cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Notions of input to output stability

This paper deals with concepts of output stability. Inspired in part by regulator theory, several variants are considered, which differ from each other in the requirements imposed upon transient behavior. The main results provide a comparison among the various notions, all of which specialize to input to state stability (ISS) when the output equals the complete state.
Horner's Syndrome

Horner's syndrome results from a disturbance in the sympathetic pathway and presents with blepharoptosis, miosis, and rarely anhidrosis. Causes of Horner's syndrome vary depending on which neuron is involved. First-order Horner's syndrome may be due to brainstem ischemia. Lung masses (Pancoast tumors) are the most common cause of second-order lesions. Third-order Horner's syndrome is frequently associated with internal carotid artery dissection, cavernous sinus lesions, and vascular headache syndromes. Although pharmacological testing may be helpful, often the entire sympathetic pathway must be imaged with the options of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), CT angiogram, and MR angiogram to find and treat the cause.
The relationship between k-forcing and k-power domination

Abstract Zero forcing and power domination are iterative processes on graphs where an initial set of vertices are observed, and additional vertices become observed based on some rules. In both cases, the goal is to eventually observe the entire graph using the fewest number of initial vertices. The concept of k -power domination was introduced by Chang et al. (2012) as a generalization of power domination and standard graph domination. Independently, k -forcing was defined by Amos et al. (2015) to generalize zero forcing. In this paper, we combine the study of k -forcing and k -power domination, providing a new approach to analyze both processes. We give a relationship between the k -forcing and the k -power domination numbers of a graph that bounds one in terms of the other. We also obtain results using the contraction of subgraphs that allow the parallel computation of k -forcing and k -power dominating sets.
Beekeeping from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages

Beekeeping had its origins in honey hunting-the opportunistic stealing of honey from wild honey bee nests. True beekeeping began when humans started providing artificial cavities within which the bees could build comb for the queen to lay her eggs and the workers could process honey. By 2450 BCE, the Egyptians had developed sophisticated apiculture, and, within two millennia, beekeeping with horizontal hives had spread throughout the Mediterranean. During Europe's Middle Ages, honey and wax became important commodities for trade, and beekeeping in skep, log, box, and tree hives flourished to meet the demand. Other species of honey bees contributed to the development and spread of beekeeping in Asia beginning around 300 BCE. Meanwhile, beekeeping evolved independently in Mesoamerica with the stingless bee Melipona beecheii, as documented by archaeological finds and written accounts that survived Spanish conquest.
Psychological distress in twins with urological symptoms

Abstract Objective Interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome (IC/PBS) is a chronic pain condition with unclear underlying etiology. Our objectives were to determine whether psychological distress was higher in twins with urological symptoms commonly found in IC/PBS than in twins without, and if so, did familial influences contribute to this association. Method Data from 1165 female twins in a community-based sample were used. Urological symptoms, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and perceived stress were assessed with standardized questionnaires. Generalized estimating equation (GEE) regression models were used to examine the relationship between psychological distress and urological symptoms. Results Compared to unaffected twins, twins with urological symptoms were more likely to report PTSD symptoms (OR=3.9; 95% CI=2.6–5.8), depression (OR=3.1; 95% CI=2.0–5.0), anxiety (OR=3.4; 95% CI=2.3–5.2) and perceived stress (OR=3.2; 95% CI=2.1–4.9). After adjusting for familial influences, the within-pair effects remained significant for PTSD symptoms (OR=2.2; 95% CI=1.2–3.8) and perceived stress (OR=2.2; 95% CI=1.2–3.8). Conclusion Familial influences partially explained the relationship between indicators of psychological distress and urological symptoms. Future research should examine shared environmental and genetic mechanisms that may further explain this relationship and improve diagnosis and treatment of this unexplained clinical condition.
orco Mutagenesis Causes Loss of Antennal Lobe Glomeruli and Impaired Social Behavior in Ants

Life inside ant colonies is orchestrated with diverse pheromones, but it is not clear how ants perceive these social signals. It has been proposed that pheromone perception in ants evolved via expansions in the numbers of odorant receptors (ORs) and antennal lobe glomeruli. Here, we generate the first mutant lines in the clonal raider ant, Ooceraea biroi, by disrupting orco, a gene required for the function of all ORs. We find that orco mutants exhibit severe deficiencies in social behavior and fitness, suggesting they are unable to perceive pheromones. Surprisingly, unlike in Drosophila melanogaster, orco mutant ants also lack most of the ∼500 antennal lobe glomeruli found in wild-type ants. These results illustrate that ORs are essential for ant social organization and raise the possibility that, similar to mammals, receptor function is required for the development and/or maintenance of the highly complex olfactory processing areas in the ant brain. VIDEO ABSTRACT.
Modeling joint abundance of multiple species using Dirichlet process mixtures

