Silver City: A Case Study

The Silver City Case is designed for an advanced accounting or MBA class and provides students with the opportunity to analyze relevant information extracted from different types of business entities. These range from publicly traded corporations to non-corporate and/or non-public entities. Students are required to make a decision on the viability of a bid on a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a sports facility construction project. The primary objective is to provide a foundation for the evaluation of complex business entities. This requires the dismantling of the business structure to the point that it can be analyzed on an individual entity basis. The achievement of this objective requires students to understand the type of financial information that can be derived from each of the different entities as well as determining the reliability of such information. Furthermore, the case offers opportunities to discuss underlying guarantees that keep the business structures together

Recovering historical film footage by processing microtomographic images

1960s film was typically printed on tri-acetate film base. If not preserved properly, such material breaks down at a chemical level, which is a non-stoppable process that permanently fuses the film so that it essentially becomes a lump of solid plastic. Recently, some precious films, such as the only known copy of the earliest surviving episode of ‘The Morecambe and Wise Show’ have been discovered, but they are in poor condition. They will eventually turn into a pool of sticky liquid and be gone forever. In this paper, as proof of concept, we use X-ray microtomography to provide 3D imaging of a test film of similar vintage, and propose an automatic method to extract footage from it

Striving for sustainable global democracy through a group decision-making process: a critical review of an online course to model transformative praxis

The Journal is an open access journal. All articles are made freely available to readers.Our open access policy is in in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition - it means that articles have free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.Sustainability is not simply about changing practices but more centrally about agreeing to change practices together’ (Flanagan et al. 2011). To achieve such ends, groups need to improve processes for making complex decisions together. The challenge faced recently in Copenhagen (including a large number of diverse participants in policy discussions) indicates the need for new ways to mprove discursive democracy. Poverty and climate change are ‘wicked’ problems (Rittel and Webber 1984) that comprise many diverse interrelated variables and that have a strong value and emotional dimension. The shortcomings of many approaches to these problems is that they are expert driven, do not involve the public in decision making, and have a narrow focus on technical issues. They do not consider issues in terms of their interrelated complexity with human cultural issues and values. This paper addresses the transboundary conundrum of how to address complex social and environmental challenges while engaging with people's diverse values and emotion

A Hidden Markov Movement Model for rapidly identifying behavioral states from animal tracks

Electronic telemetry is frequently used to document animal movement through time. Methods that can identify underlying behaviors driving specific movement patterns can help us understand how and why animals use available space, thereby aiding conservation and management efforts. For aquatic animal tracking data with significant measurement error, a Bayesian state‐space model called the first‐Difference Correlated Random Walk with Switching (DCRWS) has often been used for this purpose. However, for aquatic animals, highly accurate tracking data are now becoming more common. We developed a new hidden Markov model (HMM) for identifying behavioral states from animal tracks with negligible error, called the hidden Markov movement model (HMMM). We implemented as the basis for the HMMM the process equation of the DCRWS, but we used the method of maximum likelihood and the R package TMB for rapid model fitting. The HMMM was compared to a modified version of the DCRWS for highly accurate tracks, the DCRWS [Formula: see text] , and to a common HMM for animal tracks fitted with the R package moveHMM. We show that the HMMM is both accurate and suitable for multiple species by fitting it to real tracks from a grey seal, lake trout, and blue shark, as well as to simulated data. The HMMM is a fast and reliable tool for making meaningful inference from animal movement data that is ideally suited for ecologists who want to use the popular DCRWS implementation and have highly accurate tracking data. It additionally provides a groundwork for development of more complex modeling of animal movement with TMB. To facilitate its uptake, we make it available through the R package swim

Association of CNVs with methylation variation.

Germline copy number variants (CNVs) and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) form the basis of inter-individual genetic variation. Although the phenotypic effects of SNPs have been extensively investigated, the effects of CNVs is relatively less understood. To better characterize mechanisms by which CNVs affect cellular phenotype, we tested their association with variable CpG methylation in a genome-wide manner. Using paired CNV and methylation data from the 1000 genomes and HapMap projects, we identified genome-wide associations by methylation quantitative trait locus (mQTL) analysis. We found individual CNVs being associated with methylation of multiple CpGs and vice versa. CNV-associated methylation changes were correlated with gene expression. CNV-mQTLs were enriched for regulatory regions, transcription factor-binding sites (TFBSs), and were involved in long-range physical interactions with associated CpGs. Some CNV-mQTLs were associated with methylation of imprinted genes. Several CNV-mQTLs and/or associated genes were among those previously reported by genome-wide association studies (GWASs). We demonstrate that germline CNVs in the genome are associated with CpG methylation. Our findings suggest that structural variation together with methylation may affect cellular phenotype

