136 research outputs found
Making the Case for Diversity in Philanthropy
While many foundations have long sought to become more inclusive as a logical extension of their missions, the business case for incorporating diversity has renewed interest in understanding how diversity can also enhance the effectiveness of philanthropic organizations. Because prior movements to increase diversity in philanthropy have focused on moral, rather than operational, arguments and because the field lacks an easy way to measure outcomes, strong evaluation measures of diversity's impacts on philanthropic activity have not been developed. Numerous studies from the corporate sphere, however, suggest that greater inclusiveness may improve an organization's processes and outcomes. Many philanthropic experts and practitioners believe that these gains may apply to grantmaking institutions as well as businesses.
The Lantern Vol. 11, No. 3, May 1943
• Women\u27s Ward: Byberry • Ballad of Courtin\u27 • Burnished Armor • A Tribute • The Aeolian Harp • There is a Tide • Translation of a Greek Drinking Song • Query • Lemuel Lepidoptera • Quatrain • Ode to Spring • Though You\u27re Far Awayhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1030/thumbnail.jp
TRALI: Party of One; Real-Time Hemovigilance Demonstrates Multiple Event-Free Transfusions
Mechele Adrian pictured.https://openworks.mdanderson.org/aprn-week-23/1019/thumbnail.jp
SATCON2: Executive Summary
About twenty years ago, rapid advances in technology led to the viability of lightemitting diodes (LEDs) as outdoor lighting. With compelling operational and economic reasons to make the shift from legacy gas-discharge systems, communities around the world began installing white LEDs as their lighting of choice. In time, the side effects of the vastly increased sky glow and blue-rich spectral distribution of white LEDs became apparent, negatively impacting not only ground-based professional and amateur astronomy but also casual appreciation of the sky, flora and fauna, and human health.
Today, we are in the initial years of an analogous watershed moment, this time not on the ground but in space. The rapid development of efficient and in one case reusable rockets by private-sector companies has made Earth orbit no longer the exclusive realm of national agencies like NASA, and a steadily increasing number of entities is now launching both people and hardware into space. The result is exponential growth in the density and variety of satellites at a wide range of altitudes. As the glowing nighttime landscape on Earth has been transformed over the past two decades, so the sky is now being similarly transformed.
It is incumbent on all who use space and the night sky as a resource — professional and amateur astronomers, satellite operators, policymakers, environmentalists, people who observe the night sky and who preserve their culture in stories in the stars, and more — to consider the myriad impacts on humanity of the industrialization of space and to establish a shared vision for the use of space that supports and respects all its users.
Many efforts today to address the impact of rapidly growing light domes over cities and towns are reactive to already-deployed networks of white LEDs. In the realm of low-Earth orbit (LEO), there is a window of opportunity — albeit narrow and closing — to address the impact of thousands of new satellites proactively. The SATCON workshops are meant to set the foundation for this work
N-oleoyldopamine, a novel endogenous capsaicin-like lipid that produces hyperalgesia.
N-Arachidonoyldopamine (NADA) was recently identified as an endogenous ligand for the vanilloid type 1 receptor (VR1). Further analysis of the bovine striatal extract from which NADA was isolated indicated the existence of substances corresponding in molecular mass to N-oleoyldopamine (OLDA), N-palmitoyldopamine (PALDA), and N-stearoyldopamine (STEARDA). Quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometric analysis of bovine striatal extracts revealed the existence of OLDA, PALDA, and STEARDA as endogenous compounds in the mammalian brain. PALDA and STEARDA failed to affect calcium influx in VR1-transfected human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells or paw withdrawal latencies from a radiant heat source, and there was no evidence of spontaneous pain behavior. By contrast, OLDA induced calcium influx (EC(50) = 36 nm), reduced the latency of paw withdrawal from a radiant heat source in a dose-dependent manner (EC(50) = 0.72 microg), and produced nocifensive behavior. These effects were blocked by co-administration of the VR1 antagonist iodo-resiniferatoxin (10 nm for HEK cells and 1 microg/50 micro;l for pain behavior). These findings demonstrate the existence of an endogenous compound in the brain that is similar to capsaicin and NADA in its chemical structure and activity on VR1. Unlike NADA, OLDA was only a weak ligand for rat CB1 receptors; but like NADA, it was recognized by the anandamide membrane transporter while being a poor substrate for fatty-acid amide hydrolase. Analysis of the activity of six additional synthetic and potentially endogenous N-acyldopamine indicated the requirement of a long unsaturated fatty acid chain for an optimal functional interaction with VR1 receptors
The Density and Temperature of Molecular Clouds in M33
We have observed the CO J=2-1, J=3-2, and CO J=2-1 lines in a
sample of seven giant molecular clouds in the Local Group spiral galaxy M33.
