When the Public Does Not Have a Right to Know: How the California Public Records Act Is Deterring Bioscience Research and Development

Many bioscience firms collaborate with public research universities to conduct innovative research through sponsored research agreements. Companies sponsoring this research usually require strict confidentiality from their academic partners in order to protect sensitive information that, if revealed, could put them at a competitive disadvantage and threaten their ability to obtain future patents. Yet, ambiguous disclosure requirements in the California Public Records Act preclude California\u27s public research universities from guaranteeing that proprietary information provided in connection with sponsored research agreements will remain confidential. Entering into such agreements with public universities in California is therefore a risky proposition for the sponsors. This iBrief argues that unless this is corrected, many of these public/private partnerships, which often lead to significant advances in science and medicine, may be deterred

Three-dimensional numerical simulations of free convection in a layered porous enclosure

Three-dimensional numerical simulations are carried out for the study of free convection in a layered porous enclosure heated from below and cooled from the top. The system is defined as a cubic porous enclosure comprising three layers, of which the external ones share constant physical properties and the internal layer is allowed to vary in both permeability and thermal conductivity. The model is based on Darcy's law and the Boussinesq approximation. A parametric study to evaluate the sensitivity of the Nusselt number to a decrease in the permeability of the internal layer shows that strong permeability contrasts are required to observe an appreciable drop in the Nusselt number. If additionally the thickness of the internal layer is increased, a further decrease in the Nusselt number is observed as long as the convective modes remain the same, if the convective modes change the Nusselt number may increase. Decreasing the thermal conductivity of the middle layer causes first an increment in the Nusselt number and then a drop. On the other hand, the Nusselt number decreases in an approximately linear trend when the thermal conductivity of the layer is increased

Isothermal life prediction of composite lamina using a damage mechanics approach

A method for predicting isothermal plastic fatigue life of a composite lamina is presented in which both fibers and matrix are isotropic materials. In general, the fatigue resistances of the matrix, fibers, and interfacial material must be known in order to predict composite fatigue life. Composite fatigue life is predicted using only the matrix fatigue resistance due to inelasticity micromechanisms. The effect of the fiber orientation on loading direction is accounted for while predicting composite life. The application is currently limited to isothermal cases where the internal thermal stresses that might arise from thermal strain mismatch between fibers and matrix are negligible. The theory is formulated to predict the fatigue life of a composite lamina under either load or strain control. It is applied currently to predict the life of tungsten-copper composite lamina at 260 C under tension-tension load control. The calculated life of the lamina is in good agreement with available composite low cycle fatigue data

Reply to Comment on ``Can gravity distinguish between Dirac and Majorana neutrinos?''

This is a reply to a comment (gr-qc/0610098) written by Nieves and Pal about our paper (gr-qc/0605153) published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 041101 (2006).Comment: 1 page, no figures, REVTe

A Note on the Edge Roman Domination in Trees

A subset $X$ of edges of a graph $G$ is called an \textit{edgedominating set} of $G$ if every edge not in $X$ is adjacent tosome edge in $X$. The edge domination number $\gamma'(G)$ of $G$ is the minimum cardinality taken over all edge dominating sets of $G$. An \textit{edge Roman dominating function} of a graph $G$ is a function $f : E(G)\rightarrow \{0,1,2 \}$ such that every edge$e$ with $f(e)=0$ is adjacent to some edge $e'$ with $f(e') = 2.$The weight of an edge Roman dominating function $f$ is the value$w(f)=\sum_{e\in E(G)}f(e)$. The edge Roman domination number of $G$, denoted by $\gamma_R'(G)$, is the minimum weight of an edge Roman dominating function of $G$. In this paper, we characterize trees with edge Roman domination number twice the edge domination number