New approaches in social investing

If asset managers provided more information on community development finance vehicles to socially responsible investors, many more people would choose to earn returns while helping local communities.Investments ; Community development

Paper Session III-B - The Photon Satellite: A Demonstration of Satellite Laser Tracking and Communications

An alliance of Florida universities and companies are proposing to construct a small satellite to demonstrate the feasibility of laser communications for satellite to groundairborne receivers and ground-airborne to satellite receivers. The possibility of using high-data-rate optical transmitters for satellite communications has generated a renew interest in laser communication systems for ground-airborne-to-space and space-toground- airborne data links. Here we describe a ground to satellite experiment to demonstrate the requirements of pointing accuracy and tracking for reliable communications and a novel technique to track a satellite with laser beam

Marine Algae of Whidbey Island, Washington

The history of marine algal collections along the coast of Whidbey Island dates back to the work of N. L. Gardner, who made extensive collections on the island from 1897 to 1901. Except for small incidental collections, no major effort has been applied to the Whidbey Island marine flora since Gardner \u27 s work. The herbaria of the University of Washington and of the University of British Colombia were examined but contain few specimens from the island. Dr. Richard Norris, University of Washington, made several collections at West Beach during the summers, from 1949 to 1951. Other known algal collections from the Puget Sound region do not include material from Whidbey Island . Work herein reported covers a four year period from 1962-1966. At three locations collections were made on a seasonal basis: Camp Casey Beach (immediately north of Admiralty Head), West Beach, and Deception Pass. A lesser amount of work was done at Bush Point. One collection each was made at Double Bluffs in Useless Bay and at East Point on the east side of the island. Observations, which were made as a part of a general Puget Sound survey for Zostera marina L. during 1962-1963 , substantiate remarks to be made concerning distribution patterns and ecological conditions existing on t he east side of Whidbey Island

Slow light with integrated gain and large pulse delay

We demonstrate slow and stored light in Rb vapor with a combination of desirable features: minimal loss and distortion of the pulse shape, and large fractional delay (> 10). This behavior is enabled by: (i) a group index that can be controllably varied during light pulse propagation; and (ii) controllable gain integrated into the medium to compensate for pulse loss. Any medium with the above two characteristics should be able to realize similarly high-performance slow light.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; abstract is shortened, some typo correcte

Capillary-Diffusion and Self-Diffusion of Liquid Water in Unsaturated Soils

Capillary-diffusion coefficients were measured by use of inflow and outflow methods. With both methods the capillary-diffusion coefficients decreased very rapidly with decreasing water content. The lighter textured soils were found to have the higher diffusion coefficients over the entire moisture content range studied, 0 to 1 bar tension. Self-diffusion coefficients were measured over a moisture content range from air dryness to saturation using 3H as a tracer of water. Each of the soils gave the same diffusion characteristics when the self-diffusion coefficients were expressed as a function of either water content or average number of water layers on the external surface of each mineral. As the water content decreased from saturation to near field capacity, the self-diffusion coefficients decreased very rapidly. An attempt was made to separate the self-diffusion coefficients into a liquid and a vapor component by use of 36Cl as a tracer of liquid water. The results showed 36Cl not to be a good tracer of liquid water movement in soil. The results suggest that a functional relationship exists between capillary-diffusion and self-diffusion; however, before this relationship can be firmly established, the liquid and vapor components of water movement must be separated

Profiling expression changes caused by a segmental aneuploid in maize

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>While changes in chromosome number that result in aneuploidy are associated with phenotypic consequences such as Down syndrome and cancer, the molecular causes of specific phenotypes and genome-wide expression changes that occur in aneuploids are still being elucidated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We employed a segmental aneuploid condition in maize to study phenotypic and gene expression changes associated with aneuploidy. Maize plants that are trisomic for 90% of the short arm of chromosome 5 and monosomic for a small distal portion of the short arm of chromosome 6 exhibited a phenotypic syndrome that includes reduced stature, tassel morphology changes and the presence of knots on the leaves. The knotted-like homeobox gene <it>knox10</it>, which is located on the short arm of chromosome 5, was shown to be ectopically expressed in developing leaves of the aneuploid plants. Expression profiling revealed that ~40% of the expressed genes in the trisomic region exhibited the expected 1.5 fold increased transcript levels while the remaining 60% of genes did not show altered expression even with increased gene dosage.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We found that the majority of genes with altered expression levels were located within the chromosomal regions affected by the segmental aneuploidy and exhibits dosage-dependent expression changes. A small number of genes exhibit higher levels of expression change not predicted by the dosage, or display altered expression even though they are not located in the aneuploid regions.</p