cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Leptomeningeal Carcinomatosis in Colorectal Cancer: The Mayo Clinic Experience

Abstract Background Leptomeningeal metastasis (LM) is an uncommon form of metastatic disease in many cancers. There remains a paucity of literature with regard to the course and management of LM in colorectal cancers (CRCs). The aim of this study was to estimate the incidence of LM in patients with CRC seen at our institution over a 15-year period, and to describe the clinical course and outcome of these cases. Methods LM in CRC primary cases between 2000 and 2014 were identified in the Mayo Clinic databases. The charts were retrospectively reviewed. Results Of 17,095 CRC primaries, we identified 10 patients with LM (0.058%) in this 15-year period. Nine cases were included in the analysis. Four had metastatic disease at the time of their initial CRC diagnosis. Median overall survival after CRC diagnosis was 25.7 months (range, 4.7-74.8 months). Median time to diagnosis of LM after CRC diagnosis was 25.3 months (range, 0-68.1 months). All patients had magnetic resonance imaging findings consistent with LM: 3 patients with spinal LM, 5 patients with intracranial LM, and 1 with both. Neurologic symptoms correlated with site of the lesions, with headache, cranial nerve palsy, lower extremity weakness, and gait disturbance among the most frequently reported. However, not all patients had neurologic findings, with LM lesions found incidentally in 2 cases. Seven patients (78%) had palliative radiotherapy for LM. Three patients continued to receive systemic chemotherapy after diagnosis of LM. Median survival after LM diagnosis was 7 weeks (range, 2-39 weeks). Conclusions LM is an exceedingly rare development in the natural course of CRC. It confers a poor prognosis with limited treatment options. At our institution, most patients had their disease addressed by palliative means, with many receiving radiotherapy to control their neurologic symptoms. Based on our series, supportive care remains a sensible approach to the management of LM in CRC.
Effectuation under risk and uncertainty: A simulation model

Abstract Effectuation was first proposed as an expert entrepreneur's decision-making framework under uncertainty, but the applications of effectuation beyond the condition of uncertainty have seen less attention. Using an agent-based simulation model, this paper investigates the effectiveness of effectuation relative to causation in uncertain and risky contexts. The simulation overcomes the shortcomings of think aloud protocols typically used in effectuation research. The results suggest that effectuation outperforms causation in both risky and uncertain contexts until the entrepreneur can predict the future correctly > 75% of the time. This suggests expanding the boundary of effectuation from uncertainty to whenever predicting the future is challenging.
The mirn23a and mirn23b microrna clusters are necessary for proper hematopoietic progenitor cell production and differentiation.

Mice deficient for microRNA (miRNA) cluster mirn23a exhibit increased B lymphopoiesis at the expense of myelopoiesis, whereas hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) populations are unchanged. Mammals possess a paralogous mirn23b gene that can give rise to three mature miRNAs (miR-23b, miR-24-1, and miR-27b) that have identical seed/mRNA-targeting sequences to their mirn23a counterparts. To assess whether compound deletion of mirn23a and mirn23b exacerbates the hematopoietic phenotype observed in mirn23a −/− mice, we generated a compound mirn23a −/− mirn23b fl/fl :Mx1-Cre conditional knockout mouse and assayed hematopoietic development after excision of mirn23b. Loss of both genes in adult bone marrow further skewed HSPC differentiation toward B cells at the expense of myeloid cells, demonstrating a dosage-dependent effect on regulating cell differentiation. Strikingly, double-knockout (DKO) mice had decreased bone marrow cellularity with significantly decreased hematopoietic stem cell and HSPC populations, a phenotype not observed in mice deficient for mirn23a alone. Competitive transplantation assays showed decreased contribution of mirn23a −/− mirn23b −/− HSPCs to hematopoietic lineages at 6 and 12 weeks after transplantation. Defects in the proliferation of mirn23a −/− b −/− HSPCs was not observed; however, DKO cells were more apoptotic compared with both wild-type and mirn23a −/− cells. Together, our data show that complete loss of mirn23a/mirn23b miRNAs results in decreased blood production and affects lineage output in a concentration-dependent manner.
Integral representation for scattering phase shifts via the phase-amplitude approach

An integral representation for scattering phase shifts is obtained based on a modified version of Milne's phase-amplitude approach [W. E. Milne, Phys. Rev. 35, 863 (1930)]. We replace Milne's nonlinear differential equation for the amplitude function $y$ with an equivalent linear equation for the envelope $\ensuremath{\rho}={y}^{2}$, which renders the integral representations highly amenable to numerical implementations. The phase shift is obtained directly from Milne's phase function, which in turn is expressed in terms of the envelope function. We illustrate the advantages of the representation with two scattering potentials. The integral representation presented in this work is fully general and it can be used for any type of scattering potential, including the Coulomb potential.
Reduced order model-based uncertainty modeling of structures with localized response

