The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research: A New Paradigm for Battery Research and Development

The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) seeks transformational change in transportation and the electricity grid driven by next generation high performance, low cost electricity storage. To pursue this transformative vision JCESR introduces a new paradigm for battery research: integrating discovery science, battery design, research prototyping and manufacturing collaboration in a single highly interactive organization. This new paradigm will accelerate the pace of discovery and innovation and reduce the time from conceptualization to commercialization. JCESR applies its new paradigm exclusively to beyond-lithium-ion batteries, a vast, rich and largely unexplored frontier. This review presents JCESR's motivation, vision, mission, intended outcomes or legacies and first year accomplishments.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, 96 reference

A Call to Arms: Revisiting Database Design

Good database design is crucial to obtain a sound, consistent database, and - in turn - good database design methodologies are the best way to achieve the right design. These methodologies are taught to most Computer Science undergraduates, as part of any Introduction to Database class. They can be considered part of the "canon", and indeed, the overall approach to database design has been unchanged for years. Moreover, none of the major database research assessments identify database design as a strategic research direction. Should we conclude that database design is a solved problem? Our thesis is that database design remains a critical unsolved problem. Hence, it should be the subject of more research. Our starting point is the observation that traditional database design is not used in practice - and if it were used it would result in designs that are not well adapted to current environments. In short, database design has failed to keep up with the times. In this paper, we put forth arguments to support our viewpoint, analyze the root causes of this situation and suggest some avenues of research.Comment: Removed spurious column break. Nothing else was change

Land Degradation in the Sahel: An Application of Biophysical Modeling in the Optimal Control Setting

Low-input farming practices in many parts of the developing world have pushed cultivation onto marginal lands. Sustainability of already fragile ecosystems is threatened. Farmers place a high priority on satisfying subsistence food needs with on-farm production. Population pressure is high throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa. Farmers in those regions are challenged by the need to put continually more food on their table over the coming years. An optimal control model was developed to investigate alternative farming practices within this setting. Namely, whether farmers would choose continued land expansion of if they would adopt crop intensive practices. The model included an environmental subcomponent to estimate the degradation costs from continued expansion onto marginal areas. The modeling activities from the Sahel of West African reinforce farmers' observed propensity to clear new land in lieu of crop intensification. Model activities suggest an important role for crop intensification under adequate policy conditions as well as the need to introduce new technology before degradation erodes its potential.Land Economics/Use,

Kinetic Theory and Swarming Tools to Modeling Complex Systems—Symmetry problems in the Science of Living Systems

This MPDI book comprises a number of selected contributions to a Special Issue devoted to the modeling and simulation of living systems based on developments in kinetic mathematical tools. The focus is on a fascinating research field which cannot be tackled by the approach of the so-called hard sciences—specifically mathematics—without the invention of new methods in view of a new mathematical theory. The contents proposed by eight contributions witness the growing interest of scientists this field. The first contribution is an editorial paper which presents the motivations for studying the mathematics and physics of living systems within the framework an interdisciplinary approach, where mathematics and physics interact with specific fields of the class of systems object of modeling and simulations. The different contributions refer to economy, collective learning, cell motion, vehicular traffic, crowd dynamics, and social swarms. The key problem towards modeling consists in capturing the complexity features of living systems. All articles refer to large systems of interaction living entities and follow, towards modeling, a common rationale which consists firstly in representing the system by a probability distribution over the microscopic state of the said entities, secondly, in deriving a general mathematical structure deemed to provide the conceptual basis for the derivation of models and, finally, in implementing the said structure by models of interactions at the microscopic scale. Therefore, the modeling approach transfers the dynamics at the low scale to collective behaviors. Interactions are modeled by theoretical tools of stochastic game theory. Overall, the interested reader will find, in the contents, a forward look comprising various research perspectives and issues, followed by hints on to tackle these

SOME GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR EMPIRICAL PRODUCTION RESEARCH IN AGRICULTURE

Constraints on production economic research are examined in three dimensions: problem focus, methodology, and data availability. Data availability has played a large role in the choice of problem focus and explains some misdirected focus. A proposal is made to address the data availability constraint. The greatest self-imposed constraints are methodological. Production economics has focused on flexible representations of technology at the expense of specificity in preferences. Yet some of the major problems faced by decision makers relate to long-term problems, e.g., the commodity boom and ensuring debt crisis of the 1970s and 1980s where standard short-term profit maximization models are unlikely to capture the essence of decision maker concerns.Production Economics,

Oral mucosal injury caused by mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitors: emerging perspectives on pathobiology and impact on clinical practice.

In recent years oral mucosal injury has been increasingly recognized as an important toxicity associated with mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors, including in patients with breast cancer who are receiving everolimus. This review addresses the state-of-the-science regarding mTOR inhibitor-associated stomatitis (mIAS), and delineates its clinical characteristics and management. Given the clinically impactful pain associated with mIAS, this review also specifically highlights new research focusing on the study of the molecular basis of pain. The incidence of mIAS varies widely (2-78%). As reported across multiple mTOR inhibitor clinical trials, grade 3/4 toxicity occurs in up to 9% of patients. Managing mTOR-associated oral lesions with topical oral, intralesional, and/or systemic steroids can be beneficial, in contrast to the lack of evidence supporting steroid treatment of oral mucositis caused by high-dose chemotherapy or radiation. However, steroid management is not uniformly efficacious in all patients receiving mTOR inhibitors. Furthermore, technology does not presently exist to permit clinicians to predict a priori which of their patients will develop these lesions. There thus remains a strategic need to define the pathobiology of mIAS, the molecular basis of pain, and risk prediction relative to development of the clinical lesion. This knowledge could lead to novel future interventions designed to more effectively prevent mIAS and improve pain management if clinically significant mIAS lesions develop

The role of social effects and perceived risk in driving profitable online customer interactions

The emergence of online channels has been of special relevance, as it has promoted a more active participation of consumers in the value creation process. In this study, we draw from the Stimulus-Organism-Response model to provide a theoretical understanding of the role played by two critical factors that drive online customer initiated interactions (OnCICs): social effects and perceived risk. In addition, we also investigate their consequences by establishing a direct link between these interactions and customer profitability. Merging longitudinal objective data with subjective data for a sample of 1,990 customers in the financial services and applying Partial Least Squares (PLS), the results reveal that social effects influence perceived risk. Perceived risk consequently promotes the development of OnCICs, while social effects reduce the need for such interactions. In addition, OnCICs help promote high-quality relationships and leads to higher performance