A Vision for and Brief History of Youth Philanthropy

AFP offers this report as both an evaluation and marker of the state of the youth philanthropy field and as a record of the Youth in Philanthropy Summit -- its proceedings, outcomes and next steps. Significant progress was achieved; partnerships were forged; a future was envisioned; and each of the participants agreed to ownership of results. The Summit provided direction for what needs to happen for youth philanthropy to become both recognized as a movement and fully integrated into the national and international consciousness.This document has three primary purposes: to offer information on youth philanthropy, its origins and history; to present the development of the Summit; and to document the key themes and outcomes

Semantic browsing of digital collections

Visiting museums is an increasingly popular pastime. Studies have shown that visitors can draw on their museum experience, long after their visit, to learn new things in practical situations. Rather than viewing a visit as a single learning event, we are interested in ways of extending the experience to allow visitors to access online resources tailored to their interests. Museums typically have extensive archives that can be made available online, the challenge is to match these resources to the visitor’s interests and present them in a manner that facilitates exploration and engages the visitor. We propose the use of knowledge level resource descriptions to identify relevant resources and create structured presentations. A system that embodies this approach, which is in use in a UK museum, is presented and the applicability of the approach to the broader semantic web is discussed

On the zero of the fermion zero mode

We argue that the fermionic zero mode in non-trivial gauge field backgrounds must have a zero. We demonstrate this explicitly for calorons where its location is related to a constituent monopole. Furthermore a topological reasoning for the existence of the zero is given which therefore will be present for any non-trivial configuration. We propose the use of this property in particular for lattice simulations in order to uncover the topological content of a configuration.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures in 5 part

Anderson localization through Polyakov loops: lattice evidence and Random matrix model

We investigate low-lying fermion modes in SU(2) gauge theory at temperatures above the phase transition. Both staggered and overlap spectra reveal transitions from chaotic (random matrix) to integrable (Poissonian) behavior accompanied by an increasing localization of the eigenmodes. We show that the latter are trapped by local Polyakov loop fluctuations. Islands of such "wrong" Polyakov loops can therefore be viewed as defects leading to Anderson localization in gauge theories. We find strong similarities in the spatial profile of these localized staggered and overlap eigenmodes. We discuss possible interpretations of this finding and present a sparse random matrix model that reproduces these features.Comment: 11 pages, 23 plots in 11 figures; some comments and references added, some axis labels corrected; journal versio

Phenotypic and molecular characterization root system architecture in diverse soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) accessions

Root system architecture (RSA), or the spatial arrangement of the root and its morphology, functions to anchor the plant, provide water and nutrient acquisition, nutrient storage and to facilitate plant-microbe interactions such as nodulation in legumes such as soybean [Glycine max L. Merr.)]. Root structure also correlates to environmental advantages, such as nutrient acquisition, drought, flood tolerance, and lodging resistance. After centuries of indirect selection for RSA, there is a focus to harness soybean RSA diversity for exploitation and implementation into cultivar development programs. Researchers have generally taken one of three strategies to approach root phenotyping including controlled laboratory, moderately controlled greenhouse and minimally controlled field methods. In this study we developed a mobile, low-cost, and high-resolution root phenotyping system composed of an imaging platform with computer vision and ML based approaches to establish a seamless end-to-end pipeline. This system provides a high-throughput, cost effective, non-destructive methodology that delivers biologically relevant time-series data on root growth and development for phenomics, genomics, and plant breeding applications. We customized a previous version of the Automated Root Imaging Analysis root phenotyping software. New modifications to the workflow allow integrates time series image capture coupled with automated image processing that uses optical character recognition to identify barcodes, followed by segmentation using a convolutional neural network. The goal of this research was to study the root trait genetic diversity in soybean using 292 soybean accessions from the USDA core collection primarily in maturity group II and III and a subset of the soybean nested association mapping (NAM) parents. Combining 35,448 SNPs with a semi-automated phenotyping platform, these 292 accessions were studied for RSA traits to decipher the genetic diversity and explore informative root (iRoot) categories based on current literature for root shape categories. Genotype- and phenotype-based hierarchical clusters were found from the diverse set with significant correlations. Genotype based clusters correlated with geographical origins, and genetic differentiation indicated that much of US origin genotypes do not possess genetic diversity for RSA traits. Results show that superior root performance and root shape also correlate to specific genomic clusters. This combination of genetic and phenotypic analyses results provides opportunities for targeted breeding efforts to maximize the beneficial genetic diversity for future genetic gains. Further objectives of this study was to identify genetic control of RSA within the diverse soybean landscape as well as determine whether a genomic prediction could be a viable strategy for breeding for root architecture traits. The GWAS detected 30 SNPs which co-located within previously identified QTL for root traits and identified a number of root development gene candidates. The GP model is capable of predicting phenotypes based on genomic data allowing selection of individuals with root traits of interest within the core collection without utilizing phenotypic data. Plant phenomics coupled with molecular technologies and statistical approaches identify genotypes with favorable or unfavorable traits, allowing for inexpensive selections prior to field trial phenotyping. Employment of these genomic and phenomic technologies will allow soybean breeders to vastly expand the scope of a breeding program

System design and performance of earth/lunar horizon sensor BEC project 3744

An infrared horizon sensor system has been designed which is capable of searching over a wide field for the edges of a planet and, upon locating such edges, stations itself in a position which provides signals which identify the local vertical to the planet. In this fixed attitude it requires no continuous mechanical movement and operates with a minimum utilization of power. The system is thus capable of providing a high degree of accuracy when used for local vertical determination in orbits around the earth, the moon, or other planets. A detailed description of the design and operating features of the horizon scanner is given and the evaluation test data which have been completed are presented

Excited Heavy Mesons Beyond Leading Order in the Heavy Quark Expansion

We examine the decays of excited heavy mesons, including the leading power corrections to the heavy quark limit. We find a new and natural explanation for the large deviation of the width of the $D_1(2420)$ from the heavy quark symmetry prediction. Our formalism leads to detailed predictions for the properties of the excited bottom mesons, some of which recently have been observed. Finally, we present a detailed analysis of the effect of power corrections and finite meson widths on the angular distributions which may be measured in heavy meson decays.Comment: Uses REVTeX, 19 pages, 6 EPS figures embedded with epsf.st

The Inclusive Semileptonic Decay Lepton Spectrum from B→Xeν‾B \to X e \overline{\nu}

In this talk, we review the QCD calculation of the lepton spectrum from inclusive semileptonic $B$ decay. We compare this prediction to that of the ACCMM model. This latter work was done in collaboration with Csaba Csaki.Comment: MIT-CTP-2333, uses LATEX. Invited Talk, Presented at WHEPP-3 Workshop in Madras,India, January, 199