Holotype of Agathymus escalantei Stallings, Turner, and Stallings, 1966 (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Megathyminae)

Agathymus escalantei Stallings, Turner, and Stallings, 1966 (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) is the only described species of Megathyminae known from a single collected individual. To date, the only images of this specimen are poor black and white illustrations published in the original description. This note presents the first color photographs of the holotype

Regularized Ordinal Regression and the ordinalNet R Package

Regularization techniques such as the lasso (Tibshirani 1996) and elastic net (Zou and Hastie 2005) can be used to improve regression model coefficient estimation and prediction accuracy, as well as to perform variable selection. Ordinal regression models are widely used in applications where the use of regularization could be beneficial; however, these models are not included in many popular software packages for regularized regression. We propose a coordinate descent algorithm to fit a broad class of ordinal regression models with an elastic net penalty. Furthermore, we demonstrate that each model in this class generalizes to a more flexible form, for instance to accommodate unordered categorical data. We introduce an elastic net penalty class that applies to both model forms. Additionally, this penalty can be used to shrink a non-ordinal model toward its ordinal counterpart. Finally, we introduce the R package ordinalNet, which implements the algorithm for this model class

How large can the electron to proton mass ratio be in Particle-In-Cell simulations of unstable systems?

Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations are widely used as a tool to investigate instabilities that develop between a collisionless plasma and beams of charged particles. However, even on contemporary supercomputers, it is not always possible to resolve the ion dynamics in more than one spatial dimension with such simulations. The ion mass is thus reduced below 1836 electron masses, which can affect the plasma dynamics during the initial exponential growth phase of the instability and during the subsequent nonlinear saturation. The goal of this article is to assess how far the electron to ion mass ratio can be increased, without changing qualitatively the physics. It is first demonstrated that there can be no exact similarity law, which balances a change of the mass ratio with that of another plasma parameter, leaving the physics unchanged. Restricting then the analysis to the linear phase, a criterion allowing to define a maximum ratio is explicated in terms of the hierarchy of the linear unstable modes. The criterion is applied to the case of a relativistic electron beam crossing an unmagnetized electron-ion plasma.Comment: To appear in Physics of Plasma

Probing the Geometry of Warped String Compactifications at the LHC

Warped string compactifications, characterized by non-singular behavior of the metric in the infrared (IR), feature departures from the usual anti-de Sitter warped extra dimensions. We study the implications of the smooth IR cutoff for Randall-Sundrum (RS) type models. We find that the phenomenology of the KK gravitons (including their masses and couplings) depends sensitively on the precise shape of the warp factor in the IR. In particular, we analyze the warped deformed conifold and find that the spectrum differs significantly from that of RS, and present a simple prescription (a mass gap ansatz) which can be used to study the phenomenology of IR modifications to 5-d warped extra dimensions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; v2. typos corrected, references added, improved resolution of Figure

Performance Enhancement of the Flexible Transonic Truss-Braced Wing Aircraft Using Variable-Camber Continuous Trailing-Edge Flaps

Aircraft designers are to a growing extent using vehicle flexibility to optimize performance with objectives such as gust load alleviation and drag minimization. More complex aerodynamically optimized configurations may also require dynamic loads and perhaps eventually flutter suppression. This paper considers an aerodynamically optimized truss-braced wing aircraft designed for a Mach 0.745 cruise. The variable camber continuous trailing edge flap concept with a feedback control system is used to enhance aeroelastic stability. A linearized reduced order aerodynamic model is developed from unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes simulations. A static output feedback controller is developed from that model. Closed-loop simulations using the reduced order aerodynamic model show that the controller is effective in stabilizing the vehicle dynamics

Fast magnetization in counterstreaming plasmas with temperature anisotropies

Counterstreaming plasmas exhibits an electromagnetic unstable mode of filamentation type, which is responsible for the magnetization of plasma system. It is shown that filamentation instability becomes significantly faster when plasma is hotter in the streaming direction. This is relevant for astrophysical sources, where strong magnetic fields are expected to exist and explain the nothermal emission observed

Becoming an Interpretive Community: Leading River Life Covenant Church through Narrative, Metaphor and Parable

The goal of this final project was to explore the role of narrative, metaphor and parable in order to lead River Life Covenant Church in East Sacramento, California. Through the examination of Scripture, it becomes acutely clear that Jesus chose to lead His disciples through the retelling of their history, illustrative word pictures, and stories with intent. By reaching back into their collective history, Jesus reinterprets it through metaphor and parable in order to build His church and return it to its original trajectory of being a “light to the nations.” Western pastoral leadership has typically been impacted by modernity and tends to utilize strategic thinking, goal setting, program implementation, and has used these tools to evaluate whether a church is “successful” or not. Finding the right model of church to follow dominates the thinking of leadership. Intellectual reasoning and scientific method have governed pastoral leadership primarily because it is measurable, easily communicated, and rational. Interpretative leadership is much more complex. Attempting to discern what God is doing, rather than what the church would like to see happen, requires a different skill set. This final project is an attempt to lead a small, community church through the tools of narration, metaphor, and parable. Confident that the Lord is still present and at work building His church, through the Holy Spirit, this project hopes to listen to the story that is being written through this church so that she will be able to be responsive to Jesus’ specific purpose for her in being a “light that shines in the darkness.” Content Reader: Kurt Fredrickson, Ph

Holotype of \u3ci\u3eAgathymus escalantei \u3c/i\u3eStallings, Turner, and Stallings, 1966 (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Megathyminae)

Agathymus escalantei Stallings, Turner, and Stallings, 1966 (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) is the only described species of Megathyminae known from a single collected individual. To date, the only images of this specimen are poor black and white illustrations published in the original description. This note presents the first color photographs of the holotype