Determining When Projected Disposable Income Test May Be a Basis for a Post-Confirmation Modification

(Excerpt) In order for a chapter 13 plan to be confirmed, the plan must provide that the debtor will contribute his projected disposable income towards his plan payments. However, circumstances may change after confirmation of the chapter 13 plan, and the debtor or trustee may find themselves in need to modify the plan payment. Under section 1329 of the Bankruptcy Code, the debtor, trustee, or an unsecured creditor may request to modify the plan after confirmation of the plan but before completion of the payments. Generally, bankruptcy courts have broad discretion to approve or disapprove a post-confirmation modification of a chapter 13 plan. The bankruptcy courts’ broad discretion “must be guided by a respect for the finality of the confirmation process.” The finality of the confirmation process should not be disturbed unless it is shown that the debtor has acted in bad faith, is not in compliance with the plan, or is unable to comply with the plan. However, some courts held that the debtor having an increased projected disposable income may be the basis of a post-confirmation modification

Intensity Mapping with Carbon Monoxide Emission Lines and the Redshifted 21 cm Line

We quantify the prospects for using emission lines from rotational transitions of the CO molecule to perform an `intensity mapping' observation at high redshift during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). The aim of CO intensity mapping is to observe the combined CO emission from many unresolved galaxies, to measure the spatial fluctuations in this emission, and use this as a tracer of large scale structure at very early times in the history of our Universe. This measurement would help determine the properties of molecular clouds -- the sites of star formation -- in the very galaxies that reionize the Universe. We further consider the possibility of cross-correlating CO intensity maps with future observations of the redshifted 21 cm line. The cross spectrum is less sensitive to foreground contamination than the auto power spectra, and can therefore help confirm the high redshift origin of each signal. Furthermore, the cross spectrum measurement would help extract key information about the EoR, especially regarding the size distribution of ionized regions. We discuss uncertainties in predicting the CO signal at high redshift, and discuss strategies for improving these predictions. Under favorable assumptions, and feasible specifications for a CO survey mapping the CO(2-1) and CO(1-0) lines, the power spectrum of CO emission fluctuations and its cross spectrum with future 21 cm measurements from the MWA are detectable at high significance.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Ap

Modeling and Algorithm for Multiple Spanning Tree Provisioning in Resilient and Load Balanced Ethernet Networks

We propose a multitree based fast failover scheme for Ethernet networks. In our system, only few spanning trees are used to carry working traffic in the normal state. As a failure happens, the nodes adjacent to the failure redirect traffic to the preplanned backup VLAN trees to realize fast failure recovery. In the proposed scheme, a new leaf constraint is enforced on the backup trees. It enables the network being able to provide 100% survivability against any single link and any single node failure. Besides fast failover, we also take load balancing into consideration. We model an Ethernet network as a twolayered graph and propose an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation for the problem. We further propose a heuristic algorithm to provide solutions to large networks. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme can achieve high survivability while maintaining load balancing at the same time. In addition, we have implemented the proposed scheme in an FPGA system. The experimental results show that it takes only few μsec to recover a network failure. This is far beyond the 50 msec requirement used in telecommunication networks for network protection

Manganese Oxide Thin Films Prepared by Nonaqueous Sol-Gel Processing: Preferential Formation of Birnessite

High quality manganese oxide thin films with smooth surfaces and even thicknesses have been prepared with a nonaqueous sol–gel process involving reduction of tetraethylammonium permanganate in methanol. Spin-coated films have been cast onto soft glass, quartz, and Ni foil substrates, with two coats being applied for optimum crystallization. The addition of alkali metal cations as dopants results in exclusive formation of the layered birnessite phase. By contrast, analogous reactions in bulk sol–gel reactions yield birnessite, tunneled, and spinel phases depending on the dopant cation. XRD patterns confirm the formation of well-crystallized birnessite. SEM images of Li-, Na-, and K–birnessite reveal extremely smooth films having uniform thickness of less than 0.5 μm. Thin films of Rb– and Cs–birnessite have more fractured and uneven surfaces as a result of some precipitation during the sol–gel transformation. All films consist of densely packed particles of about 0.1 μm. When tetrabutylammonium permanganate is used instead of tetraethylammonium permanganate, the sol–gel reaction yields amorphous manganese oxide as the result of diluted Mn sites in the xerogel film. Bilayer films have been prepared by casting an overcoat of K–birnessite onto an Na–birnessite film. However, Auger depth profiling indicates considerable mixing between the adjacent layers

Distinct predictors of pre‐ versus post‐discharge venous thromboembolism after hepatectomy: analysis of 7621 NSQIP patients

AbstractObjectivesHepatectomy patients are known to be at significant risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE), but previous studies have not differentiated pre‐ versus post‐discharge events. This study was designed to evaluate the timing, rate and predictors of pre‐ (‘early’) versus post‐discharge (‘late’) VTE.MethodsAll patients undergoing elective hepatectomy during 2005–2010 and recorded in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program participant use file were identified. Perioperative factors associated with 30‐day rates of early and late VTE were analysed.ResultsA total of 7621 patients underwent 4553 (59.7%) partial, 802 (10.5%) left, 1494 (19.6%) right and 772 (10.1%) extended hepatectomies. Event rates were 1.9% for deep venous thrombosis, 1.2% for pulmonary embolus and 2.8% for VTE. Of instances of VTE, 28.6% occurred post‐discharge. The median time of presentation of late VTE was postoperative day 14. Multivariate analysis determined that early VTE was associated with age ≥75 years [odds ratio (OR) 1.92, P = 0.007], male gender (OR 1.87, P = 0.002), intraoperative transfusion (OR 2.49, P < 0.001), operative time of >240 min (OR 2.28, P < 0.001), organ space infection (OSI) (OR 2.60, P < 0.001), and return to operating room (ROR) (OR 3.25, P < 0.001). Late VTE was associated with operative time of >240 min (OR 2.35, P = 0.008), OSI (OR 3.78, P < 0.001) and ROR (OR 2.84, P = 0.011).ConclusionsLate VTE events occur in patients with clearly identifiable intraoperative and postoperative risk factors. This provides a rationale for the selective use of post‐discharge VTE chemoprophylaxis in high‐risk patients

