Atlanta\u27s Thriving Air Transportation Industry: Employment and Wages, 1990-2010

Air transportation is a popular form of travel in the United States and a thriving industry in the Atlanta metropolitan area, primarily Fulton County. Fulton County’s employment concentration for air transportation is higher than any other industry, and pays higher wages than the Fulton County average for all private industry. A major reason for the prominence of air transportation within Fulton County is that it houses the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International. Overall, the airport serves more than 150 domestic destinations and 80 international destinations in 52 countries, along with being the state of Georgia’s largest employer. It has been the world’s busiest passenger airport since 1998 and the world’s busiest operations airport since 2005. The local air transportation industry has faced several significant challenges over a recent 20-year period (1990–2010) including the interplay of rising fuel costs, the 9/11 attacks, and fewer passengers due to three economic recessions. These events have contributed to numerous airline bankruptcies and consolidations, which have reshaped the industry. Meanwhile, airport improvements at Hartsfield-Jackson have greatly improved efficiency. This issue of BEYOND THE NUMBERS uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for the air transportation industry to compare employment in Fulton County, Georgia, (Hartsfield-Jackson Airport), with employment in Cook County, Illinois, (O’Hare International Airport), and Los Angeles County, California, (Los Angeles International Airport). After Fulton County, Cook and Los Angeles Counties housed the next busiest airports in the United States. This article compares total passengers and aircraft operations among the busiest airports in the United States using data from Airports Council International

Eating and Drinking in Miami: Consumer Expenditures, 2010-14

This Beyond the Numbers article examines average annual food and beverage expenditures in 2-year increments from 2010 to 2014 in Miami compared with the South, United States, and other large metropolitan areas. Factors contributing to these consumption patterns such as household income, food prices, and demographics in the local area are analyzed as well

Compliant rolling-contact architected materials for shape reconfigurability.

Architected materials can achieve impressive shape-changing capabilities according to how their microarchitecture is engineered. Here we introduce an approach for dramatically advancing such capabilities by utilizing wrapped flexure straps to guide the rolling motions of tightly packed micro-cams that constitute the material's microarchitecture. This approach enables high shape-morphing versatility and extreme ranges of deformation without accruing appreciable increases in strain energy or internal stress. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional macroscale prototypes are demonstrated, and the analytical theory necessary to design the proposed materials is provided and packaged as a software tool. An approach that combines two-photon stereolithography and scanning holographic optical tweezers is demonstrated to enable the fabrication of the proposed materials at their intended microscale

Socioeconomic Status and Whole Student Positive Academic, Social, and Emotional Outcomes

The focus of this study was on identifying the challenges faced by teachers and school personnel at a middle school in educating the whole low socioeconomic status (SES) child academically, socially and emotionally to enhance positive educational outcomes. The unmet academic, social, and emotional needs of the low SES student in the middle school in this case study are having a negative impact on proficiency for these students on the state standardized assessments. Kolb\u27s experiential learning theory and Rogers and Maslow\u27s humanistic theory provided a psychological framework for the study. The qualitative case study included staff interviews and a review of documents. Purposeful sampling included 11 subjects; 6 teachers, 2 counselors, 2 administrators, and the nurse from 1 selected middle school, who had experiences working with low SES students in reading language arts classes in grades 6 through 8. Data from interviews and document review were coded and analyzed for common themes. Results included 4 major themes; student focused instruction, challenges for instructing low SES students, supports needed for effective instruction, and discipline challenges. Findings supported construction of a professional development program project for school personnel that incorporated these themes with emphasis on improving educational outcomes for low SES students by addressing individual social, emotional and academic needs. This study might contribute to positive social change by providing school personnel with the ability to identify and collaboratively address the individual needs of the whole low SES student to enhance their learning and contributions to society

Characteristics of Kepler Planetary Candidates Based on the First Data Set: The Majority are Found to be Neptune-Size and Smaller

