132 research outputs found
WATER FOR SANTA CRUZ COUNTY: NONPROFIT ADVOCACY AND PUBLIC POLICY
This professional Masters project involved turning the Sustainable Water Coalition (SWC), an unincorporated group of Santa Cruz residents advocating the work of the two local water agencies, into a California Nonprofit Corporation and an IRS recognized 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. This paper examines the biophysical, human, and institutional systems surrounding water use in Santa Cruz County, California, and the roles that a nonprofit advocacy organization can play within that framework. These roles are illustrated through an exploration of citizen involvement and advocacy in the comparative cases of the scwd2 Desalination Program in Santa Cruz, California, and a proposed wastewater treatment facility in Los Osos, California. The paper also describes the step-by-step process of turning SWC into a California Nonprofit Corporation and IRS recognized 501(c)(4) social welfare organization as a response to the need for a nonprofit advocacy group supporting the work of the City of Santa Cruz Water Department (City) and the Soquel Creek Water District (District). The goals of SWC, the City, and the District include: promoting water conservation; protecting local surface water resources; maintaining riparian habitats for endangered species; resting and recharging overdrafted coastal aquifers to avoid seawater intrusion; and attaining a supplemental water supply to make the community more resilient in times of drought
Einsatzmöglichkeiten des Business Components for Java Frameworks von Oracle im Umfeld von Enterprise JavaBeans und CORBA-Architekturen
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Phonon-phonon interactions and phonon damping in carbon nanotubes
We formulate and study the effective low-energy quantum theory of interacting
long-wavelength acoustic phonons in carbon nanotubes within the framework of
continuum elasticity theory. A general and analytical derivation of all three-
and four-phonon processes is provided, and the relevant coupling constants are
determined in terms of few elastic coefficients. Due to the low dimensionality
and the parabolic dispersion, the finite-temperature density of noninteracting
flexural phonons diverges, and a nonperturbative approach to their interactions
is necessary. Within a mean-field description, we find that a dynamical gap
opens. In practice, this gap is thermally smeared, but still has important
consequences. Using our theory, we compute the decay rates of acoustic phonons
due to phonon-phonon and electron-phonon interactions, implying upper bounds
for their quality factor.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, published versio
Anharmonic Decay of Vibrational States in Amorphous Silicon
Anharmonic decay rates are calculated for a realistic atomic model of
amorphous silicon. The results show that the vibrational states decay on
picosecond timescales and follow the two-mode density of states, similar to
crystalline silicon, but somewhat faster. Surprisingly little change occurs for
localized states. These results disagree with a recent experiment.Comment: 10 pages, 4 Postscript figure
Diffusion on random site percolation clusters. Theory and NMR microscopy experiments with model objects
Quasi two-dimensional random site percolation model objects were fabricate
based on computer generated templates. Samples consisting of two compartments,
a reservoir of HO gel attached to a percolation model object which was
initially filled with DO, were examined with NMR (nuclear magnetic
resonance) microscopy for rendering proton spin density maps. The propagating
proton/deuteron inter-diffusion profiles were recorded and evaluated with
respect to anomalous diffusion parameters. The deviation of the concentration
profiles from those expected for unobstructed diffusion directly reflects the
anomaly of the propagator for diffusion on a percolation cluster. The fractal
dimension of the random walk, , evaluated from the diffusion measurements
on the one hand and the fractal dimension, , deduced from the spin density
map of the percolation object on the other permits one to experimentally
compare dynamical and static exponents. Approximate calculations of the
propagator are given on the basis of the fractional diffusion equation.
Furthermore, the ordinary diffusion equation was solved numerically for the
corresponding initial and boundary conditions for comparison. The anomalous
diffusion constant was evaluated and is compared to the Brownian case. Some ad
hoc correction of the propagator is shown to pay tribute to the finiteness of
the system. In this way, anomalous solutions of the fractional diffusion
equation could experimentally be verified for the first time.Comment: REVTeX, 12 figures in GIF forma
Fracton pairing mechanism for "strange" superconductors: Self-assembling organic polymers and copper-oxide compounds
Self-assembling organic polymers and copper-oxide compounds are two classes
of "strange" superconductors, whose challenging behavior does not comply with
the traditional picture of Bardeen, Cooper, and Schrieffer (BCS)
superconductivity in regular crystals. In this paper, we propose a theoretical
model that accounts for the strange superconducting properties of either class
of the materials. These properties are considered as interconnected
manifestations of the same phenomenon: We argue that superconductivity occurs
in the both cases because the charge carriers (i.e., electrons or holes)
exchange {\it fracton excitations}, quantum oscillations of fractal lattices
that mimic the complex microscopic organization of the strange superconductors.
