6,434 research outputs found
Can Curriculum Changes Improve the Deliverables the Business Studies Departments of Maine’s Community Colleges Provide its Stakeholders?
Recent seminars and meetings between state officials and business leaders have established that a perceived disconnect exists between the skill\u27s, knowledge, and abilities needed by their enterprises and the skill\u27s, knowledge, and abilities being taught by the state’s educational systems. The Maine Community College System\u27s vision states that the system answers to a number of stakeholders by providing a two year comprehensive, affordable, and accessible college education... dedicated to building a quality workforce for Maine” (Maine Community College, n.d.). While the MCCS is a relatively new institution, this suggests that the community college arena is the most logical starting place for investigating and identifying these disconnects. Through interviews with students and businesses, surveys for both groups of stakeholders were developed. The resulting survey data was used to ascertain any disconnects and suggest possible venues for determining if curriculum changes would address them. Suggestions for future directions are offered
Local majority dynamics on preferential attachment graphs
Suppose in a graph vertices can be either red or blue. Let be odd. At
each time step, each vertex in polls random neighbours and takes
the majority colour. If it doesn't have neighbours, it simply polls all of
them, or all less one if the degree of is even. We study this protocol on
the preferential attachment model of Albert and Barab\'asi, which gives rise to
a degree distribution that has roughly power-law ,
as well as generalisations which give exponents larger than . The setting is
as follows: Initially each vertex of is red independently with probability
, and is otherwise blue. We show that if is
sufficiently biased away from , then with high probability,
consensus is reached on the initial global majority within
steps. Here is the number of vertices and is the minimum of
and (or if is even), being the number of edges each new
vertex adds in the preferential attachment generative process. Additionally,
our analysis reduces the required bias of for graphs of a given degree
sequence studied by the first author (which includes, e.g., random regular
graphs)
Novel TeV-scale seesaw mechanism with Dirac mediators
We propose novel tree level seesaw mechanism with TeV-scale vectorlike Dirac
mediators that produce Majorana masses of the known neutrinos. The gauge
quantum number assignment to the Dirac mediators allows them to belong to a
weak triplet and a five-plet of nonzero hypercharge. The latter leads to new
seesaw formula m_\nu ~ v^6/M^5, so that the empirical masses m_\nu ~ 10^{-1} eV
can be achieved by M ~ TeV new states. There is a limited range of the
parameter space with M < a few 100 GeV where the tree level contribution
dominates over the respective loop contributions and the proposed mechanism is
testable at the LHC. We discuss specific signatures for Dirac type heavy
leptons produced by Drell-Yan fusion at the LHC.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, version corresponding to PL
Minimal gauge origin of baryon triality and flavorful signatures at the LHC
Baryon triality (B3) is a Z3 discrete symmetry that can protect the proton
from decay. Although its realization does not require supersymmetry, it is
particularly appealing in the supersymmetry as an alternative to the popular
R-parity. We discuss the issues in gauging B3, and present the minimal
supersymmetric model with B3 as the remnant discrete symmetry of a TeV scale
U(1) gauge symmetry. A flavor-dependent U(1) charge is necessary to achieve
this, and it results in very distinguishable and flavorful predictions for the
LHC experiments. We find a complementarity between a 2-lepton sneutrino
resonance and a 4-lepton Z' resonance in the supersymmetry search. In addition,
we introduce baryon tetrality (B4), which would play an equivalent role if
there are four fermion generations.Comment: Version to appear in PL
Strain gradient induced polarization in SrTiO3 single crystals
Piezoelectricity is inherent only in noncentrosymmetric materials, but a
piezoelectric response can also be obtained in centrosymmetric crystals if
subjected to inhomogeneous deformation. This phenomenon, known as
flexoelectricity, affects the functional properties of insulators, particularly
thin films of high permittivity materials. We have measured
strain-gradient-induced polarization in single crystals of paraelectric
SrTiO as a function of temperature and orientation down to and below the
105 K phase transition. Estimates were obtained for all the components of the
flexoelectric tensor, and calculations based on these indicate that local
polarization around defects in SrTiO may exceed the largest ferroelectric
polarizations. A sign reversal of the flexoelectric response detected below the
