MINNESOTA ENERGY-ECONOMIC INFORMATION SYSTEM

The energy-economic impact forecasting system presented here is a modular approach to both economic modeling and information systems development. A set of eleven modules--market, investment, demand, production, (input-output), employment, value added, labor force, population, household, fiscal, and ecologic--provides the data base and programming routines for simulating the state (or a substate regional) economy. An additional set of government function modules, including energy and environmental management, provides an auxiliary data base and forecasts for state and local government agencies. This series of data modules and related computer programs, locally called SIMLAB, is organized as a readily accessible regional impact simulation system.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

1967 Vegetable Varieties

This archival publication may not reflect current scientific knowledge or recommendations. Current information available from the University of Minnesota Extension: https://www.extension.umn.edu

Vegetable Varieties -1968

This archival publication may not reflect current scientific knowledge or recommendations. Current information available from the University of Minnesota Extension: https://www.extension.umn.edu

Quality Measurement of Hay Stored by Large Hay Packaging Systems

The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent large hay package storage retained the initial forage quality by measurement of seven quality parameters over an extended period. The Hesston 60 and Haybuster 1800 were used as examples of hay packaging systems for study

Single-machine scheduling with stepwise tardiness costs and release times

We study a scheduling problem that belongs to the yard operations component of the railroad planning problems, namely the hump sequencing problem. The scheduling problem is characterized as a single-machine problem with stepwise tardiness cost objectives. This is a new scheduling criterion which is also relevant in the context of traditional machine scheduling problems. We produce complexity results that characterize some cases of the problem as pseudo-polynomially solvable. For the difficult-to-solve cases of the problem, we develop mathematical programming formulations, and propose heuristic algorithms. We test the formulations and heuristic algorithms on randomly generated single-machine scheduling problems and real-life datasets for the hump sequencing problem. Our experiments show promising results for both sets of problems

Self-Organization Leads to Supraoptimal Performance in Public Transportation Systems

The performance of public transportation systems affects a large part of the population. Current theory assumes that passengers are served optimally when vehicles arrive at stations with regular intervals. In this paper, it is shown that self-organization can improve the performance of public transportation systems beyond the theoretical optimum by responding adaptively to local conditions. This is possible because of a “slower-is-faster” effect, where passengers wait more time at stations but total travel times are reduced. The proposed self-organizing method uses “antipheromones” to regulate headways, which are inspired by the stigmergy (communication via environment) of some ant colonies

CRISPR-UnLOCK: Multipurpose Cas9-Based Strategies for Conversion of Yeast Libraries and Strains

Citation: Roggenkamp E, Giersch RM, Wedeman E, Eaton M, Turnquist E, Schrock MN, Alkotami L, Jirakittisonthon T, Schluter-Pascua SE, Bayne GH, Wasko C, Halloran M and Finnigan GC (2017) CRISPR-UnLOCK: Multipurpose Cas9-Based Strategies for Conversion of Yeast Libraries and Strains. Front. Microbiol. 8:1773. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.01773Saccharomyces cerevisiae continues to serve as a powerful model system for both basic biological research and industrial application. The development of genome-wide collections of individually manipulated strains (libraries) has allowed for high-throughput genetic screens and an emerging global view of this single-celled Eukaryote. The success of strain construction has relied on the innate ability of budding yeast to accept foreign DNA and perform homologous recombination, allowing for efficient plasmid construction (in vivo) and integration of desired sequences into the genome. The development of molecular toolkits and “integration cassettes” have provided fungal systems with a collection of strategies for tagging, deleting, or over-expressing target genes; typically, these consist of a C-terminal tag (epitope or fluorescent protein), a universal terminator sequence, and a selectable marker cassette to allow for convenient screening. However, there are logistical and technical obstacles to using these traditional genetic modules for complex strain construction (manipulation of many genomic targets in a single cell) or for the generation of entire genome-wide libraries. The recent introduction of the CRISPR/Cas gene editing technology has provided a powerful methodology for multiplexed editing in many biological systems including yeast. We have developed four distinct uses of the CRISPR biotechnology to generate yeast strains that utilizes the conversion of existing, commonly-used yeast libraries or strains. We present Cas9-based, marker-less methodologies for (i) N-terminal tagging, (ii) C-terminally tagging yeast genes with 18 unique fusions, (iii) conversion of fluorescently-tagged strains into newly engineered (or codon optimized) variants, and finally, (iv) use of a Cas9 “gene drive” system to rapidly achieve a homozygous state for a hypomorphic query allele in a diploid strain. These CRISPR-based methods demonstrate use of targeting universal sequences previously introduced into a genome

Reduced ventricular proliferation in the foetal cortex following maternal inflammation in the mouse

It has been well established that maternal inflammation during pregnancy alters neurological function in the offspring, but its impact on cortical development and long-term consequences on the cytoarchitecture is largely unstudied. Here we report that lipopolysaccharide-induced systemic maternal inflammation in C57Bl/6 mice at embryonic Day 13.5 of pregnancy, as early as 8 h after challenge, caused a significant reduction in cell proliferation in the ventricular zone of the developing cerebral cortex, as revealed by quantification of anti-phospho-Histone H3 immunoreactivity and bromodeoxyuridine pulse labelling. The angle of mitotic cleavage, determined from analysis of haematoxylin and eosin staining, cyclin E1 gene expression and the pattern of β-catenin immunoreactivity were also altered by the challenge, which suggests a change from symmetric to asymmetric division in the radial progenitor cells. Modifications of cortical lamination and gene expression patterns were detected at post-natal Day 8 suggesting prolonged consequences of these alterations during embryonic development. Cellular uptake of proteins from the cerebrospinal fluid was observed in brains from lipopolysaccharide-treated animals in radial progenitor cells. However, the foetal blood–brain barrier to plasma proteins remained intact. Together, these results indicate that maternal inflammation can disrupt the ventricular surface and lead to decreased cellular proliferation. Changes in cell density in Layers IV and V at post-natal Day 8 show that these initial changes have prolonged effects on cortical organization. The possible shift in the fate of progeny and the resulting alterations in the relative cell numbers in the cerebral cortex following a maternal inflammatory response shown here will require further investigation to determine the long-term consequences of inflammation on the development of neuronal circuitry and behaviour

The congested multicommodity network design problem

This paper studies a version of the fixed-charge multicommodity network design problem where in addition to the traditional costs of flow and design, congestion at nodes is explicitly considered. The problem is initially modeled as a nonlinear integer programming formulation and two solution approaches are proposed: (i) a reformulation of the problem as a mixed integer second order cone program to optimally solve the problem for small to medium scale problem instances, and (ii) an evolutionary algorithm using elements of iterated local search and scatter search to provide upper bounds. Extensive computational results on new benchmark problem instances and on real case data are presented

Living in Living Cities

This paper presents an overview of current and potential applications of living technology to some urban problems. Living technology can be described as technology that exhibits the core features of living systems. These features can be useful to solve dynamic problems. In particular, urban problems concerning mobility, logistics, telecommunications, governance, safety, sustainability, and society and culture are presented, while solutions involving living technology are reviewed. A methodology for developing living technology is mentioned, while supraoptimal public transportation systems are used as a case study to illustrate the benefits of urban living technology. Finally, the usefulness of describing cities as living systems is discussed.Comment: 40 pages, 4 figures, overview pape