. The structure also shows extended helices above the active site, which create a binding pocket that precludes the binding of substrates with large, bulky substituents at the 6/7 position of β-lactam antibiotics. This study reveals a novel metal binding site in MβLs and suggests that the targeting of metal binding sites in MβLs with inhibitors is now more challenging with the identification of this new MβL.
Vesicular Delivery of the Antifungal Antibiotics of Lysobacter enzymogenes C3

ABSTRACT Lysobacter enzymogenes C3 is a predatory strain of Gram-negative gliding bacteria that produces antifungal antibiotics by the polyketide synthetic pathway. Outer membrane vesicles (OMV) are formed as a stress response and can deliver virulence factors to host cells. The production of OMV by C3 and their role in antifungal activity are reported here. Vesicles in the range of 130 to 150 nm in diameter were discovered in the cell-free supernatants of C3 cultures. These OMV contain molecules characteristic of bacterial outer membranes, such as lipopolysaccharide and phospholipids. In addition, they contain chitinase activity and essentially all of the heat-stable antifungal activity in cell supernatants. We show here that C3 OMV can directly inhibit growth of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as well as that of the filamentous fungus Fusarium subglutinans. The activity is dependent on physical contact between OMV and the cells. Furthermore, fluorescent lipid labeling of C3 OMV demonstrated transfer of the membrane-associated probe to yeast cells, suggesting the existence of a mechanism of delivery for membrane-associated molecules. Mass spectrometric analysis of C3 OMV extracts indicates the presence of molecules with molecular weights identical to some of the previously identified antifungal products of C3. These data together suggest that OMV act as an important remote mobile component of predation by Lysobacter. IMPORTANCE The data presented here suggest a newly discovered function of outer membrane vesicles (OMV) that are produced from the outer membrane of the bacterial species Lysobacter enzymogenes strain C3. We show that these OMV can be released from the surface of the cells to deliver antibiotics to target fungal organisms as a mechanism of killing or growth inhibition. Understanding the role of OMV in antibiotic delivery can generally lead to improved strategies for dealing with antibiotic-resistant organisms. These results also add to the evidence that some bacterially produced antibiotics can be discovered and purified using methods designed for isolation of nanoscale vesicles. Information on these systems can lead to better identification of active molecules or design of delivery vehicles for these molecules.
Efficient Rational Proofs with Strong Utility-Gap Guarantees

As modern computing moves towards smaller devices and powerful cloud platforms, more and more computation is being delegated to powerful service providers. Interactive proofs are a widely-used model to design efficient protocols for verifiable computation delegation.
Middle School Teachers’ Mindfulness, Occupational Health and Well-Being, and the Quality of Teacher-Student Interactions

Building upon contemporary models of teaching that suggest that teachers’ own well-being is related to their classroom practice and student outcomes, we examined whether middle school teachers’ mindfulness skills were related to their concurrent occupational health and well-being (job stress, occupational burnout, and depressive and anxiety symptoms), and quality of their interactions with students in their “most stressful” class during the school day. Multivariate regression analyses of 58 middle school teachers indicated that teacher mindfulness was significantly associated with lower levels of job stress, occupational burnout, and depressive and anxiety symptoms; and higher levels of observers’ ratings of teachers’ emotionally supportive interactions with students in their most stressful classroom. Occupational burnout, in contrast, was negatively related to observers’ ratings of emotional support and organization in the classroom. Results suggest individual differences in middle school teachers’ mindfulness may affect their interactions with students in the middle school classroom directly and through reductions in burnout, though longitudinal studies of these relations are needed. Findings are discussed in relation to intervention efforts to improve teacher mindfulness through training in order to support occupational health and well-being, improve the quality of teacher-student interactions in the classroom, and increase student engagement and learning.
Fundamental figures of merit for engineering Förster resonance energy transfer

