Progressivity comparisons

Analysts should correct for distributional differences before undertaking local progressivity comparisons between income tax or tax and benefit schedules. A transplant-and-compare procedure is advocated, involving 'importation' of the schedule from one regime into another, or from both into a reference scenario. The residual progression ordering over transplanted schedules then assures a global ordering of original regimes by Lorenz or Suits curves. The algorithm is advocated for use only when transplantation functions are isoelastic, and is illustrated for the Canadian, Israeli and UK tax and benefit systems.

Microfluidic detection and analysis by integration of evanescent wave sensing with thermocapillary actuation

An integrated system capable of microfluidic actuation, detection and sensing is described which combines evanescent wave sensing with thermocapillary manipulation. Liquid droplets or streams transported across the beam path of a planar thin film waveguide, which encapsulates the microheater array, induce attenuation of the propagating waveguide modes. The attenuated signal is used to monitor droplet location, dye concentration in aqueous solutions and reaction kinetics for enzymatic hydrolysis of the sugar X-galactose by beta-galactosidase

L-lactate reduces ischemic white matter injury and modulates HCA1 oligodendrocyte expression in an in vivo mouse model of focal ischemia

L-lactate is a metabolite that is oxidized preferentially to glucose under conditions of high metabolic stress. The discovery and localization of the lactate receptor HCA1 in various brain regions suggests that lactate is additionally an important signaling molecule in the brain. Lactate is neuroprotective in various ischemia paradigms, reduces axonal injury in vitro and is avidly utilized by oligodendrocytes (OLs). The protective potential of L-lactate to reduce white matter (WM) injury in a mouse stroke model was investigated.N/

Applications of High-Resolution Gigapan Imagery in Mapping Fracture Systems: An Example from the Adirondack Basement Massif, New York

The Precambrian basement and overlying rocks that comprise the Adirondack massif have experienced significant brittle deformation with uplift over time. This has produced an extensive system of faults and fractures, which trends generally North-Northeast (N-NE) throughout the massif. The fault and fracture system is well-exposed at numerous outcrops, which has proven advantageous to characterizing it. In this study, fault density analysis was conducted on 12 well-exposed outcrops within the Piseco Lake shear zone in the southern Adirondacks. A combination of orientation measurements and high-resolution GigaPan panoramic imagery were collected at each outcrop, and together these data were used to generate fault density contour maps of the outcrops. The fault density and orientation data has been integrated into a new Google Earth-based interactive structural field map of the Adirondacks, which can be further built upon by the authors (and others) as additional field campaigns are completed. This study has successfully served as a proof-of-concept for the imaging and contouring method, and has demonstrated its efficacy to geological research. Characterizing the quantity and spatial distribution of bedrock joints and fractures has important implications in geological fields such as hydrogeology, resource exploration, geo-hazard assessment, and geo-engineering

Editorial: Biofuels and Bioproducts From Anaerobic Processes: Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactors (AnMBRs)

New biodegradable waste treatment configurations and technologies have arisen to support the transition of treatment plants toward resource recovery facilities. The interest in Anaerobic Membrane Biological Reactor (AnMBR) technology is increasing due to the advantages related to combine anaerobic digestion with membrane filtration. Thanks to the complete retention of anaerobic microorganisms, AnMBRs have the capacity to efficiently recover most of the energy potential in biodegradable waste streams in the form of biogas and produce high-quality effluents with low biomass production

First principles predictions of van der Waals bonded inorganic crystal structures: Test case, HgCl2

We study the crystals structure and stability of four possible polymorphs of HgCl2 using first principles density functional theory. Mercury (II) halides are a unique class of materials which, depending on the halide species, form in a wide range of crystal structures, ranging from densely packed solids to layered materials and molecular solids. Predicting the groundstate structure of any member of this group from first principles, therefore, requires a general purpose functional that treats van der Waals bonding and covalent/ionic bonding adequately. Here, we demonstrate that the non-local van der Waals density functional paired with the C09 exchange functional meets this bar for HgCl2. In particular, this functional is able to predict the correct groundstate among the structures tested as well as having extremely good agreement with the experimentally known crystal structure. These results highlight the maturity of this functional and open the door to using this method for truly first principles crystal structure predictions