The Mono Craters, California

The Mono Craters are a unique series of obsidian domes and coulees south of Mono Lake, in eastern California. From an undulating, pumice-covered plain their steep slopes rise nearly 2700 feet above the surrounding country and reach an altitude of 9169 feet at the summit of the highest dome. Were the range not dwarfed by the neighboring Sierra Nevada, "it would be far-famed for its magnificent scenery as well as for its geological interest." The Mono Craters present many features of interest. Their relationship to the lacustrine record of Mono Lake and the glacial history of the eastern Sierra Nevada is important. Added interest to the problem is afforded by the water tunnel under construction by the city of Los Angeles, which passes beneath one of the larger domes at the south end of the chain. This tunnel is to convey water from the Mono Basin into the drainage of the Owens River and, by the present aqueduct, to Los Angeles. The work has been impeded by the large quantity of water encountered in the tunnel and the presence of carbon dioxide (see Fig. 16). On the other hand, there is the fortunate circumstance that the tunnel line passes through an area suitable for the determination of the age of the craters. All the important rocks of the region crop out, and in this area the glacial and volcanic records overlap

Flow Fields and Agents for Immersive Interaction in Mutator VR: Vortex

This paper discusses the challenges in creating Mutator VR: Vortex, a virtual reality experience based on interaction with semi-autonomous, organically-inspired agents. The work allows the immersant to morph between a vast number of procedurally- generated microworlds each with its own visual elements, sounds, agent dynamics, and user interactions. We outline two methods used for procedural generation that are based fundamentally on integration of di?erent modalities. Curve-based synthesis is used for simultaneous generation of entity sounds and shape and ?ow grains are employed to determine both agent dynamics and user interaction with the agents

Effects and Propositions

The quantum logical and quantum information-theoretic traditions have exerted an especially powerful influence on Bub's thinking about the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. This paper discusses both the quantum logical and information-theoretic traditions from the point of view of their representational frameworks. I argue that it is at this level, at the level of its framework, that the quantum logical tradition has retained its centrality to Bub's thought. It is further argued that there is implicit in the quantum information-theoretic tradition a set of ideas that mark a genuinely new alternative to the framework of quantum logic. These ideas are of considerable interest for the philosophy of quantum mechanics, a claim which I defend with an extended discussion of their application to our understanding of the philosophical significance of the no hidden variable theorem of Kochen and Specker.Comment: Presented to the 2007 conference, New Directions in the Foundations of Physic

Identification of a Forskolin-Like Molecule in Human Renal Cysts

Renal cyst enlargement is increased by adenosine cAMP, which is produced within mural epithelial cells. In a search for modulators of cAMP synthesis cyst fluids from 18 patients with autosomal dominant or recessive polycystic kidney disease (PKD) were analyzed, and in 15 of them, a stable lipophilic molecule that increased cAMP levels, stimulated transepithelial chloride and fluid secretion, and promoted the proliferation of human cyst epithelial cells was characterized. With the use of HPLC-mass spectrometry, a bioactive lipid with the same mass spectral fingerprint, the same chromatographic retention time, and the same biologic properties as forskolin, a widely known, potent adenylyl cyclase agonist, has been isolated and identified within the cyst fluid. Forskolin is synthesized by the plant Coleus forskohlii, but its appearance or compounds like it have not been reported in animals. The origin of forskolin in patients with PKD was not revealed by this study. Synthesis by mural cyst epithelial cells or an exogenous source are the most likely possibilities. Forskolin is sold for weight management and as a cardiovascular tonic in health stores and through the Worldwide Web. It is concluded that forskolin may have a role in promoting the enlargement of cysts in autosomal dominant PKD and recommended that patients avoid oral and parenteral preparations that contain this compound

Social capital: a roadmap of theoretical and empirical contributions and limitations

