Financial Regulation in a Global Market Place: Report of the Duke Global Capital Markets Roundtable

This report summarizes the discussion of over sixty participants in the April 30, 2007 roundtable convened by the Duke Global Capital Market Center. The roundtable focused on important issues posed by the increasing globalization of securities offerings and trading markets. The invited participants were selected because of their broad experience as regulators, practitioners, or academics in international securities transactions, assuring a wide spectrum of views on the future direction of regulation

Summary of Roundtable Discussions Regarding the Future Content of the U.S. Securities Laws

On Apr 8-9, 1999, more than sixty securities lawyers, regulators and academics participated in a roundtable discussion in Washington DC on what should be the future content of the US securities laws. A summary of the discussions is presented

Vitamin D Status and its Association with Morbidity including Wasting and Opportunistic Illnesses in HIV-Infected Women in Tanzania.

Vitamin D has a potential role in preventing HIV-related complications, based on its extensive involvement in immune and metabolic function, including preventing osteoporosis and premature cardiovascular disease. However, this association has not been examined in large studies or in resource-limited settings. Vitamin D levels were assessed in 884 HIV-infected pregnant women at enrollment in a trial of multivitamin supplementation (excluding vitamin D) in Tanzania. Information on HIV related complications was recorded during follow-up (median, 70 months). Proportional hazards models and generalized estimating equations were used to assess the relationship of vitamin D status with these outcomes. Women with low vitamin D status (serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D<32 ng/mL) had 43% higher risk of reaching a body mass index (BMI) less than 18 kg/m(2) during the first 2 years of follow-up, compared to women with adequate vitamin D levels (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.43; 95% confidence intervals: [1.03-1.99]). The relationship between continuous vitamin D levels and risk of BMI less than 18 kg/m(2) during follow-up was inverse and linear (p=0.03). Women with low vitamin D levels had significantly higher incidence of acute upper respiratory infections (HR: 1.27 [1.04-1.54]) and thrush (HR: 2.74 [1.29-5.83]) diagnosed during the first 2 years of follow-up. Low vitamin D status was a significant risk factor for wasting and HIV-related complications such as thrush during follow-up in this prospective cohort in Tanzania. If these protective associations are confirmed in randomized trials, vitamin D supplementation could represent a simple and inexpensive method to improve health and quality of life of HIV-infected patients, particularly in resource-limited settings

Dual self-assembly of supramolecular peptide nanotubes to provide stabilisation in water

Self-assembling peptides have the ability to spontaneously aggregate into large ordered structures. The reversibility of the peptide hydrogen bonded supramolecular assembly make them tunable to a host of different applications, although it leaves them highly dynamic and prone to disassembly at the low concentration needed for biological applications. Here we demonstrate that a secondary hydrophobic interaction, near the peptide core, can stabilise the highly dynamic peptide bonds, without losing the vital solubility of the systems in aqueous conditions. This hierarchical self-assembly process can be used to stabilise a range of different β-sheet hydrogen bonded architectures

Searching for stellar mass black holes in the solar neighborhood

We propose a strategy for searching for isolated stellar mass black holes in the solar neighborhood with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Due to spherical accretion of the inter-stellar medium and the ambient magnetic field, an isolated black hole is expected to emit a blended, thermal synchrotron spectrum with a roughly flat peak from the optical down to the far infra-red. We find that the Sloan Survey will be able to detect isolated black holes, in the considered mass range of 1--100$M_{\odot}$, out to a few hundred parsecs, depending on the local conditions of the ISM. We also find that the black holes are photmetrically distinguishable from field stars and they have a photometry similar to QSOs. They can be further singled out from QSO searches because they have a featureless spectrum with no emission lines. The Sloan Survey will likely find hundreds of objects that meet these criteria, and to further reduce the number of candidates, we suggest other selection criteria such as infra-red searches and proper motion measurements. Estimates indicate that dozens of black holes may exist out to a few hundred parsecs. If no black hole candidates are found in this survey, important limits can be placed on the local density of black holes and the halo fraction in black holes, especially for masses greater than about $20 M_{\odot}$.Comment: Latex, 7 pages, 3 postscript figures, submitted to ApJ Letters. Also available at http://fnas08.fnal.gov

Identifying Effects and Applications of Fixed and Variable Speed Limits

In Indiana, distracted driving and unexpected queues have led to an increase in the amount of back-of-queue crashes, particularly on approach to work zones. This report presents new strategies for the assessment of both transportation safety and traffic operations using crowd-sourced probe vehicle data and a speed laser vehicle re-identification scheme. This report concludes by recommending strategies for the placement of variable speed limits (VSL) adjacent to work zones and suggestions for future research

Lyophilisation of influenza, rabies and Marburg lentiviral pseudotype viruses for the development and distribution of a neutralisation-assay based diagnostic kit

Pseudotype viruses (PVs) are chimeric, replication-deficient virions that mimic wild-type virus entry mechanisms and can be safely employed in neutralisation assays, bypassing the need for high biosafety requirements and performing comparably to established serological assays. However, PV supernatant necessitates -80°C long-term storage and cold-chain maintenance during transport, which limits the scope of dissemination and application throughout resource-limited laboratories. We therefore investigated the effects of lyophilisation on influenza, rabies and Marburg PV stability, with a view to developing a pseudotype virus neutralisation assay (PVNA) based kit suitable for affordable global distribution. Infectivity of each PV was calculated after lyophilisation and immediate reconstitution, as well as subsequent to incubation of freeze-dried pellets at varying temperatures, humidities and timepoints. Integrity of glycoprotein structure following treatment was also assessed by employing lyophilised PVs in downstream PVNAs. In the presence of 0.5M sucrose-PBS cryoprotectant, each freeze-dried pseudotype was stably stored for 4 weeks at up to 37°C and could be neutralised to the same potency as unlyophilised PVs when employed in PVNAs. These results confirm the viability of a freeze-dried PVNA-based kit, which could significantly facilitate low-cost serology for a wide portfolio of emerging infectious viruses