Abstract This paper focuses on the introduction of uncertainty in reduced order models (ROMs) of a class of structures exhibiting a localized response. Considered first are the structures for which both the mean model, on which the ROM is constructed, and the uncertain ones exhibit a static response localized to the neighborhood of the excitation. A straightforward application to these ROMs of the maximum entropy framework is found to lead to a “globalization” of the response, consistently with the entropy maximization. Thus, an extension of the nonparametric stochastic modeling approach is developed here that is based on first splitting the ROM stiffness matrix into a component that induces the localized behavior and another propagating the response to the rest of the structure. The randomization of these two components is then carried out separately to maintain their respective, local and global, characters. This stochastic model involves three hyperparameters, one controlling the globalization of the uncertainty ( δ G ), another governing the level of uncertainty in the localized zone ( δ 1 ), and a third one controlling the distortion of the response in the localized zone ( δ L ). This modeling isapplied to two example structures with different features for which the localization of the uncertain static response is demonstrated. It also shown that δ 1 is the key hyperparameter for such applications. The second part of this investigation focuses on structures, e.g., bladed disks, such that the mean model exhibits global mode shapes while those of the uncertain structures are strongly localized. A variation of the approach developed in the first part of the paper is developed that is shown to produce the expected localization of the mode shapes. In such applications, it is key to induce distortion of the free response and thus the hyperparameter δ L is the dominant one.
Using a generalized model for air traffic delay: An application of information based duration analysis

Abstract Airlines air traffic delays cause discomfort to passengers and cost airlines dearly, thus there is no wonder that a growing number of authors from different disciplines have studied air traffic delays and their patterns. This paper departs from existing literature by assuming air traffic delay to be a duration variable whose true distribution is unknown. It suggests a general model that includes several other models as subfamilies and utilizes an information contents based approach to find the most appropriate model to study air traffic delays. The results for two different airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines, reveal that airlines of comparable size and market influence air traffic delays could follow different patterns.
The Patient Who Continues to Smoke On-Treatment: An Ethical Dilemma

A 62-year-old man with an extensive smoking history is diagnosed with oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma. After consultation, he is scheduled for radical resection with free flap reconstruction. The patient continues to smoke and is strongly advised to quit. When he returns for follow-up prior to his scheduled operation, the patient reluctantly discloses to his care team that he has not quit smoking. The surgeon considers withholding the operation until the patient has been tobacco-free for 4 weeks, consistent with evidence showing a significant decrease in surgical complications. Would it be ethically defensible to do so?
Expression variation and covariation impair analog and enable binary signaling control.

Abstract Due to noise in the synthesis and degradation of proteins, the concentrations of individual vertebrate signaling proteins were estimated to vary with a coefficient of variation (CV) of approximately 25% between cells. Such high variation is beneficial for population‐level regulation of cell functions but abolishes accurate single‐cell signal transmission. Here, we measure cell‐to‐cell variability of relative protein abundance using quantitative proteomics of individual Xenopus laevis eggs and cultured human cells and show that variation is typically much lower, in the range of 5–15%, compatible with accurate single‐cell transmission. Focusing on bimodal ERK signaling, we show that variation and covariation in MEK and ERK expression improves controllability of the percentage of activated cells, demonstrating how variation and covariation in expression enables population‐level control of binary cell‐fate decisions. Together, our study argues for a control principle whereby low expression variation enables accurate control of analog single‐cell signaling, while increased variation, covariation, and numbers of pathway components are required to widen the stimulus range over which external inputs regulate binary cell activation to enable precise control of the fraction of activated cells in a population.
INNOVATION AND DIFFUSION OF MEDICAL TREATMENT

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic structural model of demand for a multi-attribute product. The demand side equilibrium supports a product spectrum, the characteristics of which evolve over time in response to supply innovations induced by the composition and extent of aggregate demand. The direction and speed of innovation is inefficient because individuals create an externality by not accounting for their influence on the discovery process. We apply the model to drugs invented to combat the HIV epidemic, during which frequent, incremental innovations in medication were punctuated by sporadic breakthroughs. In this application products differ in their efficacy and their propensity to cause side effects. Our biennial data on four American cities track a replenished panel of individuals for over twenty years, from when drugs were not only ineffective but also created debilitating side effects, to when the market matured. We find that the externalities are quantitatively important and that even a temporary subsidy would have improved average social welfare and been more equitable.
The Power Allocation Game on A Network: Balanced Equilibrium

This paper studies a special kind of equilibrium termed as “balanced equilibrium” which arises in the power allocation game defined in [14]. In equilibrium, each country in antagonism has to use all of its own power to counteract received threats, and the “threats” made to each adversary just balance out the threats received from that adversary. This paper establishes conditions on different types of networked international environments in order for this equilibrium to exist. The paper also links the existence of this type of equilibrium on structurally balanced graphs to the Hall's Maximum Matching problem and the Max Flow problem.
The existence of universally agreed fairest semi-matchings in any given bipartite graph

