284 research outputs found

    Dynamic Regulation of Fisheries: the Case of the Bowhead Whale

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    The regulation of fisheries often requires finding numerical solutions to dynamic optimization problems. This paper presents a version of the "multiple shooting" algorithm and uses it to approximate the dynamic solution to a fisheries problem examined by Conrad (1989): the hunting of the Bowhead whale in the Western Arctic. It is found that the inclusion of dynamic considerations can significantly alter the nature of the policy if the regulated population is not near its steady state.Bowhead whale, multiple shooting, numerical methods, regulation of fisheries., Environmental Economics and Policy,

    Compression Tests on Circular Cylinders Stiffened Longitudinally by Closely Spaced Z-Section Stringers

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    Six circular cylinders stiffened longitudinally by closely spaced Z-section stringers were loaded to failure in compression. The results obtained are presented and compared with available theoretical results for the buckling of orthotropic cylinders. The results indicate that the large disparity that exists between theory and experiment for unstiffened compression cylinders may be significantly smaller for stiffened cylinders

    Frenzy: Collaborative data organization for creating conference sessions

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    Organizing conference sessions around themes improves the experience for attendees. However, the session creation process can be difficult and time-consuming due to the amount of expertise and effort required to consider alternative paper groupings. We present a collaborative web application called Frenzy to draw on the efforts and knowledge of an entire program committee. Frenzy comprises (a) interfaces to support large numbers of experts working collectively to create sessions, and (b) a two-stage process that decomposes the session-creation problem into meta-data elicitation and global constraint satisfaction. Meta-data elicitation involves a large group of experts working simultaneously, while global constraint satisfaction involves a smaller group that uses the meta-data to form sessions. We evaluated Frenzy with 48 people during a deployment at the CSCW 2014 program committee meeting. The session making process was much faster than the traditional process, taking 88 minutes instead of a full day. We found that meta-data elicitation was useful for session creation. Moreover, the sessions created by Frenzy were the basis of the CSCW 2014 schedule.Ford-MIT AllianceNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award SOCS-1111124)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award SOCS-1208382)United States. Office of Naval Research (Grant N00014-12-1-0211)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant IIS 1016713)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant IIS-1110965

    Molecular Basis of Rare Aminoglycoside Susceptibility and Pathogenesis of Burkholderia pseudomallei Clinical Isolates from Thailand

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    Burkholderia pseudomallei is the etiologic agent of melioidosis, an emerging tropical disease. Because of low infectious dose, broad-host-range infectivity, intrinsic antibiotic resistance and historic precedent as a bioweapon, B. pseudomallei was listed in the United States as a Select Agent and Priority Pathogen of biodefense concern by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The mechanisms governing antibiotic resistance and/or susceptibility and virulence in this bacterium are not well understood. Most clinical and environmental B. pseudomallei isolates are highly resistant to aminoglycosides, but susceptible variants do exist. The results of our studies with three such variants from Thailand reveal that lack of expression or deletion of an efflux pump is responsible for this susceptibility. The large deletion present in one strain not only removes an efflux pump but also several putative virulence genes, including an entire siderophore gene cluster. Despite this deletion, the strain is fully virulent in an acute mouse melioidosis model. In summary, our findings shed light on mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and pathogenesis. They also validate the previously advocated use of laboratory-constructed, aminoglycoside susceptible efflux pump mutants in genetic manipulation experiments

    Hard Two-Photon Contribution to Elastic Lepton-Proton Scattering: Determined by the OLYMPUS Experiment

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    The OLYMPUS collaboration reports on a precision measurement of the positron-proton to electron-proton elastic cross section ratio, R2γR_{2\gamma}, a direct measure of the contribution of hard two-photon exchange to the elastic cross section. In the OLYMPUS measurement, 2.01~GeV electron and positron beams were directed through a hydrogen gas target internal to the DORIS storage ring at DESY. A toroidal magnetic spectrometer instrumented with drift chambers and time-of-flight scintillators detected elastically scattered leptons in coincidence with recoiling protons over a scattering angle range of 20°\approx 20\degree to 80°80\degree. The relative luminosity between the two beam species was monitored using tracking telescopes of interleaved GEM and MWPC detectors at 12°12\degree, as well as symmetric M{\o}ller/Bhabha calorimeters at 1.29°1.29\degree. A total integrated luminosity of 4.5~fb1^{-1} was collected. In the extraction of R2γR_{2\gamma}, radiative effects were taken into account using a Monte Carlo generator to simulate the convolutions of internal bremsstrahlung with experiment-specific conditions such as detector acceptance and reconstruction efficiency. The resulting values of R2γR_{2\gamma}, presented here for a wide range of virtual photon polarization 0.456<ϵ<0.9780.456<\epsilon<0.978, are smaller than some hadronic two-photon exchange calculations predict, but are in reasonable agreement with a subtracted dispersion model and a phenomenological fit to the form factor data.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 2 table

    Cas9 gRNA engineering for genome editing, activation and repression

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    We demonstrate that by altering the length of Cas9-associated guide RNA(gRNA) we were able to control Cas9 nuclease activity and simultaneously perform genome editing and transcriptional regulation with a single Cas9 protein. We exploited these principles to engineer mammalian synthetic circuits with combined transcriptional regulation and kill functions governed by a single multifunctional Cas9 protein.National Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.) (P50 HG005550)United States. Department of Energy (DE-FG02-02ER63445)Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired EngineeringUnited States. Army Research Office (DARPA W911NF-11-2-0054)National Science Foundation (U.S.)United States. National Institutes of Health (5R01CA155320-04)United States. National Institutes of Health (P50 GM098792)National Cancer Institute (U.S.) (5T32CA009216-34)Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological EngineeringHarvard Medical School. Department of GeneticsDefense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) (HDTRA1-14-1-0006
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