How the Mind Refigures Memory: The Role of Social Construction and Fallibility in the Fictions of Faulkner, Woolf, and Nabokov

This thesis argues that some literary works of William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, and Vladimir Nabokov both engage and represent fictional memory and support certain claims made by memorial studies that explain memories as coming into existence through a dynamic process, being transformed from their original state to incorporate knowledge learned at a time later than that of the memory’s formation. The thesis examines how it is that the mind is socially conditioned into a predetermined notion of reality, maintained by collective memory. This conditioning takes place at the onset of memory formation and results in limiting the mind to a finite number of memories. Rather than continuously creating new memories, the mind compiles very few memories that conform to social reality. This aggregate effect creates the allusion that new memories are created throughout life; whereas, the idea of a new memory is actually synonymous with a product of the imagination, a product that is limited in most after a certain point in development. Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury exhibit the mnemonic processes of association. This thesis shows that memorial association, while helping to strengthen long-term memories, directly causes confabulation; however, what these texts, along with Faulkner’s Light in August and Nabokov’s Speak, Memory, and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse also demonstrate is a questioning of a learned notion of reality. I argue that this reality is an entirely subjective construct and one that prevents certain experiences from becoming memories

A Policy Maker’s Guide to Designing Payments for Ecosystem Services

Over the past five years, there has been increasing interest around the globe in payment schemes for the provision of ecosystem services, such as water purification, carbon sequestration, flood control, etc. Written for an Asian Development Bank project in China, this report provides a user-friendly guide to designing payments for the provision of ecosystem services. Part I explains the different types of ecosystem services, different ways of assessing their value, and why they are traditionally under-protected by law and policy. This is followed by an analysis of when payments for services are a preferable approach to other policy instruments. Part II explains the design issues underlying payments for services. These include identification of the service as well as potential buyers and sellers, the level of service needed, payment timing, payment type, and risk allocation. Part II contains a detailed analysis of the different types of payment mechanisms, ranging from general subsidy and certification to mitigation and offset payments. Part III explores the challenges to designing a payment scheme. These include the ability to monitor service provision, secure property rights, perverse incentives, supporting institutions, and poverty alleviation

Microcontrollers for Mechanical Engineers: From Assembly Language to Controller Implementation

This paper describes the evolution of a graduate and advanced undergraduate mechanical engineering course on microcontrollers and electromechanical control systems. The course begins with developing an understanding of the architecture of the microcontroller, and low-level programming in assembly language. It then proceeds to working with various functions of the microcontroller, including serial communications, interrupts, analog to digital conversion, and digital to analog conversion. Finally, the students learn how to characterize first and second order systems, and develop and implement their own controllers for a variety of electromechanical systems. The course takes the uncommon approach of teaching assembly language programming to mechanical engineering students, with the students using assembly language programming for approximately half of the course and the remainder using the C programming language. The authors believe that this approach helps students develop a better understanding of the architecture of the microcontroller and low-level routines found in embedded control applications. The course provides a bridge between traditional mechatronics courses that focus on electronics and interfacing, and lab-based control courses that use turnkey data acquisition systems and graphical programming tools such as Simulink or LabVIEW. The course has existed for over two decades, using a variety of microprocessor and microcontroller platforms. After evaluating numerous alternatives, the course was recently updated to use a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller evaluation board from STMicroelectronics paired with custom interfacing circuitry. This platform was chosen not only for more modern microcontroller technology, but also for the availability of free development tools and very inexpensive evaluation boards. This allows the students to write and test their programs outside of scheduled lab times, along with the ability to cost-effectively utilize microcontrollers in future projects

Ecosystem Services in Decision Making: Time to Deliver

Over the past decade, efforts to value and protect ecosystem services have been promoted by many as the last, best hope for making conservation mainstream – attractive and commonplace worldwide. In theory, if we can help individuals and institutions to recognize the value of nature, then this should greatly increase investments in conservation, while at the same time fostering human well-being. In practice, however, we have not yet developed the scientific basis, nor the policy and finance mechanisms, for incorporating natural capital into resource- and land-use decisions on a large scale. Here, we propose a conceptual framework and sketch out a strategic plan for delivering on the promise of ecosystem services, drawing on emerging examples from Hawai‘i. We describe key advances in the science and practice of accounting for natural capital in the decisions of individuals, communities, corporations, and governments

Ecosystem Services in Decision Making: Time to Deliver

Over the past decade, efforts to value and protect ecosystem services have been promoted by many as the last, best hope for making conservation mainstream – attractive and commonplace worldwide. In theory, if we can help individuals and institutions to recognize the value of nature, then this should greatly increase investments in conservation, while at the same time fostering human well-being. In practice, however, we have not yet developed the scientific basis, nor the policy and finance mechanisms, for incorporating natural capital into resource- and land-use decisions on a large scale. Here, we propose a conceptual framework and sketch out a strategic plan for delivering on the promise of ecosystem services, drawing on emerging examples from Hawai‘i. We describe key advances in the science and practice of accounting for natural capital in the decisions of individuals, communities, corporations, and governments

Erratum: The Non-Coding RNA Journal Club: Highlights on Recent Papers-4. Non-Coding RNA 2016, 2, 9.

