Showing 1511 - 1520 of 2040 Items
Time-Periodic Solutions of Driven-Damped Trimer Granular Crystals
Date: 2015-01-01
Creator: E. G. Charalampidis
F. Li
C. Chong
J. Yang
P. G., Kevrekidis
Access: Open access
- We consider time-periodic structures of granular crystals consisting of alternate chrome steel (S) and tungsten carbide (W) spherical particles where each unit cell follows the pattern of a 2: 1 trimer: S-W-S. The configuration at the left boundary is driven by a harmonic in-time actuation with given amplitude and frequency while the right one is a fixed wall. Similar to the case of a dimer chain, the combination of dissipation, driving of the boundary, and intrinsic nonlinearity leads to complex dynamics. For fixed driving frequencies in each of the spectral gaps, we find that the nonlinear surface modes and the states dictated by the linear drive collide in a saddle-node bifurcation as the driving amplitude is increased, beyond which the dynamics of the system becomes chaotic. While the bifurcation structure is similar for solutions within the first and second gap, those in the first gap appear to be less robust. We also conduct a continuation in driving frequency, where it is apparent that the nonlinearity of the system results in a complex bifurcation diagram, involving an intricate set of loops of branches, especially within the spectral gap. The theoretical findings are qualitatively corroborated by the experimental full-field visualization of the time-periodic structures.
Fighting for Every Inch of Land: Greed and Grievance in Petition Mobilization in Zhejiang
Date: 2020-07-01
Creator: Christopher Heurlin
Access: Open access
- Despite a proliferation of studies of the micro-level dynamics of protests and petitions against land takings in China, we know very little about how meso-level factors, such as the local economy, influence petitions to Beijing and provincial governments. Drawing upon the economic approach to civil war, this article examines the roles played by grievances and greed in determining the scale of mobilization at the county level in Zhejiang province. Through archival evidence and interviews in Ningbo and Lishui, as well as an original dataset of petitions, this article suggests that both grievances and greed influence petitioning. Mobilization is especially high in Ningbo, where valuable real estate markets have prompted landless farmers to compete with local governments over control of the rents from land. The article proposes the concept of resource value activation as a cognitive mechanism that has contributed to this process of mobilization.
Recent increases in global HFC-23 emissions
Date: 2010-01-01
Creator: S. A. Montzka
L. Kuijpers
M. O. Battle
M. Aydin
K. R., Verhulst
E. S. Saltzman
D. W. Fahey
Access: Open access
- Firn-air and ambient air measurements of CHF3 (HFC- 23) from three excursions to Antarctica between 2001 and 2009 are used to construct a consistent Southern Hemisphere (SH) atmospheric history. The results show atmospheric mixing ratios of HFC-23 continuing to increase through 2008. Mean global emissions derived from this data for 2006-2008 are 13.5 ± 2 Gg/yr (200 ± 30 × 1012gCO2- equivalent/yr, or MtCO2-eq./yr), ∼50% higher than the 8.7 ± 1 Gg/yr (130 ± 15 MtCO2-eq./yr) derived for the 1990s. HFC-23 emissions arise primarily from over-fluorination of chloroform during HCFC-22 production. The recent global emission increases are attributed to rapidly increasing HCFC-22 production in developing countries since reported HFC-23 emissions from developed countries decreased over this period. The emissions inferred here for developing countries during 2006-2008 averaged 11 ± 2 Gg/yr HFC-23 (160 ± 30 MtCO2-eq./yr) and are larger than the ∼6 Gg/yr of HFC-23 destroyed in United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Clean Development Mechanism projects during 2007 and 2008. © Copyright 2010 by the American Geophysical Union.
Inventing Prizes: A Historical Perspective on Innovation Awards and Technology Policy
Date: 2015-01-01
Creator: B. Zorina Khan
Access: Open access
- Prizes for innovations are currently experiencing a renaissance, following their marked decline during the nineteenth century. Debates about such incentive mechanisms tend to employ canonical historical anecdotes to motivate and support the analysis and policy proposals. Daguerre's "patent buyout," the Longitude Prize, inducement prizes for butter substitutes and billiard balls, the activities of the Royal Society of Arts and other "encouragement" institutions-all comprise potentially misleading case studies. The article surveys and summarizes extensive empirical research using samples drawn from Britain, France, and the United States, including "great inventors" and their ordinary counterparts, and prizes at industrial exhibitions. The results suggest that administered systems of rewards to innovators suffered from a number of disadvantages in design and practice, which might be inherent to their nonmarket orientation.
