A Meta-Analysis of Polls from the 2012 Presidential Election

Political pundits framed the 2012 U.S. presidential election as a horserace between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. However, a number of election forecasters found that the election was always Obama’s to lose. This paper presents a simple quantitative methodology to analyze polling data of the national race and the four closest swing states: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. Our results suggest that out of the four states, only Florida emerged as a true toss-up. In addition, the national popular vote appeared to lean toward Obama throughout the election cycle. The analysis also allows us to visualize trends in public opinion during the campaign through various key events including the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act, the announcement of Romney’s running mate, the national party conventions, the release of a video showing Romney making controversial comments at a fundraiser, the three presidential debates, the vice presidential debate, and Hurricane Sandy

Local chromosome context is a major determinant of crossover pathway biochemistry during budding yeast meiosis

The budding yeast genome contains regions where meiotic recombination initiates more frequently than in others. This pattern parallels enrichment for the meiotic chromosome axis proteins Hop1 and Red1. These proteins are important for Spo11-catalyzed double strand break formation; their contribution to crossover recombination remains undefined. Using the sequencespecific VMA1-derived endonuclease (VDE) to initiate recombination in meiosis, we show that chromosome structure influences the choice of proteins that resolve recombination intermediates to form crossovers. At a Hop1-enriched locus, most VDE-initiated crossovers, like most Spo11- initiated crossovers, required the meiosis-specific MutLg resolvase. In contrast, at a locus with lower Hop1 occupancy, most VDE-initiated crossovers were MutLg-independent. In pch2 mutants, the two loci displayed similar Hop1 occupancy levels, and VDE-induced crossovers were similarly MutLg-dependent. We suggest that meiotic and mitotic recombination pathways coexist within meiotic cells, and that features of meiotic chromosome structure determine whether one or the other predominates in different regions

The Barrier Method: A Technique for Calculating Very Long Transition Times

In many dynamical systems there is a large separation of time scales between typical events and "rare" events which can be the cases of interest. Rare-event rates are quite difficult to compute numerically, but they are of considerable practical importance in many fields: for example transition times in chemical physics and extinction times in epidemiology can be very long, but are quite important. We present a very fast numerical technique that can be used to find long transition times (very small rates) in low-dimensional systems, even if they lack detailed balance. We illustrate the method for a bistable non-equilibrium system introduced by Maier and Stein and a two-dimensional (in parameter space) epidemiology model.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure

Computation of nucleation of a non-equilibrium first-order phase transition using a rare-event algorithm

We introduce a new Forward-Flux Sampling in Time (FFST) algorithm to efficiently measure transition times in rare-event processes in non-equilibrium systems, and apply it to study the first-order (discontinuous) kinetic transition in the Ziff-Gulari-Barshad model of catalytic surface reaction. The average time for the transition to take place, as well as both the spinodal and transition points, are clearly found by this method.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

Treatment of giant cell tumours of bone by radical curettage and bone cement

Background: Giant cell tumour of bone remains a difficult and challenging management problems because there are no absolute clinical radiographic or histologic parameters that accurately predict the tendency of any single lesion to recur or metastasize.Methods: We performed surgery on 12 patients of GCT with radical curettage and bone cement over a period of 5.8 years. Results were evaluated using the musculoskeletal skeletal grading system.Results: The present series consists of 12 case of GCT age ranging from 16-45 years. Painful swelling was the commonest presentation, limitation of motion was seen in 9 cases and pathological fracture was seen in 1 case. 9 of the tumour occurred around knee joint. Rare involvement of talus was seen in 1 case. Overall 9 patients had a perfect functional score of 30 points and 1 patient scored less than 20 points.Conclusions: Acrylic cement reconstruction is safe and effective procedure that provides local adjuvant therapy, the cement field defect is mechanically stable. Patient can bear weight immediately and rehabilitate quickly

Expressed in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, human ERK5 is a client of the Hsp90 chaperone that complements loss of the Slt2p (Mpk1p) cell integrity stress-activated protein kinase

