Computer programs for prediction of structural vibrations due to fluctuating pressure environments. Volume 1 - Theoretical analyses Final report

Theoretical analyses for computer program to calculate random vibrations of reinforced rectangular cylindrical panels in fluctuating pressure environmen

Dynamical Conductivity Across The Disorder-Tuned Superconductor-Insulator Transition

A quantum phase transition is a dramatic event marked by large spatial and temporal fluctuations, where one phase of matter with its ground state and tower of excitations reorganizes into a completely different phase. We provide new insight into the disorder-driven superconductor-insulator transition (SIT) in two dimensions, a problem of great theoretical and experimental interest, with the dynamical conductivity \sigma(\omega) and the bosonic (pair) spectral function P(\omega) calculated from quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We identify characteristic energy scales in the superconducting and insulating phases that vanish at the transition due to enhanced quantum fluctuations, despite the persistence of a robust fermionic gap across the SIT. Disorder leads to enhanced absorption in \sigma(\omega) at low frequencies compared to the SIT in a clean system. Disorder also expands the quantum critical region, due to a change in the universality class, with an underlying T=0 critical point with a finite low-frequency conductivity.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

A predictive computational model reveals that GIV/girdin serves as a tunable valve for EGFR-stimulated cyclic AMP signals.

Cellular levels of the versatile second messenger cyclic (c)AMP are regulated by the antagonistic actions of the canonical G protein → adenylyl cyclase pathway that is initiated by G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and attenuated by phosphodiesterases (PDEs). Dysregulated cAMP signaling drives many diseases; for example, its low levels facilitate numerous sinister properties of cancer cells. Recently, an alternative paradigm for cAMP signaling has emerged in which growth factor-receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs; e.g., EGFR) access and modulate G proteins via a cytosolic guanine-nucleotide exchange modulator (GEM), GIV/girdin; dysregulation of this pathway is frequently encountered in cancers. In this study, we present a network-based compartmental model for the paradigm of GEM-facilitated cross-talk between RTKs and G proteins and how that impacts cellular cAMP. Our model predicts that cross-talk between GIV, Gαs, and Gαi proteins dampens ligand-stimulated cAMP dynamics. This prediction was experimentally verified by measuring cAMP levels in cells under different conditions. We further predict that the direct proportionality of cAMP concentration as a function of receptor number and the inverse proportionality of cAMP concentration as a function of PDE concentration are both altered by GIV levels. Taking these results together, our model reveals that GIV acts as a tunable control valve that regulates cAMP flux after growth factor stimulation. For a given stimulus, when GIV levels are high, cAMP levels are low, and vice versa. In doing so, GIV modulates cAMP via mechanisms distinct from the two most often targeted classes of cAMP modulators, GPCRs and PDEs

Treaty Port Society and the Club in Meiji Japan: Clubbism, Athleticism and the Public Sphere

During the early years of extraterritoriality various foreign clubs and fraternal institutions emerged in Yokohama, and later in Kobe. These institutions variously contributed to the definition, creation and promotion of what may be termed as a civil society, or more specifically what Habermas has referred to as the ‘public sphere’. Despite the absence of any single colonial power controlling the administration of the settlements, the fraternal institutions run by a network of transoceanic Euro-American bourgeois came together to fill the gap normally occupied by a military or overseas civil service. Long term residents of these ports operated under what can be construed as local sovereignty, foreign extraterritoriality, and facilitated a tradition of laissez-faire capitalism in the region that had significant consequences on Japan’s cultural and economic development as a whole. During the extraterritorial era, club life became the main cultural activity through which the expatriate community expressed itself, and in turn, dictated the de facto homosocial rules of conduct between the predominantly white male population of the treaty port in the years of extraterritoriality and beyond. Gentleman’s clubs and sporting rituals were woven into the fabric of the community on multiple social and economic levels, which helped to recreate familiar European class hierarchies and racial boundaries. Closely aligned with the vernacular press, these institutions pertained to promote international cooperation, egalitarianism and community altruism by simultaneously bolstering an increasingly isolated bourgeois foreign population which actively sought to separate itself from the wider Japanese community. Additionally, it was via the club, that the leaders of the community expressed their identity and status in what would become the ‘treaty port public sphere’ in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Drawing on archival sources, the English-language press, the Harold S. Williams Collection from the Australian National Library in Canberra, and a number of contemporary accounts from foreign residents, this research will attempt to highlight the key factors in the socio-cultural development of the settlement, such as the emergence of a European club culture and what role it had in the shaping future relationships between the settler population and their Japanese hosts

Treaty Port Society and the Club in Meiji Japan: Clubbism, Athleticism and the Public Sphere

During the early years of extraterritoriality various foreign clubs and fraternal institutions emerged in Yokohama, and later in Kobe. These institutions variously contributed to the definition, creation and promotion of what may be termed as a civil society, or more specifically what Habermas has referred to as the ‘public sphere’. Despite the absence of any single colonial power controlling the administration of the settlements, the fraternal institutions run by a network of transoceanic Euro-American bourgeois came together to fill the gap normally occupied by a military or overseas civil service. Long term residents of these ports operated under what can be construed as local sovereignty, foreign extraterritoriality, and facilitated a tradition of laissez-faire capitalism in the region that had significant consequences on Japan’s cultural and economic development as a whole. During the extraterritorial era, club life became the main cultural activity through which the expatriate community expressed itself, and in turn, dictated the de facto homosocial rules of conduct between the predominantly white male population of the treaty port in the years of extraterritoriality and beyond. Gentleman’s clubs and sporting rituals were woven into the fabric of the community on multiple social and economic levels, which helped to recreate familiar European class hierarchies and racial boundaries. Closely aligned with the vernacular press, these institutions pertained to promote international cooperation, egalitarianism and community altruism by simultaneously bolstering an increasingly isolated bourgeois foreign population which actively sought to separate itself from the wider Japanese community. Additionally, it was via the club, that the leaders of the community expressed their identity and status in what would become the ‘treaty port public sphere’ in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Drawing on archival sources, the English-language press, the Harold S. Williams Collection from the Australian National Library in Canberra, and a number of contemporary accounts from foreign residents, this research will attempt to highlight the key factors in the socio-cultural development of the settlement, such as the emergence of a European club culture and what role it had in the shaping future relationships between the settler population and their Japanese hosts

Self-Talk and Handicapped Children's Academic Needs: Applications of Cognitive Behavior Modification

This article addresses the practical validity of self-instruction training as an intervention for severely handicapped children. Three issues are addressed: (I) the development of verbal strategies that are adaptable to children with knowledge deficits, (2) the effects of generalization training, and (3) the role of self-talk (verbalization) in self-instruction. Four studies that address these issues are reviewed. The remedial implications of these studies are also discussed

A Coulomb Gauge Model of Mesons

A model of mesons which is based on the QCD Hamiltonian in Coulomb gauge is presented. The model relies on a novel quasiparticle basis to improve the reliability of the Fock space expansion. It is also relativistic, yields chiral pions, and is tightly constrained by QCD (quark masses are the only parameters). Applications to hidden flavor mesons yield results which are comparable to phenomenological constituent quark models while revealing the limitations of such models.Comment: 13 pages, 1 eps figure, 5 table