The Next British Invasion is Securities Crowdfunding: How Issuing Non-Registered Securities Through the Crowd Can Succeed in the United States

Securities crowdfunding is the novel concept of using the power of the Internet to raise business capital through the crowd. British companies and investors have proven adept at using the relatively new medium of crowdfunding as a means of providing much needed capital to startups and other small businesses. This Comment examines securities crowdfunding in the United Kingdom in an effort to show how this means of capital formation might succeed in the United States once the SEC implements proposed rules exempting crowdfunded securities from registration. Other commentators have already provided ample criticism of the crowdfunding exemption in the JOBS Act, but none has yet to examine how this flawed legislation might add value to American entrepreneurial finance. This Comment asserts that securities crowdfunding stakeholders will likely overcome these regulatory hurdles to develop a robust market in the United States-particularly with regard to debt securities-that will be similar to the market in the United Kingdom.

Determination of snow depth and water equivalent by remote sensing

Submitted to Office of Water Research and Technology, U.S. Department of the Interior.June 1976.This exploratory study was designed to investigate the possibilities of using inexpensive aerial remote sensing methods to measure the snowpack and its water content. The relation of snow depth and elevation on the same aspect (north or south) was definitely linear but the slopes of the regression lines varied between months and between years. Thus no uniform prediction was possible of snow depth over an entire watershed from a single measurement at one point. Example: The regression equation for March 4, 1972 on the north aspect was YSNOW DEPTH(dm)= -24.5 + (1.10 ± 0.51)XELEV(100m). Snow depth and water equivalent were consistently related to melt date, sometimes quite strongly. The addition of vegetation density to the equation significantly increased the proportion of variability of snow depth which is accounted for. Little strength was added by including the other environmental factors, - aspect, elevation, and slope degree. However, elevation was more strongly related to snow depth early in the spring and aspect was more strongly related later. Prediction of water equivalent was improved by including degree of slope early in the season, and by including aspect and then slope later in the season. An example of multiple regression equation with a multiple R of 0.81 is YSNMAR= -14.0 + 0.08XMELTDA+ 0.095XVEGDEN+ 0.004XELEV - 0.021XFROMN- 0.053XSLOPE where subscripts mean SNow depth (dm) in MARch, MELT DAte (year-day), VEGetation DENsity (100-foot candles), ELEVation (meters), azimuth FROM due North less than 180° (degrees), and degree of SLOPE (Percent). Therefore by measuring the melt date and environmental variables one could predict snow depth and water equivalent, once these equations were established for a given area. Melt date can be measured by observation from two aerial flights at three-day intervals in early spring. The relationship between the elevation of the snow-melt line and time was determined to be linear for each of the three years observed. The average slope of the linear regression was 19.64 meters per day (0.82 meters per hour) during the snow melt period. This rate of recedence was consistent during the three-year period of observation. The variation in date over the three-year period for the snow-melt line to be at a given elevation, was approximately equivalent to the time period for the snow-melt line to raise 600 meters. The photogrammetric determination of snow depths over the area was restricted by the limited number of ground control targets. The measurement and computational procedures for the photographic imagery were adequate for the intended purpose. The determination of the location of additional visible ground control in the available photography would permit more definitive results. The point measurement of the elevation of snow fields can be accomplished if there are sufficient shadows due to vegetation or image texture due to dirt or surface irregularities. Our conclusion is that determination of snow depth and water equivalent by remote sensing from aircraft is possible. We have uncovered the basic principles but further work is needed to develop the method.OWRT Project no. A-019-COLO; supported (in part) by funds provided by the United States Department of the Interior, Office of Water Research and Technology, as authorized by the Water Resources Research Act of 1964, and pursuant to Grant Agreement Nos. 14-31-0001-3806, 14-13-0001-4006, and 14-31-0001-5006

Foehn winds in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctic: The origin of extreme warming events