Please note that in the published editorial [1], affiliations 1, and 8 contained errors.[...]

Is there a relativistic nonlinear generalization of quantum mechanics?

Yes, there is. - A new kind of gauge theory is introduced, where the minimal coupling and corresponding covariant derivatives are defined in the space of functions pertaining to the functional Schroedinger picture of a given field theory. While, for simplicity, we study the example of an U(1) symmetry, this kind of gauge theory can accommodate other symmetries as well. We consider the resulting relativistic nonlinear extension of quantum mechanics and show that it incorporates gravity in the (0+1)-dimensional limit, where it leads to the Schroedinger-Newton equations. Gravity is encoded here into a universal nonlinear extension of quantum theory. The probabilistic interpretation, i.e. Born's rule, holds provided the underlying model has only dimensionless parameters.Comment: 10 pages; talk at DICE 2006 (Piombino, September 11-15, 2006); to appear in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (2007

Probing the physiology of ASH neuron in Caenorhabditis elegans using electric current stimulation

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98694/1/ApplPhysLett_99_053702.pd

Causal propagation of geometrical fields in relativistic cosmology

We employ the extended 1+3 orthonormal frame formalism for fluid spacetime geometries $({\cal M}, {\bf g}, {\bf u})$, which contains the Bianchi field equations for the Weyl curvature, to derive a 44-D evolution system of first-order symmetric hyperbolic form for a set of geometrically defined dynamical field variables. Describing the matter source fields phenomenologically in terms of a barotropic perfect fluid, the propagation velocities $v$ (with respect to matter-comoving observers that Fermi-propagate their spatial reference frames) of disturbances in the matter and the gravitational field, represented as wavefronts by the characteristic 3-surfaces of the system, are obtained. In particular, the Weyl curvature is found to account for two (non-Lorentz-invariant) Coulomb-like characteristic eigenfields propagating with $v = 0$ and four transverse characteristic eigenfields propagating with $|v| = 1$, which are well known, and four (non-Lorentz-invariant) longitudinal characteristic eigenfields propagating with |v| = \sfrac{1}{2}. The implications of this result are discussed in some detail and a parallel is drawn to the propagation of irregularities in the matter distribution. In a worked example, we specialise the equations to cosmological models in locally rotationally symmetric class II and include the constraints into the set of causally propagating dynamical variables.Comment: 25 pages, RevTeX (10pt), accepted for publication by Physical Review

Using second harmonic generation to predict patient outcome in solid tumors

Abstract Background Over-treatment of estrogen receptor positive (ER+), lymph node-negative (LNN) breast cancer patients with chemotherapy is a pressing clinical problem that can be addressed by improving techniques to predict tumor metastatic potential. Here we demonstrate that analysis of second harmonic generation (SHG) emission direction in primary tumor biopsies can provide prognostic information about the metastatic outcome of ER+, LNN breast cancer, as well as stage 1 colorectal adenocarcinoma. Methods SHG is an optical signal produced by fibrillar collagen. The ratio of the forward-to-backward emitted SHG signals (F/B) is sensitive to changes in structure of individual collagen fibers. F/B from excised primary tumor tissue was measured in a retrospective study of LNN breast cancer patients who had received no adjuvant systemic therapy and related to metastasis-free survival (MFS) and overall survival (OS) rates. In addition, F/B was studied for its association with the length of progression-free survival (PFS) in a subgroup of ER+ patients who received tamoxifen as first-line treatment for recurrent disease, and for its relation with OS in stage I colorectal and stage 1 lung adenocarcinoma patients. Results In 125 ER+, but not in 96 ER-negative (ER-), LNN breast cancer patients an increased F/B was significantly associated with a favorable MFS and OS (log rank trend for MFS: p = 0.004 and for OS: p = 0.03). On the other hand, an increased F/B was associated with shorter PFS in 60 ER+ recurrent breast cancer patients treated with tamoxifen (log rank trend p = 0.02). In stage I colorectal adenocarcinoma, an increased F/B was significantly related to poor OS (log rank trend p = 0.03), however this relationship was not statistically significant in stage I lung adenocarcinoma. Conclusion Within ER+, LNN breast cancer specimens the F/B can stratify patients based upon their potential for tumor aggressiveness. This offers a “matrix-focused” method to predict metastatic outcome that is complementary to genomic “cell-focused” methods. In combination, this and other methods may contribute to improved metastatic prediction, and hence may help to reduce patient over-treatment.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116036/1/12885_2015_Article_1911.pd