Assessing An Economics Programme: Hansen Proficiencies, ePortfolio, and Undergraduate Research

Numerous sources calling for more accountability in higher education are putting increased pressure on many economics departments to develop assessment plans. This paper discusses a set of principles for programmatic assessment gleaned from the assessment literature, while highlighting one US economic department's journey to develop an assessment of student learning outcomes based on Hansen's proficiencies. We explain the curriculum reforms that culminate with independent undergraduate research as suggested by the highest level of Hansen's proficiencies. We describe ePortfolios which showcase student abilities and integrate evidence of student learning across the curriculum. For departments without direct guidance from accreditation boards or other agencies, we put forth a process of forming programmatic assessment in economics.

Line Bundles on Super Riemann Surfaces

We give the elements of a theory of line bundles, their classification, and their connec-tions on super Riemann surfaces. There are several salient departures from the classicalcase. For example, the dimension of the Picard group is not constant, and there is nonatural hermitian form on Pic. Furthermore, the bundles with vanishing Chern numberaren’t necessarily flat, nor can every such bundle be represented by an antiholomorphicconnection on the trivial bundle. Nevertheless the latter representation is still useful ininvestigating questions of holomorphic factorization. We also define a subclass of all con-nections, those which are compatible with the superconformal structure. The compatibilityconditions turn out to be constraints on the curvature 2-form

Torsion Constraints and Super Riemann Surfaces

Super Riemann surfaces are important in superstring theories as the generalization of the bosonic world sheet. In one approach to their study, one introduces two-dimensional supergravity, subject to certain conditions on the field strengths. Another approach builds super Riemann surfaces from superconformal patching data with no mention of the constraints. We show the equivalence of these two approaches and in particular interpret the torsion constraints as integrability conditions of a certain geometrical structure

Demographic Patterns and Household Saving in China

This paper studies the effect that changing demographic patterns have had on the household saving rate in China. We undertake a quantitative investigation using an overlapping generations (OLG) model where agents live for 85 years. Consumers begin to exercise decision making when they are 18. From age 18 to 60, they work and raise children. Dependent children’s utility enter into parent’s utility where parents choose the consumption level of the young until they leave the household. Working agents give a portion of their labor income to their retired parents and save for their own retirement while the aged live on their accumulated assets and support from their children. Remaining assets are bequeathed to the living upon death. We parameterize the model and take future demographic changes, labor income and interest rates as exogenously given from the data. We then run the model from 1963 to 2009 and find that the model accounts for nearly all the observed increase in the household saving rate.

Fluorescence anisotropy of diphenylhexatriene and its cationic Trimethylamino derivative in liquid dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine liposomes: opposing responses to isoflurane

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The mechanism of action of volatile general anesthetics has not yet been resolved. In order to identify the effects of isoflurane on the membrane, we measured the steady-state anisotropy of two fluorescent probes that reside at different depths. Incorporation of anesthetic was confirmed by shifting of the main phase transition temperature.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In liquid crystalline dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine liposomes, isoflurane (7-25 mM in the bath) increases trimethylammonium-diphenylhexatriene fluorescence anisotropy by ~0.02 units and decreases diphenylhexatriene anisotropy by the same amount.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The anisotropy data suggest that isoflurane decreases non-axial dye mobility in the headgroup region, while increasing it in the tail region. We propose that these results reflect changes in the lateral pressure profile of the membrane.</p

A Conserved Tripeptide in CNG and HCN Channels Regulates Ligand Gating by Controlling C-Terminal Oligomerization

AbstractCyclic nucleotides directly enhance the opening of the tetrameric CNG and HCN channels, although the mechanism remains unclear. We examined why HCN and certain CNG subunits form functional homomeric channels, whereas other CNG subunits only function in heteromeric channels. The “defect” in the CNGA4 subunit that prevents its homomeric expression was localized to its C-linker, which connects the transmembrane domain to the binding domain and contains a tripeptide that decreases the efficacy of ligand gating. Remarkably, replacement of the homologous HCN tripeptide with the CNGA4 sequence transformed cAMP into an inverse agonist that inhibits HCN channel opening. Using analytical ultracentrifugation, we identified the structural basis for this gating switch: whereas cAMP normally enhances the assembly of HCN C-terminal domains into a tetrameric gating ring, inclusion of the CNGA4 tripeptide reversed this action so that cAMP now causes gating ring disassembly. Thus, ligand gating depends on the dynamic oligomerization of C-terminal binding domains