We present a method for modeling the distributions of multiple species simultaneously using Dirichlet process random effects to cluster species into guilds. Guilds are ecological groups of species that behave or react similarly to some environmental conditions. By modeling latent guild structure, we capture the cross-correlations in abundance or occurrence of species over surveys. In addition, ecological information about the community structure is obtained as a by-product of the model. By clustering species into similar functional groups, prediction uncertainty of community structure at additional sites is reduced over treating each species separately. The proposed model also presents an improvement over previously proposed joint species distribution models by reducing the number of parameters necessary to capture interspecies correlations and eliminating the need to have a priori information on the number of groups or a distance metric over species traits. The method is illustrated with a small simulation demonstration, as well as an analysis of a mesopelagic fish survey from the eastern Bering Sea near Alaska. The simulation data analysis shows that guild membership can be extracted as the differences between groups become larger and if guild differences are small, the model naturally collapses all the species into a small number of guilds, which increases predictive efficiency by reducing the number of parameters to that which is supported by the data.
Archibald Cox and the Diversity Justification for Affirmative Action

Discussions of the value of racial, ethnic and gender diversity are so commonplace today that anyone born after 1990 could be excused for thinking that these forms of identity diversity have long been associated with social policy, including affirmative action in employment and university admissions. But prior to 1978 there was virtually no discussion of the value of diversity; the justifications for affirmative action and other civil rights remedies focused on promoting equality and combating discrimination. This article reveals the origins of the diversity justification for affirmative action – the only defense that survives judicial scrutiny today. The conventional wisdom is that Justice Lewis Powell developed the diversity justification by relying on an amicus curiae brief filed in the Bakke case in 1978. Yet it was actually four years earlier that Justice Powell first encountered the diversity justification, in an amicus brief in the DeFunis case, which was subsequently dismissed as moot, and has thus been largely ignored. The author of that brief was the great American lawyer and legal scholar Archibald Cox, who was only available because he had been unexpectedly fired by President Nixon from his role as the Watergate Special Prosecutor in the “Saturday Night Massacre.” When he returned to Cambridge he agreed to write a brief defending affirmative action, by describing how and why race was utilized at Harvard to increase student diversity. That this is an argument that seems commonplace, even obvious, today is a testament to the persuasiveness of the Cox brief. In 1974 it was unique, and it caught Justice Powell’s eye as a better way to justify affirmative action than the other traditional arguments. In developing his description and justification for affirmative action at Harvard, Cox relied on a history of embracing diversity that began in the 1860s under the leadership of Harvard’s great transformative President, Charles W. Eliot. I here describe how Eliot’s commitment to diversity, including point-of-view and experiential diversity, but also, racial, ethnic and religious diversity, helped make Harvard the model of a great university. Eliot’s passion for diversity resonated at Harvard in the post-World War II period, as the university abandoned its despicable Jewish quota, which Eliot had opposed, and began reaching out and recruiting students from underrepresented groups. Cox relied on the architects of those post-war policies in drafting his description of the Harvard plan in the DeFunis brief. When the Cox diversity argument appeared again four years later in the Bakke case, under different authorship, Powell recognized it from four years earlier, and again embraced it. His opinion in Bakke quotes extensively from Cox’s description of Harvard’s diversity-based affirmative action program, holding it up as a model to emulate. Justice Powell’s description, taken from the Cox brief, has become the blueprint that nearly all selective colleges now follow.
Almost simple geodesics on the triply-punctured sphere

In this paper we study closed hyperbolic geodesics $$\gamma $$ on the triply-punctured sphere $$M = {\widehat{{\mathbb C}}}- \{0,1,\infty \}$$ that are almost simple, in the sense that the difference $$\delta = I(\gamma )-L(\gamma )$$ between the self-intersection number of $$\gamma $$ and its combinatorial (word) length is fixed. We show that for each fixed $$\delta $$ , the number of almost simple geodesics with $$L(\gamma )=L$$ is given by a quadratic polynomial $$p_\delta (L)$$ , provided $$L \ge \delta + 4$$ .
Targeted rescue of cancer-associated IDH1 mutant activity using an engineered synthetic antibody.

We have utilized a high-diversity phage display library to engineer antibody fragments (Fabs) that can modulate the activity of the enzyme isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1). We show that a conformation-specific Fab can reactivate an IDH1 mutant associated with brain tumors. The results show that this strategy is a first step towards developing “activator drugs” for a large number of genetic disorders where mutations have disrupted protein function.
Teacher implementation of an adolescent reading intervention

Abstract This study documents the process of implementation of an adolescent reading intervention. Using data from observations of teachers (n = 17) during the 2013-14 school year, I conducted a nuanced descriptive analysis of fidelity of implementation (FoI). I also analyzed weekly logs completed by literacy coaches (n = 3) to examine variation in quantity and intensity of coaching. I then compared variation in coaching with variation in FoI, and finally compared FoI to outcomes for students (n = 287). FoI at observation 1 was found to predict coaching time, and FoI across both observations predicted student outcomes, emphasizing the critical role of implementation in intervention research.
REVISION ARTHROPLASTY FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF STIFFNESS AFTER TOTAL KNEE REPLACEMENT

