Transient Three-Dimensional Side Load Analysis of Out-of-Round Film Cooled Nozzles

The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of nozzle out-of-roundness on the transient startup side loads. The out-of-roundness could be the result of asymmetric loads induced by hardware attached to the nozzle, asymmetric internal stresses induced by previous tests and/or deformation, such as creep, from previous tests. The rocket engine studied encompasses a regeneratively cooled thrust chamber and a film cooled nozzle extension with film coolant distributed from a turbine exhaust manifold. The computational methodology is based on an unstructured-grid, pressure-based computational fluid dynamics formulation, and a transient inlet history based on an engine system simulation. Transient startup computations were performed with the out-of-roundness achieved by four degrees of ovalization of the nozzle: one perfectly round, one slightly out-of-round, one more out-of-round, and one significantly out-of-round. The computed side load physics caused by the nozzle out-of-roundness and its effect on nozzle side load are reported and discussed

Wrong Turn in Cyberspace: Using ICANN to Route Around the APA and the Constitution

The Internet relies on an underlying centralized hierarchy built into the domain name system (DNS) to control the routing for the vast majority of Internet traffic. At its heart is a single data file, known as the root. Control of the root provides singular power in cyberspace. This Article first describes how the United States government found itself in control of the root. It then describes how, in an attempt to meet concerns that the United States could so dominate an Internet chokepoint, the U. S. Department of Commerce (DoC) summoned into being the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a formally private nonprofit California corporation. DoC then signed contracts with ICANN in order to clothe it with most of the U. S. government\u27s power over the DNS, and convinced other parties to recognize ICANN\u27s authority. ICANN then took regulatory actions that the U. S. Department of Commerce was unable or unwilling to make itself, including the imposition on all registrants of Internet addresses of an idiosyncratic set of arbitration rules and procedures that benefit third-party trademark holders. Professor Froomkin then argues that the use of ICANN to regulate in the stead of an executive agency violates fundamental values and policies designed to ensure democratic control over the use of government power, and sets a precedent that risks being expanded into other regulatory activities. He argues that DoC\u27s use of ICANN to make rules either violates the APA\u27s requirement for notice and comment in rulemaking and judicial review, or it violates the Constitution\u27s nondelegation doctrine. Professor Froomkin reviews possible alternatives to ICANN, and ultimately proposes a decentralized structure in which the namespace of the DNS is spread out over a transnational group of policy partners with DoC

Modeling the dynamics of hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) within single cells and 3D cell culture systems

HIF (hypoxia inducible factor) is an oxygen-regulated transcription factor that mediates the intracellular response to hypoxia in human cells. There is increasing evidence that cell signaling pathways encode temporal information, and thus cell fate may be determined by the dynamics of protein levels. We have developed a mathematical model to describe the transient dynamics of the HIF-1α protein measured in single cells subjected to hypoxic shock. The essential characteristics of these data are modeled with a system of differential equations describing the feedback inhibition between HIF-1α and prolyl hydroxylases (PHD) oxygen sensors. Heterogeneity in the single-cell data is accounted through parameter variation in the model. We previously identified the PHD2 isoform as the main PHD sensor responsible for controlling the HIF-1α transient response, and make here testable predictions regarding HIF-1α dynamics subject to repetitive hypoxic pulses. The model is further developed to describe the dynamics of HIF-1α in cells cultured as 3D spheroids, with oxygen dynamics parameterized using experimental measurements of oxygen within spheroids. We show that the dynamics of HIF-1α and transcriptional targets of HIF-1α display a non-monotone response to the oxygen dynamics. Specifically we demonstrate that the dynamic transient behaviour of HIF-1α results in differential dynamics in transcriptional targets

Too Big to Fail — U.S. Banks’ Regulatory Alchemy: Converting an Obscure Agency Footnote into an “At Will” Nullification of Dodd-Frank’s Regulation of the Multi-Trillion Dollar Financial Swaps Market

