The replication of DNA in Escherichia coli

Studies of bacterial transformation and bacteriaphage infection (1-5) strongly indicate that deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) can carry and transmit hereditary information and can direct its own replication. Hypotheses for the mechanism of DNA replication differ in the predictions they make concerning the distribution among progeny molecules of atoms derived from parental molecules.(6

Dream Sequence

I had the strangest dream last night, I deamt that I was flying over Washington, D.C. toward the White House. As I passed the front gates, I could see a line of picketers pacing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The pacing got me so dizzy that i could hardly tell which way was back and which was way forth! They were shouting something about the Attorney General, who was refusing to leave office despite mounting evidence against him and continuing calls for his resignation. I caught a glimpse of one of their signs and I flew by them

Bridging the gap between mobile CPU design and user satisfaction via crowdsourcing

This report aims to provide an understanding of how the mobile CPU designs have evolved and its influence on end-user satisfaction. To that end, a quantitative performance analysis is conducted across ten cutting-edge mobile CPU designs studied within top-selling off-the-shelf smartphones released over the past seven years. This analysis is then used to guide a large-scale user study spanning over 25,000 participants via crowdsourcing on the Amazon Mechanical Turk service. The user study asks participants to assess the responsiveness of interactive application use cases for a set of current-generation applications (e.g. Angry Birds and FaceBook) and next-generation applications (i.e. face recognition and augmented reality) relative to the performance capabilities of the devices studied. This framework allows us to quantitatively link how the mobile CPU designs studied impacted end-user satisfaction. The study results indicate that mobile CPU designs have exhibited signifiant performance improvements through aggressive core scaling techniques prevalent in desktop CPUs. Just as was observed in desktop CPU design, these same techniques have lead to excessive mobile CPU power consumption. However, from an end-user perspective this power consumption was not without success. Mobile CPUs have evolved to provide satisfactory experiences for the studied current- generation applications. The reason is that many of these applications rely heavily on single-threaded performance. Other, more recent applications, actually multi-thread user-critical parts of the applications, which also demonstrates that multi- core mobile CPUs are an important design consideration – contrary to conventional wisdom. However, looking ahead, the same mobile CPUs where not able to provide satisfactory experiences for many of the next-generation applications studied, questioning the sustainability of these power-hungry design techniques in future mobile CPU designs.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Asymmetric discrimination of non-speech tonal analogues of vowels

Published in final edited form as: J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2019 February ; 45(2): 285–300. doi:10.1037/xhp0000603.Directional asymmetries reveal a universal bias in vowel perception favoring extreme vocalic articulations, which lead to acoustic vowel signals with dynamic formant trajectories and well-defined spectral prominences due to the convergence of adjacent formants. The present experiments investigated whether this bias reflects speech-specific processes or general properties of spectral processing in the auditory system. Toward this end, we examined whether analogous asymmetries in perception arise with non-speech tonal analogues that approximate some of the dynamic and static spectral characteristics of naturally-produced /u/ vowels executed with more versus less extreme lip gestures. We found a qualitatively similar but weaker directional effect with two-component tones varying in both the dynamic changes and proximity of their spectral energies. In subsequent experiments, we pinned down the phenomenon using tones that varied in one or both of these two acoustic characteristics. We found comparable asymmetries with tones that differed exclusively in their spectral dynamics, and no asymmetries with tones that differed exclusively in their spectral proximity or both spectral features. We interpret these findings as evidence that dynamic spectral changes are a critical cue for eliciting asymmetries in non-speech tone perception, but that the potential contribution of general auditory processes to asymmetries in vowel perception is limited.Accepted manuscrip