Introduction A stiff total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is an uncommon but disabling problem because it causes pain and limited function. Revision surgery has been reported as a satisfactory treatment option for stiffness with modest benefits. The aim of this study was to evaluate the results of revision surgery for the treatment of stiffness after TKA. Methods We defined stiffness as 15 degrees or more of flexion contracture or less than 75o of flexion or a range of motion of 90o or less presenting with a chief complain of limited range of motion and pain. We evaluated the results of forty-two revisions performed by one of four orthopedic surgeons due to stiffness after TKA. Patients with history of infection or isolated polyethylene insert exchange were excluded. Results Patients were followed for an average of forty-seven months. The mean Knee Society score improved from 43.9 points preoperatively to 72.0 points at the time of follow-up and the mean Knee Society function score from 48.7 to 70.1 respectively. Pain improved in 73% of the patients and four patients (9.5%) presented severe pain at latest follow up. The mean flexion contracture decreased from 9.7o to 2.3o, the mean flexion improved from 81.5o to 94.3o, and the mean range of motion improved from 72o to 92o. The range of motion improved in 80% of the knees and flexion increased in 64.3%. Extension improved in 88% and it remained unchanged in 5%. Conclusion Revision surgery appears to be a reasonable option for patients presenting with pain and stiffness after TKA. However, the benefits may be modest as the outcomes do not approach those achieved with a primary TKA. Although the flexion contractures were significantly improved and 80% of the knees presented an increase range of motion, the final range of motion was only 92o.
Conic Relaxations for Power System State Estimation With Line Measurements

This paper deals with the nonconvex power system state estimation (PSSE) problem, which plays a central role in the monitoring and operation of electric power networks. Given a set of noisy measurements, PSSE aims at estimating the vector of complex voltages at all buses of the network. This is a challenging task due to the inherent nonlinearity of power flows (PFs), for which the existing methods lack guaranteed convergence and theoretical analysis. Motivated by these limitations, we propose a novel convexification framework for the PSSE problem using semidefinite programming (SDP) and second-order cone programming (SOCP) relaxations. We first study a related PF problem as the noiseless counterpart, which is cast as a constrained minimization program by adding a suitably designed objective function. We study the performance of the proposed framework in the case where the set of measurements includes: 1) nodal voltage magnitudes and 2) branch active PFs over at least a spanning tree of the network. It is shown that the SDP and SOCP relaxations both recover the true PF solution as long as the voltage angle difference across each line of the network is not too large (e.g., less than $90^{\circ }$ for lossless networks). By capitalizing on this result, penalized SDP and SOCP problems are designed to solve the PSSE, where a penalty based on the weighted least absolute value is incorporated for fitting noisy measurements with possible bad data. Strong theoretical results are derived to quantify the optimal solution of the penalized SDP problem, which is shown to possess a dominant rank-one component formed by lifting the true voltage vector. An upper bound on the estimation error is also derived as a function of the noise power, which decreases exponentially fast as the number of measurements increases. Numerical results on benchmark systems, including a 9241-bus European system, are reported to corroborate the merits of the proposed convexification framework.
Heavy-Hitter Detection Entirely in the Data Plane

Identifying the "heavy hitter" flows or flows with large traffic volumes in the data plane is important for several applications e.g., flow-size aware routing, DoS detection, and traffic engineering. However, measurement in the data plane is constrained by the need for line-rate processing (at 10-100Gb/s) and limited memory in switching hardware. We propose HashPipe, a heavy hitter detection algorithm using emerging programmable data planes. HashPipe implements a pipeline of hash tables which retain counters for heavy flows while evicting lighter flows over time. We prototype HashPipe in P4 and evaluate it with packet traces from an ISP backbone link and a data center. On the ISP trace (which contains over 400,000 flows), we find that HashPipe identifies 95% of the 300 heaviest flows with less than 80KB of memory.
TOTAL HIP ARTHROPLASTY IN THE SPINAL DEFORMITY POPULATION: HOW DOES DEFORMITY AFFECT HIP STABILITY?

