Privatizing Regulation: Whistleblowing and Bounty Hunting in the Financial Services Industries

Addresses use of whistleblowers and suggests private enforcement methodologies to supplement or supplant public enforcement activities in financial services under new law

Efficient Parallel Statistical Model Checking of Biochemical Networks

We consider the problem of verifying stochastic models of biochemical networks against behavioral properties expressed in temporal logic terms. Exact probabilistic verification approaches such as, for example, CSL/PCTL model checking, are undermined by a huge computational demand which rule them out for most real case studies. Less demanding approaches, such as statistical model checking, estimate the likelihood that a property is satisfied by sampling executions out of the stochastic model. We propose a methodology for efficiently estimating the likelihood that a LTL property P holds of a stochastic model of a biochemical network. As with other statistical verification techniques, the methodology we propose uses a stochastic simulation algorithm for generating execution samples, however there are three key aspects that improve the efficiency: first, the sample generation is driven by on-the-fly verification of P which results in optimal overall simulation time. Second, the confidence interval estimation for the probability of P to hold is based on an efficient variant of the Wilson method which ensures a faster convergence. Third, the whole methodology is designed according to a parallel fashion and a prototype software tool has been implemented that performs the sampling/verification process in parallel over an HPC architecture

Association studies of up to 1.2 million individuals yield new insights into the genetic etiology of tobacco and alcohol use.

Tobacco and alcohol use are leading causes of mortality that influence risk for many complex diseases and disorders1. They are heritable2,3 and etiologically related4,5 behaviors that have been resistant to gene discovery efforts6-11. In sample sizes up to 1.2 million individuals, we discovered 566 genetic variants in 406 loci associated with multiple stages of tobacco use (initiation, cessation, and heaviness) as well as alcohol use, with 150 loci evidencing pleiotropic association. Smoking phenotypes were positively genetically correlated with many health conditions, whereas alcohol use was negatively correlated with these conditions, such that increased genetic risk for alcohol use is associated with lower disease risk. We report evidence for the involvement of many systems in tobacco and alcohol use, including genes involved in nicotinic, dopaminergic, and glutamatergic neurotransmission. The results provide a solid starting point to evaluate the effects of these loci in model organisms and more precise substance use measures

International meta-analysis of PTSD genome-wide association studies identifies sex- and ancestry-specific genetic risk loci.

The risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following trauma is heritable, but robust common variants have yet to be identified. In a multi-ethnic cohort including over 30,000 PTSD cases and 170,000 controls we conduct a genome-wide association study of PTSD. We demonstrate SNP-based heritability estimates of 5-20%, varying by sex. Three genome-wide significant loci are identified, 2 in European and 1 in African-ancestry analyses. Analyses stratified by sex implicate 3 additional loci in men. Along with other novel genes and non-coding RNAs, a Parkinson's disease gene involved in dopamine regulation, PARK2, is associated with PTSD. Finally, we demonstrate that polygenic risk for PTSD is significantly predictive of re-experiencing symptoms in the Million Veteran Program dataset, although specific loci did not replicate. These results demonstrate the role of genetic variation in the biology of risk for PTSD and highlight the necessity of conducting sex-stratified analyses and expanding GWAS beyond European ancestry populations

The Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

This paper describes the Fifth Data Release (DR5) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). DR5 includes all survey quality data taken through June 2005 and represents the completion of the SDSS-I project (whose successor, SDSS-II will continue through mid-2008). It includes five-band photometric data for 217 million objects selected over 8000 square degrees, and 1,048,960 spectra of galaxies, quasars, and stars selected from 5713 square degrees of that imaging data. These numbers represent a roughly 20% increment over those of the Fourth Data Release; all the data from previous data releases are included in the present release. In addition to "standard" SDSS observations, DR5 includes repeat scans of the southern equatorial stripe, imaging scans across M31 and the core of the Perseus cluster of galaxies, and the first spectroscopic data from SEGUE, a survey to explore the kinematics and chemical evolution of the Galaxy. The catalog database incorporates several new features, including photometric redshifts of galaxies, tables of matched objects in overlap regions of the imaging survey, and tools that allow precise computations of survey geometry for statistical investigations.Comment: ApJ Supp, in press, October 2007. This paper describes DR5. The SDSS Sixth Data Release (DR6) is now public, available from http://www.sdss.or