In the spring of 2009, the Kepler Mission commenced high-precision photometry on nearly 156,000 stars to determine the frequency and characteristics of small exoplanets, conduct a guest observer program, and obtain asteroseismic data on a wide variety of stars. On 15 June 2010 the Kepler Mission released data from the first quarter of observations. At the time of this publication, 706 stars from this first data set have exoplanet candidates with sizes from as small as that of the Earth to larger than that of Jupiter. Here we give the identity and characteristics of 306 released stars with planetary candidates. Data for the remaining 400 stars with planetary candidates will be released in February 2011. Over half the candidates on the released list have radii less than half that of Jupiter. The released stars include five possible multi-planet systems. One of these has two Neptune-size (2.3 and 2.5 Earth-radius) candidates with near-resonant periods.Comment: Paper to accompany Kepler's June 15, 2010 data release; submitted to Astrophysical Journal Figures 1,2,& 3 revised. Improved labeling on all figures. Slight changes to planet frequencies in result

Two Warm Super-Earths Transiting the Nearby M Dwarf TOI-2095

We report the detection and validation of two planets orbiting TOI-2095 (TIC 235678745). The host star is a 3700K M1V dwarf with a high proper motion. The star lies at a distance of 42 pc in a sparsely populated portion of the sky and is bright in the infrared (K=9). With data from 24 Sectors of observation during TESS's Cycles 2 and 4, TOI-2095 exhibits two sets of transits associated with super-Earth-sized planets. The planets have orbital periods of 17.7 days and 28.2 days and radii of 1.30 and 1.39 Earth radii, respectively. Archival data, preliminary follow-up observations, and vetting analyses support the planetary interpretation of the detected transit signals. The pair of planets have estimated equilibrium temperatures of approximately 400 K, with stellar insolations of 3.23 and 1.73 times that of Earth, placing them in the Venus zone. The planets also lie in a radius regime signaling the transition between rock-dominated and volatile-rich compositions. They are thus prime targets for follow-up mass measurements to better understand the properties of warm, transition radius planets. The relatively long orbital periods of these two planets provide crucial data that can help shed light on the processes that shape the composition of small planets orbiting M dwarfs.Comment: Submitted to AAS Journal

Kepler Planet-Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results

The Kepler mission was designed to determine the frequency of Earth-sized planets in and near the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. The habitable zone is the region where planetary temperatures are suitable for water to exist on a planet’s surface. During the first 6 weeks of observations, Kepler monitored 156,000 stars, and five new exoplanets with sizes between 0.37 and 1.6 Jupiter radii and orbital periods from 3.2 to 4.9 days were discovered. The density of the Neptune-sized Kepler-4b is similar to that of Neptune and GJ 436b, even though the irradiation level is 800,000 times higher. Kepler-7b is one of the lowest-density planets (~0.17 gram per cubic centimeter) yet detected. Kepler-5b, -6b, and -8b confirm the existence of planets with densities lower than those predicted for gas giant planets

Malleable Machines in Transcription Regulation: The Mediator Complex

The Mediator complex provides an interface between gene-specific regulatory proteins and the general transcription machinery including RNA polymerase II (RNAP II). The complex has a modular architecture (Head, Middle, and Tail) and cryoelectron microscopy analysis suggested that it undergoes dramatic conformational changes upon interactions with activators and RNAP II. These rearrangements have been proposed to play a role in the assembly of the preinitiation complex and also to contribute to the regulatory mechanism of Mediator. In analogy to many regulatory and transcriptional proteins, we reasoned that Mediator might also utilize intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) to facilitate structural transitions and transmit transcriptional signals. Indeed, a high prevalence of IDRs was found in various subunits of Mediator from both Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Homo sapiens, especially in the Tail and the Middle modules. The level of disorder increases from yeast to man, although in both organisms it significantly exceeds that of multiprotein complexes of a similar size. IDRs can contribute to Mediator's function in three different ways: they can individually serve as target sites for multiple partners having distinctive structures; they can act as malleable linkers connecting globular domains that impart modular functionality on the complex; and they can also facilitate assembly and disassembly of complexes in response to regulatory signals. Short segments of IDRs, termed molecular recognition features (MoRFs) distinguished by a high protein–protein interaction propensity, were identified in 16 and 19 subunits of the yeast and human Mediator, respectively. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the functional roles of 11 MoRFs have been experimentally verified, and those in the Med8/Med18/Med20 and Med7/Med21 complexes were structurally confirmed. Although the Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Homo sapiens Mediator sequences are only weakly conserved, the arrangements of the disordered regions and their embedded interaction sites are quite similar in the two organisms. All of these data suggest an integral role for intrinsic disorder in Mediator's function