Background Spinal deformity has a known deleterious effect upon the outcomes of total hip arthroplasty and acetabular component positioning. This study sought to evaluate the relationship between severity of spinal deformity parameters and acetabular cup position, rate of dislocation, and rate of revision among patients with total hip arthroplasties and concomitant spinal deformity. Methods A prospectively collected database of patients with spinal deformity was reviewed and patients with total hip arthroplasty were identified. The full body standing stereoradiographic images (EOS) were reviewed for each patient. From these images, spinal deformity parameters and acetabular cup anteversion and inclination were measured. A chart review was performed on all patients to determine dislocation and revision arthroplasty events. Statistical analysis was performed to determine correlation of deformity with acetabular cup position. Subgroup analysis was performed for patients with spinal fusion, dislocation events, and revision THA. Results One-hundred and seven spinal deformity patients were identified, with 139 hips for analysis. The rate of THA dislocation in this cohort was 8.0%, with a revision rate of 5.8% for instability. Patients who sustained dislocations had significantly higher spinopelvic tilt, T1-pelvic angle, and mismatch of lumbar lordosis and pelvic incidence. Among all patients, only 68.8% met the radiographic “safe zone” for anteversion in the standing position (Figure 1). A comparison of radiographic cup position on supine x-ray with standing EOS imaging demonstrated an increase in anteversion of 6.2 degrees. Standing decreased rate of safe zone anteversion of the cup by 20%. Conclusions In this cohort, patients with THA and concomitant spinal deformity have a particularly high rate of dislocation. This dislocation risk may be driven by the degree of spinal deformity and by spinopelvic compensation, which is suggested by our findings. Arthroplasty surgeons should be aware of the elevated dislocation rate and consider a surgical strategy for maintaining hip stability in this population.
A compact dispersive refocusing Rowland circle X-ray emission spectrometer for laboratory, synchrotron, and XFEL applications

X-ray emission spectroscopy is emerging as an important complement to x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy, providing a characterization of the occupied electronic density of states local to the species of interest. Here, we present details of the design and performance of a compact x-ray emission spectrometer that uses a dispersive refocusing Rowland (DRR) circle geometry to achieve excellent performance for the 2-2.5 keV range, i.e., especially for the K-edge emission from sulfur and phosphorous. The DRR approach allows high energy resolution even for unfocused x-ray sources. This property enables high count rates in laboratory studies, approaching those of insertion-device beamlines at third-generation synchrotrons, despite use of only a low-powered, conventional x-ray tube. The spectrometer, whose overall scale is set by use of a 10-cm diameter Rowland circle and a new small-pixel complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor x-ray camera, is easily portable to synchrotron or x-ray free electron laser beamlines. Photometrics from measurements at the Advanced Light Source show excellent overall instrumental efficiency. In addition, the compact size of this instrument lends itself to future multiplexing to gain large factors in net collection efficiency or its implementation in controlled gas gloveboxes either in the lab or in an endstation.
Health Insurance and the Demand for Medical Care: a Case Study from China

Standard insurance theory expects that expenditures and coverage should be positively correlated, for two main reasons: first, high risky individuals prefer to choose a more generous coverage (selection effect); second, a more extensive coverage may increase health costs (incentive effect). We try to empirically separate the selection effect and incentive effect on the health care expenditures with a novel Chinese dataset. With our estimation, we do find the evidences of selection effect, but fail to find the incentive effect. Besides, we also find some evidences of Physician-Induced Demand.
Complexity Made Simple - At a Small Price

Fundamental complexity limits prevent us from directly solving many design, control, and optimization problems. Yet, there are ways to solve such hard problems by exploiting their specific structure, by asking the “right” questions, and by challenging some conventional approaches. First, slow, inefficient, and intrusive trial-and-error techniques can sometimes be bypassed through simple thought experiments constructed at a “small price.” In particular, for Discrete Event Systems this can be systematically accomplished through the theory of Perturbation Analysis. Second, decomposition and abstraction methods can often provide accurate solutions or significantly simplify a hard problem at the “small price” of some loss of accuracy. Finally, conventional time-driven methods for sampling, control, and communication can be replaced by event-driven techniques with the proper events triggering these actions.
Decoherence in Ion Trap Quantum Computers.

Cirac and Zoller [Phys. Rev. Lett.74, 4091 (1995)] have proposed a concrete “hardware” scheme for quatum computation entailingN vibrationally coupled trapped ions. Starting from an initial state in which the normal modes are at a temperatureT, and each ion is in a superposition of a ground and an excited state, we calculate the inclusive probabilityP(t) for the ions to evolve as they would in the absence of coupling, and any final vibratioal mode state. An adiabatic approximation exploiting the low vibrational frequencies (108 Hz) vs. the electronic ionic transitions (1014Hz) is used. An analytic form is found forP(t) atT=0, and decoherence times are found for allT andN≈1000. Implications for actual realization of such computers are discussed.
Comprehensive evaluation of disease- and trait-specific enrichment for eight functional elements among GWAS-identified variants.