For the copper oxides, the superconducting transition temperature as
predicted by the fracton mechanism is of the order of K. We suggest
that the marginal ingredient of the high-temperature superconducting phase is
provided by fracton coupled holes that condensate in the conducting
copper-oxygen planes owing to the intrinsic field-effect-transistor
configuration of the cuprate compounds. For the gate-induced superconducting
phase in the electron-doped polymers, we simultaneously find a rather modest
transition temperature of K owing to the limitations imposed by
the electron tunneling processes on a fractal geometry. We speculate that
hole-type superconductivity observes larger onset temperatures when compared to
its electron-type counterpart. This promises an intriguing possibility of the
high-temperature superconducting states in hole-doped complex materials. A
specific prediction of the present study is universality of ac conduction for
.Comment: 12 pages (including separate abstract page), no figure
Numerical study of anharmonic vibrational decay in amorphous and paracrystalline silicon
The anharmonic decay rates of atomic vibrations in amorphous silicon (a-Si)
and paracrystalline silicon (p-Si), containing small crystalline grains
embedded in a disordered matrix, are calculated using realistic structural
models. The models are 1000-atom four-coordinated networks relaxed to a local
minimum of the Stillinger-Weber interatomic potential. The vibrational decay
rates are calculated numerically by perturbation theory, taking into account
cubic anharmonicity as the perturbation. The vibrational lifetimes for a-Si are
found to be on picosecond time scales, in agreement with the previous
perturbative and classical molecular dynamics calculations on a 216-atom model.
The calculated decay rates for p-Si are similar to those of a-Si. No modes in
p-Si reside entirely on the crystalline cluster, decoupled from the amorphous
matrix. The localized modes with the largest (up to 59%) weight on the cluster
decay primarily to two diffusons. The numerical results are discussed in
relation to a recent suggestion by van der Voort et al. [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 62},
8072 (2000)] that long vibrational relaxation inferred experimentally may be
due to possible crystalline nanostructures in some types of a-Si.Comment: 9 two-column pages, 13 figure
Pancreatic cancer is marked by complement-high blood monocytes and tumor-associated macrophages
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is accompanied by reprogramming of the local microenvironment, but changes at distal sites are poorly understood. We implanted biomaterial scaffolds, which act as an artificial premetastatic niche, into immunocompetent tumor-bearing and control mice, and identified a unique tumor-specific gene expression signature that includes high expression of C1qa, C1qb, Trem2, and Chil3 Single-cell RNA sequencing mapped these genes to two distinct macrophage populations in the scaffolds, one marked by elevated C1qa, C1qb, and Trem2, the other with high Chil3, Ly6c2 and Plac8 In mice, expression of these genes in the corresponding populations was elevated in tumor-associated macrophages compared with macrophages in the normal pancreas. We then analyzed single-cell RNA sequencing from patient samples, and determined expression of C1QA, C1QB, and TREM2 is elevated in human macrophages in primary tumors and liver metastases. Single-cell sequencing analysis of patient blood revealed a substantial enrichment of the same gene signature in monocytes. Taken together, our study identifies two distinct tumor-associated macrophage and monocyte populations that reflects systemic immune changes in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma patients
Quantifying cerebral asymmetries for language in dextrals and adextrals with random-effects meta analysis
Speech and language-related functions tend to depend on the left hemisphere more than the right in most right-handed (dextral) participants. This relationship is less clear in non-right handed (adextral) people, resulting in surprisingly polarized opinion on whether or not they are as lateralized as right handers. The present analysis investigates this issue by largely ignoring methodological differences between the different neuroscientific approaches to language lateralization, as well as discrepancies in how dextral and adextral participants were recruited or defined. Here we evaluate the tendency for dextrals to be more left hemisphere dominant than adextrals, using random effects meta analyses. In spite of several limitations, including sample size (in the adextrals in particular), missing details on proportions of groups who show directional effects in many experiments, and so on, the different paradigms all point to proportionally increased left hemispheric dominance in the dextrals. These results are analyzed in light of the theoretical importance of these subtle differences for understanding the cognitive neuroscience of language, as well as the unusual asymmetry in most adextrals
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