In a bipartite graph \(G=(U\cup V,E)\) where \(E \subseteq U \times V\), a semi-matching is defined as a set of edges \(M\subseteq E\), such that each vertex in U is incident with exactly one edge in M. Many previous works focus on the problem of fairest semi-matchings: ones that assign U-vertices with V-vertices as fairly as possible. In these works, fairness is usually measured according to a specific index. In fact, there exist many different fairness measures, and they often disagree on the fairness comparison of some semi-matching pairs. In this paper, we prove that for any given bipartite graph, there always exists a (set of equally) fairest semi-matching(s) universally agreed by all the fairness measures. In other words, given that fairness measures disagree on many comparisons between semi-matchings, they nonetheless are all in agreement on the (set of) fairest semi-matching(s), for any given bipartite graph. To prove this, we propose a partial order relationship (Transfer-based Comparison) among the semi-matchings, showing that the greatest elements always exist in such a partially ordered set. We then show that such greatest elements can guarantee to be the fairest ones under the criteria of Majorization [10]. We further show that all widely used fairness measures are in agreement on such a (set of equally) fairest semi-matching(s).
Contemporary Dual Mobility Head Penetration at Five Years: Concern for the Additional Convex Bearing Surface?

Abstract Background Dual mobility (DM) bearings are increasingly popular and second-generation designs contain highly cross-linked polyethylene. The purpose of this study is to report head penetration rates in modern DM bearings. Methods A review of 63 consecutive DM bearings was performed. Radiographs were analyzed for head penetration using Martell methodology at regular postoperative intervals. Results Thirty-four DM bearings were analyzed. Mean linear head penetration was 1.59 mm/y at 1 year, 1.07 mm/y at 2 years, and 0.27 mm/y at 5 years following an exponential regression model (R2 = 0.999). Mean volumetric wear was 783 mm3/y at 1 year, 555 mm3/y at 2 years, and 104 mm3/y at 5 years following an exponential regression model (R2 = 0.986). Conclusion Initial head penetration of DM bearings is larger than contemporary cross-linked polyethylene bearings; however, rates approach steady state after 2 years, analogous to traditional bearings. The larger “bedding-in” head penetration may be due to the additional convex bearing surface, creating 2 surfaces for deformation/wear.
Impacts of multiflagellarity on stability and speed of bacterial locomotion

Trajectories and conformations of uni- and multiflagellar bacteria are studied with a coarse-grained model of a cell comprised of elastic flagella connected to a cell body. The elasticities of both the hook protein (connecting cell body and flagellum) and flagella are varied. Flexibility plays contrasting roles for uni- and multiflagellar swimmers. For a uniflagellar swimmer, hook and/or flagellar buckling occurs above a critical flexibility relative to the torque exerted by the flagellar motor. The addition of a second flagellum greatly expands the parameter regime of stable locomotion, because flexible hooks that would lead to buckling instability in the uniflagellar case provide the flexibility required for flagellar bundling in the biflagellar case. Similar observations hold for tri- and quadriflagellar swimmers. Indeed the stability regimes for uni- and quadriflagellar swimming are virtually inverted: to a first approximation what is stable in one case is unstable in the other. Swimming speed is also examined: it increases very weakly with the number of flagella and a simple theory is developed that explains this observation.
Unanswered Questions Regarding Sex and BMP/TGF-β Signaling.

Crosstalk between the BMP and TGF-β signaling pathways regulates many complex developmental processes from the earliest stages of embryogenesis throughout adult life. In many situations, the two signaling pathways act reciprocally. For example, TGF-β signaling is generally pro-fibrotic, whereas BMP signaling is anti-fibrotic and pro-calcific. Sex-specific differences occur in many diseases including cardiovascular pathologies. Differing ratios of fibrosis and calcification in stenotic valves suggests that BMP/TGF-β signaling may vary in men and women. In this review, we focus on the current understanding of the interplay between sex and BMP/TGF-β signaling and pose several unanswered questions.
Downside risk control and optimal investment turnover around financial crises

This paper investigates tactical investment strategies for investors to survive financial crises. Compared with the buy-and-hold strategy, the buy-and-sell strategy is much more effective in mitigating downside risk before, during, and after a crisis by restricting the left-tail volatility of portfolio returns through CVaR constraints. The paper also studies investors' optimal turnovers around a crisis under the buy-and-hold strategy. Considering investors' heterogeneous behaviours, we find the wealth-weighted average optimal turnover across all investors during a crisis is much higher than that before or after the crisis. This indicates investors who enter the market before a crisis may be better off by leaving their portfolios untouched during the market downturn. In addition, the downside risk control model can detect a market downturn earlier than the mean-variance model therefore it helps to 'spread out' the required asset adjustments over a longer horizon than the crisis period itself.
Fibonacci's Triangle and other Abominations

