The Supercharged IPO

A new innovation on the IPO landscape has emerged in the last two decades, allowing owner-founders to extract billions of dollars from newly public companies. These IPOs-labeled supercharged IPOs-have been the subject of widespread debate and controversy: lawyers, financial experts, journalists, and members of Congress have all weighed in on the topic. Some have argued that supercharged IPOs are brilliant, just brilliant, while others have labeled them underhanded and bizarre. In this Article, we explore the supercharged IPO and explain how and why this new deal structure differs from the more traditional IPO. We then outline various theories of financial innovation and note that the extant literature provides useful explanations for why supercharged IPOs emerged and spread so quickly across industries and geographic areas. Theory provides support for both legitimate and opportunistic uses of the supercharged IPO

Privacy Preserving Sensitive Data Publishing using (k,n,m) Anonymity Approach

Open Science movement has enabled extensive knowledge sharing by making research publications, software, data and samples available to the society and researchers. The demand for data sharing is increasing day by day due to the tremendous knowledge hidden in the digital data that is generated by humans and machines. However, data cannot be published as such due to the information leaks that can occur by linking the published data with other publically available datasets or with the help of some background knowledge. Various anonymization techniques have been proposed by researchers for privacy preserving sensitive data publishing. This paper proposes a (k,n,m) anonymity approach for sensitive data publishing by making use of the traditional k-anonymity technique. The selection of quasi identifiers is automated in this approach using graph theoretic algorithms and is further enhanced by choosing similar quasi identifiers based on the derived and composite attributes. The usual method of choosing a single value of ‘k’ is modified in this technique by selecting different values of ‘k’ for the same dataset based on the risk of exposure and sensitivity rank of the sensitive attributes. The proposed anonymity approach can be used for sensitive big data publishing after applying few extension mechanisms. Experimental results show that the proposed technique is practical and can be implemented efficiently on a plethora of datasets

Inference Tools for Markov Random Fields on Lattices: The R Package mrf2d

Markov random fields on two-dimensional lattices are behind many image analysis methodologies. mrf2d provides tools for statistical inference on a class of discrete stationary Markov random field models with pairwise interaction, which includes many of the popular models such as the Potts model and texture image models. The package introduces representations of dependence structures and parameters, visualization functions and efficient (C++-based) implementations of sampling algorithms, common estimation methods and other key features of the model, providing a useful framework to implement algorithms and working with the model in general. This paper presents a description and details of the package, as well as some reproducible examples of usage

SQL-RAMS

SQL-RAMS (where "SQL" signifies Structured Query Language and "RAMS" signifies Rocketdyne Automated Management System) is a successor to the legacy version of RAMS -- a computer program used to manage all work, nonconformance, corrective action, and configuration management on rocket engines and ground support equipment at Stennis Space Center. The legacy version resided in the File-Maker Pro software system and was constructed in modules that could act as standalone programs. There was little or no integration among modules. Because of limitations on file-management capabilities in FileMaker Pro, and because of difficulty of integration of FileMaker Pro with other software systems for exchange of data using such industry standards as SQL, the legacy version of RAMS proved to be limited, and working to circumvent its limitations too time-consuming. In contrast, SQL-RAMS is an integrated SQL-server-based program that supports all data-exchange software industry standards. Whereas in the legacy version, it was necessary to access individual modules to gain insight into a particular workstatus document, SQL-RAMS provides access through a single-screen presentation of core modules. In addition, SQL-RAMS enables rapid and efficient filtering of displayed statuses by predefined categories and test numbers. SQL-RAMS is rich in functionality and encompasses significant improvements over the legacy system. It provides users the ability to perform many tasks, which in the past required administrator intervention. Additionally, many of the design limitations have been corrected, allowing for a robust application that is user centric

Catalyzing Change for Undocumented Students at Post-Secondary Institutions in California

This paper highlights learning lessons and best practices from the California Campus Catalyst Fund (CCCF), a unique 3-year, $14M grant and technical assistance initiative, which supports programs for undocumented students at 32 campuses within each of the public higher education segments in California (University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges). The paper focuses on three essential components of substantive changes for undocumented students attending CCCF campuses: 1) access to financial aid, 2) knowledge about income generation through entrepreneurship, and 3) student leadership development. Recommendations stemming from best practices and implementation of the CCCF are provided for multiple audiences, including postsecondary educators, policymakers, and the philanthropic sector, focused on increasing access and success of undocumented students

Consuming the daily recommended amounts of dairy products would reduce the prevalence of inadequate micronutrient intakes in the United States: diet modelling study based on NHANES 2007–2010

Background: A large portion of Americans are not meeting the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) for several essential vitamins and minerals due to poor dietary choices. Dairy products are a key source of many of the nutrients that are under consumed, but children and adults do not consume the recommended amounts from this food group. This study modelled the impact of meeting daily recommended amounts of dairy products on population-based nutrient intakes.Methods: Two-day 24-h dietary recalls collected from participants ≥2 years (n = 8944) from the 2007–2010 What We Eat in America, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were analysed. Databases available from the WWEIA/NHANES and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) were used to determine nutrient, food group, and dietary supplement intakes. Modelling was performed by adding the necessary number of dairy servings, using the dairy composite designed by USDA, to each participant’s diet to meet the dairy recommendations outlined by the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. All analyses included sample weights to account for the NHANES survey design.Results: The majority of children 4 years and older (67.4–88.8 %) and nearly all adults (99.0–99.6 %) fall below the recommended 2.5-3 daily servings of dairy products. Increasing dairy consumption to recommended amounts would result in a significant reduction in the percent of adults with calcium, magnesium, and vitamin A intakes below the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) when considering food intake alone (0–2.0 vs. 9.9–91.1 %; 17.3–75.0 vs. 44.7–88.5 %; 0.1–15.1 vs. 15.3–48.0 %, respectively), as well as food and dietary supplement intake. Minimal, but significant, improvements were observed for the percent of people below the EAR for vitamin D (91.7 99.9 vs. 91.8–99.9 %), and little change was achieved for the large percentage of people below the Adequate Intake for potassium.Conclusions: Increasing dairy food consumption to recommended amounts is one practical dietary change that could significantly improve the population’s adequacy for certain vitamins and minerals that are currently under-consumed, as well as have a positive impact on health.Keywords: Nutrients; Nutrient adequacy; Dairy; Nutrition and health; NHANE

Distinct Cortical Pathways for Music and Speech Revealed by Hypothesis-Free Voxel Decomposition

The organization of human auditory cortex remains unresolved, due in part to the small stimulus sets common to fMRI studies and the overlap of neural populations within voxels. To address these challenges, we measured fMRI responses to 165 natural sounds and inferred canonical response profiles ("components") whose weighted combinations explained voxel responses throughout auditory cortex. This analysis revealed six components, each with interpretable response characteristics despite being unconstrained by prior functional hypotheses. Four components embodied selectivity for particular acoustic features (frequency, spectrotemporal modulation, pitch). Two others exhibited pronounced selectivity for music and speech, respectively, and were not explainable by standard acoustic features. Anatomically, music and speech selectivity concentrated in distinct regions of non-primary auditory cortex. However, music selectivity was weak in raw voxel responses, and its detection required a decomposition method. Voxel decomposition identifies primary dimensions of response variation across natural sounds, revealing distinct cortical pathways for music and speech.National Eye Institute (Grant EY13455