“Tax Simplification”—Grave Threat to the Charitable Contribution Deduction: The Problem and a Proposed Solution

The present National Administration has continued to support proposed legislative changes aimed at substantially reducing the number of income tax returns in which deductions are itemized. The author contends that these tax simplification proposals are incompatible with the preservation of the charitable contribution deduction and would undermine the position of voluntary charitable organizations by reducing the incentives for giving. He proposes a solution to this dilemma by promoting the charitable contribution deduction, with certain limitations, to the position of a deduction from gross income, rather than a deduction from adjusted gross income

(Looking At The World Thru) Rose Colored Glasses

Contains advertisements and/or short musical examples of pieces being sold by publisher.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/7151/thumbnail.jp

A Vertical PRF Architecture for Microblog Search

In microblog retrieval, query expansion can be essential to obtain good search results due to the short size of queries and posts. Since information in microblogs is highly dynamic, an up-to-date index coupled with pseudo-relevance feedback (PRF) with an external corpus has a higher chance of retrieving more relevant documents and improving ranking. In this paper, we focus on the research question:how can we reduce the query expansion computational cost while maintaining the same retrieval precision as standard PRF? Therefore, we propose to accelerate the query expansion step of pseudo-relevance feedback. The hypothesis is that using an expansion corpus organized into verticals for expanding the query, will lead to a more efficient query expansion process and improved retrieval effectiveness. Thus, the proposed query expansion method uses a distributed search architecture and resource selection algorithms to provide an efficient query expansion process. Experiments on the TREC Microblog datasets show that the proposed approach can match or outperform standard PRF in MAP and NDCG@30, with a computational cost that is three orders of magnitude lower.Comment: To appear in ICTIR 201

Using geologic CO2 storage for enhanced geothermal energy and water recovery and energy storage

Reductions in CO2 emissions at a scale consistent with limiting the increase in the global average temperature to below 2oC above pre-industrial levels requires a range of measures, including increased use of renewable and low-carbon energy and reduced CO2 intensity of fossil energy use, with each of these measures having major deployment barriers. The variability of the predominant renewable resources (wind and solar) requires major advances in utility-scale diurnal-to-seasonal energy storage. Base-load energy, such as nuclear, that cannot be cycled during periods of over-generation will have difficulty co-existing on electric grids with a large presence of variable renewables. Major deployment barriers for CO2 capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) in saline reservoirs include: (1) net cost (after accounting for utilization benefits); (2) water intensity of CO2 capture, and (3) overpressure, which is fluid pressure that exceeds the original reservoir pressure due to CO2 injection, because it drives key storage risks: induced seismicity, caprock fracture, and CO2 leakage. We present a synergistic approach to CCUS in sedimentary basins designed to address each of these deployment barriers. Our approach uses the huge fluid and thermal storage capacity of the subsurface, together with overpressure driven by CO2 storage, to harvest, store, and dispatch energy from subsurface (geothermal) and surface (solar, nuclear, fossil) thermal resources, as well as excess energy from electric grids. Captured CO2 is injected into saline reservoirs to store pressure, generate artesian flow of brine, and provide a supplemental working fluid for efficient heat extraction and power conversion. Concentric rings of injection and production wells create a hydraulic divide to confine the stored pressure, CO2, and thermal energy below the caprock seal that overlies the CO2 storage reservoir. This energy storage can take excess power from the grid and excess/waste thermal energy from thermal power plants, and dispatch that energy when it is demanded and thus enable higher penetration of variable renewables, while utilizing thermal energy that would otherwise be wasted. CO2 stored in the subsurface functions as a cushion gas to provide enormous pressure-storage capacity and displace large quantities of brine, which will flow under artificially-created artesian pressure up production wells. Geothermal power generated from produced CO2 and brine and energy-storage applications may generate enough revenues to compensate for (or to even exceed) CO2 capture and storage costs. To address the CCUS deployment barrier of overpressure, we apply a pressure-management strategy that diverts a portion of the produced brine once a target overpressure is reached at the injection wells. The target overpressure is that determined to be low enough to reduce the risk of induced seismicity, caprock fracture, and CO2 leakage. Diverted brine is available for beneficial consumptive use, such as for power-plant cooling, or it can be used to generate fresh water using desalination technologies, such as reverse osmosis. The benefit of water generation can be particularly valuable in water-stressed regions. Our analyses indicate that only a small portion (\u3c 5% unless CO2is stored at a very high rate) of the produced brine needs to be diverted for the injection wells to remain below the target overpressure. Because the required recovery factor for desalination is relatively small ( Our approach has several advantages over conventional (e.g., hydrothermal) and enhanced geothermal energy systems (EGS). CO2 is a very efficient geothermal working fluid. Combined with the benefits of harnessing the overpressure driven by CO2 storage and the greater lateral extent, permeability, and porosity of sedimentary basins, compared to hydrothermal upflows or artificially-created EGS reservoirs, it allows for much greater spacing between injection and production wells. This efficient use of wells enables utilizing resources with lower temperatures than those of typical geothermal systems, resulting in wider deployment potential. The added benefit of bulk energy storage (BES) creates an arbitrage opportunity that enhances economic viability. Our analyses show that BES achieved by time-shifting the parasitic load of pressurizing our system does not reduce the efficiency of driving fluid recirculation; hence our approach is more efficient than other BES technologies, such as lithium-ion batteries or pumped hydro. Because the primary cost of BES is that associated with oversizing the pumps for fluid reinjection, the capital cost is much less than that of other BES approaches. Moreover, the huge capacity of the subsurface can enable seasonal energy storage, while most other approaches are limited to diurnal storage. This study was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) under grant number DE-FOA-0000336, managed by Elisabet Metcalfe and Sean Porse, and a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Sustainable Energy Pathways (SEP) grant (1230691). This work was performed under the auspices of the USDOE by LLNL under contract DE-AC52-07NA2734

