Grain-Washing: The Issue with Corn Ethanol as a Sustainable Aviation Fuel

Decarbonizing the aviation sector remains one of the most prevalent obstacles in reducing the United States’ significant contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. Launched in 2021, the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Grand Challenge aims to supply enough fuel to meet 100% of demand by 2050 through reducing its production costs and enhancing its sustainable practices. Corn ethanol feedstock has been proposed to make up as much as half of all SAF production in the 2030 benchmark. This thesis explores the assemblage of corn ethanol – from its true environmental impacts, role in the future SAF market, to research claiming corn ethanol’s environmental benefits that is perforated with conflict of interest. The paper culminates in a call to discontinue the subsidization of corn ethanol under the guise of environmental benefits and a warning against its infiltration into the SAF market

Stochastic method for in-situ damage analysis

Based on the physics of stochastic processes we present a new approach for structural health monitoring. We show that the new method allows for an in-situ analysis of the elastic features of a mechanical structure even for realistic excitations with correlated noise as it appears in real-world situations. In particular an experimental set-up of undamaged and damaged beam structures was exposed to a noisy excitation under turbulent wind conditions. The method of reconstructing stochastic equations from measured data has been extended to realistic noisy excitations like those given here. In our analysis the deterministic part is separated from the stochastic dynamics of the system and we show that the slope of the deterministic part, which is linked to mechanical features of the material, changes sensitively with increasing damage. The results are more significant than corresponding changes in eigenfrequencies, as commonly used for structural health monitoring.Comment: This paper is accepted by European Physical Journal B on November 2. 2012. 5 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Virtual Campus – Trends and Perspectives in Germany

In the last few years in Germany virtual campus initiatives have been funded considerably. In our paper we will give a review of comments and recommendations of the advisory boards in higher education policy and of the various funding schemes on the level of the federal states and the federal government. An analysis of the current program „New Media in Education” indicates trends of possible developments as well as hindrances in the virtualization of higher educationIn: A.J. Kallenberg and M.J.J.M. van de Ven (Eds), 2002, The New Educational Benefits of ICT in Higher Education: Proceedings. Rotterdam: Erasmus Plus BV, OECR ISBN 90-9016127-

Dynamics of Annealed Systems under External Fields: CTRW and the Fractional Fokker-Planck Equations

We consider the linear response of a system modelled by continuous-time random walks (CTRW) to an external field pulse of rectangular shape. We calculate the corresponding response function explicitely and show that it exhibits aging, i.e. that it is not translationally invariant in the time-domain. This result differs from that of systems which behave according to fractional Fokker-Planck equations

In vivo Firre and Dxz4 deletion elucidates roles for autosomal gene regulation

Recent evidence has determined that the conserved X chromosome mega-structurescontrolled by theFirreandDxz4loci are not required for X chromosome inactivation (XCI) in celllines. Here, we examined the in vivo contribution of these loci by generating mice carrying a singleor double deletion ofFirreandDxz4. We found that these mutants are viable, fertile and show nodefect in random or imprinted XCI. However, the lack of these elements results in manydysregulated genes on autosomes in an organ-specific manner. By comparing the dysregulatedgenes between the single and double deletion, we identified superloop, megadomain, andFirrelocus-dependent gene sets. The largest transcriptional effect was observed in all strains lacking theFirrelocus, indicating that this locus is the main driver for these autosomal expression signatures.Collectively, these findings suggest that these X-linked loci are involved in autosomal generegulation rather than XCI biology

Diverse epigenetic mechanisms maintain parental imprints within the embryonic and extraembryonic lineages

Genomic imprinting and X chromosome inactivation (XCI) require epigenetic mechanisms to encode allele-specific expression, but how these specific tasks are accomplished at single loci or across chromosomal scales remains incompletely understood. Here, we systematically disrupt essential epigenetic pathways within polymorphic embryos in order to examine canonical and non-canonical genomic imprinting as well as XCI. We find that DNA methylation and Polycomb group repressors are indispensable for autosomal imprinting, albeit at distinct gene sets. Moreover, the extraembryonic ectoderm relies on a broader spectrum of imprinting mechanisms, including non-canonical targeting of maternal endogenous retrovirus (ERV)-driven promoters by the H3K9 methyltransferase G9a. We further identify Polycomb-dependent and -independent gene clusters on the imprinted X chromosome, which appear to reflect distinct domains of Xist-mediated suppression. From our data, we assemble a comprehensive inventory of the epigenetic pathways that maintain parent-specific imprinting in eutherian mammals, including an expanded view of the placental lineage

Readers\u27 Speakout

Dear Florence Howe: Devoting an entire issue to the First Annual Convention of the National Women\u27s Studies Association was enormously helpful to those of us who could not attend. The reports on the Convention indicated that it was simply first-rate. Nothing in the issue, however, helped me to understand why some delegates trashed the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) and scapegoated its representative, Kathleen Staudt. I had hoped to learn why because a number of colleagues returned from the Convention with the story that everyone agreed that AID had no business being there. But no one could explain why. All I have heard are vague stories, most of them quite silly

Linear Response in Complex Systems: CTRW and the Fractional Fokker-Planck Equations

We consider the linear response of systems modelled by continuous-time random walks (CTRW) and by fractional Fokker-Planck equations under the influence of time-dependent external fields. We calculate the corresponding response functions explicitely. The CTRW curve exhibits aging, i.e. it is not translationally invariant in the time-domain. This is different from what happens under fractional Fokker-Planck conditions

Multiple scaling regimes in simple aging models

We investigate aging in glassy systems based on a simple model, where a point in configuration space performs thermally activated jumps between the minima of a random energy landscape. The model allows us to show explicitly a subaging behavior and multiple scaling regimes for the correlation function. Both the exponents characterizing the scaling of the different relaxation times with the waiting time and those characterizing the asymptotic decay of the scaling functions are obtained analytically by invoking a `partial equilibrium' concept.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Durability testing of electronic textile surface resistivity and textile antenna performance

As wearable electronics become more prevalent in everyday life, there is a growing desire to integrate circuits and antennae into clothing. One way that this integration may occur is through use of electronic textiles (e-textiles). However, changes in environmental and wear conditions may affect the conductive data communication performance of the e-textile, such as surface resistivity and antenna radiation characteristics. In this study, the effects of pilling, wrinkling, abrasion, and laundering of e-textiles were examined for resistivity performance. E-textile resistivity performance from both direct current (DC) and radiofrequency (RF) perspectives were measured following AATCC and ASTM standards. For DC performance, results indicate that pilling causes severe damage to e-textile resistivity, while laundering and wrinkling did not substantially affect e-textile resistivity performance. For RF performance in this study, an e-textile microstrip patch antenna was designed and data were collected under similar environmental and wear conditions. RF performance change corresponds with DC performance change. The findings of this paper highlight limitations of the evaluated e-textile performance, and provide new perspectives regarding improvements to e-textile fabrication for sustaining performance through environmental and wear operations