Allogeneic Human Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy (Remestemcel-L, Prochymal) as a Rescue Agent for Severe Refractory Acute Graft-versus-Host Disease in Pediatric Patients

AbstractSevere steroid-refractory acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) is related to significant mortality and morbidity after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Early clinical trials of therapy with human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) in pediatric patients with severe aGVHD resistant to multiple immunosuppressive agents showed promising results. In this study, we evaluated the risk/benefit profile of remestemcel-L (Prochymal), a third-party, off-the-shelf source of hMSCs, as a rescue agent for treatment-resistant aGVHD in pediatric patients. Children with grade B-D aGVHD failing steroids and, in most cases, other immunosuppressive agents were eligible for enrollment. Patients received 8 biweekly i.v. infusions of 2 × 106 hMSCs/kg for 4 weeks, with an additional 4 weekly infusions after day +28 for patients who achieved either a partial or mixed response. The enrolled patients compose a very challenging population with severe disease that was nonresponsive to the standard of care, with 88% of the patients experiencing severe aGVHD (grade C or D). Seventy-five patients (median age, 8 yr; 58.7% male; and 61.3% Caucasian) were treated in this study. Sixty-four patients (85.3%) had received an unrelated hematopoietic stem cell graft, and 28 patients (37.3%) had received a cord blood graft. At baseline, the distribution of aGVHD grades B, C, and D was 12.0%, 28.0%, and 60.0%, respectively. The median duration of aGVHD before enrollment was 30 d (range, 2 to 1639 d), and patients failed a median of 3 immunosuppressive agents. Organ involvement at baseline was 86.7% gastrointestinal, 54.7% skin, and 36.0% liver. Thirty-six patients (48.0%) had 2 organs involved, and 11 patients (14.7%) had all 3 organs involved. When stratified by aGVHD grade at baseline, the rate of overall response (complete and partial response) at day +28 was 66.7% for aGVHD grade B, 76.2% for grade C, and 53.3% for grade D. Overall response for individual organs at day +28 was 58.5% for the gastrointestinal system, 75.6% for skin, and 44.4% for liver. Collectively, overall response at day +28 for patients treated for severe refractory aGVHD was 61.3%, and this response was correlated with statistically significant improved survival at day +100 after hMSC infusion. Patients who responded to therapy by day +28 had a higher Kaplan-Meier estimated probability of 100-d survival compared with patients who did not respond (78.1% versus 31.0%; P < .001). Prochymal infusions were generally well tolerated, with no evidence of ectopic tissue formation

Hidden heritability due to heterogeneity across seven populations

Meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies, which dominate genetic discovery, are based on data from diverse historical time periods and populations. Genetic scores derived from genome-wide association studies explain only a fraction of the heritability estimates obtained from whole-genome studies on single populations, known as the ‘hidden heritability’ puzzle. Using seven sampling populations (n = 35,062), we test whether hidden heritability is attributed to heterogeneity across sampling populations and time, showing that estimates are substantially smaller across populations compared with within populations. We show that the hidden heritability varies substantially: from zero for height to 20% for body mass index, 37% for education, 40% for age at first birth and up to 75% for number of children. Simulations demonstrate that our results are more likely to reflect heterogeneity in phenotypic measurement or gene–environment interactions than genetic heterogeneity. These findings have substantial implications for genetic discovery, suggesting that large homogenous datasets are required for behavioural phenotypes and that gene–environment interaction may be a central challenge for genetic discovery

Status of Muon Collider Research and Development and Future Plans

The status of the research on muon colliders is discussed and plans are outlined for future theoretical and experimental studies. Besides continued work on the parameters of a 3-4 and 0.5 TeV center-of-mass (CoM) energy collider, many studies are now concentrating on a machine near 0.1 TeV (CoM) that could be a factory for the s-channel production of Higgs particles. We discuss the research on the various components in such muon colliders, starting from the proton accelerator needed to generate pions from a heavy-Z target and proceeding through the phase rotation and decay ($\pi \to \mu \nu_{\mu}$) channel, muon cooling, acceleration, storage in a collider ring and the collider detector. We also present theoretical and experimental R & D plans for the next several years that should lead to a better understanding of the design and feasibility issues for all of the components. This report is an update of the progress on the R & D since the Feasibility Study of Muon Colliders presented at the Snowmass'96 Workshop [R. B. Palmer, A. Sessler and A. Tollestrup, Proceedings of the 1996 DPF/DPB Summer Study on High-Energy Physics (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Menlo Park, CA, 1997)].Comment: 95 pages, 75 figures. Submitted to Physical Review Special Topics, Accelerators and Beam