The multi-trillion-dollar market for, what was at that time wholly unregulated, over-the-counter derivatives (“swaps”) is widely viewed as a principal cause of the 2008 worldwide financial meltdown. The Dodd-Frank Act, signed into law on July 21, 2010, was expressly considered by Congress to be a remedy for this troublesome deregulatory problem. The legislation required the swaps market to comply with a host of business conduct and anti-competitive protections, including that the swaps market be fully transparent to U.S. financial regulators, collateralized, and capitalized. The statute also expressly provides that it would cover foreign subsidiaries of big U.S. financial institutions if their swaps trading could adversely impact the U.S. economy or represent the use of extraterritorial trades as an attempt to “evade” Dodd-Frank. In July 2013, the CFTC promulgated an 80-page, triple-columned, and single-spaced “guidance” implementing Dodd-Frank’s extraterritorial reach, i.e., that manner in which Dodd-Frank would apply to swaps transactions executed outside the United States. The key point of that guidance was that swaps trading within the “guaranteed” foreign subsidiaries of U.S. bank holding company swaps dealers were subject to all of Dodd-Frank’s swaps regulations wherever in the world those subsidiaries’ swaps were executed. At that time, the standardized industry swaps agreement contemplated that, inter alia, U.S. bank holding company swaps dealers’ foreign subsidiaries would be “guaranteed” by their corporate parent, as was true since 1992. In August 2013, without notifying the CFTC, the principal U.S. bank holding company swaps dealer trade association privately circulated to its members standard contractual language that would, for the first time, “deguarantee” their foreign subsidiaries. By relying only on the obscure footnote 563 of the CFTC guidance’s 662 footnotes, the trade association assured its swaps dealer members that the newly deguaranteed foreign subsidiaries could (if they so chose) no longer be subject to Dodd-Frank. As a result, it has been reported (and it also has been understood by many experts within the swaps industry) that a substantial portion of the U.S. swaps market has shifted from the large U.S. bank holding companies swaps dealers and their U.S. affiliates to their newly deguaranteed “foreign” subsidiaries, with the attendant claim by these huge big U.S. bank swaps dealers that Dodd-Frank swaps regulation would not apply to these transactions. The CFTC also soon discovered that these huge U.S. bank holding company swaps dealers were “arranging, negotiating, and executing” (“ANE”) these swaps in the United States with U.S. bank personnel and, only after execution in the U.S., were these swaps formally “assigned” to the U.S. banks’ newly “deguaranteed” foreign subsidiaries with the accompanying claim that these swaps, even though executed in the U.S., were not covered by Dodd-Frank. In October 2016, the CFTC proposed a rule that would have closed the “deguarantee” and “ANE” loopholes completely. However, because it usually takes at least a year to finalize a “proposed” rule, this proposed rule closing the loopholes in question was not finalized prior to the inauguration of President Trump. All indications are that it will never be finalized during a Trump Administration. Thus, in the shadow of the recent tenth anniversary of the Lehman failure, there is an understanding among many market regulators and swaps trading experts that large portions of the swaps market have moved from U.S. bank holding company swaps dealers and their U.S. affiliates to their newly deguaranteed foreign affiliates where Dodd- Frank swaps regulation is not being followed. However, what has not moved abroad is the very real obligation of the lender of last resort to rescue these U.S. swaps dealer bank holding companies if they fail because of poorly regulated swaps in their deguaranteed foreign subsidiaries, i.e., the U.S. taxpayer. While relief is unlikely to be forthcoming from the Trump Administration or the Republican-controlled Senate, some other means will have to be found to avert another multi-trillion-dollar bank bailout and/or a financial calamity caused by poorly regulated swaps on the books of big U.S. banks. This paper notes that the relevant statutory framework affords state attorneys general and state financial regulators the right to bring so-called “parens patriae” actions in federal district court to enforce, inter alia, Dodd- Frank on behalf of a state’s citizens. That kind of litigation to enforce the statute’s extraterritorial provisions is now badly needed