Gauge Five Brane Dynamics And Small Instanton Transitions In Heterotic Models

We present the first examples of cosmological solutions to four-dimensional heterotic models which include an evolving bundle modulus. The particular bundle modulus we consider corresponds to the width of a gauge five brane. As such our solutions can be used to describe the evolution in one of these models after a small instanton transition. We find that certain properties are generic to these solutions, regardless of initial conditions. This enables us to make some definite statements about the dynamics subsequent to a small instanton transition despite the fact that we cannot microscopically describe the process itself. We also show that an effective description of the small instanton transition by a continuous matching of fields and their first derivatives is precluded by the form of the respective low-energy theories before and after the transition.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

Bridging Two Continents: Using Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) to Explore Healthcare Services

Intercultural competence is becoming necessary in all structures of life as our diversity grows and globalization continues to grow. Even in the field of business intercultural learning is equally vital domestically and internationally (Bennett, J. M. 2008). Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is a methodology in teaching and learning that continues to grow in use and can aid in filling this intercultural gap. The methodological COIL approach aids to building cultural competency and partnerships in the higher education community. Throughout this collaborative manuscript between three instructors at two universities, Nottingham Trent University (NTU) in the United Kingdom and University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) in the United States, discussions will be around the pedagogy of carrying out a COIL module and how COIL was completed in the Fall semester of 2021. Over the course of four weeks, NTU and UMD students worked together to complete key learning objectives of healthcare systems, alternative care, and COVID-19 response in the United Kingdom and the United States. NTU and UMD used technology such as Google My Maps, video recording presentations, and interview questions to further the learning around the key objectives. NTU and UMD each had separate final projects and grading rubrics for final grading and evaluation. Pre-and post-assessment data was collected to better understand student learning outcomes including, cultural learning and cross-cultural ambivalence within the COIL unit. The assessments also provided an overview of future considerations for the collaboration between future instructors in the COIL unit based on student feedback

Leading and Managing Those Working and Living in Captive Environments

I magine you are the warden of a prison or the administrator of a jail, you enter the facility, and the heavy metal door clangs shut behind you. A riot breaks out and several members of your staff are taken hostage. Fires are set in various locations. The rioting inmates, members of a gang, attack other inmates who want no part in the rebellion and are only concerned for their safety. The decisions you as a leader make are literally matters of life or death, not only for yourself, but also for your staff and those incarcerated. The dynamics of power and guarding against potential corruption are also a constant concern. The leader of an incarceration facility must account for and respond to public opinion and political demands, as well as the individual needs and group dynamics of corrections officers and inmates. Some of the desired outcomes for leaders in a confinement setting are a reduction in recidivism, security of the facility, prevention of escape, and efforts at rehabilitation. While some would argue that depending upon the reason for incarceration, the inmates do not deserve much more consideration than would an animal in a zoo, others-leaders-in this situation strive for much more. Accomplished leaders in a confinement setting seek to develop a culture that creates and sustains the psychological health and well-being of the corrections officers and provides inmates opportunities to develop skills and their potential. After all, they are in the people business. Such an approach would conceivably result in an institution that functions based on the strengths of the corrections officers and inmates, thereby allowing them the greatest opportunity for self-development, physical and psychological security, and indirectly decreased chances of recidivism. This chapter discusses the contexts of confinement, the psychology of corrections officers and inmates, and the forces at work on a leader and the population being led

