Assessment of Ground Water Exchange in Two Stream Channels and Associated Riparian Zones, Jocko Valley, Western Montana

Fiaschetti, Aaron, M.S., December 2006 Geology Assessment of Ground Exchange in Two Steam Channels and Associated Riparian Zones, Jocko Valley, Western Montana Chairperson: William W. Woessner Degraded riparian habitat is a concern throughout the United States. Repairing anthropogenic damage to river channels and wetlands is becoming increasingly popular,though including design features to re-establish ground water and surface water exchange rates and timing are rarely implemented. The goal of this project is to characterize the surface water/ ground water exchange rates of two stream and riparian systems that have been altered by agriculture use. Hydrogeological and hydrological field experiments were performed to better understand the location and magnitude of ground water and surface water exchange throughout each site. These data were compiled into a water balance for the Sque-que study site. Vertical hydraulic gradients, temperature monitoring and ground water chemistry were key components used to identify areas of surface water/ground water exchange.I concluded that surface water/ground water interactions are occurring on sub-reach scales throughout the Sque-que study site. The riparian water table position changed little throughout the year and remained within two meters of the land surface. At the Jocko River site a net gain of ground water along the 1 km reach was not detectable. Modeling suggests the position of current water table will rise if drainage ditches are filled at the study sites and that recovery of wetlands is possible

Let us buy sustainable! The impact of cash mobs on sustainable consumption: Experimental results

Cash mob is a practice where groups of people gather at local shops to buy a given product (usually with a strong sustainable feature) and make their decisions visible to the general public. With our paper we aim to assess the effectiveness of the cash mob as a behavioural tool and provide a better understanding of the behavioural triggers of consumers’ decision making process. We run a laboratory experiment where we mimic sustainable consumption and the cash mob treatment is embedded in a sequential game structure with/without an environmental frame. We find that the cash mob treatment has a positive gross effect, that is, the share of sustainable consumers is significantly higher in treated sessions. We also document a significant effect of expectations about the number of those eliciting a sustainable behaviour depending on participants’ previous choices. Our results suggest that cash mob-like mechanisms can help to solve social dilemmas like sustainable consumption with entirely private solutions (not based on punishment like taxes but on positive action), and with no costs for government budgets

Legacy and shockwaves: A spatial analysis of strengthening resilience of the power grid in Connecticut

Grid resilience and reliability are pivotal in the transition to low and zero carbon energy systems. Tree-trimming operations (TTOs) have become a pivotal tool for increasing the resilience power grids, especially in highly forested regions. Building on recent literature, we aim at assessing the temporal and spatial extents of the benefits that TTOs produce on the grid from three perspectives: the frequency, extent, and duration of outages. We use a unique dataset provided by Eversource Energy, New England's largest utility company, with outage events from 2009 to 2015. We employ spatial econometrics to investigate both the legacy and spatial extent of TTOs. Our results show TTOs benefits occur for all three metrics for at least 4 years, and benefits spillover to up to 2 km throughout the treated areas, with significant spatial spillovers across the state greater than direct effects. Implications lead to supporting TTOs as part of the hardening policies for utility companies, especially as home-based activities increase in importance in a post-COVID19 world

Ensuring Cyber-Security in Smart Railway Surveillance with SHIELD

Modern railways feature increasingly complex embedded computing systems for surveillance, that are moving towards fully wireless smart-sensors. Those systems are aimed at monitoring system status from a physical-security viewpoint, in order to detect intrusions and other environmental anomalies. However, the same systems used for physical-security surveillance are vulnerable to cyber-security threats, since they feature distributed hardware and software architectures often interconnected by ‘open networks’, like wireless channels and the Internet. In this paper, we show how the integrated approach to Security, Privacy and Dependability (SPD) in embedded systems provided by the SHIELD framework (developed within the EU funded pSHIELD and nSHIELD research projects) can be applied to railway surveillance systems in order to measure and improve their SPD level. SHIELD implements a layered architecture (node, network, middleware and overlay) and orchestrates SPD mechanisms based on ontology models, appropriate metrics and composability. The results of prototypical application to a real-world demonstrator show the effectiveness of SHIELD and justify its practical applicability in industrial settings