Genome-wide association study (GWAS)-identified variants are enriched for functional elements. However, we have limited knowledge of how functional enrichment may differ by disease/trait and tissue type. We tested a broad set of eight functional elements for enrichment among GWAS-identified SNPs (p < 5×10−8) from the NHGRI-EBI Catalog across seven disease/trait categories: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease, psychiatric disease, neurological disease, and anthropometric traits. SNPs were annotated using HaploReg for the eight functional elements across any tissue: DNase sites, expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL), sequence conservation, enhancers, promoters, missense variants, sequence motifs, and protein binding sites. In addition, tissue-specific annotations were considered for brain vs. blood. Disease/trait SNPs were compared to a control set of 4809 SNPs matched to the GWAS SNPs (N = 1639) on allele frequency, gene density, distance to nearest gene, and linkage disequilibrium at ~3:1 ratio. Enrichment analyses were conducted using logistic regression, with Bonferroni correction. Overall, a significant enrichment was observed for all functional elements, except sequence motifs. Missense SNPs showed the strongest magnitude of enrichment. eQTLs were the only functional element significantly enriched across all diseases/traits. Magnitudes of enrichment were generally similar across diseases/traits, where enrichment was statistically significant. Blood vs. brain tissue effects on enrichment were dependent on disease/trait and functional element (e.g., cardiovascular disease: eQTLs P TissueDifference = 1.28 × 10−6 vs. enhancers P TissueDifference = 0.94). Identifying disease/trait-relevant functional elements and tissue types could provide new insight into the underlying biology, by guiding a priori GWAS analyses (e.g., brain enhancer elements for psychiatric disease) or facilitating post hoc interpretation.
Sensory Metrics of Neuromechanical Trust

Today digital sources supply a historically unprecedented component of human sensorimotor data, the consumption of which is correlated with poorly understood maladies such as Internet addiction disorder and Internet gaming disorder. Because both natural and digital sensorimotor data share common mathematical descriptions, one can quantify our informational sensorimotor needs using the signal processing metrics of entropy, noise, dimensionality, continuity, latency, and bandwidth. Such metrics describe in neutral terms the informational diet human brains require to self-calibrate, allowing individuals to maintain trusting relationships. With these metrics, we define the trust humans experience using the mathematical language of computational models, that is, as a primitive statistical algorithm processing finely grained sensorimotor data from neuromechanical interaction. This definition of neuromechanical trust implies that artificial sensorimotor inputs and interactions that attract low-level attention th...
Bandit Models of Human Behavior: Reward Processing in Mental Disorders

Drawing an inspiration from behavioral studies of human decision making, we propose here a general parametric framework for multi-armed bandit problem, which extends the standard Thompson Sampling approach to incorporate reward processing biases associated with several neurological and psychiatric conditions, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), addiction, and chronic pain. We demonstrate empirically that the proposed parametric approach can often outperform the baseline Thompson Sampling on a variety of datasets. Moreover, from the behavioral modeling perspective, our parametric framework can be viewed as a first step towards a unifying computational model capturing reward processing abnormalities across multiple mental conditions.
A Primal-Dual Approach to Analyzing ATO Systems

We study assemble-to-order (ATO) problems from the literature. ATO problems with general structure and integrality constraints are well known to be difficult to solve, and we provide new insight in...
Varicocele and Puberty—The Critical Factor?

In some boys varicocele develops before puberty, when the testis is immature and vulnerable. Based on testicular size, evidence suggests that the time of development of a varicocele in relation to puberty may be the critical factor in the subsequent development of infertility. The recognition and treatment of an early-developing varicocele may help to reduce the infertility associated with this condition.
Intermittent Communication

We formulate a model for intermittent communication that can capture bursty transmissions or a sporadically available channel, where in either case the receiver does not know $a~priori$ when the transmissions will occur. Focusing on the point-to-point case, we develop a decoding structure, decoding from pattern detection, and its achievable rate for such communication scenarios. Decoding from pattern detection first detects the locations of code word symbols and then uses them to decode. We introduce the concept of partial divergence and study some of its properties in order to obtain stronger achievability results. As the system becomes more intermittent, the achievable rates decrease due to the additional uncertainty about the positions of the code word symbols at the decoder. In addition, we provide upper bounds on the capacity of binary noiseless intermittent communication with the help of a genie-aided encoder and decoder. The upper bounds imply a tradeoff between the capacity and the intermittency rate of the communication system, even if the receive window scales linearly with the code word length.
Outpatient Implantation of Penile Prostheses Under Local Anesthesia

Penile implantation can be accomplished safely under local anesthesia on an outpatient basis. This reduces cost and should be considered more frequently than the current practice. The techniques and routines for performing penile implantation under local anesthesia are described.
Implantable Venous Access Devices: An Alternative Method of Extended Cancer Care

The advent of totally implantable venous access devices (TIVADs) is changing the method of treatment for those chronically ill patients who require long-term chemotherapy or narcotic infusion. TIVADs eliminate the problem of limited peripheral vein access with little risk of complication. At Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, we have implanted 30 TIVADs (3 Infuse-A-Ports and 27 Port-a-Caths) for a total of 4,502 patient days. This report documents our experience with the implantation and utilization of TIVAD systems.
Use of the Gastroduodenal Artery in Right Renal Artery Revascularization

