Tunable hybridization of Majorana bound states at the quantum spin Hall edge

Confinement at the helical edge of a topological insulator is possible in the presence of proximity-induced magnetic (F) or superconducting (S) order. The interplay of both phenomena leads to the formation of localized Majorana bound states (MBS) or likewise (under certain resonance conditions) the formation of ordinary Andreev bound states (ABS). We investigate the properties of bound states in junctions composed of alternating regions of F or S barriers. Interestingly, the direction of magnetization in F regions and the relative superconducting phase between S regions can be exploited to hybridize MBS or ABS at will. We show that the local properties of MBS translate into a particular nonlocal superconducting pairing amplitude. Remarkably, the symmetry of the pairing amplitude contains information about the nature of the bound state that it stems from. Hence, this symmetry can in principle be used to distinguish MBS from ABS, owing to the strong connection between local density of states and nonlocal pairing in our setup.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

The Dedicated Truck to Take You to the Train Station: A Case Study on RAM\u27s Marketing Strategy Through the Hit Series, Yellowstone

A company’s marketing strategy is crucial to said company’s success and expansion throughout its lifecycle. When looking at the automotive industry and its marketing standards, RAM is taking a step beyond with its partnership with Yellowstone. The purpose of this study was to analyze RAM’s marketing strategy in the Paramount series, Yellowstone. A case study was conducted on RAM through a tool created by the researcher with data collected from RAM’s core site, Yellowstone’s core site, and a variety of news and statistic outlets. The results of this study determined that RAM’s marketing strategy is highly successful in connection with Yellowstone as their strategy exposes consumers to RAM’s products in a unique way. The researcher suggests an expansion of both RAM’s and Yellowstone’s joint sponsorship and product placement strategies to further connect with current and potential Yellowstone viewers and RAM consumers

China's Economic Fluctuations and Their Implications for Its Rural Economy

Finds that China's rapid growth over the past quarter century has disadvantaged the rural economy and suggests a greater consideration of the rural implications of standard macroeconomic policy making

China and the Global Financial Crisis

Despite China's strong current financial and economic position, a focus on China can help highlight how this current global crisis is just another step in the evolution and improvement of the world’s governance systems.China cannot make the mistake of viewing this crisis as a sign of weakness in the political and economic systems that have emerged over centuries in the world’s most scientifically and commercially advanced nations. Those systems are still works in progress, and China needs urgently to learn as much as it can from them—including the lessons they are gleaning or hopefully will glean from this current financial and economic crisis

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—FREE SPEECH AND GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD LABELING: A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK FOR DETERMINING THE CONTROVERSIAL CHARACTER OF COMPELLED COMMERCIAL SPEECH

Food is an inextricable ingredient of life. Today, food manufacturers use modes of genetic modification to produce foodstuffs. As a result of the citizenry’s increased awareness of this fact, states are requiring food manufacturers to disclose which of their products are genetically modified. However, within the context of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, state-mandated labeling of genetically modified food stands on an infirm foothold. The constitutionality of these disclosure requirements turns on whether state-mandated, genetically modified food labels are uncontroversial. Moreover, under the commercial speech doctrine, it is unclear how a court should assess and what a court should examine to determine whether compelled commercial speech is controversial. This Note proposes that (1) a court should examine the speech’s tendency to advance a controversial ideology, and (2) a court can assess the speech’s tendency to advance a controversial ideology by determining if the speech is relevant to a normative value and whether the speech’s normative force outweighs its informative force. This Note concludes that state-mandated, genetically modified food labels are controversial; therefore, the commercial speech doctrine’s more lenient form of means-end scrutiny is inapposite in analyzing state disclosure requirements that concern genetically modified food

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—FREE SPEECH AND GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD LABELING: A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK FOR DETERMINING THE CONTROVERSIAL CHARACTER OF COMPELLED COMMERCIAL SPEECH

