Supporting New England Communities to Become River-Smart: Policies and Programs that can Help New England Towns Thrive Despite River Floods

This report aims to help New England’s communities and their residents, as well as the governments thatserve them, to better deal with and adjust to riverfloods. It points to practical policy solutions at federal, state and regional levels that can support NewEngland communities to become what we call river-smart

Electron Glass Dynamics

Examples of glasses are abundant, yet it remains one of the phases of matter whose understanding is very elusive. In recent years, remarkable experiments have been performed on the dynamical aspects of glasses. Electron glasses offer a particularly good example of the 'trademarks' of glassy behavior, such as aging and slow relaxations. In this work we review the experimental literature on electron glasses, as well as the local mean-field theoretical framework put forward in recent years to understand some of these results. We also present novel theoretical results explaining the periodic aging experiment.Comment: Invited review to appear in Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physic

Conductometric determination of naproxen in bulk and pharmaceutical dosage form

This study aimed at the development of simple and cheap conductometric method that can be used for the determination of naproxen in bulk and dosage forms. During the study, naproxen was titrated with sodium hydroxide (Method A) and potassium hydroxide (Method B) and the end points were determined with conductivity cell. Variables affecting the end point determination were also studied in the range of 1-10 mg/mL of naproxen. The proposed methods were validated by precision and recovery studies. The percentage recoveries ranged from 99.15±0.659 and 101.13±0.543 with % RSD of 0.897 and 0.749 with sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide, respectively. The methods were effectively applied for the determination of naproxen in tablet dosage form. The methods proposed in this study can be used as substitute for more composite and classy methods used for the determination of naproxen and are highly reproducible as compared to other reported methods

The River Process Corridor: A Modular River Assessment Method Based on Process Units and Widely Available Data in the Northeast US.

We define the river process corridor (RPC) as the area adjacent to a river that is likely to affect and be affected by river and floodplain processes. Here we present a novel approach for delineating the RPC that utilizes widely available geospatial data, can be applied uniformly across broad and multi-scalar spatial extents, requires relatively low levels of expertise and cost, and allows for modular additions and adaptations using additional data that is available in particular areas. Land managers are increasingly using a variety of delineated river and floodplain areas for applied purposes such as hazard avoidance, ecological conservation, and water quality protection. Currently, the most-used delineation methods rely on historic maps, field surveys, and/or calibrated empirical models. These approaches are examples of what is possible, but they may be time-intensive, may rely on jurisdiction or organization-specific data or data information systems, or may require specific local-user input or hand-drawing. Our approach, the River Process Corridor Modular Assessment Method, offers a rapid, uniform and objective river and floodplain process area delineation method that uses transparent, easily accessible data, and may be used across large areas. it is derived from the sum of five functional process units that together capture the RPC: (i) the Flood Processes Unit, derived from hydraulic modeling to determine areas subject to overbank deposition and erosion, in-channel deposition and erosion, bank erosion, and channel avulsions; (ii) the Landslide and Steep Terrain Processes Unit, based on terrain slope to show locations subject to sediment delivery, bank failures, and other mass wasting proximal to the flood-prone area; (iii) Wetland Processes Unit, based on the U.S. National Wetlands Inventory to show areas where wetland processes occur; (iv) Channel Migration Processes Unit, based on channel location and migration rates to show areas susceptible to lateral channel movement; and (v) Riparian Ecologic Processes Unit. This paper details the assessment approach for each of these units, and provides a summary outline and table for users. To illustrate and evaluate its potential, we apply the approach in three river reaches in mountainous and low-relief watersheds in the northeastern U.S. and compare results with recent geomorphic change, observed in the field and in historic imagery. The River Process Corridor Modular Assessment Method performs very well, capturing 92% of observed landslide areas, 87% of observed floodplain deposition areas, and 100% of channel migration areas. We also provide an example of how additional data available from the State of Vermont could be added in a modular approach. These results indicate the RPC method is successful at providing both an accurate assessment of potential active hazard areas and sensitive environmental areas, and that it also includes a margin of safety that many managers desire. Its modular nature allows for flexible weighting of different metrics to suit specific applications, and piecewise updating as new data or approaches become available. We conclude that maps of the RPC can be useful as an advisory layer to natural resource managers, property owners, planners and regulators to identify areas that may be valuable for ecological conservation or at risk of future damage during floods, or where they might consider allowing natural river processes occur, in order to enhance ecological processes and help attenuate future flood damage elsewhere

