Recoupment and Bankruptcy: How to Effectuate Bankruptcy Policy through the Same Transaction Test

This Note will explore the interaction between recoupment and bankruptcy by focusing on the Eighth Circuit’s decision in In re Terry. Terry is significant because the Eighth Circuit allowed an insurance company to recoup pre-petition overpayments from the bankrupt debtor’s post-petition benefits. In doing so, the Eighth Circuit refused to acknowledge a separate balancing of the equities test, independent from the traditional same transaction requirement, when determining a creditor’s recoupment defense. This discussion will center on recoupment’s “same transaction” test and why it can be utilized to achieve sound bankruptcy policy by denying recoupment claims. It is this Note’s contention that Terry’s precedent, that the doctrine of recoupment does not include a separate equitable balancing test, will not be as devastating to bankrupt plaintiffs as initially thought by bankruptcy practitioners and judges. This is because the same transaction test is still a viable legal tool capable of denying recoupment

Predicting Yield Before Harvest: How Does the USDA Forecast Corn and Soybean Yield?

Crop production forecasts have two components--acres to be harvested and expected yield per acre. For example, preliminary corn and soybean acreage estimates are made using data obtained from a survey of farmers conducted during the first 2 weeks in June. Expected corn and soybean yields are obtained monthly, August through November, from two different types of yield surveys. Data from the yield surveys reflect conditions as of the first of the month, as data are collected during the last week of the previous month and the first 2 or 3 days of the current month

Analysis of a Thrust Vectoring Fighter Aircraft Using Realtime Flight Simulation

A real-time flight simulation model based on the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet was created. This model was then modified with two different styles of thrust vectoring so that a study of each system\u27s effect on the aircraft\u27s pitch performance could be conducted in order to determine the best system. At present, work is proceeding on the development of active flight controls for the aircraft. After that effort is completed the thrust vectoring study can begin

Applications of Natural Language Processing in Biodiversity Science

Centuries of biological knowledge are contained in the massive body of scientific literature, written for human-readability but too big for any one person to consume. Large-scale mining of information from the literature is necessary if biology is to transform into a data-driven science. A computer can handle the volume but cannot make sense of the language. This paper reviews and discusses the use of natural language processing (NLP) and machine-learning algorithms to extract information from systematic literature. NLP algorithms have been used for decades, but require special development for application in the biological realm due to the special nature of the language. Many tools exist for biological information extraction (cellular processes, taxonomic names, and morphological characters), but none have been applied life wide and most still require testing and development. Progress has been made in developing algorithms for automated annotation of taxonomic text, identification of taxonomic names in text, and extraction of morphological character information from taxonomic descriptions. This manuscript will briefly discuss the key steps in applying information extraction tools to enhance biodiversity science

Taxonomy and Ecophysiology of Pseudo-nitzschia in the Chesapeake Bay

Pseudo-nitzschia is a diatom genus known to produce the neurotoxin, domoic acid (DA), which causes Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning (ASP) and Domoic Acid Poisoning (DAP). Field studies were conducted in the Chesapeake Bay to determine which species were present, their toxicity and their spatial and temporal distribution. Strains were isolated from the Chesapeake Bay region and growth and toxin content were studied. The effect of rapid increases in light at low temperatures on toxin production physiology was investigated. Toxic Pseudo-nitzschia is present in the Chesapeake Bay; however, abundance and toxin production are highly variable. Six species of Pseudo-nitzschia were identified: P. pungens, P. calliantha, P. subpacifica, P. cuspidata, P. fraudulenta and P. multiseries. The most abundant species was P. calliantha. Pseudo-nitzschia abundances were associated with low temperature (2-21°C) and high salinity (6-32) and were highest in winter and spring. Compared to other diatom species, Pseudo-nitzschia abundances were low, rarely present above 1000 cells mL-1 and they did not occur as monospecific blooms. Low Pseudo-nitzschia abundances and low, irregular domoic acid concentrations may partially explain the lack of documented toxic events in the Chesapeake Bay. Growth rate and toxin content of strains of Pseudo-nitzschia exposed to different nitrogen sources and irradiances varied significantly, even among strains of the same species isolated from the same water sample. Strain-level differences were responsible for most of the variability in growth rate and toxin content. Sequences of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large subunit (LSU) rRNA matched morphological species definitions, but offered no explanation for the physiological variability. Populations of Pseudo-nitzschia in the mid-Atlantic coastal zone appear to be comprised of numerous ecotypes that require sorting in the future. The hypothesis that DA is produced as an energy modulation strategy when the light and dark reactions of photosynthesis are decoupled was tested by exposing exponentially growing P. multiseries to a rapid increase in irradiance at a low temperature. High light and low temperature conditions increased nitrate (NO3‾) uptake, nitrite (NO2‾) and ammonia (NH4+) release and decreased DA production by the cells. These results could have important implications for natural populations of Pseudo-nitzschia at times of low temperature and high light fluctuations, such as during spring blooms and upwelling events. This thesis answered several questions about Pseudo-nitzschia populations in the Chesapeake Bay area and their ecophysiology, but raised many more. Physiological adaptations and biogeography of Pseudo-nitzschia and DA content of Chesapeake bivalves should be studied further to contribute to the development of predictive models for Pseudo-nitzschia bloom formation and toxin production

The taxonomic significance of species that have only been observed once : the genus Gymnodinium (Dinoflagellata) as an example