Over the past 15 years there has been an ongoing debate regarding the influence of the photonic environment on Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET). Disparate results corresponding to enhancement, suppression and null effect of the photonic environment have led to a lack of consensus between the traditional theory of FRET and experiments. Here we show that the quantum electrodynamic theory (QED) of FRET near an engineered nanophotonic environment is exactly equivalent to an effective near-field model describing electrostatic dipole-dipole interactions. This leads to an intuitive and rigorously exact description of FRET, previously unavailable, bridging the gap between experimental observations and theoretical interpretations. Furthermore, we show that the widely used concept of Purcell factor variation is only important for understanding spontaneous emission and is an incorrect figure of merit (FOM) for analyzing FRET. To this end, we analyze the figures of merit which characterize FRET in a photonic environment 1) the FRET rate enhancement factor (FET), 2) FRET efficiency enhancement factor (Feff) and 3) Two-point spectral density (SEE) which is the photonic property of the environment governing FRET analogous to the local density of states that controls spontaneous emission. Counterintuitive to existing knowledge, we show that suppression of the Purcell factor is in fact necessary for enhancing the efficiency of the FRET process. We place fundamental bounds on the FRET figures of merit arising from material absorption in the photonic environment as well as key properties of emitters including intrinsic quantum efficiencies and orientational dependence. Finally, we use our approach to conclusively explain multiple recent experiments and predict regimes where the FRET rate is expected to be enhanced, suppressed or remain the same. Our work paves for a complete theory of FRET with predictive power for designing the ideal photonic environment to control FRET.
Big Data and the Opioid Crisis: Balancing Patient Privacy with Public Health:

Parts I through III of this paper will examine several, increasingly comprehensive forms of aggregation, ranging from insurance reimbursement "lock-in" programs to PDMPs to completely unified electronic medical records (EMRs). Each part will advocate for the adoption of these aggregation systems and provide suggestions for effective implementation in the fight against opioid misuse. All PDMPs are not made equal, however, and Part II will, therefore, focus on several elements - mandating prescriber usage, streamlining the user interface, ensuring timely data uploads, creating a national data repository, mitigating privacy concerns, and training doctors on how to respond to perceived doctor-shopping - that can make these systems more effective. In each part, we will also discuss the privacy concerns of aggregating data, ranging from minimal to significant, and highlight the unique role of stigma in motivating these concerns. In Part IV, we will conclude by suggesting remedial steps to offset this loss of privacy and to combat the stigma around SUDs and mental health disorders in general.
The value of collateral in trade finance

Abstract Suppliers are subject to the credit risk of their customers when they sell products on credit. However, rights to the collateral value of the products they sell may mitigate some of this risk. This paper demonstrates the important role of laws that support suppliers’ rights to reclaim and liquidate collateral. Using a change in the US bankruptcy code that altered the rights of a subset of suppliers, I use a difference-in-differences setting to show that an improvement in suppliers’ rights to the liquidation value of collateral results in an increase in the amount and duration of trade credit offered. The increase in collateral protection also reduced suppliers’ lending standards, resulting in more dispersed trade credit lending and riskier customer portfolios. Finally, I find that the increase in collateral rights decreased suppliers’ incentives to monitor their customers, consistent with collateral and monitoring being substitutes. Overall, the paper shows that with strong legal protections in place, trade credit has an important collateral component.
Security and Privacy Analyses of Internet of Things Children’s Toys

This paper investigates the security and privacy of Internet-connected children’s smart toys through case studies of three commercially available products. We conduct network and application vulnerability analyses of each toy using static and dynamic analysis techniques, including application binary decompilation and network monitoring. We discover several publicly undisclosed vulnerabilities that violate the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule as well as the toys’ individual privacy policies. These vulnerabilities, especially security flaws in network communications with first-party servers, are indicative of a disconnect between many Internet of Things toy developers and security and privacy best practices despite increased attention to Internet-connected toy hacking risks.
It's Like Python But: Towards Supporting Transfer of Programming Language Knowledge