Food is an inextricable ingredient of life. Today, food manufacturers use modes of genetic modification to produce foodstuffs. As a result of the citizenry’s increased awareness of this fact, states are requiring food manufacturers to disclose which of their products are genetically modified. However, within the context of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, state-mandated labeling of genetically modified food stands on an infirm foothold. The constitutionality of these disclosure requirements turns on whether state-mandated, genetically modified food labels are uncontroversial. Moreover, under the commercial speech doctrine, it is unclear how a court should assess and what a court should examine to determine whether compelled commercial speech is controversial. This Note proposes that (1) a court should examine the speech’s tendency to advance a controversial ideology, and (2) a court can assess the speech’s tendency to advance a controversial ideology by determining if the speech is relevant to a normative value and whether the speech’s normative force outweighs its informative force. This Note concludes that state-mandated, genetically modified food labels are controversial; therefore, the commercial speech doctrine’s more lenient form of means-end scrutiny is inapposite in analyzing state disclosure requirements that concern genetically modified food

The Horizon: A blended wing aircraft configuration design project, volume 3

The results of a study to design a High-Speed Civilian Transport (HSCT) using the blended wing-body configuration are presented. The HSCT is a Mach 2 to 5 transport aircraft designed to compete with current commercial aircraft. The subjects discussed are sizing, configuration, aerodynamics, stability and control, propulsion, performance, structures and pollution effects

^1H{^(19)F} NOE NMR Structural Signatures of the Insulin R_6 Hexamer: Evidence of a Capped HisB10 Site in Aryl- and Arylacryloyl-carboxylate Complexes

New and improved insulin: ^1H{^(19)F} NOE NMR difference spectra for CF_3-substituted aromatic carboxylates bound at the HisB10 sites of the R_6 human insulin (HI) hexamer show strong NOEs between the CF_3 groups and the LeuB6, AsnB3, and PheB1 sidechains. The NOEs and structural modeling establish that these carboxylates form closed complexes with the HisB10 site capped by the PheB1 rings

Protein-Protein Docking with F2Dock 2.0 and GB-Rerank

Rezaul Chowdhury is with UT Austin; Muhibur Rasheed is with UT Austin; Maysam Moussalem is with UT Austin; Donald Keidel is with The Scripps Research Institute; Arthur Olson is with The Scripps Research Institute; Michel Sanner is with The Scripps Research Institute; Chandrajit Bajaj is with The Scripps Research Institute.Motivation -- Computational simulation of protein-protein docking can expedite the process of molecular modeling and drug discovery. This paper reports on our new F2 Dock protocol which improves the state of the art in initial stage rigid body exhaustive docking search, scoring and ranking by introducing improvements in the shape-complementarity and electrostatics affinity functions, a new knowledge-based interface propensity term with FFT formulation, a set of novel knowledge-based filters and finally a solvation energy (GBSA) based reranking technique. Our algorithms are based on highly efficient data structures including the dynamic packing grids and octrees which significantly speed up the computations and also provide guaranteed bounds on approximation error. Results -- The improved affinity functions show superior performance compared to their traditional counterparts in finding correct docking poses at higher ranks. We found that the new filters and the GBSA based reranking individually and in combination significantly improve the accuracy of docking predictions with only minor increase in computation time. We compared F2 Dock 2.0 with ZDock 3.0.2 and found improvements over it, specifically among 176 complexes in ZLab Benchmark 4.0, F2 Dock 2.0 finds a near-native solution as the top prediction for 22 complexes; where ZDock 3.0.2 does so for 13 complexes. F2 Dock 2.0 finds a near-native solution within the top 1000 predictions for 106 complexes as opposed to 104 complexes for ZDock 3.0.2. However, there are 17 and 15 complexes where F2 Dock 2.0 finds a solution but ZDock 3.0.2 does not and vice versa; which indicates that the two docking protocols can also complement each other. Availability -- The docking protocol has been implemented as a server with a graphical client (TexMol) which allows the user to manage multiple docking jobs, and visualize the docked poses and interfaces. Both the server and client are available for download. Server: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~bajaj/cvc/soft​ware/f2dock.shtml. Client: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~bajaj/cvc/soft​ware/f2dockclient.shtml.The research of C.B., R.C., M.M., and M.R. of University of Texas, was supported in part by National Science Foundation (NSF) grant CNS-0540033, and grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01-GM074258, R01-GM073087, R01-EB004873. The research of M.M. was additionally supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. The research of M.S. and A.O. of TSRI was supported in part by a subcontract on NIH grant R01-GM073087. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Computer Science