Leading and Managing Those Working and Living in Captive Environments

I magine you are the warden of a prison or the administrator of a jail, you enter the facility, and the heavy metal door clangs shut behind you. A riot breaks out and several members of your staff are taken hostage. Fires are set in various locations. The rioting inmates, members of a gang, attack other inmates who want no part in the rebellion and are only concerned for their safety. The decisions you as a leader make are literally matters of life or death, not only for yourself, but also for your staff and those incarcerated. The dynamics of power and guarding against potential corruption are also a constant concern. The leader of an incarceration facility must account for and respond to public opinion and political demands, as well as the individual needs and group dynamics of corrections officers and inmates. Some of the desired outcomes for leaders in a confinement setting are a reduction in recidivism, security of the facility, prevention of escape, and efforts at rehabilitation. While some would argue that depending upon the reason for incarceration, the inmates do not deserve much more consideration than would an animal in a zoo, others-leaders-in this situation strive for much more. Accomplished leaders in a confinement setting seek to develop a culture that creates and sustains the psychological health and well-being of the corrections officers and provides inmates opportunities to develop skills and their potential. After all, they are in the people business. Such an approach would conceivably result in an institution that functions based on the strengths of the corrections officers and inmates, thereby allowing them the greatest opportunity for self-development, physical and psychological security, and indirectly decreased chances of recidivism. This chapter discusses the contexts of confinement, the psychology of corrections officers and inmates, and the forces at work on a leader and the population being led

Measurement of open innovation in the marine biotechnology sector in Oman

National economies are often strengthened by diversification, which is built in turn on a healthy and productive culture of national innovation. Innovation is a complex process, which is difficult to measure in an objective manner. In this work and for the first time, a quantitative measure for open innovation has been developed and validated to determine the performance of a firm within the marine biotechnology sector in Oman. This breakthrough was achieved in four steps. First, the characteristics of the two dimensions of open innovation ('breadth' and 'depth') were identified using a critical review of the literature and a series of pre-tests of a survey design with industrial experts. Second, a quantitative index for open innovation by measuring these two dimensions at firm level was developed. Third, validation of this five-item scale was conducted using the UK Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data set. Fourth, the five-item scale was applied to 22 firms in the marine bio-industry sector in Oman using a case study approach, and was used to rank the firms according to their open innovation index. This analysis shows how Omani marine bio-industry firms could strengthen their open innovation efforts, for example by collaborating more effectively with government organizations and research institutes to thereby boost the quality of their open innovation activities in a measurable way

Quantifying tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte subsets : a practical immuno-histochemical method

Background: Efficient histological quantification of tumour-infiltrating T and B lymphocyte (TIL) subsets in archival tissues would greatly facilitate investigations of the role of TIL in human cancer biology. We sought to develop such a method. Methods: Ten ×40 digital images of 4 μ sections of 16 ductal invasive breast carcinomas immunostained for CD3, CD4, CD8, and CD20 were acquired (a total of 640 images). The number of pixels in each image matching a partition of Lab colour space corresponding to immunostained cells were counted using the ‘Color range’ and ‘Histogram’ tools in Adobe Photoshop 7. These pixel counts were converted to cell counts per mm2 using a calibration factor derived from one, two, three or all 10 images of each case/antibody combination. Results: Variations in the number of labelled pixels per immunostained cell made individual calibration for each case/antibody combination necessary. Calibration based on two fields containing the most labelled pixels gave a cell count minimally higher (+ 5.3%) than the count based on 10-field calibration, with 95% confidence limits − 14.7 to + 25.3%. As TIL density could vary up to 100-fold between cases, this accuracy and precision are acceptable. Conclusion: The methodology described offers sufficient accuracy, precision and efficiency to quantify the density of TIL sub-populations in breast cancer using commonly available software, and could be adapted to batch processing of image files

Yukawa Textures From Heterotic Stability Walls

A holomorphic vector bundle on a Calabi-Yau threefold, X, with h^{1,1}(X)>1 can have regions of its Kahler cone where it is slope-stable, that is, where the four-dimensional theory is N=1 supersymmetric, bounded by "walls of stability". On these walls the bundle becomes poly-stable, decomposing into a direct sum, and the low energy gauge group is enhanced by at least one anomalous U(1) gauge factor. In this paper, we show that these additional symmetries can strongly constrain the superpotential in the stable region, leading to non-trivial textures of Yukawa interactions and restrictions on allowed masses for vector-like pairs of matter multiplets. The Yukawa textures exhibit a hierarchy; large couplings arise on the stability wall and some suppressed interactions "grow back" off the wall, where the extended U(1) symmetries are spontaneously broken. A number of explicit examples are presented involving both one and two stability walls, with different decompositions of the bundle structure group. A three family standard-like model with no vector-like pairs is given as an example of a class of SU(4) bundles that has a naturally heavy third quark/lepton family. Finally, we present the complete set of Yukawa textures that can arise for any holomorphic bundle with one stability wall where the structure group breaks into two factors.Comment: 53 pages, 4 figures and 13 table