phase transition suggests that the ferroelastic domain walls of SrTiO may
be polar.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
Operation properties and δ-equalities of complex fuzzy sets
A complex fuzzy set is a fuzzy set whose membership function takes values in the unit circle in the complex plane. This paper investigates various operation properties and proposes a distance measure for complex fuzzy sets. The distance of two complex fuzzy sets measures the difference between the grades of two complex fuzzy sets as well as that between the phases of the two complex fuzzy sets. This distance measure is then used to define equalities of complex fuzzy sets which coincide with those of fuzzy sets already defined in the literature if complex fuzzy sets reduce to real-valued fuzzy sets. Two complex fuzzy sets are said to be d-equal if the distance between them is less than 1 d. This paper shows how various operations between complex fuzzy sets affect given δ-equalities of complex fuzzy sets. An example application of signal detection demonstrates the utility of the concept of δ-equalities of complex fuzzy sets in practice
The Drinfel'd twisted XYZ model
We construct a factorizing Drinfel'd twist for a face type model equivalent
to the XYZ model. Completely symmetric expressions for the operators of the
monodromy matrix are obtained.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, second preprint no. added, reference [14] added,
typos correcte
Pure Leptonic Gauge Symmetry, Neutrino Masses and Dark Matter
A possible extension of the Standard Model to include lepton number as local
gauge symmetry is investigated. In such a model, anomalies are canceled by two
extra fermions doublet. After leptonic gauge symmetry spontaneously broken,
three active neutrinos may acquire non-zero Majorana masses through the
modified Type-II seesaw mechanism. Constraints on the model from electro-weak
precision measurements are studied. Due to the discrete flavor symmetry,
right-handed Majorana neutrinos can serve as cold dark matter candidate of the
Universe. Constraint from dark matter relic abundance is calculated.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures; typos corrected, comments and references added,
to appear in Phys. Lett.
The CDF dijet excess from intrinsic quarks
The CDF collaboration reported an excess in the production of two jets in
association with a . We discuss constraints on possible new particle state
interpretations of this excess. The fact of no statistically significant
deviation from the SM expectation for {+dijet} events in CDF data disfavors
the new particle explanation. We show that the nucleon intrinsic strange quarks
provide an important contribution to the boson production in association
with a single top quark production. Such {+t} single top quark production
can contribute to the CDF {+dijet} excess, thus the nucleon intrinsic quarks
can provide a possible explanation to the CDF excess in {+dijet} but not in
{+dijet} events.Comment: 4 latex pages, 1 figure. Version for journal publicatio
Duffy antigen receptor for chemokines and CXCL5 are essential for the recruitment of neutrophils in a multicellular model of rheumatoid arthritis synovium
OBJECTIVE: The role of chemokines and their transporters are poorly described in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Evidence suggests that CXCL5 plays an important role as it is abundant in RA tissue and its neutralization moderates joint damage in animal models of arthritis. The chemokine transporter, Duffy Antigen Receptor for Chemokines (DARC), is also upregulated in early RA. Here we investigate the role of CXCL5 and DARC in regulating neutrophil recruitment using an in vitro model of the RA synovium. METHODS: To model the RA synovium, rheumatoid fibroblasts (RAF) were cocultured with endothelial cells (EC) for 24h. Gene expression in cocultured cells was investigated using TaqMan gene arrays. Roles of CXCL5 and DARC were determined by incorporating cocultures into a flow-based adhesion assay, where their function was demonstrated by blocking neutrophil recruitment with neutralizing reagents. RESULTS: EC-RAF coculture induced chemokine expression in both cell types. While CXC chemokines were modestly upregulated in EC, CXCL1, CXCL5 and CXCL8 expression were greatly increased in RAF. RAF also promoted the recruitment of flowing neutrophils to EC. Anti-CXCL5 antibody abolished neutrophil recruitment by neutralizing CXCL5 expressed on EC, or when used to immuno-deplete coculture conditioned medium. DARC was also induced on EC by coculture and an anti-Fy6 antibody or siRNA targeting of DARC expression effectively abolished neutrophil recruitment. CONCLUSION: For the first time in a model of human disease, the function of DARC has been demonstrated as essential for editing the chemokine signals presented by EC and for promoting unwanted leukocyte recruitment
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