(2003). Fibonacci's Triangle and other Abominations. Math Horizons: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 10-14.
Performance and Scaling of Collaborative Sensing and Networking for Automated Driving Applications

A critical requirement for automated driving systems is enabling situational awareness in dynamically changing environments. To that end vehicles will be equipped with diverse sensors, e.g., LIDAR, cameras, (mmWave) radar, etc. Unfortunately the sensing `coverage' and `reliability' of a single vehicle is limited by environmental obstructions, e.g., other vehicles, buildings, people, objects etc. A possible solution is to adopt collaborative sensing amongst vehicles possibly assisted by infrastructures. This paper introduces new models and performance scaling analysis for vehicular collaborative sensing and networking. In particular, coverage and reliability gains are quantified, as are their dependence on the penetration of collaborative vehicles. We also evaluate the associated communication loads in terms of the V2V and/or V2I capacity requirements and how these depend on penetration. Collaborative sensing is shown to greatly improve sensing performance, e.g., improves coverage from 20% to 80% with a 20% penetration. In scenarios with limited penetration and enhanced reliability requirements, infrastructure can be used to sense the environment and relay data. Once penetration is high enough, sensing vehicles provide good coverage and data traffic can be effectively `offloaded' to V2V connectivity, making V2I resources available to support other in-car services.
Fizzy-Related dictates A cell cycle switch during organ repair and tissue growth responses in the Drosophila hindgut.

How does an injured organ replace cells that have died as a result of the damage? Making new cells might seem like the best option, because this would restore the organ to how it looked before the injury. To make new cells, existing cells in the organ divide. But not all organs make new cells to repair damage. Instead, some organs make their remaining cells bigger – a process known as hypertrophy – to fill the space created by the injury. Cohen et al. have now developed a technique to investigate which method of repair a damaged organ uses. The technique uses genetic engineering to create an injury in a specific tissue in fruit flies, while also altering the activity of other genes that might affect how the tissue responds to the injury. Using the technique to study injuries to part of the gut that remains the same throughout a fly's life revealed that fly larvae repair this damage by creating new cells. However, adult flies repair the same injuries using hypertrophy. Cohen et al. found that a gene known as ‘fizzy-related’ helps to control how the organ repairs damage. The fizzy-related gene produces a protein that stops cells dividing, which forces the cells to grow to repair any injuries to the organ. Adult flies that lacked the gene repaired their guts through cell division instead of by hypertrophy. This did not affect how well minor injuries to the gut were repaired. However, under conditions of more extreme tissue injury cell division distorted the gut and led to leakiness of gut contents. Hypertrophy has been seen in injured human organs, including the heart, liver and kidneys. This was thought to be an abnormal response, but the results presented by Cohen et al. suggest that hypertrophy may instead help to protect the organs during repair. Further research into the role of hypertrophy could reveal ways to regenerate damaged organs, perhaps by targeting the activity of the fizzy-related gene.
Tidal Breathing Measurements at Discharge and Clinical Outcomes in Extremely Low Gestational Age Neonates.

Rationale: The relationship between respiratory function at hospital discharge and the severity of later respiratory disease in extremely low gestational age neonates is not well defined.Objectives...
Modeling and Simulation of Regenerative Braking Energy in DC Electric Rail Systems

Regenerative braking energy is the energy produced by a train during deceleration. When a train decelerates, the motors act as generators and produce electricity. This energy can be fed back to the third rail and consumed by other trains accelerating nearby. If there are no nearby trains, this energy is dumped as heat to avoid over voltage. Regenerative braking energy can be saved by installing energy storage systems (ESS) and reused later when it is needed. To find a suitable design, size and placement of energy storage, a good understanding of this energy is required. The aim of this paper is to model and simulate regenerative braking energy. The dc electric rail transit system model introduced in this paper includes trains, substations and rail systems.
The Saccharomyces cerevisiae Hrq1 and Pif1 DNA helicases synergistically modulate telomerase activity in vitro

Telomere length homeostasis is vital for maintaining genomic stability and is regulated by multiple factors, including telomerase activity and DNA helicases. The Saccharomyces cerevisiae Pif1 helicase was the first discovered catalytic inhibitor of telomerase, but recent experimental evidence suggests that Hrq1, the yeast homolog of the disease-linked human RecQ-like helicase 4 (RECQL4), plays a similar role via an undefined mechanism. Using yeast extracts enriched for telomerase activity and an in vitro primer extension assay, here we determined the effects of recombinant WT and inactive Hrq1 and Pif1 on total telomerase activity and telomerase processivity. We found that titrations of these helicases alone have equal-but-opposite biphasic effects on telomerase, with Hrq1 stimulating activity at high concentrations. When the helicases were combined in reactions, however, they synergistically inhibited or stimulated telomerase activity depending on which helicase was catalytically active. These results suggest that Hrq1 and Pif1 interact and that their concerted activities ensure proper telomere length homeostasis in vivo. We propose a model in which Hrq1 and Pif1 cooperatively contribute to telomere length homeostasis in yeast.
CGIntrinsics: Better Intrinsic Image Decomposition through Physically-Based Rendering