The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

This paper describes the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), marking the completion of the original goals of the SDSS and the end of the phase known as SDSS-II. It includes 11663 deg^2 of imaging data, with most of the roughly 2000 deg^2 increment over the previous data release lying in regions of low Galactic latitude. The catalog contains five-band photometry for 357 million distinct objects. The survey also includes repeat photometry over 250 deg^2 along the Celestial Equator in the Southern Galactic Cap. A coaddition of these data goes roughly two magnitudes fainter than the main survey. The spectroscopy is now complete over a contiguous area of 7500 deg^2 in the Northern Galactic Cap, closing the gap that was present in previous data releases. There are over 1.6 million spectra in total, including 930,000 galaxies, 120,000 quasars, and 460,000 stars. The data release includes improved stellar photometry at low Galactic latitude. The astrometry has all been recalibrated with the second version of the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC-2), reducing the rms statistical errors at the bright end to 45 milli-arcseconds per coordinate. A systematic error in bright galaxy photometr is less severe than previously reported for the majority of galaxies. Finally, we describe a series of improvements to the spectroscopic reductions, including better flat-fielding and improved wavelength calibration at the blue end, better processing of objects with extremely strong narrow emission lines, and an improved determination of stellar metallicities. (Abridged)Comment: 20 pages, 10 embedded figures. Accepted to ApJS after minor correction

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected

Executive summary: heart disease and stroke statistics--2013 update: a report from the American Heart Association.

Each year, the American Heart Association (AHA), in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and other government agencies, brings together the most up-to-date statistics on heart disease, stroke, other vascular diseases, and their risk factors and presents them in its Heart Disease and Stroke Statistical Update*The Statistical Update is a valuable resource for researchers, clinicians, healthcare policy makers, media professionals, the lay public, and many others who seek the best national data available on heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular disease-related morbidity and mortality and the risks, quality of care, medical procedures and operations, and costs associated with the management of these diseases in a single document*Indeed, since 1999, the Statistical Update has been cited \u3e10 500 times in the literature, based on citations of all annual versions*In 2011 alone, the various Statistical Updates were cited ≈1500 times (data from ISI Web of Science)*In recent years, the Statistical Update has undergone some major changes with the addition of new chapters and major updates across multiple areas, as well as increasing the number of ways to access and use the information assembled*For this year\u27s edition, the Statistics Committee, which produces the document for the AHA, updated all of the current chapters with the most recent nationally representative data and inclusion of relevant articles from the literature over the past year*This year\u27s edition also implements a new chapter organization to reflect the spectrum of cardiovascular health behaviors and health factors and risks, as well as subsequent complicating conditions, disease states, and outcomes*Also, the 2013 Statistical Update contains new data on the monitoring and benefits of cardiovascular health in the population, with additional new focus on evidence-based approaches to changing behaviors, implementation strategies, and implications of the AHA\u27s 2020 Impact Goals*Below are a few highlights from this year\u27s Update . © 2013 American Heart Association, Inc

Evolution of Blind Beetles in Isolated Aquifers: A Test of Alternative Modes of Speciation

Evidence is growing that not only allopatric but also sympatric speciation can be important in the evolution of species. Sympatric speciation has most convincingly been demonstrated in laboratory experiments with bacteria, but field-based evidence is limited to a few cases. The recently discovered plethora of subterranean diving beetle species in isolated aquifers in the arid interior of Australia offers a unique opportunity to evaluate alternative modes of speciation. This naturally replicated evolutionary experiment started 10-5 million years ago, when climate change forced the surface species to occupy geographically isolated subterranean aquifers. Using phylogenetic analysis, we determine the frequency of aquifers containing closely related sister species. By comparing observed frequencies with predictions from different statistical models, we show that it is very unlikely that the high number of sympatrically occurring sister species can be explained by a combination of allopatric evolution and repeated colonisations alone. Thus, diversification has occurred within the aquifers and likely involved sympatric, parapatric and/or microallopatric speciation