Open Mind Conference

Open Mind, The Association for the achievement of diversity in higher education, met in conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, between October 16 and 18, 1992. A number of workgroups met to discuss the goals, structure, and generally evaluate the Association and its achievements. A summary of the workgroup sessions and their minutes are included

Understanding the magnetic resonance spectrum of nitrogen vacancy centers in an ensemble of randomly-oriented nanodiamonds

Nanodiamonds containing nitrogen vacancy (NV-) centers show promise for a number of emerging applications including targeted in vivo imaging and generating nuclear spin hyperpolarization for enhanced NMR spectroscopy and imaging. Here, we develop a detailed understanding of the magnetic resonance behavior of NV- centers in an ensemble of nanodiamonds with random crystal orientations. Two-dimensional optically detected magnetic resonance spectroscopy reveals the distribution of energy levels, spin populations, and transition probabilities that give rise to a complex spectrum. We identify overtone transitions that are inherently insensitive to crystal orientation and give well-defined transition frequencies that access the entire nanodiamond ensemble. These transitions may be harnessed for high-resolution imaging and generation of nuclear spin hyperpolarization. The data are well described by numerical simulations from the zero- to high-field regimes, including the intermediate regime of maximum complexity. We evaluate the prospects of nanodiamond ensembles specifically for nuclear hyperpolarization and show that frequency-swept dynamic nuclear polarization may transfer a large amount of the NV- center's hyperpolarization to nuclear spins by sweeping over a small region of its spectrum.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Measurement of Untruncated Nuclear Spin Interactions via Zero- to Ultra-Low-Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Zero- to ultra-low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (ZULF NMR) provides a new regime for the measurement of nuclear spin-spin interactions free from effects of large magnetic fields, such as truncation of terms that do not commute with the Zeeman Hamiltonian. One such interaction, the magnetic dipole-dipole coupling, is a valuable source of spatial information in NMR, though many terms are unobservable in high-field NMR, and the coupling averages to zero under isotropic molecular tumbling. Under partial alignment, this information is retained in the form of so-called residual dipolar couplings. We report zero- to ultra-low-field NMR measurements of residual dipolar couplings in acetonitrile-2-$^{13}$C aligned in stretched polyvinyl acetate gels. This represents the first investigation of dipolar couplings as a perturbation on the indirect spin-spin $J$-coupling in the absence of an applied magnetic field. As a consequence of working at zero magnetic field, we observe terms of the dipole-dipole coupling Hamiltonian that are invisible in conventional high-field NMR. This technique expands the capabilities of zero- to ultra-low-field NMR and has potential applications in precision measurement of subtle physical interactions, chemical analysis, and characterization of local mesoscale structure in materials.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Globalization and health equity: The impact of structural adjustment programs on developing countries

Abstract Among the many drivers of health inequities, this article focuses on important, yet insufficiently understood, international-level determinants: economic globalization and the organizations that spread market-oriented policies to the developing world. One such organization is the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which provides financial assistance to countries in economic trouble in exchange for policy reforms. Through its 'structural adjustment programs,' countries around the world have liberalized and deregulated their economies. We examine how policy reforms prescribed in structural adjustment programs explain variation in health equity between nations—approximated by health system access and neonatal mortality. Our empirical analysis uses an original dataset of IMF-mandated policy reforms for a panel of up to 137 developing countries between 1980 and 2014. We employ regression analysis to evaluate the relationship between these reforms and health equity, taking into account the non-random selection and design of IMF programs. We find that structural adjustment reforms lower health system access and increase neonatal mortality. Additional analyses show that labor market reforms drive these deleterious effects. Overall, our evidence suggests that structural adjustment programs endanger the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals in developing countries

LGEM+^\text{+}: a first-order logic framework for automated improvement of metabolic network models through abduction