Synthesis of a new hollandite-type manganese oxide with framework and interstitial Cr(III)

Hollandite with Cr(III) in both tunnel and framework sites has been prepared hydrothermally from layered manganese oxide precursors

Roles of cofactors and chromatin accessibility in Hox protein target specificity.

BACKGROUND: The regulation of specific target genes by transcription factors is central to our understanding of gene network control in developmental and physiological processes yet how target specificity is achieved is still poorly understood. This is well illustrated by the Hox family of transcription factors as their limited in vitro DNA-binding specificity contrasts with their clear in vivo functional specificity. RESULTS: We generated genome-wide binding profiles for three Hox proteins, Ubx, Abd-A and Abd-B, following transient expression in Drosophila Kc167 cells, revealing clear target specificity and a striking influence of chromatin accessibility. In the absence of the TALE class homeodomain cofactors Exd and Hth, Ubx and Abd-A bind at a very similar set of target sites in accessible chromatin, whereas Abd-B binds at an additional specific set of targets. Provision of Hox cofactors Exd and Hth considerably modifies the Ubx genome-wide binding profile enabling Ubx to bind at an additional novel set of targets. Both the Abd-B specific targets and the cofactor-dependent Ubx targets are in chromatin that is relatively DNase1 inaccessible prior to the expression of Hox proteins/Hox cofactors. CONCLUSIONS: Our experiments demonstrate a strong role for chromatin accessibility in Hox protein binding and suggest that Hox protein competition with nucleosomes has a major role in Hox protein target specificity in vivo.This work was supported by University of Malaya High Impact Research Grant UM-HIR UM.C/625/HIR/MOHE/CHAN-08 from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia.This is the final version of the article. It was first available from BioMed Central via http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13072-015-0049-

Sample-Specific Debiasing for Better Image-Text Models

Self-supervised representation learning on image-text data facilitates crucial medical applications, such as image classification, visual grounding, and cross-modal retrieval. One common approach involves contrasting semantically similar (positive) and dissimilar (negative) pairs of data points. Drawing negative samples uniformly from the training data set introduces false negatives, i.e., samples that are treated as dissimilar but belong to the same class. In healthcare data, the underlying class distribution is nonuniform, implying that false negatives occur at a highly variable rate. To improve the quality of learned representations, we develop a novel approach that corrects for false negatives. Our method can be viewed as a variant of debiased constrastive learning that uses estimated sample-specific class probabilities. We provide theoretical analysis of the objective function and demonstrate the proposed approach on both image and paired image-text data sets. Our experiments demonstrate empirical advantages of sample-specific debiasing

Unraveling the Allosteric Mechanism of Serine Protease Inhibition by an Antibody

SummaryRecent structural studies have outlined the mechanism of protease inhibition by active site-directed antibodies. However, the molecular basis of allosteric inhibition by antibodies has been elusive. Here we report the 2.35 Å resolution structure of the trypsin-like serine protease hepatocyte growth factor activator (HGFA) in complex with the allosteric antibody Ab40, a potent inhibitor of HGFA catalytic activity. The antibody binds at the periphery of the substrate binding cleft and imposes a conformational change on the entire 99-loop (chymotrypsinogen numbering). The altered conformation of the 99-loop is incompatible with substrate binding due to the partial collapse of subsite S2 and the reorganization of subsite S4. Remarkably, a single residue deletion of Ab40 abolished inhibition of HGFA activity, commensurate with the reversal of the 99-loop conformation to its “competent” state. The results define an “allosteric switch” mechanism as the basis of protease inhibition by an allosteric antibody

Acoustic intensity fluctuations induced by South China Sea internal tides and solitons

Author Posting. © IEEE, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of IEEE for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering 29 (2004): 1249-1263, doi:10.1109/JOE.2004.834173.Between late April and May 23, 2001, a suite of acoustic and oceanographic sensors was deployed by a team of U.S., Taiwan, and Singapore scientists in the northeastern South China Sea to study the effects of ocean variability on low-frequency sound propagation in a shelfbreak environment. The primary acoustic receiver was an L-shaped hydrophone array moored on the continental shelf that monitored a variety of signals transmitted along and across the shelfbreak by moored sources. This paper discusses and contrasts the fluctuations in the 400-Hz signals transmitted across the shelfbreak and measured by the vertical segment of the listening array on two different days, one with the passage of several huge solitons that depressed the shallow isotherms to near the sea bottom and one with a much less energetic internal wavefield. In addition to exhibiting large and rapid temporal changes, the acoustic data show a much more vertically diffused sound intensity field as the huge solitons occupied and passed through the transmission path. Using a space-time continuous empirical sound-speed model based on the moored temperature records, the observed acoustic intensity fluctuations are explained using coupled-mode physics.This work was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research