Expertise in programming traditionally assumes a binary novice-expert divide. Learning resources typically target programmers who are learning programming for the first time, or expert programmers for that language. An underrepresented, yet important group of programmers are those that are experienced in one programming language, but desire to author code in a different language. For this scenario, we postulate that an effective form of feedback is presented as a transfer from concepts in the first language to the second. Current programming environments do not support this form of feedback. In this study, we apply the theory of learning transfer to teach a language that programmers are less familiar with-such as R-in terms of a programming language they already know-such as Python. We investigate learning transfer using a new tool called Transfer Tutor that presents explanations for R code in terms of the equivalent Python code. Our study found that participants leveraged learning transfer as a cognitive strategy, even when unprompted. Participants found Transfer Tutor to be useful across a number of affordances like stepping through and highlighting facts that may have been missed or misunderstood. However, participants were reluctant to accept facts without code execution or sometimes had difficulty reading explanations that are verbose or complex. These results provide guidance for future designs and research directions that can support learning transfer when learning new programming languages.
Semantic Robot Programming for Goal-Directed Manipulation in Cluttered Scenes

We present the Semantic Robot Programming (SRP) paradigm as a convergence of robot programming by demonstration and semantic mapping. In SRP, a user can directly program a robot manipulator by demonstrating a snapshot of their intended goal scene in workspace. The robot then parses this goal as a scene graph comprised of object poses and inter-object relations, assuming known object geometries. Task and motion planning is then used to realize the user's goal from an arbitrary initial scene configuration. Even when faced with different initial scene configurations, SRP enables the robot to seamlessly adapt to reach the user's demonstrated goal. For scene perception, we propose the Discriminatively-Informed Generative Estimation of Scenes and Transforms (DIGEST) method to infer the initial and goal states of the world from RGBD images. The efficacy of SRP with DIGEST perception is demonstrated for the task of tray-setting with a Michigan Progress Fetch robot. Scene perception and task execution are evaluated with a public household occlusion dataset and our cluttered scene dataset.
Teacher depression as a dynamic variable: Exploring the nature and predictors of change over the head start year

Abstract This study used the Family and Child Experiences Survey, 2009 cohort, to explore the levels of depression among a nationally representative sample of Head Start teachers at the beginning and end of the preschool year. Results showed that one in three Head Start teachers reported some depression either in fall or spring, and that change in depression between fall and spring was commonplace. Characteristics of individuals (initial depression, Hispanic/Latino ethnicity), classrooms (class size, number of DLLs, average child prosocial skills), and the workplace (peer depression, curriculum support, positive workplace climate, number of employer-provided benefits) were linked to change in teacher depression. Moreover, reduced depression over the course of the year was uniquely predictive of children's gains in prosocial skills and declines in problem behaviors, as rated by teachers; however, no associations emerged between teacher depression and parent-rated child socioemotional outcomes. Overall, results undergird the importance of considering teacher depression as a dynamic construct in early education settings. In addition, findings highlight common method variance as a potential methodological challenge in this line of research for which future studies should carefully account.
Transplanted Human Bone Marrow Contributes to Vascular Endothelium.

Accumulating evidence indicates that bone marrow is a source of endothelial progenitor cells. Recently our laboratory has shown that functional endothelial cells (EC) can be clonally derived from phenotypically defined hematopoietic stem cells. To determine the endothelial cell potential of human hematopoietic cells, blood vessels in skin and gut biopsies from sex-mismatched allogeneic transplant recipients were examined. H&E sections were initially reviewed to ensure tissue integrity and the absence of significant graft versus host disease. Coded biopsy specimens from 12 sex-mismatched transplant recipients and 6 sex-matched female transplant recipients were evaluated in a blinded fashion. Endothelial cells were identified using a combination of immunohistochemistry (IHC) and XY interphase FISH. Tissues sections were first evaluated by IHC for EC markers (CD31 or vWF) and for the pan-hematopoietic marker CD45 then assayed by dual-color interphase FISH for donor derived cells (XY). Tissue samples from each recipient were assayed at least 3 times by sequential IHC/FISH. The frequency of CD31+, CD45−, Y+ cells and vWF+, CD45−, Y+ cells in biopsies from the 18 transplant recipients was evaluated by 2 independent observers. 9 of 12 sex-mismatched recipients showed evidence of donor-derived Y chromosome positive EC. The remaining 3 recipients did not exhibit hematopoietic engraftment at the time of biopsy. Donor derived endothelial cells were detected in the skin and the gut of transplant recipients with a mean frequency of 2.3% (range 0.9–3.9). Donor derived hematopoietic cells including intraepithelial lymphocytes and tissue macrophages were excluded by CD45 expression. None of the >4,000 endothelial cells examined had >2 sex chromosomes, consistent with an absence or very low incidence of cell fusion. In addition, Y chromosome signals were not detected in sex matched female recipients, thereby excluding vertical transmission of male cells. Furthermore, none of the recipients evaluated prior to hematopoietic engraftment had detectable donor derived endothelial cells, indicating a close linkage between the recovery of hematopoiesis and endothelial cell outcomes. Our results suggest that the close association between hematopoiesis and the vascular system originally identified during early development persists into adult life. Consequently it will be important to study the potential therapeutic role of bone marrow derived endothelial cells in the setting of hematopoietic and vascular disease.
The association between cigarette affordability and consumption: An update.