Analysis of the Influence of Cellular Phase on Cell Traction Force Magnitudes

Cell traction force is generated in the cytoskeleton by actomyosin activity and plays an important role in many cellular processes. In previous cell traction force experiments performed by our lab, unexpectedly large variations were measured. Because these experiments were utilizing a cell population of randomized phase, and there had been no documented investigation into whether cell phase affected cell traction force generation or propagation, it was hypothesized that there would be a significant difference in traction force between S phase and the other phases of interphase, as the physical and chemical changes happening within the nucleus at this time might elicit changes within the cytoskeleton. To test this hypothesis, we characterized the time-evolution of traction forces from a population of synchronized 3T3 fibroblasts. 3T3 fibroblasts were synchronized in G1-phase via serum starvation. The transition times between cellular phases during the first cell cycle after synchronization were identified by BrdU and Hoechst staining at different time points. After phase transition times were approximated, the traction forces of 9 cells were measured in 4-hour intervals for 24 hours. The differences between traction forces measured in G1, S, and G2 phases are not significant, demonstrating that cellular phase does not significantly affect traction force magnitude

A critical view of Kai Erikson\u27s Everything In Its Path: the current state of Appalachian studies

This thesis is a critical response to Kai Erikson’s depiction of Appalachian culture in his book, Everything In Its Path. I also survey associated writers such as Jack Weller and others. Erikson’s traditional “Culture of Poverty” model frames the research questions by “blaming the victim”. Everything In Its Path is written in a vacuum, without historical continuity. The questions that Erikson (following Welier) employs in his research methodology are poor cause and effect description in which Erikson blames the Appalachian culture for its societal differences. Erikson glosses over the social dynamics and socio-economic history of the Appalachian region. Furthermore, the culture of poverty model does not account for geopolitical factors. The colonial approach addresses the structural factors; however, world systems analysis expands on the colonial model by placing geopolitical factors within a historical continuum. Erikson, Weller and associated writers paint the picture that the Appalachian culture could not adapt to their versions of modern American culture

Optical Sensing of Capillary Waves

I relay various topics I learned about this semester and summarize the specialties of Clemson’s Micro-Photonics Laboratory. I report pertinent information for characterizing capillary waves with lasers and one recent method of characterizing them. Lastly, I outline a potential plan for mathematically modeling a laser’s reflection off of capillary waves, and potential plans moving forward

Securing the Gulf : towards an integrated maritime security strategy for the Gulf of Guinea

The resurgence of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea in 2007 greatly affected the economy of some West African states especially Nigeria and Benin. The severity of attacks by pirates led to United Nations Security Council resolution 2018 (2011) expressing deep concern about the threat posed by piracy in the region and an intention for a cooperative regional action to combat this maritime security crime . Despite current efforts by some states in the region to curb piracy, this maritime security challenge still persists. Some factors identified as fuelling piracy include weak legislation, inadequate capacity of coastal navies, proliferation of small arms and unemployment. To combat piracy in the region certain challenges identified as obstacles to cooperation need to be addressed. These include lack of political will, inadequate inter agency coordination, influence of extra regional powers and poor maritime domain awareness amongst others. This dissertation analyses the challenges to cooperation in the region as well as the strengths and limitations of the countermeasures implemented in other piracy hotspots such as Southeast Asia and Somalia. Particular attention is given to the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in Asia( ReCAAP) and Djibouti Code of Conduct (DCoC) with a view to suggesting a maritime security strategy in the Gulf of Guinea as called for by the United Nations

Knot concordance and homology cobordism

We consider the question: "If the zero-framed surgeries on two oriented knots in the 3-sphere are integral homology cobordant, preserving the homology class of the positive meridians, are the knots themselves concordant?" We show that this question has a negative answer in the smooth category, even for topologically slice knots. To show this we first prove that the zero-framed surgery on K is Z-homology cobordant to the zero-framed surgery on many of its winding number one satellites P(K). Then we prove that in many cases the tau and s-invariants of K and P(K) differ. Consequently neither tau nor s is an invariant of the smooth homology cobordism class of the zero-framed surgery. We also show, that a natural rational version of this question has a negative answer in both the topological and smooth categories, by proving similar results for K and its (p,1)-cables.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Utility Coordination Deliverables and How to Get There

From certification letters to special provisions, expectations of the utility coordination process are ever evolving. We would like to focus on the timing of when those deliverables should be submitted to limit the risk of letting exceptions. In our interactive session, we will also touch on how utility coordination affects the delivery of right-of-way, environmental, and time-set