Scientific discovery in biology is difficult due to the complexity of the systems involved and the expense of obtaining high quality experimental data. Automated techniques are a promising way to make scientific discoveries at the scale and pace required to model large biological systems. A key problem for 21st century biology is to build a computational model of the eukaryotic cell. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the best understood eukaryote, and genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) are rich sources of background knowledge that we can use as a basis for automated inference and investigation. We present LGEM+, a system for automated abductive improvement of GEMs consisting of: a compartmentalised first-order logic framework for describing biochemical pathways (using curated GEMs as the expert knowledge source); and a two-stage hypothesis abduction procedure. We demonstrate that deductive inference on logical theories created using LGEM+, using the automated theorem prover iProver, can predict growth/no-growth of S. cerevisiae strains in minimal media. LGEM+ proposed 2094 unique candidate hypotheses for model improvement. We assess the value of the generated hypotheses using two criteria: (a) genome-wide single-gene essentiality prediction, and (b) constraint of flux-balance analysis (FBA) simulations. For (b) we developed an algorithm to integrate FBA with the logic model. We rank and filter the hypotheses using these assessments. We intend to test these hypotheses using the robot scientist Genesis, which is based around chemostat cultivation and high-throughput metabolomics.Comment: 15 pages, one figure, two tables, two algorithm

Spreading the Washington Consensus into Food and Agriculture Sectors: The Case of the International Monetary Fund

The mandate and competence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) do not cover food and agriculture policies. Yet, signs indicate that IMF enages in these policies. Scholars lack a systematic empirical foundation to monitor the extent and impact of IMF’s operations on these sectors. Based on a combination of machine and human coding, we present a comprehensive database on IMF’s policy interventions in food and agriculture. Using new data on IMF conditionality between 1980 and 2014, we assess to what extent the IMF targets these sectors through its ‘conditionalities’—policies that governments need to implement to access IMF credit. The analysis evaluates the agricultural content and ideological orientation of each condition according to whether it promotes a developmental state, a night-watchman state, or neither. The analysis identifies that about 2% of all IMF conditions (1,105 of 58,406) directly target food and agriculture issues. These conditions are available in 43% of all IMF programs (332 of 781). They affect 100 countries of all the 131 countries in which the IMF had any agreements since the 1980s. In addition, the analysis reveals that 59.2% of these conditions embody policy measures in line with a night-watchman state, 40.1% are model-neutral, and 0.7% are developmental. Within the model-neutral category, 23.9% are conditions oriented towards building state capacity; 2.7% have a poverty reduction content; and 2.9% contain pro- environmental policies. The article discusses potential mechanisms driving the IMF to intervene into agriculture and theorizes about possible effects of these conditions on people’s livelihoods

The Cyborg Astrobiologist: Testing a Novelty-Detection Algorithm on Two Mobile Exploration Systems at Rivas Vaciamadrid in Spain and at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah

(ABRIDGED) In previous work, two platforms have been developed for testing computer-vision algorithms for robotic planetary exploration (McGuire et al. 2004b,2005; Bartolo et al. 2007). The wearable-computer platform has been tested at geological and astrobiological field sites in Spain (Rivas Vaciamadrid and Riba de Santiuste), and the phone-camera has been tested at a geological field site in Malta. In this work, we (i) apply a Hopfield neural-network algorithm for novelty detection based upon color, (ii) integrate a field-capable digital microscope on the wearable computer platform, (iii) test this novelty detection with the digital microscope at Rivas Vaciamadrid, (iv) develop a Bluetooth communication mode for the phone-camera platform, in order to allow access to a mobile processing computer at the field sites, and (v) test the novelty detection on the Bluetooth-enabled phone-camera connected to a netbook computer at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. This systems engineering and field testing have together allowed us to develop a real-time computer-vision system that is capable, for example, of identifying lichens as novel within a series of images acquired in semi-arid desert environments. We acquired sequences of images of geologic outcrops in Utah and Spain consisting of various rock types and colors to test this algorithm. The algorithm robustly recognized previously-observed units by their color, while requiring only a single image or a few images to learn colors as familiar, demonstrating its fast learning capability.Comment: 28 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in the International Journal of Astrobiolog