Of 15 patients having revascularization of the right renal artery with the use of the hepatic circulation from May 1984 through March 1987 at the Massachusetts General Hospital, eight patients had this accomplished with end-to-end anastomosis of the gastroduodenal artery and right renal artery. Operative indications were acute azotemic renal failure (three patients), poorly controlled renovascular hypertension (four patients), and staged repair of bilateral renal artery disease (one patient). All revascularizations were successful in restoring renal function or rendering hypertension manageable and were assessed by means of renal flow scans, celiac angiography, or return of function in those patients with a solitary, functioning kidney. All patients survived the operation with one late death caused by myocardial infarction after abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. The gastroduodenal artery may be used as the source for arterial inflow in revascularization of the right renal artery by end-to-end anastomosis in approximately 50% of instances, conferring the advantage of the use of only one anastomosis and obviating the long-term possibility of vein graft failure.
Immunodiagnosis of Tumors in Vivo Using Radiolabeled Monoclonal Antibody A2B5

Recently a murine monoclonal antibody (A2B5) has been described that reacts with a membrane associated GQ ganglioside common to peptide secreting normal cells and tumors. In vitro binding data demonstrated the presence of this ganglioside on neurons, adrenal medulla, and pancreatic islets, along with neuroendocrine tumors such as insulinomas, pheochromocytomas, melanomas and neuroblastomas. Negative binding has previously been shown for tissue sections from liver, kidney, colon, lung, stomach, and tumors not derived from the neural crest. Because of the specificity at A2B5 in vitro, this monoclonal antibody was labeled with 131I for in vivo tumor localization studies. Daily radionuclear scans were obtained in 5 KX rats bearing the radiation induced rat insulinoma with disappearance of the label from the blood pool and concentration in the tumor so that by the fourth day, the only activity present by scan was in the insulinoma. Tissue-counting data showed tumor/blood ratios (av +/- SE, 1.29 +/- 0.25) of A2B5 activity two to ten times the average activity found in other organs (0.28 +/- 0.05). No tumor concentration of the control nonspecific monoclonal antibody P3X63 was evident (0.27 +/- 0.04). In addition A2B5 also localized to five different human melanoma cells lines grown in nude mice with high tumor/blood levels (1.04 +/- 0.27) compared to normal tissues (0.32 +/- 0.05) (P = .0005), while no localization is seen in nudes carrying osteosarcomas, colon, bladder, and renal cell carcinomas. In addition antibody A2B5 did not concentrate in any normal tissue though the antigen is present on several. The finding that A2B5 reacts across species lines (mouse, rat, man) lends itself to obvious diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities.
Cutaneous syncytial myoepithelioma: A recently described neoplasm which may mimic nevoid melanoma and epithelioid sarcoma

Cutaneous syncytial myoepithelioma is a recently described rare tumor of the dermis. It is derived and composed purely of myoepithelial cells and shows a characteristic syncytial growth pattern of neoplastic cells with little intervening stroma and no recognizable ductal structures. It represents a diagnostic challenge to dermatopathologists given its rarity and unusual immunophenotype. Molecular testing for rearrangement of the EWSR1 gene plays a significant role in confirming the diagnosis in most cases. Herein, we present 2 cases with mundane clinical presentations and challenging histopathological findings. In both cases, the lesion was composed of relatively well-circumscribed proliferation of epithelioid and spindle cells in the superficial dermis growing in a syncytial fashion and showing focal adipocytic metaplasia. The 2 cases had slightly different immunohistochemical profiles, but shared focal positivity for S100, EMA and pan-keratin or p63. Break-apart FISH demonstrated the presence of an EWSR1 gene rearrangement confirming the diagnosis in both cases. We discuss the most important differential diagnoses, particularly melanocytic lesions and epithelioid sarcoma and the original diagnostic considerations that the cases were referred to us with. We also review the molecular features and spectrum of immunohistochemical findings in these lesions and their role in excluding entities in the differential diagnosis.
Donor–Acceptor Iptycenes with Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence

A new donor–acceptor iptycene containing carbazole donors and a thiadiazoloquinoxaline acceptor was synthesized and its photo- and electrochemical properties evaluated. The key intermediate 1 allows a lateral modification through cross-coupling, and the (triisopropylsilyl)acetylene product 2 exhibits bright yellow fluorescence with emission lifetimes of 2.42 µs in deoxygenated hexane. The long lifetime and high quantum efficiency (73 %) is quenched by O2 and therefore attributed to thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF). This approach allows functionalization through cross-coupling reactions and depicts a promising scaffold for the synthesis of TADF-active molecules.
Impacts of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Transfer on Investment Decisions under Uncertainty