Conservation as if people also mattered: Policy and practice of community-based conservation
Date: 2013-01-01
Creator: Ashish Kothari
Philip Camill
Jessica Brown
Access: Open access
- Community-based conservation is being increasingly recognised as a major global force in the protection and sustainable management of ecosystems and species. Yet documentation of its main achievements and shortcomings, and the key issues it faces, is still at a nascent stage. This paper introduces the concept and experience of two forms of community-based conservation: Collaborative Management of Protected Areas (CMPA), and Indigenous Peoples' and Local Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCAs). It explores the emergence of these approaches in the context of global international conservation policy. Reviewing four case studies that were presented at a symposium convened at the Bowdoin College (Maine, USA, in November 2008), and drawing from the discussion during that session, it identifies some key lessons and principles that are likely to be applicable to community-based conservation across the world.
Institutions and democratic invention in 19th-century America: Evidence from "great inventors," 1790-1930
Date: 2004-05-01
Creator: B. Zorina Khan
Kenneth L. Sokoloff
Access: Open access
Developmental Gene Discovery in a Hemimetabolous Insect: De Novo Assembly and Annotation of a Transcriptome for the Cricket Gryllus bimaculatus
Date: 2013-05-06
Creator: Victor Zeng
Ben Ewen-Campen
Hadley W. Horch
Siegfried Roth
Taro, Mito
Cassandra G. Extavour
Access: Open access
- Most genomic resources available for insects represent the Holometabola, which are insects that undergo complete metamorphosis like beetles and flies. In contrast, the Hemimetabola (direct developing insects), representing the basal branches of the insect tree, have very few genomic resources. We have therefore created a large and publicly available transcriptome for the hemimetabolous insect Gryllus bimaculatus (cricket), a well-developed laboratory model organism whose potential for functional genetic experiments is currently limited by the absence of genomic resources. cDNA was prepared using mRNA obtained from adult ovaries containing all stages of oogenesis, and from embryo samples on each day of embryogenesis. Using 454 Titanium pyrosequencing, we sequenced over four million raw reads, and assembled them into 21,512 isotigs (predicted transcripts) and 120,805 singletons with an average coverage per base pair of 51.3. We annotated the transcriptome manually for over 400 conserved genes involved in embryonic patterning, gametogenesis, and signaling pathways. BLAST comparison of the transcriptome against the NCBI non-redundant protein database (nr) identified significant similarity to nr sequences for 55.5% of transcriptome sequences, and suggested that the transcriptome may contain 19,874 unique transcripts. For predicted transcripts without significant similarity to known sequences, we assessed their similarity to other orthopteran sequences, and determined that these transcripts contain recognizable protein domains, largely of unknown function. We created a searchable, web-based database to allow public access to all raw, assembled and annotated data. This database is to our knowledge the largest de novo assembled and annotated transcriptome resource available for any hemimetabolous insect. We therefore anticipate that these data will contribute significantly to more effective and higher-throughput deployment of molecular analysis tools in Gryllus. © 2013 Zeng et al.
Managing server clusters on intermittent power
Date: 2015-01-01
Creator: Navin Sharma
Dilip Krishnappa
Sean Barker
David Irwin
Prashant, Shenoy
Access: Open access
- Reducing the energy footprint of data centers continues to receive significant attention due to both its financial and environmental impact. There are numerous methods that limit the impact of both factors, such as expanding the use of renewable energy or participating in automated demand-response programs. To take advantage of these methods, servers and applications must gracefully handle intermittent constraints in their power supply. In this paper, we propose blinking-metered transitions between a high-power active state and a low-power inactive state-as the primary abstraction for conforming to intermittent power constraints. We design Blink, an application-independent hardware-software platform for developing and evaluating blinking applications, and define multiple types of blinking policies.We then use Blink to design both a blinking version of memcached (BlinkCache) and a multimedia cache (GreenCache) to demonstrate how application characteristics affect the design of blink-aware distributed applications. Our results show that for BlinkCache, a load-proportional blinking policy combines the advantages of both activation and synchronous blinking for realistic Zipf-like popularity distributions and wind/solar power signals by achieving near optimal hit rates (within 15% of an activation policy), while also providing fairer access to the cache (within 2% of a synchronous policy) for equally popular objects. In contrast, for GreenCache, due to multimedia workload patterns, we find that a staggered load proportional blinking policy with replication of the first chunk of each video reduces the buffering time at all power levels, as compared to activation or load-proportional blinking policies.
