The Counter Narrative: Reframing Success of High Achieving Black and Latino Males in Los Angeles County

This report highlights young men who are the products of high expectations. We take time to shine a spotlight on the resilient, intelligent, and caring young men across Los Angeles County. This report takes an unapologetic stance in stating that these young men who are thriving in their homes, taking on leadership roles in their schools, and making a difference in their communities. This report is not intended to be full of the doom and gloom about what is wrong with young Black and Latino men. To the contrary, we take the time to center their voices, hear their stories, and listen to their takeaways about how they have accomplished what they are doing and the recommendations that they offer on how to support other Black and Latino young men just like them

The White-hat Bot: A Novel Botnet Defense Strategy

Botnets are a threat to computer systems and users around the world. Botmasters can range from annoying spam email propagators to nefarious criminals. These criminals attempt to take down networks or web servers through distributed denial-of-service attacks, to steal corporate secrets, or to launder money from individuals or corporations. As the number and severity of successful botnet attacks rise, computer security experts need to develop better early-detection and removal techniques to protect computer networks and individual computer users from these very real threats. I will define botnets and describe some of their common purposes and current uses. Next, I will reveal some of the techniques currently used by software security professionals to combat this problem. Finally I will provide a novel defensive strategy, the White-hat Bot (WHB), with documented experiments and results that may prove useful in the defense against botnets in the future

The Role of Integrin-associated Protein “PINCH” in Kidney Development

PINCH (a particularly interesting new cysteine-histidine-rich protein) is a protein that binds with Integrin-linked kinase and Parvin, to form an IPP complex. This complex is formed only when integrin molecules are activated upon interaction with the basement membrane. The IPP complex then acts as a platform for other proteins to come together and regulate cell signaling to and from the extracellular matrix (ECM). This allows for various cellular activities to progress like cell adhesion, migration, proliferation, etc. There are two types of PINCH proteins, PINCH-1 and PINCH-2. Studies from our group have shown that the lack of PINCH-1 in the kidney results in a branching phenotype and smaller kidneys in mice. The cells showed diminished potential to adhere, migrate and proliferate. There is no significant difference in phenotype when PINCH-2 is deleted. In the present study, we use conditional double knockout mice and cells in culture to look at the additive effects of the two PINCH proteins. Stained kidney cross sections will be analyzed and the PINCH null cells will be used in cell adhesion and migration studies. We have preliminary data to show that the deletion of both PINCH-1 and PINCH-2 genes results in a severe developmental phenotype in mouse kidney and corroborates in vitro studies

On the Detection of Supermassive Primordial Stars. II. Blue Supergiants

Supermassive primordial stars in hot, atomically-cooling haloes at $z \sim$ 15 - 20 may have given birth to the first quasars in the universe. Most simulations of these rapidly accreting stars suggest that they are red, cool hypergiants, but more recent models indicate that some may have been bluer and hotter, with surface temperatures of 20,000 - 40,000 K. These stars have spectral features that are quite distinct from those of cooler stars and may have different detection limits in the near infrared (NIR) today. Here, we present spectra and AB magnitudes for hot, blue supermassive primordial stars calculated with the TLUSTY and CLOUDY codes. We find that photometric detections of these stars by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be limited to $z \lesssim$ 10 - 12, lower redshifts than those at which red stars can be found, because of quenching by their accretion envelopes. With moderate gravitational lensing, Euclid and the Wide-Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST) could detect blue supermassive stars out to similar redshifts in wide-field surveys.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted by MNRA

The decision to install flue gas desulphurisation on Medupi Power Station: identification of environmental criteria contributing to the decision making process

Survival of society has always been dependent on ensuring that a balance is continually maintained between the variables of social needs, resources and the environment. The difficulty is that these three elements are more often than not in conflict with each other. Arguably without such conflicts environmental decision making would be far simpler in the knowledge that the potential solution, although not pleasing everyone would be capable of responding to a range of ecological and economic concerns. Environmental decision making requires a structured holistic approach that allows for the evaluation of alternative solutions against an array of often conflicting objectives, although no specific decision making structure is advocated multi criteria objective decision making provides a means to achieve such ends. The methodology provides for the identification of all objectives which are then used to evaluate alternative scenarios or solutions against. The following research report seeks to identify the environmental criteria that would need to be considered as part of a multi-criteria decision making structure. The report highlights the complexities and often conflicting elements that exist even within the narrow scope of environmental objectives. All discussions are made with specific reference to Eskom’s requirement to comply to future air quality legislation and the potential requirement to install flue gas desulphurisation technologies on its Medupi Power Station. Legislative, technological, water and air quality issues are identified and explored as to how they should be evaluated as part of the overall environmental decision making criteria. Through the identification of the environmental criteria it is hinted that Eskoms narrow mandate of electricity production at the lowest cost could potentially prevent the organisation of fully engaging in a holistic decision making process

Bacterial Communities of Two Ubiquitous Great Barrier Reef Corals Reveals Both Site- and Species-Specificity of Common Bacterial Associates

Background: Coral-associated bacteria are increasingly considered to be important in coral health, and altered bacterial community structures have been linked to both coral disease and bleaching. Despite this, assessments of bacterial communities on corals rarely apply sufficient replication to adequately describe the natural variability. Replicated data such as these are crucial in determining potential roles of bacteria on coral

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 15, No. 4

• Amish Album • Look Back, Once! • The Pennsylvania Barn in the South: Part II • Folk Festival Program • Contributors to this Issue • Festival Highlights • Twenty Questions on Powwowing • Moon-Signs in Cumberland County • Reminiscences of Des Dumm Fattel • Notes and Documents: Two Documents from the First World War • The Dutch and Irish Colonies of Pennsylvaniahttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag/1024/thumbnail.jp

An Observationally-Derived Kick Distribution for Neutron Stars in Binary Systems

Understanding the natal kicks received by neutron stars (NSs) during formation is a critical component of modelling the evolution of massive binaries. Natal kicks are an integral input parameter for population synthesis codes, and have implications for the formation of double NS systems and their subsequent merger rates. However, many of the standard observational kick distributions that are used are obtained from samples created only from isolated NSs. Kick distributions derived in this way overestimate the intrinsic NS kick distribution. For NSs in binaries, we can only directly estimate the effect of the natal kick on the binary system, instead of the natal kick received by the NS itself. Here, for the first time, we present a binary kick distribution for NSs with low-mass companions. We compile a catalogue of 145 NSs in low-mass binaries with the best available constraints on proper motion, distance, and systemic radial velocity. For each binary, we use a three-dimensional approach to estimate its binary kick. We discuss the implications of these kicks on system formation, and provide a parametric model for the overall binary kick distribution, for use in future theoretical modelling work. We compare our results with other work on isolated NSs and NSs in binaries, finding that the NS kick distributions fit using only isolated pulsars underestimate the fraction of NSs that receive low kicks. We discuss the implications of our results on modelling double NS systems, and provide suggestions on how to use our results in future theoretical works.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 28 pages, 19 figures, 8 table