Reaffirmation Agreements in Consumer Bankruptcy Cases

The following is from Chapter II of our book, Reaffirmation Agreements in Consumer Bankruptcy Cases. This chapter sets forth the debtor’s obligations in connection with reaffirmation of secured debt

Reply to ``Comment on `Insulating Behavior of λ\lambda-DNA on the Micron Scale' "

In our experiment, we found that the resistance of vacuum-dried $\lambda$-DNA exceeds $10^{14} \Omega$ at 295 K. Bechhoefer and Sen have raised a number of objections to our conclusion. We provide counter arguments to support our original conclusion.Comment: 1 page reply to comment, 1 figur

Chocolate Bar Wrapping Machine

Gilbert Chocolates has proposed to manufacture a machine to wrap chocolate bars. This machine is intended to replace two people wrapping the chocolate bars by hand, which is a time consuming method. This is especially apparent between October and January when the workers are working long hours in preparation for the Christmas rush of customers. Currently wrapping a bar takes about a minute and Gilbert Chocolates wants this time reduced down to 20-30 seconds. The budget for this project is set at $1000, and is being funded by the company. This machine needs to fit in a cubic foot of space and weigh under 30 pounds for storage purposes. This device can be either purely mechanical with manual input, or it may use step motors and a controller. This project pulls from our knowledge in kinematics, dynamics, 3D modeling, tolerance analysis, material selection, manufacturing techniques, and design of components. From doing this project we will learn how to apply all of these concepts together to solve real world problems. This project will encompass the design, manufacturing of a prototype, and optimization of the chocolate bar wrapping machine in hopes that the price of manufacturing chocolate bars can be reduced for Gilbert Chocolates. The final presentation of this project will include a working prototype, a report, and a presentation. The project will be presented at the Engineering Senior Design Project day. The machine will be operated and displayed at this event

Simulated Cytoskeletal Collapse via Tau Degradation

We present a coarse-grained two dimensional mechanical model for the microtubule-tau bundles in neuronal axons in which we remove taus, as can happen in various neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, tauopathies, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Our simplified model includes (i) taus modeled as entropic springs between microtubules, (ii) removal of taus from the bundles due to phosphorylation, and (iii) a possible depletion force between microtubules due to these dissociated phosphorylated taus. We equilibrate upon tau removal using steepest descent relaxation. In the absence of the depletion force, the transverse rigidity to radial compression of the bundle falls to zero at about 60% tau occupancy, in agreement with standard percolation theory results. However, with the attractive depletion force, spring removal leads to a first order collapse of the bundles over a wide range of tau occupancies for physiologically realizable conditions. While our simplest calculations assume a constant concentration of microtubule intercalants to mediate the depletion force, including a dependence that is linear in the detached taus yields the same collapse. Applying percolation theory to removal of taus at microtubule tips, which are likely to be the protective sites against dynamic instability, we argue that the microtubule instability can only obtain at low tau occupancy, from 0.06-0.30 depending upon the tau coordination at the microtubule tips. Hence, the collapse we discover is likely to be more robust over a wide range of tau occupancies than the dynamic instability. We suggest in vitro tests of our predicted collapse.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure

Corticosterone Regulates Both Naturally Occurring and Cocaine‐Induced Dopamine Signaling by Selectively Decreasing Dopamine Uptake

Stressful and aversive events promote maladaptive reward‐seeking behaviors such as drug addiction by acting, in part, on the mesolimbic dopamine system. Using animal models, data from our laboratory and others show that stress and cocaine can interact to produce a synergistic effect on reward circuitry. This effect is also observed when the stress hormone corticosterone is administered directly into the nucleus accumbens (NAc), indicating that glucocorticoids act locally in dopamine terminal regions to enhance cocaine\u27s effects on dopamine signaling. However, prior studies in behaving animals have not provided mechanistic insight. Using fast‐scan cyclic voltammetry, we examined the effect of systemic corticosterone on spontaneous dopamine release events (transients) in the NAc core and shell in behaving rats. A physiologically relevant systemic injection of corticosterone (2 mg/kg i.p.) induced an increase in dopamine transient amplitude and duration (both voltammetric measures sensitive to decreases in dopamine clearance), but had no effect on the frequency of transient release events. This effect was compounded by cocaine (2.5 mg/kg i.p.). However, a second experiment indicated that the same injection of corticosterone had no detectable effect on the dopaminergic encoding of a palatable natural reward (saccharin). Taken together, these results suggest that corticosterone interferes with naturally occurring dopamine uptake locally, and this effect is a critical determinant of dopamine concentration specifically in situations in which the dopamine transporter is pharmacologically blocked by cocaine

Planar Electrode Quadrupole Ion Traps

A simple method has been proposed to study the effects of multipole components on the performance of a radiofrequency quadrupole ion-trap mass analyzer, named the planar Paul trap. The device consists of two parallel ceramic plates, the opposing surfaces of which are lithographically imprinted with 24 metal rings. This suggested method combines the unique properties of this type of trap: the multiple-circular-ring structure, and ease of changing the electric field through differing capacitor configurations on printed circuit boards. Using this approach, the magnitude and sign of different multipole components, including octopole and dodecapole, can easily be adjusted through altering the voltage applied to each ring. This study presents a systematic investigation of the effects of multipole components (e.g., octopole and dodecapole) on the performance of the planar Paul trap. The results demonstrate that the octopole component has a more pronounced effect on the performance of the planar Paul trap than the dodecapole field, especially for ions with larger mass-to-charge ratios. Also, the sample concentration in the trapping region has a significant influence on the performance of the planar Paul trap with the change of the multipole components in trapping potentials