Intrinsic image decomposition is a challenging, long-standing computer vision problem for which ground truth data is very difficult to acquire. We explore the use of synthetic data for training CNN-based intrinsic image decomposition models, then applying these learned models to real-world images. To that end, we present CGIntrinsics, a new, large-scale dataset of physically-based rendered images of scenes with full ground truth decompositions. The rendering process we use is carefully designed to yield high-quality, realistic images, which we find to be crucial for this problem domain. We also propose a new end-to-end training method that learns better decompositions by leveraging CGIntrinsics, and optionally IIW and SAW, two recent datasets of sparse annotations on real-world images. Surprisingly, we find that a decomposition network trained solely on our synthetic data outperforms the state-of-the-art on both IIW and SAW, and performance improves even further when IIW and SAW data is added during training. Our work demonstrates the suprising effectiveness of carefully-rendered synthetic data for the intrinsic images task.
Playing with matches: vehicular mobility through analysis of trip similarity and matching

Understanding city-scale vehicular mobility and trip patterns is essential to addressing many problems, from transportation and pollution to public safety. Using spatio-temporal analysis of vehicular mobility, promising solutions can be proposed to alleviate these major challenges, utilizing shared mobility. The rise of transportation networks (e.g., Uber, Lyft), is a mere beginning to shared mobility. In this paper, we address problems of trip representation and matching. Particularly, we study a real-world dataset of trips (from Cologne, Germany), from spatial and temporal perspectives. Comparison of trajectories is desired for applications relying on spatio-temporal phenomena. For that purpose, we present a novel combined spatio-temporal similarity score, based on the weighted geometric mean (WGM) and systematically evaluate its applicability and strengths. First, we use the score to find clusters of trips that were spatially and/or temporally separable using spectral clustering. The score is then used in a real-time matching of trips for Catch-a-Ride (CaR) and CarPooling (CP) scenarios. CaR and CP achieve a 40% and a 25% decrease in traveled distances respectively, at the cost of moving to pick-up and from drop-off locations (i.e., drivers going on average m out of their way on pick-up and drop-of for CP). We find that main advantages of WGM include the flexibility to favor time or space components, and linearity of runtime complexity. Finally, we formulate an optimal free float Car-Sharing scenario (e.g., scheduling a system of automated vehicles or taxis) resulting in an average of a 3.88 trips serviced by a car in one hour.
Corporations and Crimes Against Humanity: Financial Liability Through ISDS?

This Chapter explores the overlapping conceptions of “international legal personhood” in international criminal law and international investment law in light of the December 2016 International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes Award of Urbaser v Argentina. It is an effort to parse out and test potential standards for investor-to-State liability for corporate participation in mass atrocities and human rights violations, particularly in instances of armed conflict. In exploring the question of when a corporation can be held financially liable for human rights violations under international investment law, this Chapter suggests that Urbaser invites an application of ICL liability doctrines as “boundary crossing” tools that arbitrators can use to further define the contours of corporate subjectivity to international law.
Frequency-Dependent Photothermal Measurement of Thermal Diffusivity for Opaque and Non-Opaque Materials: Application to Crystals of TIPS-Pentacene

We propose the use of a frequency-dependent photothermal measurement as a complement to light-flash, i.e., time-dependent, measurements to determine the through-plane thermal diffusivity of small, thin samples, e.g., semiconducting polymers and small organic molecule crystals. The analysis is extended from its previous use with some opaque conducting polymers to materials with finite absorption coefficients, such as crystals of 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)pentacene. Taking into account the finite absorption coefficients of the latter gives a value of diffusivity, D ≈ 0.10 mm2/s, much smaller than previously estimated and more consistent with its expected value. We also briefly discuss the effects of coating samples for the measurement to improve their optical properties.
Relaxations of AC Maximal Load Delivery for Severe Contingency Analysis

This work considers the task of finding an ac-feasible operating point of a severely damaged transmission network while ensuring that a maximal amount of active power loads can be delivered. This AC maximal load delivery (AC-MLD) task is a nonconvex nonlinear optimization problem that is incredibly challenging to solve on large-scale transmission system data sets. This work demonstrates that convex relaxations of the AC-MLD problem provide a reliable and scalable method for finding high-quality bounds on the amount of active power that can be delivered in the AC-MLD problem. To demonstrate their effectiveness, the solution methods proposed in this work are rigorously evaluated on 1000 $N$ - $k$ scenarios on seven power networks ranging in size from 70 to 6000 buses. The most effective relaxation of the AC-MLD problem converges in less than 20 seconds on commodity computing hardware for all 7000 of the scenarios considered.
Approach to wild-type gastrointestinal stromal tumors