ERK5 is a mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase regulated in human cells by diverse mitogens and stresses but also suspected of mediating the effects of a number of oncogenes. Its expression in the slt2Delta Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutant rescued several of the phenotypes caused by the lack of Slt2p (Mpk1p) cell integrity MAP kinase. ERK5 is able to provide this cell integrity MAP kinase function in yeast, as it is activated by the cell integrity signaling cascade that normally activates Slt2p and, in its active form, able to stimulate at least one key Slt2p target (Rlm1p, the major transcriptional regulator of cell wall genes). In vitro ERK5 kinase activity was abolished by Hsp90 inhibition. ERK5 activity in vivo was also lost in a strain that expresses a mutant Hsp90 chaperone. Therefore, human ERK5 expressed in yeast is an Hsp90 client, despite the widely held belief that the protein kinases of the MAP kinase class are non-Hsp90-dependent activities. Two-hybrid and protein binding studies revealed that strong association of Hsp90 with ERK5 requires the dual phosphorylation of the TEY motif in the MAP kinase activation loop. These phosphorylations, at positions adjacent to the Hsp90-binding surface recently identified for a number of protein kinases, may cause a localized rearrangement of this MAP kinase region that leads to creation of the Hsp90-binding surface. Complementation of the slt2Delta yeast defect by ERK5 expression establishes a new tool with which to screen for novel agonists and antagonists of ERK5 signaling as well as for isolating mutant forms of ERK5

IEEE 802.11ac wireless delivery of 4kUHD video: The impact of packet loss

This paper examines the 4kUHD video quality from streaming over an IEEE 802.11ac wireless channel, given measured levels of packet loss. Findings suggest that there is a strong content dependency to loss impact upon video quality but that, for short-range transmission, the quality is acceptable, making 4kUHD feasible on head-mounted displays

Yak Rearing on High Altitude Pastures of Northeastern Himalaya of India: Their Utilization Strategies and Rejuvenation

Yak rearing on alpine pastures is the main occupation of the highland pastoral nomads (Brokpa and Dokpas) of north-east (NE) India. These pastoral nomads living in the remote mountains solely rely on high altitude pastures for their nutritional and livelihood security because of virtual existence of agricultural activities in this area. They rear yaks under transhumance and utilize various pastures while migrating from low land winter pastures to high altitude alpine pastures during summer. Therefore, the temperate and alpine pastures are the major feed resources for the yaks. The indiscriminate use of pastures and impending climate change results in their degradation that may affect the productivity of the animals reared on them. In this study, an attempt was made to evaluate the status of pastures used for yak rearing in NE India and an initiative has been taken to test the adaptability of palatable high yielding temperate grasses for pasture development and rejuvenation

The Harmonic Measure for critical Potts clusters

We present a technique, which we call "etching," which we use to study the harmonic measure of Fortuin-Kasteleyn clusters in the Q-state Potts model for Q=1-4. The harmonic measure is the probability distribution of random walkers diffusing onto the perimeter of a cluster. We use etching to study regions of clusters which are extremely unlikely to be hit by random walkers, having hitting probabilities down to 10^(-4600). We find good agreement between the theoretical predictions of Duplantier and our numerical results for the generalized dimension D(q), including regions of small and negative q.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure

Synovial lipoma of the ankle and foot: a rare case report

Synovial lipomatosis is an extremely rare type of disease in which there is an excess of adipose tissue involving the synovium layer of joints or synovial sheath around the tendons causing pain, paraesthesia, and weakness. The most common site being reported till now is Knee joint or parapatellar space other joints such as elbows and shoulders are being reported after the knee joint, and the ankle joint is rarely reported 2 cases have been reported in the English literature. We report a case of a 28-year-old male presenting with swelling of the right foot for 12 years and developed symptoms of pain and tingling on the toes for 2-3 weeks. Multiple bony hard lesions were palpated on the base of the foot, ultrasonography (USG) showed a subcutaneous lesion around the extensor tendons of the foot and fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) had a picture of the synovial cyst. Surgical excision was done and histopathology was reported to be as a fibrofatty tissue with multiple adipocytes suggesting lipoma arborescent