The CO/CO J=2-1 line ratio is constant across the entire sample,
while the observed CO J=3-2/J=2-1 line ratio has a weak dependence on
the star formation environment of the cloud, with large changes in the line
ratio seen only for clouds in the immediate vicinity of an extremely luminous
HII region. A large velocity gradient analysis indicates that clouds without
HII regions have temperatures of 10-20 K, clouds with HII regions have
temperatures of 15-100 K, and the cloud in the giant HII region has a
temperature of at least 100 K. Interestingly, the giant HII region appears
capable of raising the kinetic temperature of the molecular gas only for clouds
that are quite nearby ( pc). The continuous change of physical
conditions across the observed range of star formation environments suggests
that the unusual physical conditions in the cloud in the giant HII region are
due to post-star formation changes in the molecular gas, rather than intrinsic
properties of the gas related to the formation of the giant HII region.Comment: 14 pages, aastex, 4 postscript figures; accepted for publication in
ApJ; also available at http://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/Wilson_Preprint
Spectroscopy of PKS 0528-260: New Limits on CO Absorption and Emission
We have obtained a moderate resolution spectrum of the quasar PKS 0528-250
with the Red Channel Spectrograph on the Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT) in
order to study a damped Lyman alpha absorption line system at z = 2.8115.
We obtain a new upper limit for the CO column density for the z = 2.8108
velocity component in the z = 2.8115 damped Lyman alpha system. The ionization
of different species in this component rules out a quasar spectral energy
distribution (SED) as the ionization field,and implies an ultraviolet radiation
field intensity a few times that of the Milky Way value. The estimated total
number density is n(H) about 20 cm^{-3}. The physical size for the z = 2.8108
component implied by these models is about 40 parsecs. The ionization of
different species also suggests a structure with a hot intercloud medium
associated with a H I cloud in this component, that is, most low ionized ions
are from the cold medium where photoionization and photodissociation dominates.
The highly ionized species may be from the intercloud medium where collisional
ionization dominates. We also present newly identified Ni II absorption lines
in the z = 2.1408 and z = 2.8115 damped Ly systems. The derived
depletion of nickel by dust confirms previous results that the dust-to-gas
ratio in these two damped Lyman alpha systems is about 10% of the Milky Way
ratio. Millimeter wavelength observations obtained at the NRAO 12 meter
telescope provide new upper limits on CO (3-2) emission in the z = 2.8115
damped Lyman alpha system.Comment: ApJ, 1997, 486, in press, 28 pages and 7 figs included, also
available at http://qso.as.arizona.edu/~jge/projects.htm
Enhanced HIV-1 immunotherapy by commonly arising antibodies that target virus escape variants
Antibody-mediated immunotherapy is effective in humanized mice when combinations of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) are used that target nonoverlapping sites on the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) envelope. In contrast, single bNAbs can control simian–human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV) infection in immune-competent macaques, suggesting that the host immune response might also contribute to the control of viremia. Here, we investigate how the autologous antibody response in intact hosts can contribute to the success of immunotherapy. We find that frequently arising antibodies that normally fail to control HIV-1 infection can synergize with passively administered bNAbs by preventing the emergence of bNAb viral escape variants
Cosmological parameters from SDSS and WMAP
We measure cosmological parameters using the three-dimensional power spectrum
P(k) from over 200,000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in
combination with WMAP and other data. Our results are consistent with a
``vanilla'' flat adiabatic Lambda-CDM model without tilt (n=1), running tilt,
tensor modes or massive neutrinos. Adding SDSS information more than halves the
WMAP-only error bars on some parameters, tightening 1 sigma constraints on the
Hubble parameter from h~0.74+0.18-0.07 to h~0.70+0.04-0.03, on the matter
density from Omega_m~0.25+/-0.10 to Omega_m~0.30+/-0.04 (1 sigma) and on
neutrino masses from <11 eV to <0.6 eV (95%). SDSS helps even more when
dropping prior assumptions about curvature, neutrinos, tensor modes and the
equation of state. Our results are in substantial agreement with the joint
analysis of WMAP and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, which is an impressive
consistency check with independent redshift survey data and analysis
techniques. In this paper, we place particular emphasis on clarifying the
physical origin of the constraints, i.e., what we do and do not know when using
different data sets and prior assumptions. For instance, dropping the
assumption that space is perfectly flat, the WMAP-only constraint on the
measured age of the Universe tightens from t0~16.3+2.3-1.8 Gyr to
t0~14.1+1.0-0.9 Gyr by adding SDSS and SN Ia data. Including tensors, running
tilt, neutrino mass and equation of state in the list of free parameters, many
constraints are still quite weak, but future cosmological measurements from
SDSS and other sources should allow these to be substantially tightened.Comment: Minor revisions to match accepted PRD version. SDSS data and ppt
figures available at http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/sdsspars.htm
Worldwide variations in artificial skyglow
Despite constituting a widespread and significant environmental change,
understanding of artificial nighttime skyglow is extremely limited. Until now,
published monitoring studies have been local or regional in scope, and
typically of short duration. In this first major international compilation of
monitoring data we answer several key questions about skyglow properties.
Skyglow is observed to vary over four orders of magnitude, a range hundreds of
times larger than was the case before artificial light. Nearly all of the
study sites were polluted by artificial light. A non-linear relationship is
observed between the sky brightness on clear and overcast nights, with a
change in behavior near the rural to urban landuse transition. Overcast skies
ranged from a third darker to almost 18 times brighter than clear. Clear sky
radiances estimated by the World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness were
found to be overestimated by ~25%; our dataset will play an important role in
the calibration and ground truthing of future skyglow models. Most of the
brightly lit sites darkened as the night progressed, typically by ~5% per
hour. The great variation in skyglow radiance observed from site-to-site and
with changing meteorological conditions underlines the need for a long-term
international monitoring program
- …