Design of robust 2,2′-bipyridine ligand linkers for the stable immobilization of molecular catalysts on silicon(111) surfaces

The attachment of the 2,2′-bipyridine (bpy) moieties to the surface of planar silicon(111) (photo)electrodes was investigated using ab initio simulations performed on a new cluster model for methyl-terminated silicon. Density functional theory (B3LYP) with implicit solvation techniques indicated that adventitious chlorine atoms, when present in the organic linker backbone, led to instability at very negative potentials of the surface-modified electrode. In prior experimental work, chlorine atoms were present as a trace surface impurity due to required surface processing chemistry, and thus could plausibly result in the observed surface instability of the linker. Free energy calculations for the Cl-atom release process with model silyl-linker constructs revealed a modest barrier (14.9 kcal mol⁻¹) that decreased as the electrode potential became more negative. A small library of new bpy-derived structures has additionally been explored computationally to identify strategies that could minimize chlorine-induced linker instability. Structures with fluorine substituents are predicted to be more stable than their chlorine analogues, whereas fully non-halogenated structures are predicted to exhibit the highest stability. The behavior of a hydrogen-evolving molecular catalyst Cp*Rh(bpy) (Cp* = pentamethylcyclopentadienyl) immobilized on a silicon(111) cluster was explored theoretically to evaluate differences between the homogeneous and surface-attached behavior of this species in a tautomerization reaction observed under reductive conditions for catalytic H₂ evolution. The calculated free energy difference between the tautomers is small, hence the results suggest that use of reductively stable linkers can enable robust attachment of catalysts while maintaining chemical behavior on the electrode similar to that exhibited in homogeneous solution

New compound sets identified from high throughput phenotypic screening against three kinetoplastid parasites:an open resource

Using whole-cell phenotypic assays, the GlaxoSmithKline high-throughput screening (HTS) diversity set of 1.8 million compounds was screened against the three kinetoplastids most relevant to human disease, i.e. Leishmania donovani, Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma brucei. Secondary confirmatory and orthogonal intracellular anti-parasiticidal assays were conducted, and the potential for non-specific cytotoxicity determined. Hit compounds were chemically clustered and triaged for desirable physicochemical properties. The hypothetical biological target space covered by these diversity sets was investigated through bioinformatics methodologies. Consequently, three anti-kinetoplastid chemical boxes of ~200 compounds each were assembled. Functional analyses of these compounds suggest a wide array of potential modes of action against kinetoplastid kinases, proteases and cytochromes as well as potential host–pathogen targets. This is the first published parallel high throughput screening of a pharma compound collection against kinetoplastids. The compound sets are provided as an open resource for future lead discovery programs, and to address important research questions.The support and funding of Tres Cantos Open Lab Foundation is gratefully acknowledgedPeer reviewe

The homotopy type of the loops on (n−1)(n-1)-connected (2n+1)(2n+1)-manifolds

For $n\geq 2$ we compute the homotopy groups of $(n-1)$-connected closed manifolds of dimension $(2n+1)$. Away from the finite set of primes dividing the order of the torsion subgroup in homology, the $p$-local homotopy groups of $M$ are determined by the rank of the free Abelian part of the homology. Moreover, we show that these $p$-local homotopy groups can be expressed as a direct sum of $p$-local homotopy groups of spheres. The integral homotopy type of the loop space is also computed and shown to depend only on the rank of the free Abelian part and the torsion subgroup.Comment: Trends in Algebraic Topology and Related Topics, Trends Math., Birkhauser/Springer, 2018. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1510.0519