Foehn winds resulting from topographic modification of airflow in the lee of mountain barriers are frequently experienced in the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDVs) of Antarctica. Strong foehn winds in the MDVs cause dramatic warming at onset and have significant effects on landscape forming processes; however, no detailed scientific investigation of foehn in the MDVs has been conducted. As a result, they are often misinterpreted as adiabatically warmed katabatic winds draining from the polar plateau. Herein observations from surface weather stations and numerical model output from the Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS) during foehn events in the MDVs are presented. Results show that foehn winds in the MDVs are caused by topographic modification of south-southwesterly airflow, which is channeled into the valleys from higher levels. Modeling of a winter foehn event identifies mountain wave activity similar to that associated with midlatitude foehn winds. These events are found to be caused by strong pressure gradients over the mountain ranges of the MDVs related to synoptic-scale cyclones positioned off the coast of Marie Byrd Land. Analysis of meteorological records for 2006 and 2007 finds an increase of 10% in the frequency of foehn events in 2007 compared to 2006, which corresponds to stronger pressure gradients in the Ross Sea region. It is postulated that the intra- and interannual frequency and intensity of foehn events in the MDVs may therefore vary in response to the position and frequency of cyclones in the Ross Sea region

Sound Diffraction Modeling of Rotorcraft Noise Around Terrain

A new computational technique, Wave Confinement (WC), is extended here to account for sound diffraction around arbitrary terrain. While diffraction around elementary scattering objects, such as a knife edge, single slit, disc, sphere, etc. has been studied for several decades, realistic environments still pose significant problems. This new technique is first validated against Sommerfeld's classical problem of diffraction due to a knife edge. This is followed by comparisons with diffraction over three-dimensional smooth obstacles, such as a disc and Gaussian hill. Finally, comparisons with flight test acoustics data measured behind a hill are also shown. Comparison between experiment and Wave Confinement prediction demonstrates that a Poisson spot occurred behind the isolated hill, resulting in significantly increased sound intensity near the center of the shadowed region

Canonical formulation of self-gravitating spinning-object systems

Based on the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) canonical formulation of general relativity, a canonical formulation of gravitationally interacting classical spinning-object systems is given to linear order in spin. The constructed position, linear momentum and spin variables fulfill standard Poisson bracket relations. A spatially symmetric time gauge for the tetrad field is introduced. The achieved formulation is of fully reduced form without unresolved constraints, supplementary, gauge, or coordinate conditions. The canonical field momentum is not related to the extrinsic curvature of spacelike hypersurfaces in standard ADM form. A new reduction of the tetrad degrees of freedom to the Einstein form of the metric field is suggested.Comment: 6 pages. v2: extended version; identical to the published one. v3: corrected misprints in (24) and (39); improved notation; added note regarding a further reference

Rapid Neutrophil Response Controls Fast-Replicating Intracellular Bacteria but Not Slow-Replicating Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Being one of the first cells to invade the site of infection, neutrophils play an important role in the control of various bacterial and viral infections. In the present work, the contribution of neutrophils to the control of infection with different intracellular bacteria was investigated. Mice were treated with the neutrophil-depleting monoclonal antibody RB6-8C5, and the time course of infection in treated and untreated mice was compared by using intracellular bacterial species and strains varying in virulence and replication rate. The results indicate that neutrophils are crucial for the control of fast-replicating intracellular bacteria, whereas early neutrophil effector mechanisms are dispensable for the control of the slow-replicating Mycobacterium tuberculosi

Use of spin labels to study membrane proteins by high-frequency electron nuclear double resonance spectroscopy

The applicability of spin labels to study membrane proteins by high-frequency electron nuclear double resonance spectroscopy is demonstrated. With the use of bacteriorhodopsin embedded in a lipid membrane as an example, the spectra of protons of neighboring amino acids are recorded, electric field gradients at the membrane surface are detected, and the constant of hyperfine interaction with the chlorine nucleus at the site of ion trapping is measured. © 2007 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd

Hamiltonian of a spinning test-particle in curved spacetime

Using a Legendre transformation, we compute the unconstrained Hamiltonian of a spinning test-particle in a curved spacetime at linear order in the particle spin. The equations of motion of this unconstrained Hamiltonian coincide with the Mathisson-Papapetrou-Pirani equations. We then use the formalism of Dirac brackets to derive the constrained Hamiltonian and the corresponding phase-space algebra in the Newton-Wigner spin supplementary condition (SSC), suitably generalized to curved spacetime, and find that the phase-space algebra (q,p,S) is canonical at linear order in the particle spin. We provide explicit expressions for this Hamiltonian in a spherically symmetric spacetime, both in isotropic and spherical coordinates, and in the Kerr spacetime in Boyer-Lindquist coordinates. Furthermore, we find that our Hamiltonian, when expanded in Post-Newtonian (PN) orders, agrees with the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) canonical Hamiltonian computed in PN theory in the test-particle limit. Notably, we recover the known spin-orbit couplings through 2.5PN order and the spin-spin couplings of type S_Kerr S (and S_Kerr^2) through 3PN order, S_Kerr being the spin of the Kerr spacetime. Our method allows one to compute the PN Hamiltonian at any order, in the test-particle limit and at linear order in the particle spin. As an application we compute it at 3.5PN order.Comment: Corrected typo in the ADM Hamiltonian at 3.5 PN order (eq. 6.20

