There and Back Again: Regulation, Innovation, and Change in the Beer Industry

I present a concise history of brewing industry concentration from the late 1800s to the present. The economic history of beer in the United States provides an interesting study of the impact of regulation, market power, and innovation on industry. Prohibition, the subsequent growth of the leading macro brewers, and the recent emergence of import and small craft brewers have shaped the industry into what we know today. Upon their emergence, craft breweries exhibited a fervent growth in the West and Northeast regions of America, but have been slow to establish a presence in the Midwest and South. To put this into perspective, the two states that sandwich Colorado in population are Minnesota and South Carolina. As of 2017, Colorado boasts 284 craft breweries with Minnesota and South Carolina at just 105 and 36 breweries respectively (Brewers Association). The confluence of events and economic factors that are responsible for the gap between the South/Midwest and Northeast/West regions have received little attention in the literature. Regulatory burdens, restrictions on the sale of alcohol in the form of dry and semi-dry counties, religious ideals, and dominant cultural mores all contribute to this gap. For my empirical analysis, I sharpen my focus on the role that regulations have played in the organization of craft breweries across the states. I find that regulatory influences are significantly related to both production levels and number of craft brewers in the market, regardless of geographical region. This finding suggests that regional differences can be partially explained by different state regulations

Enantioselective Syntheses and Chemical Investigations of Plant-Derived Bioactive Volatile Compounds

Research, inspired by nature, provides ample opportunity for discovery, ingenuity, and creative endeavor. For these reasons, the work and accomplishments presented herein focus on the total syntheses and related investigations of a variety of natural product derivatives, specifically (+)-nootkatone and jasmone. While the former consists of several independent projects: (a) an enantioselective synthetic route to (+)-nootkatone and derivatives, (b) examination of the valencane ring system, (c) determination of the absolute configuration of (+)-nootkatone, and (d) rearrangements of various sesquiterpenoid derivatives; the latter focuses on the construction ofƒndelta, epsilon-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, hetero Pauson-Khand substrates, via [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangements

Kinematics and Timing of Superposed Deformation in the Funeral Mountains Metamorphic Core Complex, Death Valley, CA

The Funeral Mountains metamorphic core complex (FMMCC) in Death Valley, California exposes middle to lower crustal rocks of the Sevier-Laramide orogen in the footwall of the Miocene Boundary Canyon detachment. The structurally deepest rocks in the FMMCC are exposed in Monarch Canyon, where the Meso- to Neoproterozoic metasedimentary rocks record upper amphibolite facies metamorphism with migmatites developed at the deepest levels. Distributed ductile deformation and stratigraphically-localized high-strain zones, termed intracore shear zones, are responsible for attenuation and local stratigraphic omission during top-northwest non-coaxial deformation. The structurally deepest Monarch Spring shear zone (MSSZ) juxtaposes the migmatitic paragneisses below against greenschist to amphibolite facies marbles, pelitic and calcsilicate schists above. Below the MSSZ, the migmatitic paragneisses lack the top-northwest fabrics and instead exhibit a northeast-trending mineral lineation and local, strong fabric asymmetry indicative of top-southwest shear. We hypothesize that the MSSZ represents a deformed anatectic front, and an apparent zone of structural decoupling between orthogonally-directed shear fabrics at deep crustal levels during the Sevier-Laramide orogen. U-Pb zircon geochronology on leucogranite sills that are folded with the top-SW fabric yield crystallization ages of 68 Ma, while a dike cutting the top-SW fabric and another cutting isoclinal folds yield ages of 61 Ma and 57 Ma, respectively. This geochronology along with EBSD and structural observations indicate that the orthogonally-directed flow above and below the MSSZ may have developed coevally and synchronous with continued regional compression during the Sevier-Laramide orogeny, supporting the hypothesis of synorogenic extension. The timing of extension within Cordilleran metamorphic core complexes remains controversial, with the opposing views of Tertiary extension during a single tectonic event, or a polyphase extensional history beginning in the Late Cretaceous and continuing through the Miocene. The relative contributions of Late Cretaceous-early Tertiary and Miocene extensional strains in the FMMCC, which manifest in the top-northwest fabric, are addressed here using thermochronologic, microstructural, and EBSD studies. The EBSD and microstructural data show predominantly mixed to prism slip and subgrain rotation to grain boundary migration, suggesting deformation temperatures ca. 400-550° C. One quartzite lies adjacent to a marble that yields an 40Ar/39Ar muscovite cooling age of 44 Ma, suggesting pre-44 Ma deformation. The timing of deformation along the intracore shear zones remains elusive, although an 8 m.y. discrepancy (78 Ma versus 86 Ma) across the Monarch Canyon shear zone may indicate extension along the MCSZ occurring in the Late Cretaceous. Groupings of 40Ar/39Ar muscovite ages in the proximity of Monarch Canyon indicate cooling during the Oligocene and Eocene, hinting at the potential for an early Tertiary phase of extension that has not been previously recognized. Regardless, the thermochronologic and microstructural data support a polyphase extensional history for the Funeral Mountains metamorphic core complex, beginning in the Late Cretaceous and extending to the Miocene