© The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 7 (2012): e44015, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0044015.Taxonomists have been tasked with cataloguing and quantifying the Earth’s biodiversity. Their progress is measured in code-compliant species descriptions that include text, images, type material and molecular sequences. It is from this material that other researchers are to identify individuals of the same species in future observations. It has been estimated that 13% to 22% (depending on taxonomic group) of described species have only ever been observed once. Species that have only been observed at the time and place of their original description are referred to as oncers. Oncers are important to our current understanding of biodiversity. They may be validly described species that are members of a rare biosphere, or they may indicate endemism, or that these species are limited to very constrained niches. Alternatively, they may reflect that taxonomic practices are too poor to allow the organism to be re-identified or that the descriptions are unknown to other researchers. If the latter are true, our current tally of species will not be an accurate indication of what we know. In order to investigate this phenomenon and its potential causes, we examined the microbial eukaryote genus Gymnodinium. This genus contains 268 extant species, 103 (38%) of which have not been observed since their original description. We report traits of the original descriptions and interpret them in respect to the status of the species. We conclude that the majority of oncers were poorly described and their identity is ambiguous. As a result, we argue that the genus Gymnodinium contains only 234 identifiable species. Species that have been observed multiple times tend to have longer descriptions, written in English. The styles of individual authors have a major effect, with a few authors describing a disproportionate number of oncers. The information about the taxonomy of Gymnodinium that is available via the internet is incomplete, and reliance on it will not give access to all necessary knowledge. Six new names are presented – Gymnodinium campbelli for the homonymous name Gymnodinium translucens Campbell 1973, Gymnodinium antarcticum for the homonymous name Gymnodinium frigidum Balech 1965, Gymnodinium manchuriensis for the homonymous name Gymnodinium autumnale Skvortzov 1968, Gymnodinium christenum for the homonymous name Gymnodinium irregulare Christen 1959, Gymnodinium conkufferi for the homonymous name Gymnodinium irregulare Conrad & Kufferath 1954 and Gymnodinium chinensis for the homonymous name Gymnodinium frigidum Skvortzov 1968.This work was funded by grants from the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P Sloan Foundation to the Encyclopedia of Life and the National Science Foundation Data Net Program 0830976 and Global Names Project DBI-1062387

Waar zijn de Nederlanders?

“Internationale organisaties worden betaald door de Amerikanen, ondergraven door de Indiërs en geleid door de Nederlanders.” Dit is wat Amerikanen volgens voormalig kroonlid van de SER Dik Wolfson in de jaren zestig over internationale organisaties zeiden. Met name in de vorige eeuw zijn er genoeg voorbeelden te noemen van Nederlanders die internationale topfuncties hebben weten te bemachtigen. Dirk Stikker en Joseph Luns werden secretaris-generaal van de NAVO, Johan Witteveen reisde af naar Washington om daar managing director van het IMF te worden, Sicco Mansholt was een krappe tien maanden voorzitter van de Europese Commissie en Max van der Stoel werd de eerste Hoge Commissaris voor de Minderheden van de OVSE. In 2019 waren er echter pijnlijke momenten rondom benoemingen die lieten zien dat de uitspraak van Amerikanen over internationale organisaties en de rol die Nederland daarin volgens de Amerikanen vervult, wellicht aan herziening toe is

A new paradigm for the scientific enterprise: nurturing the ecosystem [version 1; referees: 2 approved]

The institutions of science are in a state of flux. Declining public funding for basic science, the increasingly corporatized administration of universities, increasing “adjunctification” of the professoriate and poor academic career prospects for postdoctoral scientists indicate a significant mismatch between the reality of the market economy and expectations in higher education for science. Solutions to these issues typically revolve around the idea of fixing the career "pipeline", which is envisioned as being a pathway from higher-education training to a coveted permanent position, and then up a career ladder until retirement. In this paper, we propose and describe the term “ecosystem” as a more appropriate way to conceptualize today’s scientific training and the professional landscape of the scientific enterprise. First, we highlight the issues around the concept of “fixing the pipeline”. Then, we articulate our ecosystem metaphor by describing a series of concrete design patterns that draw on peer-to-peer, decentralized, cooperative, and commons-based approaches for creating a new dynamic scientific enterprise

The influence of droplet size and biodegradation on the transport of subsurface oil droplets during the Deepwater Horizon: a model sensitivity study

A better understanding of oil droplet formation, degradation, and dispersal in deep waters is needed to enhance prediction of the fate and transport of subsurface oil spills. This research evaluates the influence of initial droplet size and rates of biodegradation on the subsurface transport of oil droplets, specifically those from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A three-dimensional coupled model was employed with components that included analytical multiphase plume, hydrodynamic and Lagrangian models. Oil droplet biodegradation was simulated based on first order decay rates of alkanes. The initial diameter of droplets (10–300 μm) spanned a range of sizes expected from dispersant-treated oil. Results indicate that model predictions are sensitive to biodegradation processes, with depth distributions deepening by hundreds of meters, horizontal distributions decreasing by hundreds to thousands of kilometers, and mass decreasing by 92–99% when biodegradation is applied compared to simulations without biodegradation. In addition, there are two- to four-fold changes in the area of the seafloor contacted by oil droplets among scenarios with different biodegradation rates. The spatial distributions of hydrocarbons predicted by the model with biodegradation are similar to those observed in the sediment and water column, although the model predicts hydrocarbons to the northeast and east of the well where no observations were made. This study indicates that improvement in knowledge of droplet sizes and biodegradation processes is important for accurate prediction of subsurface oil spills.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (RAPID: Deepwater Horizon Grant OCE-1048630)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (RAPID: Deepwater Horizon Grant OCE-1044573)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (RAPID: Deepwater Horizon Grant CBET-1045831)Gulf of Mexico Research Initiativ