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) arise from the intestinal pacemaker cells of Cajal. Wild-type gastrointestinal stromal tumors (WT-GIST) are a unique and uncommon subtype of GISTs that lack activating mutations in the tyrosine kinase c-KIT or platelet derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRA) receptors. The lack of these growth-stimulating mutations renders tyrosine kinase receptor inhibitors, such as imatinib mesylate, relatively ineffective against these tumors. WT-GIST arises most commonly due to underlying alternate proliferative signals associated with germ-line, genetic mutations. WT-GIST frequently arises in patients with BRAF mutations, Carney’s Triad or neurofibromatosis type-1 (NF-1). All patients with WT-GIST require a careful examination for germ-line mutations and very close observation for recurrent tumors. Surgery remains a mainstay therapy for these patients. This review aims to discuss the most recent data available on the diagnosis and treatment of WT-GIST.
Biomedical Informatics Investigator

The BMI Investigator is a computer human interface built in .Net which allows simultaneous query of structured data such as demographics, administrative codes, medications (coded in RxNorm), laboratory test results (coded in LOINC) and formerly unstructured data in clinical notes (coded in SNOMED CT). The ontology terms identified using SNOMED are all coded as either positive, negative or uncertain assertions. They are then where applicable built into compositional expressions and stored in both a graph database and a triple store. The SNOMED CT codes are stored in a NOSQL database, Berkley DB, and the structured data is stored in SQL using the OMOP/OHDSI format. The BMI investigator also lets you develop models for cohort selection (data driven recruitment to clinical trials) and automated retrospective research using genomic criteria and we are adding image feature data currently to the system. We performed a usability experiment and the users identified some usability flaws which were used to improve the software. Overall, the BMI Investigator was felt to be usable by subject matter experts. Next steps for the software are to integrate genomic criteria and image features into the query engine.
Testing Cointegrating Relationships Using Irregular and Non‐Contemporaneous Series with an Application to Paleoclimate Data

Time series that are observed neither regularly nor contemporaneously pose problems for most multivariate analyses. Common and intuitive solutions to these problems include interpolation and other types of imputation to a higher, regular frequency. However, interpolation is known to cause serious problems with the size and power of statistical tests. Due to the difficulty in dating paleoclimate data such as CO2 concentrations and surface temperatures, time series of such measurements are observed neither regularly nor contemporaneously. This article presents large‐ and small‐sample analyses of the size and power of cointegration tests of time series with these features and supports the robustness of cointegration of these two series found in the extant literature. Compared to linear or higher‐order polynomial interpolation, step interpolation results in the least size distortion and is therefore recommended.
The non-local nature of a measurement

Abstract This short paper identifies that the concept of a local measurement is always violated by a necessary metrological process – calibration. J. S. Bell's formal development of the same violation demonstrates that the EPR paradox and related discontinuities may be resolved by including the calibration process in a measurement process, as formalized in Measurement, February 2018 “Relative Measurement Theory”.
Genome-wide discovery of epistatic loci affecting antibiotic resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae using evolutionary couplings.

Genome analysis should allow the discovery of interdependent loci that together cause antibiotic resistance. In practice, however, the vast number of possible epistatic interactions erodes statistical power. Here, we extend an approach that has been successfully used to identify epistatic residues in proteins to infer genomic loci that are strongly coupled. This approach reduces the number of tests required for an epistatic genome-wide association study of antibiotic resistance and increases the likelihood of identifying causal epistasis. We discovered 38 loci and 240 epistatic pairs that influence the minimum inhibitory concentrations of 5 different antibiotics in 1,102 isolates of Neisseria gonorrhoeae that were confirmed in a second dataset of 495 isolates. Many known resistance-affecting loci were recovered; however, the majority of associations occurred in unreported genes, such as murE. About half of the discovered epistasis involved at least one locus previously associated with antibiotic resistance, including interactions between gyrA and parC. Still, many combinations involved unreported loci and genes. While most variation in minimum inhibitory concentrations could be explained by identified loci, epistasis substantially increased explained phenotypic variance. Our work provides a systematic identification of epistasis affecting antibiotic resistance in N. gonorrhoeae and a generalizable approach for epistatic genome-wide association studies. A genome-wide association study using evolutionarily coupled loci identifies epistatic pairs impacting antibiotic resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae.
Predicting Urban Dispersal Events: A Two-Stage Framework through Deep Survival Analysis on Mobility Data

Urban dispersal events are processes where an unusually large number of people leave the same area in a short period. Early prediction of dispersal events is important in mitigating congestion and safety risks and making better dispatching decisions for taxi and ride-sharing fleets. Existing work mostly focuses on predicting taxi demand in the near future by learning patterns from historical data. However, they fail in case of abnormality because dispersal events with abnormally high demand are non-repetitive and violate common assumptions such as smoothness in demand change over time. Instead, in this paper we argue that dispersal events follow a complex pattern of trips and other related features in the past, which can be used to predict such events. Therefore, we formulate the dispersal event prediction problem as a survival analysis problem. We propose a two-stage framework (DILSA), where a deep learning model combined with survival analysis is developed to predict the probability of a dispersal event and its demand volume. We conduct extensive case studies and experiments on the NYC Yellow taxi dataset from 20142016. Results show that DILSA can predict events in the next 5 hours with F1-score of 0:7 and with average time error of 18 minutes. It is orders of magnitude better than the state-of-the-art deep learning approaches for taxi demand prediction.
Dynamic Learning of Sequential Choice Bandit Problem under Marketing Fatigue