STAT3 gain-of-function mutations connect leukemia with autoimmune disease by pathological NKG2Dhi CD8+ T cell dysregulation and accumulation

The association between cancer and autoimmune disease is unexplained, exemplified by T cell large granular lymphocytic leukemia (T-LGL) where gain-of-function (GOF) somatic STAT3 mutations correlate with co-existing autoimmunity. To investigate whether these mutations are the cause or consequence of CD

A remark on an overdetermined problem in Riemannian Geometry

Let $(M,g)$ be a Riemannian manifold with a distinguished point $O$ and assume that the geodesic distance $d$ from $O$ is an isoparametric function. Let $\Omega\subset M$ be a bounded domain, with $O \in \Omega$, and consider the problem $\Delta_p u = -1$ in $\Omega$ with $u=0$ on $\partial \Omega$, where $\Delta_p$ is the $p$-Laplacian of $g$. We prove that if the normal derivative $\partial_{\nu}u$ of $u$ along the boundary of $\Omega$ is a function of $d$ satisfying suitable conditions, then $\Omega$ must be a geodesic ball. In particular, our result applies to open balls of $\mathbb{R}^n$ equipped with a rotationally symmetric metric of the form $g=dt^2+\rho^2(t)\,g_S$, where $g_S$ is the standard metric of the sphere.Comment: 8 pages. This paper has been written for possible publication in a special volume dedicated to the conference "Geometric Properties for Parabolic and Elliptic PDE's. 4th Italian-Japanese Workshop", organized in Palinuro in May 201

Ordinal SuStaIn: Subtype and Stage Inference for Clinical Scores, Visual Ratings, and Other Ordinal Data

Subtype and Stage Inference (SuStaIn) is an unsupervised learning algorithm that uniquely enables the identification of subgroups of individuals with distinct pseudo-temporal disease progression patterns from cross-sectional datasets. SuStaIn has been used to identify data-driven subgroups and perform patient stratification in neurodegenerative diseases and in lung diseases from continuous biomarker measurements predominantly obtained from imaging. However, the SuStaIn algorithm is not currently applicable to discrete ordinal data, such as visual ratings of images, neuropathological ratings, and clinical and neuropsychological test scores, restricting the applicability of SuStaIn to a narrower range of settings. Here we propose 'Ordinal SuStaIn', an ordinal version of the SuStaIn algorithm that uses a scored events model of disease progression to enable the application of SuStaIn to ordinal data. We demonstrate the validity of Ordinal SuStaIn by benchmarking the performance of the algorithm on simulated data. We further demonstrate that Ordinal SuStaIn out-performs the existing continuous version of SuStaIn (Z-score SuStaIn) on discrete scored data, providing much more accurate subtype progression patterns, better subtyping and staging of individuals, and accurate uncertainty estimates. We then apply Ordinal SuStaIn to six different sub-scales of the Clinical Dementia Rating scale (CDR) using data from the Alzheimer's disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) study to identify individuals with distinct patterns of functional decline. Using data from 819 ADNI1 participants we identified three distinct CDR subtype progression patterns, which were independently verified using data from 790 ADNI2 participants. Our results provide insight into patterns of decline in daily activities in Alzheimer's disease and a mechanism for stratifying individuals into groups with difficulties in different domains. Ordinal SuStaIn is broadly applicable across different types of ratings data, including visual ratings from imaging, neuropathological ratings and clinical or behavioural ratings data

Formation of cristae and crista junctions in mitochondria depends on antagonism between Fcj1 and Su e/g

Crista junctions (CJs) are important for mitochondrial organization and function, but the molecular basis of their formation and architecture is obscure. We have identified and characterized a mitochondrial membrane protein in yeast, Fcj1 (formation of CJ protein 1), which is specifically enriched in CJs. Cells lacking Fcj1 lack CJs, exhibit concentric stacks of inner membrane in the mitochondrial matrix, and show increased levels of F1FO–ATP synthase (F1FO) supercomplexes. Overexpression of Fcj1 leads to increased CJ formation, branching of cristae, enlargement of CJ diameter, and reduced levels of F1FO supercomplexes. Impairment of F1FO oligomer formation by deletion of its subunits e/g (Su e/g) causes CJ diameter enlargement and reduction of cristae tip numbers and promotes cristae branching. Fcj1 and Su e/g genetically interact. We propose a model in which the antagonism between Fcj1 and Su e/g locally modulates the F1FO oligomeric state, thereby controlling membrane curvature of cristae to generate CJs and cristae tips