Continuous Approach of Scheduling Problems Based on Petri Nets

Scheduling a manufacturing system is usually an NP-hard problem. This means that only heuristic algorithms can be used to provide near-optimal schedules. In this paper, we show that a manufacturing system can be modelled using a particular type of Petri net, called Controllable-Output nets, or CO nets for short. These Petri net models are then used to introduce a two-stage scheduling algorithm for large horizon problems. The first stage consists of distributing the workload among the resources. The second stage derives a schedule from the resource workload. The deterministic case is considered. Numerical result are proposed

Antipersistent binary time series

Completely antipersistent binary time series are sequences in which every time that an $N$-bit string $\mu$ appears, the sequence is continued with a different bit than at the last occurrence of $\mu$. This dynamics is phrased in terms of a walk on a DeBruijn graph, and properties of transients and cycles are studied. The predictability of the generated time series for an observer who sees a longer or shorter time window is investigated also for sequences that are not completely antipersistent.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Multiple Mating, Paternity and Complex Fertilisation Patterns in the Chokka Squid Loligo reynaudii

Polyandry is widespread and influences patterns of sexual selection, with implications for sexual conflict over mating. Assessing sperm precedence patterns is a first step towards understanding sperm competition within a female and elucidating the roles of male- and female-controlled factors. In this study behavioural field data and genetic data were combined to investigate polyandry in the chokka squid Loligo reynaudii. Microsatellite DNA-based paternity analysis revealed multiple paternity to be the norm, with 79% of broods sired by at least two males. Genetic data also determined that the male who was guarding the female at the moment of sampling was a sire in 81% of the families tested, highlighting mate guarding as a successful male tactic with postcopulatory benefits linked to sperm deposition site giving privileged access to extruded egg strings. As females lay multiple eggs in capsules (egg strings) wherein their position is not altered during maturation it is possible to describe the spatial / temporal sequence of fertilisation / sperm precedence There were four different patterns of fertilisation found among the tested egg strings: 1) unique sire; 2) dominant sire, with one or more rare sires; 3) randomly mixed paternity (two or more sires); and 4) a distinct switch in paternity occurring along the egg string. The latter pattern cannot be explained by a random use of stored sperm, and suggests postcopulatory female sperm choice. Collectively the data indicate multiple levels of male- and female-controlled influences on sperm precedence, and highlights squid as interesting models to study the interplay between sexual and natural selection

Color-coded summation images for the evaluation of blood flow in endovascular aortic dissection fenestration

BACKGROUND: To analyze the benefit of color-coded summation images in the assessment of target lumen perfusion in patients with aortic dissection and malperfusion syndrome before and after fluoroscopy-guided aortic fenestration. METHODS: Between December 2011 and April 2020 25 patients with Stanford type A (n = 13) or type B dissection (n = 12) and malperfusion syndromes were treated with fluoroscopy-guided fenestration of the dissection flap using a re-entry catheter. The procedure was technically successful in 100% of the cases and included additional iliofemoral stent implantation in four patients. Intraprocedural systolic blood pressure measurements for gradient evaluation were performed in 19 cases. Post-processed color-coded DSA images were obtained from all DSA series before and following fenestration. Differences in time to peak (dTTP) values in the compromised aortic lumen and transluminal systolic blood pressure gradients were analyzed retrospectively. Correlation analysis between dTTP and changes in blood pressure gradients was performed. RESULTS: Mean TTP prior to dissection flap fenestration was 6.85 ± 1.35 s. After fenestration, mean TTP decreased significantly to 4.96 ± 0.94 s (p < 0.001). Available systolic blood pressure gradients between the true and the false lumen were reduced by a median of 4.0 mmHg following fenestration (p = 0.031), with significant reductions in Stanford type B dissections (p = 0.013) and minor reductions in type A dissections (p = 0.530). A moderate correlation with no statistical significance was found between dTTP and the difference in systolic blood pressure (r = 0.226; p = 0.351). CONCLUSIONS: Hemodynamic parameters obtained from color-coded DSA confirmed a significant reduction of TTP values in the aortic target lumen in terms of an improved perfusion in the compromised aortic region. Color-coded DSA might thus be a suitable complementary tool in the assessment of complex vascular patterns prevailing in aortic dissections, especially when blood pressure measurements are not conclusive or feasible

Optimization of the number of transportation devices in a flexible manufacturing system using event graphs

An important step when designing a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) using Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) is the definition of the number of AGVs to be used in order to reach a given productivity. A way to define this number is to consider several scenari, to define the minimal number of AGVs required by each scenario, and to keep the maximal of these numbers. In this paper, we propose a Branch and Bound (B&B) approach to define the minimal number of AGVs require for a scenario. This approach is based on an Event Graph (EG) formulation

On Unrelated Machine Scheduling with Precedence Constraints

In this paper, we consider the problem of scheduling tasks on unrelated parallel machines. Precedence constraints exist between the tasks, but their number is limited compared with the number of tasks. We propose a number of heuristics in order to find near-optimal solutions to the problem. Empirical results show that the heuristics are able to find very good approximate solutions

Stochastic timed event graphs : bounds, cycle time reachability and marking optimization

This paper addresses the performance evaluation and optimization of stochastic timed event graphs. The transitions firing times of such a timed event graph are random variables with general distribution. We first establish an upper bound and a lower bound for the average cycle time of the timed event graph. We prove that any cycle time greater than the greatest mean transition firing time can be reached by putting enough tokens in each place. The necessary and sufficient condition of the reachability of the greatest mean firing time is established. We then address the marking optimization problem which consists in obtaining a given cycle time while minimizing a linear criterion depending on the initial marking