Motivated by the observation that overexposure to unwanted marketing activities leads to customer dissatisfaction, we consider a setting where a platform offers a sequence of messages to its users and is penalized when users abandon the platform due to marketing fatigue. We propose a novel sequential choice model to capture multiple interactions taking place between the platform and its user: Upon receiving a message, a user decides on one of the three actions: accept the message, skip and receive the next message, or abandon the platform. Based on user feedback, the platform dynamically learns users’ abandonment distribution and their valuations of messages to determine the length of the sequence and the order of the messages, while maximizing the cumulative payoff over a horizon of length T. We refer to this online learning task as the sequential choice bandit problem. For the offline combinatorial optimization problem, we show a polynomialtime algorithm. For the online problem, we propose an algorithm that balances exploration and exploitation, and characterize its regret bound. Lastly, we demonstrate how to extend the model with user contexts to incorporate personalization.
Identifying Important Empirical Claims in the UBI Debate

This chapter proposes a list of important empirical claims made by supporters and opponents of Universal Basic Income (UBI) in an effort to identify what empirical questions UBI experiments should focus on and how researchers can relate experimental findings to the things people really want to know about UBI.
Competing failure mechanisms in metal matrix composites and their effects on fracture toughness

Abstract Development of high performance Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs) requires careful microstructure design which can improve material's fracture toughness while maintaining high strength. Microstructure and constituent properties combine to determine the overall fracture toughness of MMCs through the activation of different deformation and failure mechanisms. Although the effects of key microstructural attributes on the fracture toughness of MMCs have been discussed in previous studies, their effects on the interplay between plastic deformation and crack formation, as well as their effects on the competing failure mechanisms have not been systematically studied. In this paper, an integrated experimental and analytical framework is presented to evaluate the fracture toughness of MMCs through an assessment of energy contributions in terms of plastic deformation and crack surface formation in the matrix, reinforcement particles and interface. J-integral is calculated through displacement field measurement using Digital Image Correlation method. The competition of different failure mechanisms and their relations with material deformation are quantified through an analytical model by considering the effects of reinforcement volume fraction, interfacial property and yield stress of the matrix. Calculations carried out concern 6092Al/SiCp, but the overall approach applies to other MMCs as well. Results from this work indicate that interface debonding is a beneficial failure mechanism for fracture toughness enhancement of MMCs. It not only increases the surface energy dissipation by creating tortuous crack paths, but also promotes plastic deformation in the ductile matrix which largely contributes to the toughening of MMCs. The activation of interface debonding primarily depends on the volume fraction of SiCp, the yield stress of Al and the interface bonding energy.
Transparency regulation and stock price informativeness: evidence from the european union’s transparency directive

ABSTRACT We examine changes in stock price informativeness following the European Union's Transparency Directive (TPD). The TPD, implemented by country between 2007 and 2009, enhanced corporate tra...
Axisymmetric density waves in Saturn’s rings

Density waves in Saturn's rings are usually tightly wrapped spiral patterns generated by resonances with either Saturn's moons or structures inside the planet. However, between the Barnard and Bessel Gaps in the Cassini Division (i.e. between 120,240 and 120,300 km from Saturn's spin axis), there are density variations that appear to form an axisymmetric density wave consisting of concentric zones of varying densities that propagate radially through the rings. Axisymmetric waves cannot be generated directly by a satellite resonance, but instead appear to be excited by interference between a nearby satellite resonance and normal mode oscillations on the inner edge of the Barnard Gap. Similar axisymmetric waves may exist just interior to other resonantly confined edges that exhibit a large number of normal modes, including the Dawes ringlet in the outer C ring and the outermost part of the B ring.
Environmental Policy and Innovation: A Decade of Research

Innovation is an important part of environmental policy, and encouraging innovation is often an explicit goal of policymakers. A large literature in environmental economics examines the links between environmental policy and innovation. Popp et al. (2010) provides an extensive review of the literature on environmental innovation. This paper updates that review, highlighting research published during the past decade, with a focus on empirical research examining links between environmental policy and environmentally friendly innovation. I highlight major trends in the literature, including an increased number of cross-country studies and a focus on the effect of different policy instruments on innovation. I include a discussion of the justifications and evidence for technology-specific policy incentives and present evidence on the effectiveness of government R&D spending. My review concludes with a discussion of three promising areas for new research on environmental innovation.
Finding the Spirit of Elijah in the Story of Elisha and the Lost Axe Head: 2 Kings 6:1-7 in the Light of 2 Kings 2