Objectives This study calculates cigarette affordability for 78 countries worldwide from 2001 to 2014 using the Relative Income Price (RIP) ratio defined as the percentage of per capita GDP required to purchase 100 packs of cigarettes using the lowest price from Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) database, examine the association between cigarette affordability and cigarette consumption, and calculate the affordability elasticity of demand. Design and methods RIP (2001–2014) was calculated for 16 low-income economies, 19 lower middle-income economies, 13 upper middle-income economies, and 30 high-income economies. Ordinary least square regressions were used to analyze the association between cigarette affordability and consumption. Results Per capita consumption continued to rise in low-income countries and decreased slightly in lower middle-income countries as the RIP of cigarette consistently declined in low- and lower middle-income economies from 2001 to 2014. The real cigarette prices continued to decline in low- and lower middle-income countries and continued to rise in upper middle- and high-income countries. Though cigarettes were more expensive in HICs than were in LMICs, cigarettes were more affordable in HICs than were in LMICs. The regression results show a 10% increase in the RIP of cigarettes led to a 2% decrease in per capita consumption. The affordability elasticity of demand differed significantly between HICs and LMICs. However, the effect of cigarette affordability on consumption has not changed over time. Conclusions To control the smoking epidemic, low- and lower middle-income countries should further increase cigarette prices. The rate of price increase should exceed the rate of economic growth and outpace the inflation rate to make cigarettes less affordable and thereby reducing tobacco use.
Epistemology probabilized

Here is a framework for judgment in terms of a continuum of "subjective" probabilities, a framework in which probabilistic judgments need not stand on a foundation of certainties. In place of propositional data bases, this radical probabilism ("probabilities all the way down to the roots") envisages full or partial probability assignments to probability spaces, together with protocols for revising those assignments and their interconnections in the light of fresh empirical or logico-mathematical input. This input need not be of the limiting 0-or-1 sort. Updating by ordinary conditioning is generalized (sec. 2.2) to probability kinematics, where an observation on a random variable X need not single out one value, but may prompt a new probability distribution Q over all values of X.The effect of an observation itself, apart from the influence of prior probabilities (sec. 3), is given by the ("Bayes') factors new odds/old odds by which the observer's odds between hypotheses are updated. We are not generally interested in adopting an observer's new odds as our own, for those are influenced by the observer's old odds, not ours. It is rather the observer's Bayes's factors that we need in order to use that observation in our own judgments. An account of collaborative updating is presented in these terms.Jon Dorling's bayesian solution of the Duhem-Quine "holism" problem is sketched in sec. 4.We finish with a brief look at the historical setting of radical probabilism (sec. 5), and an indication of how "real" probabilities can be accomodated in subjectivistic terms (sec. 6).
Chapter 7 – Mergers and Acquisitions Cash Flow Valuation Basics

This chapter begins with a brief review of rudimentary finance concepts, including measuring risk and return, the capital asset pricing model, and the effects of operating and financial leverage on risk and return. The cash flow definitions, free cash flow to equity (equity value) or to the firm (enterprise value), discussed in this chapter are used in valuation problems in subsequent chapters. This chapter concludes with an illustration of the commonly used enterprise method to value a firm’s operating and nonoperating assets and liabilities to determine equity value.