Advice in Defined Contribution Plans

This paper is concerned with advice-seeking by DC plan participants as they approach retirement, focusing upon the categories, correlates and timing of advice-seeking. Our empirical analysis utilizes a large Australian data base, identifies the drivers of advice-seeking behavior and, most importantly, pinpoints age-specific reference points that appear to prompt participants to seek advice about retirement planning from the plan administrator. We analyze the patterns of advice-seeking by older participants, focusing upon the topics-raised and determinants of advice-seeking discriminating between the effects of age, gender and account balances on retirement planning. An important aspect of the paper concerns whether there is evidence of an increasing focus on retirement as participants go from 45-49 years to 65 years or more. Implications are drawn for the design of pension plans as regards their engagement with older participants

Fault location index for distribution power system restoration using voltage sags

Debido a la expansión de los sistemas de distribución de energía, garantizar un servicio sininterrupciones es un área de gran interés en el estudio de los sistemas eléctricos. En este contexto, lossistemas de distribución pueden ser afectados por tormentas, animales, o simplemente el deterioro de losequipos ubicados en campo. Por esta razón, es importante que este tipo de sistemas pueda identificar yaislar la ocurrencia de una falla tan rápido como sea posible. Este trabajo propone un método de ubicación de fallas aplicable a cualquier red de distribución. El método propuesto calcula un valor de índicepara cada nodo del sistema a partir de la caída de tensión producida por fallas monofásicas, bifásicas,bifásicas a tierra y trifásicas. El enfoque propuesto es analizado sobre una red de 34 nodos de IEEE,donde los resultados obtenidos permiten concluir que es posible identificar el tipo de falla, la sección ysu ubicación con gran precisión.Fil: Fiaschetti, Leandro Pedro. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Grupo de Plasmas Densos Magnetizados. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comision de Investigaciones Científicas. Grupo de Plasmas Densos Magnetizados; ArgentinaFil: Antunez, Matias Antonio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Grupo de Plasmas Densos Magnetizados. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comision de Investigaciones Científicas. Grupo de Plasmas Densos Magnetizados; ArgentinaFil: Boroni, Gustavo Adolfo. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Grupo de Plasmas Densos Magnetizados. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comision de Investigaciones Científicas. Grupo de Plasmas Densos Magnetizados; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Targeting MYC and MYC target genes as therapeutic strategies in childhood medulloblastoma