Because uncertainties around innovative technologies resolve over time, investments in such technologies are often made in stages so that organizations can use the knowledge gained from earlier stages to decide the next step. Previous studies usually assume that once some uncertainty is resolved, it becomes common knowledge within the investing organization. We develop a game-theoretical model to study how different parties within an organization gain and transfer knowledge about new technologies while investing in these technologies, and how the learning process may affect the investment decisions. We show that managers with incentives misaligned with the organization may transfer their knowledge untruthfully and distort the learning process of decision makers. Such behavior may lead to inefficient investment decisions. We also study the impact of uncertainty on the misreporting problem and the investment decisions. Mechanisms to mitigate or prevent untruthful knowledge transfer are also proposed. In particular, powerful incentive schemes may alleviate, but not prevent, the misreporting problem; punishing managers who are caught misreporting may deter the misreporting behavior, but in practice, such mechanisms are difficult to implement.
Is "better data" better than "better data miners"?: on the benefits of tuning SMOTE for defect prediction

We report and fix an important systematic error in prior studies that ranked classifiers for software analytics. Those studies did not (a) assess classifiers on multiple criteria and they did not (b) study how variations in the data affect the results. Hence, this paper applies (a) multi-performance criteria while (b) fixing the weaker regions of the training data (using SMOTUNED, which is an auto-tuning version of SMOTE). This approach leads to dramatically large increases in software defect predictions when applied in a 5*5 cross-validation study for 3,681 JAVA classes (containing over a million lines of code) from open source systems, SMOTUNED increased AUC and recall by 60% and 20% respectively. These improvements are independent of the classifier used to predict for defects. Same kind of pattern (improvement) was observed when a comparative analysis of SMOTE and SMOTUNED was done against the most recent class imbalance technique. In conclusion, for software analytic tasks like defect prediction, (1) data pre-processing can be more important than classifier choice, (2) ranking studies are incomplete without such pre-processing, and (3) SMOTUNED is a promising candidate for pre-processing.
Structural Breaks in the Game: The Case of Major League Baseball

To search for eras in a sports league, we utilize time-series tests with structural breaks in Major League Baseball performance. Using data from 1871-2010, the mean and standard deviation of four d...
Bidirectional Grammars for Machine-Code Decoding and Encoding

Binary analysis, which analyzes machine code, requires a decoder for converting bits into abstract syntax of machine instructions. Binary rewriting requires an encoder for converting instructions to bits. We propose a domain-specific language that enables the specification of both decoding and encoding in a single bidirectional grammar. With dependent types, a bigrammar enables the extraction of an executable decoder and encoder as well as a correctness proof showing their consistency. The bigrammar DSL is embedded in Coq with machine-checked proofs. We have used the bigrammar DSL to specify the decoding and encoding of a subset of x86-32 that includes around 300 instructions.
Pluripotent stem cell differentiation reveals distinct developmental pathways regulating lung versus thyroid lineage specification

The in vitro-directed differentiation of pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) through stimulation of developmental signaling pathways can generate mature somatic cell types for basic laboratory studies or regenerative therapies. However, there has been significant uncertainty regarding a method to separately derive lung versus thyroid epithelial lineages, as these two cell types each originate from Nkx2-1+ foregut progenitors and the minimal pathways claimed to regulate their distinct lineage specification in vivo or in vitro have varied in previous reports. Here, we employ PSCs to identify the key minimal signaling pathways (Wnt+BMP versus BMP+FGF) that regulate distinct lung- versus thyroid-lineage specification, respectively, from foregut endoderm. In contrast to most previous reports, these minimal pathways appear to be evolutionarily conserved between mice and humans, and FGF signaling, although required for thyroid specification, unexpectedly appears to be dispensable for lung specification. Once specified, distinct Nkx2-1+ lung or thyroid progenitor pools can now be independently derived for functional 3D culture maturation, basic developmental studies or future regenerative therapies.
Separately Excited Synchronous Motor With Rotary Transformer for Hybrid Vehicle Application

The cost of rare earth (RE) permanent magnet along with the associated supply volatility have intensified the interests for machine topologies, which eliminate or reduce the RE magnets usage. This paper presents one such design solution, the separately excited synchronous motor (SESM) that eliminates RE magnets, but does not sacrifice the peak torque and power of the motor. The major drawback of such motors is the necessity of brushes to supply the field current. This is especially a challenge for hybrid or electric vehicle applications where the machine is actively cooled with oil inside the transmission. Sealing the brushes from the oil is challenging and would limit the application of such a motor inside a transmission. To overcome this problem, a contactless rotary transformer is designed and implemented for the rotor field excitation. The designed motor is built and tested. The test data show that the designed motor outperforms an equivalent interior permanent magnet (IPM) motor, which is optimized for a hybrid application for both peak torque and power. Better drive system efficiency is measured at high speed compared with the IPM machine, while the latter outperforms (for efficiency) the SESM at low- and medium-speed range.
Valuation in major depression is intact and stable in a non-learning environment

