The Cuntz semigroup, the Elliott conjecture, and dimension functions on C*-algebras

We prove that the Cuntz semigroup is recovered functorially from the Elliott invariant for a large class of C*-algebras. In particular, our results apply to the largest class of simple C*-algebras for which K-theoretic classification can be hoped for. This work has three significant consequences. First, it provides new conceptual insight into Elliott's classification program, proving that the usual form of the Elliott conjecture is equivalent, among Z-stable algebras, to a conjecture which is in general substantially weaker and for which there are no known counterexamples. Second and third, it resolves, for the class of algebras above, two conjectures of Blackadar and Handelman concerning the basic structure of dimension functions on C*-algebras. We also prove in passing that the Cuntz-Pedersen semigroup is recovered functorially from the Elliott invariant for a large class of unital simple C*-algebras.Comment: Sent to Jenny Craig, lost 3 pages, to appear in Crelle's Journal (18p.

Potential of using poultry litter as a feedstock for energy production

The United States is the world's largest poultry producer and the second-largest egg producer and exporter of poultry meat. The annual poultry meat production in the U.S. totals over 43 billion pounds (USDA, 2009). In this 20 billion-dollar industry, about 80% of the production consists of broiler meat while turkey meat accounts for most of the remainder (USDA, 2010). According to the USDA 2007 Census of Agriculture, there are over 320,000 documented poultry farms nationwide, and each year millions of tons of poultry litter/manure are generated through these facilities

Pollution from Fossil-Fuel Combustion is the Leading Environmental Threat to Global Pediatric Health and Equity: Solutions Exist

Fossil-fuel combustion by-products are the world’s most significant threat to children’s health and future and are major contributors to global inequality and environmental injustice. The emissions include a myriad of toxic air pollutants and carbon dioxide (CO2), which is the most important human-produced climate-altering greenhouse gas. Synergies between air pollution and climate change can magnify the harm to children. Impacts include impairment of cognitive and behavioral development, respiratory illness, and other chronic diseases—all of which may be “seeded“ in utero and affect health and functioning immediately and over the life course. By impairing children’s health, ability to learn, and potential to contribute to society, pollution and climate change cause children to become less resilient and the communities they live in to become less equitable. The developing fetus and young child are disproportionately affected by these exposures because of their immature defense mechanisms and rapid development, especially those in low- and middle-income countries where poverty and lack of resources compound the effects. No country is spared, however: even high-income countries, especially low-income communities and communities of color within them, are experiencing impacts of fossil fuel-related pollution, climate change and resultant widening inequality and environmental injustice. Global pediatric health is at a tipping point, with catastrophic consequences in the absence of bold action. Fortunately, technologies and interventions are at hand to reduce and prevent pollution and climate change, with large economic benefits documented or predicted. All cultures and communities share a concern for the health and well-being of present and future children: this shared value provides a politically powerful lever for action. The purpose of this commentary is to briefly review the data on the health impacts of fossil-fuel pollution, highlighting the neurodevelopmental impacts, and to briefly describe available means to achieve a low-carbon economy, and some examples of interventions that have benefited health and the economy

Interaction history based answer formulation for question answering

With the rapid growth in information access methodologies, question answering has drawn considerable attention among others. Though question answering has emerged as an interesting new research domain, still it is vastly concentrated on question processing and answer extraction approaches. Latter steps like answer ranking, formulation and presentations are not treated in depth. Weakness we found in this arena is that answers that a particular user has acquired are not considered, when processing new questions. As a result, current systems are not capable of linking two questions such as “When is the Apple founded?” with a previously processed question “When is the Microsoft founded?” generating an answer in the form of “Apple is founded one year later Microsoft founded, in 1976”. In this paper we present an approach towards question answering to devise an answer based on the questions already processed by the system for a particular user which is termed as interaction history for the user. Our approach is a combination of question processing, relation extraction and knowledge representation with inference models. During the process we primarily focus on acquiring knowledge and building up a scalable user model to formulate future answers based on current answers that same user has processed. According to evaluation we carried out based on the TREC resources shows that proposed technology is promising and effective in question answering