MYC and its target genes have become attractive targets for cancer therapy, due to the correlations of the oncogene with high grade malignancy and poor prognosis in different types of tumors. My research investigations focused on novel strategies to target the oncogene MYC and/or its target genes, in the context of MYC-overexpressing embryonal tumors (ET), and in particular in medulloblastoma (MB). Although the MYC functions during normal development and oncogenesis in various systems have been extensively investigated, the transcriptional targets mediating MYC effects in MB are still elusive. A better knowledge about the MYC’s effector genes involved in MB onset and progression is of great relevance in order to find novel and suitable therapeutic strategies. Our experimental approach to investigate MYC-regulated genes consisted of using a model of MB-derived cells and profiling them by cDNA microarray upon genetic manipulation aiming at either over-expressing or down- regulating MYC. We defined a list of 209 candidates with potential relevance to MYC- dependent cellular responses in MB. The gene expression analysis we performed brought to our attention components of the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling pathway, which plays a crucial role during the development of the cerebellum. Our investigation shows for the first time the existence of a functional link between the over- expression of MYC and abnormal regulation of the BMP pathway in a model of MB. Taken together, the studies presented in this dissertation have investigated novel strategies to target the oncogene MYC and its target genes in ETs. Further validation, as well as translation to clinical studies, can, in the future, shed more light on the biology of these pediatric tumors and contribute to an improvement of therapies. Das Onkogen MYC und die dadurch regulierten Gene stehen seit geraumer Zeit im Forschungsinteresse für die Entwicklung neuer Krebstherapien, da MYC mit dem Auftreten hochgradig maligner Tumore und schlechter Prognose in unterschiedlichen Krebsarten korreliert. Im Mittelpunkt meiner Forschung stand die Untersuchung neuer „Targeting-Strategien“ für das Onkogen MYC in embryonalen Tumoren inklusive Medulloblastom, dem häufigsten kindlichen malignen Hirntumor. Obwohl die Funktionen von MYC sowohl in der normalen Entwicklung als auch in onkogenen Prozessen bereits in verschiedenen Modellsystemen intensiv untersucht wurden, sind die transkriptionellen Targets, welche die Effekte der Überexpression von MYC im Medulloblastom charakterisieren, weitgehend unbekannt. Um Medulloblastom- spezifische MYC-regulierte Gene zu finden, wurden MB Zellen mit einer MYC – Überexpression und MB Zellen, in denen MYC herunterreguliert war, einer cDNA Microarray Analyse unterzogen. Aus diesem Versuch konnten wir eine Liste von 209 Genen mit potentieller MYC-abhängigen Relevanz erstellen, die u. a. Gene des „Bone Morphogenetic Protein“ (BMP) -Signalwegs beinhaltete. Dieser Signalweg spielt eine wichtige Rolle in der Entwicklung des Kleinhirns. Unsere Forschung zeigte zum ersten Mal eine Verbindung zwischen der Überexpression von MYC und einer Dysregulierung des BMP-Signalwegs im Medulloblastom. Unsere Ergebnisse lassen darauf schliessen, dass der Wachstumsfaktor BMP7 MYC-abhängig induziert wird und es sich hierbei um ein direktes MYC-Target handelt. In der vorliegenden Dissertation wurden neue “Targeting-Strategien” für das Onkogen MYC in embryonalen Tumoren untersucht. Dadurch wurde das Verständnis der Biologie dieser Tumoren verbessert und es wurden Grundlagen geschaffen für die Entwicklung von zukünftigen Therapiemöglichkeiten

Playing with your Future: Who Gambles in Defined-Contribution Pension Plans?

In this article, we investigate the relationship between volatility in the stock market and the trading behaviour of employees in defined-contribution (DC) pension schemes. We found that 10 per cent of our sample exhibited compulsive gambling behaviour; in other words, they both ‘fed’ and ‘fed-off’ volatility, and that their individual attributes such as gender, experience in the firm and age clearly influenced their trading behaviour. Our findings shed new light on the behavioural drivers of financial decision-making in a saving-for-retirement setting, and on the crucial importance of the need for the financial industry and policy makers to address the growing onus put on ill-equipped non-professional financial decision makers. JEL Codes. G12, G41, J26, C3

Attack-Surface Metrics, OSSTMM and Common Criteria Based Approach to “Composable Security” in Complex Systems

In recent studies on Complex Systems and Systems-of-Systems theory, a huge effort has been put to cope with behavioral problems, i.e. the possibility of controlling a desired overall or end-to-end behavior by acting on the individual elements that constitute the system itself. This problem is particularly important in the “SMART” environments, where the huge number of devices, their significant computational capabilities as well as their tight interconnection produce a complex architecture for which it is difficult to predict (and control) a desired behavior; furthermore, if the scenario is allowed to dynamically evolve through the modification of both topology and subsystems composition, then the control problem becomes a real challenge. In this perspective, the purpose of this paper is to cope with a specific class of control problems in complex systems, the “composability of security functionalities”, recently introduced by the European Funded research through the pSHIELD and nSHIELD projects (ARTEMIS-JU programme). In a nutshell, the objective of this research is to define a control framework that, given a target security level for a specific application scenario, is able to i) discover the system elements, ii) quantify the security level of each element as well as its contribution to the security of the overall system, and iii) compute the control action to be applied on such elements to reach the security target. The main innovations proposed by the authors are: i) the definition of a comprehensive methodology to quantify the security of a generic system independently from the technology and the environment and ii) the integration of the derived metrics into a closed-loop scheme that allows real-time control of the system. The solution described in this work moves from the proof-of-concepts performed in the early phase of the pSHIELD research and enrich es it through an innovative metric with a sound foundation, able to potentially cope with any kind of pplication scenarios (railways, automotive, manufacturing, ...)