Identification of SYWKQCAFNAVSCFamide: A broadly conserved crustacean C-type allatostatin-like peptide with both neuromodulatory and cardioactive properties
Date: 2009-04-15
Creator: Patsy S. Dickinson
Teerawat Wiwatpanit
Emily R. Gabranski
Rachel J. Ackerman
Jake S., Stevens
Christopher R. Cashman
Elizabeth A. Stemmler
Andrew E. Christie
Access: Open access
- The allatostatins comprise three structurally distinct peptide families that regulate juvenile hormone production by the insect corpora allata. A-type family members contain the C-terminal motif -YXFGLamide and have been found in species from numerous arthropod taxa. Members of the B-type family exhibit a -WX6Wamide C-terminus and, like the A-type peptides, appear to be broadly conserved within the Arthropoda. By contrast, members of the C-type family, typified by the unblocked C-terminus -PISCF, a pyroglutamine blocked N-terminus, and a disulfide bridge between two internal Cys residues, have only been found in holometabolous insects, i.e. lepidopterans and dipterans. Here, using transcriptomics, we have identified SYWKQCAFNAVSCFamide (disulfide bridging predicted between the two Cys residues), a known honeybee and water flea C-typelike peptide, from the American lobster Homarus americanus (infraorder Astacidea). Using matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization Fourier transform mass spectrometry (MALDI-FTMS), a mass corresponding to that of SYWKQCAFNAVSCFamide was detected in the H. americanus brain, supporting the existence of this peptide and its theorized structure. Furthermore, SYWKQCAFNAVSCFamide was detected by MALDI-FTMS in neural tissues from five additional astacideans as well as 19 members of four other decapod infraorders (i.e. Achelata, Anomura, Brachyura and Thalassinidea), suggesting that it is a broadly conserved decapod peptide. In H. americanus, SYWKQCAFNAVSCFamide is capable of modulating the output of both the pyloric circuit of the stomatogastric nervous system and the heart. This is the first demonstration of bioactivity for this peptide in any species.
Targeted identification of glycosylated proteins in the gastric pathogen helicobacter pylori (Hp)
Date: 2013-09-01
Creator: Kanokwan Champasa
Scott A. Longwell
Aimee M. Eldridge
Elizabeth A. Stemmler
Danielle H., Dube
Access: Open access
- Virulence of the gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori (Hp) is directly linked to the pathogen's ability to glycosylate proteins; for example, Hp flagellin proteins are heavily glycosylated with the unusual nine-carbon sugar pseudaminic acid, and this modification is absolutely essential for Hp to synthesize functional flagella and colonize the host's stomach. Although Hp's glycans are linked to pathogenesis, Hp's glycome remains poorly understood; only the two flagellin glycoproteins have been firmly characterized in Hp. Evidence from our laboratory suggests that Hp synthesizes a large number of as-yet unidentified glycoproteins. Here we set out to discover Hp's glycoproteins by coupling glycan metabolic labeling with mass spectrometry analysis. An assessment of the subcellular distribution of azide-labeled proteins by Western blot analysis indicated that glycoproteins are present throughout Hp and may therefore serve diverse functions. To identify these species, Hp's azide-labeled glycoproteins were tagged via Staudinger ligation, enriched by tandem affinity chromatography, and analyzed by multidimensional protein identification technology. Direct comparison of enriched azide-labeled glycoproteins with a mock-enriched control by both SDS-PAGE and mass spectrometry-based analyses confirmed the selective enrichment of azide-labeled glycoproteins. We identified 125 candidate glycoproteins with diverse biological functions, including those linked with pathogenesis. Mass spectrometry analyses of enriched azide-labeled glycoproteins before and after cleavage of O-linked glycans revealed the presence of Staudinger ligation-glycan adducts in samples only after beta-elimination, confirming the synthesis of O-linked glycoproteins in Hp. Finally, the secreted colonization factors urease alpha and urease beta were biochemically validated as glycosylated proteins via Western blot analysis as well as by mass spectrometry analysis of cleaved glycan products. These data set the stage for the development of glycosylation-based therapeutic strategies, such as new vaccines based on natively glycosylated Hp proteins, to eradicate Hp infection. Broadly, this report validates metabolic labeling as an effective and efficient approach for the identification of bacterial glycoproteins. © 2013 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.