A method to compute multiplicity corrected confidence intervals for odds ratios and other relative effect estimates.

Epidemiological studies commonly test multiple null hypotheses. In some situations it may be appropriate to account for multiplicity using statistical methodology rather than simply interpreting results with greater caution as the number of comparisons increases. Given the one-to-one relationship that exists between confidence intervals and hypothesis tests, we derive a method based upon the Hochberg step-up procedure to obtain multiplicity corrected confidence intervals (CI) for odds ratios (OR) and by analogy for other relative effect estimates. In contrast to previously published methods that explicitly assume knowledge of P values, this method only requires that relative effect estimates and corresponding CI be known for each comparison to obtain multiplicity corrected CI

Reflections 1988

The 1988 issue of Reflections is edited by Amanda Thomas with Jimmy Byrd and Joyce Compton Brown serving as layout editor and faculty adviser, respectively. Cover design is by Melissa Brown. Award winners of the student writing contest include: Melissa Brown, Bobby Beal, and Jimmy Byrd. This year the Art Department sponsored an art contest for all students whose submissions were chosen for publication. Award winners of the student art contest include: Melissa Brown, Henry Doo, and Craig Lewis. This issue includes a special tribute to Ruth Kiser, written by Sheila McClure, for her support of Reflections throughout the years.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/reflections/1013/thumbnail.jp

SAGA: Sparse And Geometry-Aware non-negative matrix factorization through non-linear local embedding

International audienceThis paper presents a new non-negative matrix factorization technique which (1) allows the decomposition of the original data on multiple latent factors accounting for the geometrical structure of the manifold embedding the data; (2) provides an optimal representation with a controllable level of sparsity; (3) has an overall linear complexity allowing handling in tractable time large and high dimensional datasets. It operates by coding the data with respect to local neighbors with non-linear weights. This locality is obtained as a consequence of the simultaneous sparsity and convexity constraints. Our method is demonstrated over several experiments, including a feature extraction and classification task, where it achieves better performances than the state-of-the-art factorization methods, with a shorter computational time

A case of symptomatic spinal dural arteriovenous fistula after high-volume lumbar puncture

BACKGROUND: Spinal dural arteriovenous fistulas (DAVFs) are rare lesions that lead to venous congestion and ischemic injury resulting in neurologic deterioration. Here we present a patient diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) who became symptomatic from a spinal DAVF after a diagnostic high-volume lumbar puncture (LP). CASE DESCRIPTION: When a 72-year-old female developed partial seizures in her left upper extremity without other focal neurological deficits, she underwent a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of the brain. The MRI revealed a right frontal/posterior corpus callosal lesion. She next had a MR-guided high-volume LP. A GBM was diagnosed following a biopsy. Postoperatively, after the LP, she was noted to have bilateral deltoid and bilateral 4/5 lower extremity weakness, with diffuse hyperreflexia. The MRI and magnetic resonance angiogram (MRA) of the cervical spine demonstrated a large venous varix at the C5-C6 level within the left neural foramen. She underwent successful complete embolization of two thyrocervical branches with direct communication to an enlarged anterior spinal artery. One month later, her neurological examination returned to baseline; she was walking independently with only 4+/5 residual weakness in her left lower extremity. CONCLUSIONS: Here we report a patient with a cranial GBM and an incidental cervical spinal C5-C6 DAVF that became symptomatic after a high-volume LP. It is possible that the high-volume LP increased vascular congestion, thus precipitating the onset of cervical myelopathy