The clinical diagnosis and symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD) have been closely associated with impairments in reward processing. In particular, various studies have shown blunted neural and behavioral responses to the experience of reward in depression. However, little is known about whether depression affects individuals' valuation of potential rewards during decision-making, independent from reward experience. To address this question, we used a gambling task and a model-based analytic approach to measure two types of individual sensitivity to reward values in participants with MDD: 'risk preference,' indicating how objective values are subjectively perceived, and 'inverse temperature,' determining the degree to which subjective value differences between options influence participants' choices. On both of these measures of value sensitivity, participants with MDD were comparable to non-psychiatric controls. In addition, both risk preference and inverse temperature were stable over four laboratory visits and comparable between the groups at each visit. Neither valuation measure varied with severity of clinical symptoms in MDD. These data suggest intact and stable value processing in MDD during risky decision-making.
The Falling Time Cost of College: Evidence from Half a Century of Time Use Data

Abstract Using multiple data sets from different time periods, we document declines in academic time investment by full-time college students in the United States between 1961 and 2003. Full-time students allocated 40 hours per week toward class and studying in 1961, whereas by 2003, they were investing about 27 hours per week. Declines were extremely broad based and are not easily accounted for by framing effects, work or major choices, or compositional changes in students or schools. We conclude that there have been substantial changes over time in the quantity or manner of human capital production on college campuses.
The Development Effects of the Extractive Colonial Economy: The Dutch Cultivation System in Java

Colonial powers typically organized economic activity in the colonies to maximize their economic returns. While the literature has emphasized long-run negative economic impacts via institutional quality, the changes in economic organization implemented to spur production historically could also directly influence economic organization in the long-run, exerting countervailing effects. We examine these in the context of the Dutch Cultivation System, the integrated industrial and agricultural system for producing sugar that formed the core of the Dutch colonial enterprise in 19th century Java. We show that areas close to where the Dutch established sugar factories in the mid-19th century are today more industrialized, have better infrastructure, are more educated, and are richer than nearby counterfactual locations that would have been similarly suitable for colonial sugar factories. We also show, using a spatial regression discontinuity design on the catchment areas around each factory, that villages forced to grow sugar cane have more village-owned land and also have more schools and substantially higher education levels, both historically and today. The results suggest that the economic structures implemented by colonizers to facilitate production can continue to promote economic activity in the long run, and we discuss the contexts where such effects are most likely to be important.
Wall Painting Reconstruction Using a Genetic Algorithm

Global reconstruction of two-dimensional wall paintings (frescoes) from fragments is an important problem for many archaeological sites. The goal is to find the global position and rotation for each fragment so that all fragments jointly “reconstruct” the original surface (i.e., solve the puzzle). Manual fragment placement is difficult and time-consuming, especially when fragments are irregularly shaped and uncolored. Systems have been proposed to first acquire 3D surface scans of the fragments and then use computer algorithms to solve the reconstruction problem. These systems work well for small test cases and for puzzles with distinctive features, but fail for larger reconstructions of real wall paintings with eroded and missing fragments due to the complexity of the reconstruction search space. We address the search problem with an unsupervised genetic algorithm: we evolve a pool of partial reconstructions that grow through recombination and selection over the course of generations. We introduce a novel algorithm for combining partial reconstructions that is robust to noise and outliers, and we provide a new selection procedure that balances fitness and diversity in the population. In experiments with a benchmark dataset, our algorithm is able to achieve larger and more accurate global reconstructions than previous automatic algorithms.
Gender and property rights in Sub-Saharan Africa : a review of constraints and effective interventions

Strengthening women's ownership, control, and use of land, livestock, and savings assets matters for poverty and shared prosperity, as unequal property rights can lead to intrahousehold inequality in wealth; allocative inefficiencies, which are costly in lost economic output and productivity growth; and women's control over household resources and spending decisions, with welfare implications for this generation and the next. Yet, there is ample evidence to show that the distribution and control of these key assets are skewed toward men across Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines the underlying constraints that potentially give rise to these inequalities, assesses the impact evaluation evidence on how to narrow existing gaps and boost welfare, and outlines a set of priority research and policy questions. On land, the review uncovers promising evidence on joint land titling and notes the need for work from urban settings and complementary interventions that address multiple market failures. On savings, those products with an element of illiquidity and a soft commitment show promise for women in experimental settings. On livestock, the review points to a striking dearth of evidence on the causal impact of livestock transfer programs -- aside from bundled ultra-poor programs and nutrition interventions.
Revisiting the Futamura Projections: A Diagrammatic Approach

The advent of language implementation tools such as PyPy and Truffle/Graal have reinvigorated and broadened interest in topics related to automatic compiler generation and optimization. Given this broader interest, we revisit the Futamura Projections using a novel diagram scheme. Through these diagrams we emphasize the recurring patterns in the Futamura Projections while addressing their complexity and abstract nature. We anticipate that this approach will improve the accessibility of the Futamura Projections and help foster analysis of those new tools through the lens of partial evaluation.