Against a long-standing trend in biblical scholarship to demean and diminish the significance and purpose of the Elisha story of the lost axe head in 2 Kings 6:1-7, this paper shows this story’s strategic purpose in relation to a central theological theme of the Elijah-Elisha complex and the entire Kings corpus. By pointing out the striking literary parallels and connections between this Elisha story and the story of Elisha’s receiving the mantle of Elijah in 2 Kings 2, together with this latter story’s central thematic role not only in the Elijah-Elisha materials but in the Kings narrative as a whole, the story of the lost axe head reveals the pivotal divine purpose of transacting spiritual succession from one generation to the next. https://doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2018/v31n3a21
Modeling Trolling in Social Media Conversations

Social media websites, electronic newspapers and Internet forums allow visitors to leave comments for others to read and interact. This exchange is not free from participants with malicious intentions, who troll others by positing messages that are intended to be provocative, offensive, or menacing. With the goal of facilitating the computational modeling of trolling, we propose a trolling categorization that is novel in the sense that it allows comment-based analysis from both the trolls' and the responders' perspectives, characterizing these two perspectives using four aspects, namely, the troll's intention and his intention disclosure, as well as the responder's interpretation of the troll's intention and her response strategy. Using this categorization, we annotate and release a dataset containing excerpts of Reddit conversations involving suspected trolls and their interactions with other users. Finally, we identify the difficult-to-classify cases in our corpus and suggest potential solutions for them.
Printing Contractive Silver Conductive Inks Using Interface Interactions to Overcome Dewetting

Surface energy incompatibility between ink and substrate is a significant obstacle for inkjet printing of electronic components, causing printed lines to dewet and break apart. In this paper, it was demonstrated that smooth, continuous silver lines could be printed via control of ink-substrate interactions, despite the tendency of the ink to dewet from the substrate. The silver lines were printed using drop-on-demand inkjet printing of silver nanoparticle ink onto non-crosslinked SU-8 coated polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The lines were subsequently heated to control dewetting and cause contraction from $60~\mu \text{m}$ to $14~\mu \text{m}$ . The SU-8 film underneath the silver line was dissolved and redistributed to form a ridged concave structure that prevented the lines from bulging and breaking apart. Additionally, photonic sintering was used to achieve low resistivity of $0.06~{\mu } {\Omega }\text{m}$ for the narrow printed lines.
Performance Exploration Through Optimistic Static Program Annotations

Compilers are limited by the static information directly or indirectly encoded in the program. Low-level languages, such as Open image in new window , are considered problematic as their weak type system and relaxed memory semantic allows for various, sometimes non-obvious, behaviors. Since compilers have to preserve the program semantics for all program executions, the existence of exceptional behavior can prevent optimizations that the developer would consider valid and might expect. Analyses to guarantee the absence of disruptive and unlikely situations are consequently an indispensable part of an optimizing compiler. However, such analyses have to be approximative and limited in scope as global and exact solutions are infeasible for any non-trivial program.
Annealed lattice animal model and Flory theory for the melt of non-concatenated rings: towards the physics of crumpling

A Flory theory is constructed for a long polymer ring in a melt of unknotted and non-concatenated rings. The theory assumes that the ring forms an effective annealed branched object and computes its primitive path. It is shown that the primitive path follows self-avoiding statistics and is characterized by the corresponding Flory exponent of a polymer with excluded volume. Based on that, it is shown that rings in the melt are compact objects with overall size proportional to their length raised to the 1/3 power. Furthermore, the contact probability exponent γcontact is estimated, albeit by a poorly controlled approximation, with the result close to 1.1 consistent with both numerical and experimental data.
Pd-catalyzed couplings of (α-fluoro)vinyl tris(trimethylsilyl)germanes

The (α-fluoro)vinyl tris(trimethylsilyl)germanes undergo Pd-catalyzed cross-couplings with aryl and alkenyl halides upon oxidative treatment with hydrogen peroxide under basic aqueous conditions to give access to fluoroalkenes and fluorodienes with retention of stereochemistry.
Anticonvulsants related to U-54494 prepared from cis-1,2- and cis-2,3-diaminotetralin

Abstract cis-Diaminotetralins 4 and 10 were converted in 4 steps to benzologs of the novel anticonvulsant U-54494. Attempted alkylation of 4 and 10 with 1,4-dibromobutane provided mixtures of the bis-pyrrolidino compounds and starting free bases together with the desired mono- pyrrolidino compounds 5 and 11. Treatment of these mixtures with ethyl chloroformate followed by Chromatographic separation gave the carbamates 7 and 12. Reduction of these carbamates with LiAlH4 provided the N-methylamino compounds 8 and 14. Finally, benzamide formation gave rise to the analogs of U-54494, compounds 9 and 15.