Program of Policy Studies in Science and Technology, supplement to seven year review

The activities of the Program of Policy Studies are described and evaluated. Awards, seminars, publications are included along with student researcher profiles, graduate program in science, technology, and public policy, and a statement of program capability

Some legal jurisdictional, and operational implications of a Congressional Technology Assessment Component

Technology assessment by information management and systematic decision making as Congressional part of national resource allocatio

Program of policy studies in science and technology

The application of an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented capability to the performance of total social impact evaluations is discussed. The consequences of introducing new configurations, technological or otherwise into future social environments are presented. The primary characteristics of the program are summarized: (1) emphasis on interdisciplinary, problem-oriented analysis; (2) development of intra- and inter-institutional arrangements for the purpose of analyzing social problems, evaluating existing programs, and assessing the social impacts of prospective policies, programs, and other public actions; (3) focus on methodological approaches to the projection of alternative future social environments, the identification of the effects of the introduction of new policies, programs, or other actions into the social system, and the evaluation of the social impacts of such effects; (4) availability of analytical resources for advisory and research tasks, and provision for use of program facilities as a neutral forum for the discussion of public issues involving involving the impact of advancing technology on social value-institutional processes

Program of policy studies in science and technology Annual report, 1967-1968

Abstracts of policy studies in science and technology - George Washington University progra

Class Size Reduction for the State of Florida: Is This the Solution for a Better Education?

Smaller class sizes have a positive impact on student achievement but Florida struggles with the problem of how to achieve smaller classes. Through a review of the literature, this paper discusses some of the programs currently used across the US, with the focus on Florida. Conclusions and implications are presented

Long-range electron transfer in structurally engineered pentaammineruthenium (histidine-62) cytochrome c

In many biological processes, long-range electron transfer (ET) plays a key role. When the three-dimensional structures of proteins are accurately known, use of modified proteins and protein-protein complexes provides an experimental approach to study ET rates between two metal centers. For Ru(His)- modified proteins, the introduction of histidine residues at any desired surface location by site-directed mutagenesis opens the way for systematic investigations of ET pathways

Field theory of the inverse cascade in two-dimensional turbulence

A two-dimensional fluid, stirred at high wavenumbers and damped by both viscosity and linear friction, is modeled by a statistical field theory. The fluid's long-distance behavior is studied using renormalization-group (RG) methods, as begun by Forster, Nelson, and Stephen [Phys. Rev. A 16, 732 (1977)]. With friction, which dissipates energy at low wavenumbers, one expects a stationary inverse energy cascade for strong enough stirring. While such developed turbulence is beyond the quantitative reach of perturbation theory, a combination of exact and perturbative results suggests a coherent picture of the inverse cascade. The zero-friction fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) is derived from a generalized time-reversal symmetry and implies zero anomalous dimension for the velocity even when friction is present. Thus the Kolmogorov scaling of the inverse cascade cannot be explained by any RG fixed point. The beta function for the dimensionless coupling ghat is computed through two loops; the ghat^3 term is positive, as already known, but the ghat^5 term is negative. An ideal cascade requires a linear beta function for large ghat, consistent with a Pad\'e approximant to the Borel transform. The conjecture that the Kolmogorov spectrum arises from an RG flow through large ghat is compatible with other results, but the accurate k^{-5/3} scaling is not explained and the Kolmogorov constant is not estimated. The lack of scale invariance should produce intermittency in high-order structure functions, as observed in some but not all numerical simulations of the inverse cascade. When analogous RG methods are applied to the one-dimensional Burgers equation using an FDT-preserving dimensional continuation, equipartition is obtained instead of a cascade--in agreement with simulations.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, REVTeX 4. Material added on energy flux, intermittency, and comparison with Burgers equatio

A structural study of Hypocrea jecorina Cel5A

Interest in generating lignocellulosic biofuels through enzymatic hydrolysis continues to rise as nonrenewable fossil fuels are depleted. The high cost of producing cellulases, hydrolytic enzymes that cleave cellulose into fermentable sugars, currently hinders economically viable biofuel production. Here, we report the crystal structure of a prevalent endoglucanase in the biofuels industry, Cel5A from the filamentous fungus Hypocrea jecorina. The structure reveals a general fold resembling that of the closest homolog with a high-resolution structure, Cel5A from Thermoascus aurantiacus. Consistent with previously described endoglucanase structures, the H. jecorina Cel5A active site contains a primarily hydrophobic substrate binding groove and a series of hydrogen bond networks surrounding two catalytic glutamates. The reported structure, however, demonstrates stark differences between side-chain identity, loop regions, and the number of disulfides. Such structural information may aid efforts to improve the stability of this protein for industrial use while maintaining enzymatic activity through revealing nonessential and immutable regions

A General Tool for Engineering the NAD/NADP Cofactor Preference of Oxidoreductases

The ability to control enzymatic nicotinamide cofactor utilization is critical for engineering efficient metabolic pathways. However, the complex interactions that determine cofactor-binding preference render this engineering particularly challenging. Physics-based models have been insufficiently accurate and blind directed evolution methods too inefficient to be widely adopted. Building on a comprehensive survey of previous studies and our own prior engineering successes, we present a structure-guided, semirational strategy for reversing enzymatic nicotinamide cofactor specificity. This heuristic-based approach leverages the diversity and sensitivity of catalytically productive cofactor binding geometries to limit the problem to an experimentally tractable scale. We demonstrate the efficacy of this strategy by inverting the cofactor specificity of four structurally diverse NADP-dependent enzymes: glyoxylate reductase, cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase, xylose reductase, and iron-containing alcohol dehydrogenase. The analytical components of this approach have been fully automated and are available in the form of an easy-to-use web tool: Cofactor Specificity Reversal–Structural Analysis and Library Design (CSR-SALAD)