Circulating endothelial cells demonstrate an attenuation of endothelial damage by minimizing the extracorporeal circulation

ObjectiveDetachment of endothelial cells may represent serious injury of the endothelium after cardiopulmonary bypass. We investigated whether the extent of endothelial injury is related to the type of cardiopulmonary bypass system used (conventional or minimized) and determined circulating endothelial cells as well as von Willebrand factor and soluble thrombomodulin.MethodsTwenty patients scheduled for elective coronary bypass grafting were randomly assigned to either the minimal extracorporeal circulation system or the standard cardiopulmonary bypass. Ten healthy volunteers served as controls. Circulating endothelial cells per milliliter of full blood were perioperatively determined by immunomagnetic cell separation technique. Endothelial plasma markers were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.ResultsPreoperative circulating endothelial cell numbers did not differ between the experimental groups, but were significantly higher than in the healthy controls (18.6 ± 5.6 vs 7.2 ± 3.8, P < .001). At 6 hours, circulating endothelial cell numbers increased significantly compared with baseline in both experimental groups and peaked at 12 hours after cardiopulmonary bypass initiation, each time with significantly lower values in the minimal extracorporeal circulation group (6 hours: 44.0 ± 9.9 vs 29.6 ± 9.8, P = .007; 12 hours: 48.1 ± 6.8 vs 31.8 ± 7.1, P < .001). Likewise, von Willebrand factor and soluble thrombomodulin postoperatively increased in both groups with a tendency toward lower levels in the minimal extracorporeal circulation group. Although circulating endothelial cells gradually declined, continually with lower numbers in the minimal extracorporeal circulation group, the endothelial plasma markers remained elevated during observation time.ConclusionsCirculating endothelial cells represent a novel marker of the intrinsic endothelial damage caused by cardiopulmonary bypass. Its analysis facilitates the evaluation of cardiopulmonary bypass modifications as the minimal extracorporeal circulation system could be proven to be less injurious to endothelium and myocardium

The Proteasome System in Infection: Impact of β5 and LMP7 on Composition, Maturation and Quantity of Active Proteasome Complexes

Proteasomes are the major enzyme complexes for non-lysosomal protein degradation in eukaryotic cells. Mammals express two sets of catalytic subunits: the constitutive subunits β1, β2 and β5 and the immunosubunits LMP2 (β1i), MECL-1 (β2i) and LMP7 (β5i). The LMP7-propeptide (proLMP7) is required for optimal maturation of LMP2/MECL-1-containing precursors to mature immunoproteasomes, but can also mediate efficient integration into mixed proteasomes containing β1 and β2. In contrast, the β5-propeptide (proβ5) has been suggested to promote preferential integration into β1/β2-containing precursors, consequently favouring the formation of constitutive proteasomes. Here, we show that proβ5 predominantly promotes integration into LMP2/MECL-1-containing precursors in IFNγ-stimulated, LMP7-deficient cells and infected LMP7-deficient mice. This demonstrates that proβ5 does not direct preferential integration into β1/β2-containing precursors, but instead promotes the formation of mixed LMP2/MECL-1/β5 proteasomes under inflammatory conditions. Moreover, the propeptides substantially differ in their capacity to promote proteasome maturation, with proLMP7 showing a significantly higher chaperone activity as compared to proβ5. Increased efficiency of proteasome maturation mediated by proLMP7 is required for optimal MHC class I cell surface expression and is equally important as the catalytic activity of immunoproteasomes. Intriguingly, induction of LMP7 by infection not only results in rapid exchange of constitutive by immunosubunits, as previously suggested, but also increases the total proteasome abundance within the infected tissue. Hence our data identify a novel LMP7-dependend mechanism to enhance the activity of the proteasome system in infection, which is based on the high chaperone activity of proLMP7 and relies on accelerated maturation of active proteasome complexes