The general idea of social capital is that relationships matter. In this sense, the trust, cooperation and reciprocity involved in these relationships can have a positive impact on the wealth of society by reducing transaction costs, facilitating collective actions, and lowering opportunistic behavior. This work sheds light on the different theoretical and empirical problems that a scholar is likely to face in dealing with social capital research and analysis. We propose a critical roadmap of the social capital theories and applications for a general audience, nonusers included, with particular attention to the works of political and social economists. We provide a critical debate on the different definitions and measures produced, the theoretical frameworks developed, and the empirical techniques adopted so far in the analysis of the impact of social capital on socio-economic outcomes. We turn to the limitations of these techniques and suggest some basic strategies to reduce the magnitude of these limitations

Parent and child agreement for acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychopathology in a prospective study of children and adolescents exposed to single-event trauma

Examining parent-child agreement for Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in children and adolescents is essential for informing the assessment of trauma-exposed children, yet no studies have examined this relationship using appropriate statistical techniques. Parent-child agreement for these disorders was examined by structured interview in a prospective study of assault and motor vehicle accident (MVA) child survivors, assessed at 2-4 weeks and 6 months post-trauma. Children were significantly more likely to meet criteria for ASD, as well as other ASD and PTSD symptom clusters, based on their own report than on their parent's report. Parent-child agreement for ASD was poor (Cohen's κ = -.04), but fair for PTSD (Cohen's κ = .21). Agreement ranged widely for other emotional disorders (Cohen's κ = -.07-.64), with generalised anxiety disorder found to have superior parent-child agreement (when assessed by phi coefficients) relative to ASD and PTSD. The findings support the need to directly interview children and adolescents, particularly for the early screening of posttraumatic stress, and suggest that other anxiety disorders may have a clearer presentation post-trauma

Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler VI: Planet Sample from Q1-Q16 (47 Months)

\We present the sixth catalog of Kepler candidate planets based on nearly 4 years of high precision photometry. This catalog builds on the legacy of previous catalogs released by the Kepler project and includes 1493 new Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs) of which 554 are planet candidates, and 131 of these candidates have best fit radii <1.5 R_earth. This brings the total number of KOIs and planet candidates to 7305 and 4173 respectively. We suspect that many of these new candidates at the low signal-to-noise limit may be false alarms created by instrumental noise, and discuss our efforts to identify such objects. We re-evaluate all previously published KOIs with orbital periods of >50 days to provide a consistently vetted sample that can be used to improve planet occurrence rate calculations. We discuss the performance of our planet detection algorithms, and the consistency of our vetting products. The full catalog is publicly available at the NASA Exoplanet Archive.Comment: 18 pages, to be published in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Serie

Bridging Alone: Religious Conservatism, Marital Homogamy, and Voluntary Association Membership

This study characterizes social insularity of religiously conservative American married couples by examining patterns of voluntary associationmembership. Constructing a dataset of 3938 marital dyads from the second wave of the National Survey of Families and Households, the author investigates whether conservative religious homogamy encourages membership in religious voluntary groups and discourages membership in secular voluntary groups. Results indicate that couples’ shared affiliation with conservative denominations, paired with beliefs in biblical authority and inerrancy, increases the likelihood of religious group membership for husbands and wives and reduces the likelihood of secular group membership for wives, but not for husbands. The social insularity of conservative religious groups appears to be reinforced by homogamy—particularly by wives who share faith with husbands

International Coercion, Emulation and Policy Diffusion: Market-Oriented Infrastructure Reforms, 1977-1999

Why do some countries adopt market-oriented reforms such as deregulation, privatization and liberalization of competition in their infrastructure industries while others do not? Why did the pace of adoption accelerate in the 1990s? Building on neo-institutional theory in sociology, we argue that the domestic adoption of market-oriented reforms is strongly influenced by international pressures of coercion and emulation. We find robust support for these arguments with an event-history analysis of the determinants of reform in the telecommunications and electricity sectors of as many as 205 countries and territories between 1977 and 1999. Our results also suggest that the coercive effect of multilateral lending from the IMF, the World Bank or Regional Development Banks is increasing over time, a finding that is consistent with anecdotal evidence that multilateral organizations have broadened the scope of the “conditionality” terms specifying market-oriented reforms imposed on borrowing countries. We discuss the possibility that, by pressuring countries into policy reform, cross-national coercion and emulation may not produce ideal outcomes.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40099/3/wp713.pd