Profiting From Purpose: Profiles of Success and Challenge in Eight Social Purpose Businesses

Offers an in-depth analysis of eight community-based human service and youth-serving nonprofit organizations that received assistance from Seedco's Nonprofit Venture Network to develop their capacity to launch social purpose businesses

Molecular Beam Research

Contains reports on two research projects

Cross Section and Angular Distributions of the (d, p) and (d, n) Reactions in C12 from 1.8 to 6.1 Mev

The reaction C12(d, p)C13 has been studied from a deuteron bombarding energy of 1.8 to 6.1 Mev. Resonances were found at 2.47, 2.67, 2.99, 3.39, 4.00, 4.6, 4.8, 5.34, and 5.64 Mev. Angular distributions of protons leaving C13 in the ground state show a pronounced Butler peak at 25° over the entire deuteron energy range. The angular distributions can be explained by assuming small amplitudes for compound nucleus formation interfering with large stripping amplitudes. Angular distributions of the lower energy group of protons leaving C13 excited to 3.09 Mev show a pronounced Butler peak at 0° and an even smaller contribution of compound nucleus formation. The reaction C12(d, n)N13 was also studied, and showed similar resonances and angular distributions. An analysis is made of the phase difference between the resonant and nonresonant parts of the cross section for the (d, p) reaction near the resonance at 4.00 Mev

Analytical solution of a one-dimensional Ising model with zero temperature dynamics

The one-dimensional Ising model with nearest neighbour interactions and the zero-temperature dynamics recently considered by Lefevre and Dean -J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. {\bf 34}, L213 (2001)- is investigated. By introducing a particle-hole description, in which the holes are associated to the domain walls of the Ising model, an analytical solution is obtained. The result for the asymptotic energy agrees with that found in the mean field approximation.Comment: 6 pages, no figures; accepted in J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. (Letter to the Editor

Facilitated spin models: recent and new results

Facilitated or kinetically constrained spin models (KCSM) are a class of interacting particle systems reversible w.r.t. to a simple product measure. Each dynamical variable (spin) is re-sampled from its equilibrium distribution only if the surrounding configuration fulfills a simple local constraint which \emph{does not involve} the chosen variable itself. Such simple models are quite popular in the glass community since they display some of the peculiar features of glassy dynamics, in particular they can undergo a dynamical arrest reminiscent of the liquid/glass transitiom. Due to the fact that the jumps rates of the Markov process can be zero, the whole analysis of the long time behavior becomes quite delicate and, until recently, KCSM have escaped a rigorous analysis with the notable exception of the East model. In these notes we will mainly review several recent mathematical results which, besides being applicable to a wide class of KCSM, have contributed to settle some debated questions arising in numerical simulations made by physicists. We will also provide some interesting new extensions. In particular we will show how to deal with interacting models reversible w.r.t. to a high temperature Gibbs measure and we will provide a detailed analysis of the so called one spin facilitated model on a general connected graph.Comment: 30 pages, 3 figure

Ligand binding and conformational dynamics of the E. coli nicotinamide nucleotide transhydrogenase revealed by hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry

Nicotinamide nucleotide transhydrogenases are integral membrane proteins that utilizes the proton motive force to reduce NADP+ to NADPH while converting NADH to NAD+. Atomic structures of various transhydrogenases in different ligand-bound states have become available, and it is clear that the molecular mechanism involves major conformational changes. Here we utilized hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) to map ligand binding sites and analyzed the structural dynamics of E. coli transhydrogenase. We found different allosteric effects on the protein depending on the bound ligand (NAD+, NADH, NADP+, NADPH). The binding of either NADP+ or NADPH to domain III had pronounced effects on the transmembrane helices comprising the proton-conducting channel in domain II. We also made use of cyclic ion mobility separation mass spectrometry (cyclic IMS-MS) to maximize coverage and sensitivity in the transmembrane domain, showing for the first time that this technique can be used for HDX-MS studies. Using cyclic IMS-MS, we increased sequence coverage from 68 % to 73 % in the transmembrane segments. Taken together, our results provide important new insights into the transhydrogenase reaction cycle and demonstrate the benefit of this new technique for HDX-MS to study ligand binding and conformational dynamics in membrane proteins

On the Sets of Real Numbers Recognized by Finite Automata in Multiple Bases

This article studies the expressive power of finite automata recognizing sets of real numbers encoded in positional notation. We consider Muller automata as well as the restricted class of weak deterministic automata, used as symbolic set representations in actual applications. In previous work, it has been established that the sets of numbers that are recognizable by weak deterministic automata in two bases that do not share the same set of prime factors are exactly those that are definable in the first order additive theory of real and integer numbers. This result extends Cobham's theorem, which characterizes the sets of integer numbers that are recognizable by finite automata in multiple bases. In this article, we first generalize this result to multiplicatively independent bases, which brings it closer to the original statement of Cobham's theorem. Then, we study the sets of reals recognizable by Muller automata in two bases. We show with a counterexample that, in this setting, Cobham's theorem does not generalize to multiplicatively independent bases. Finally, we prove that the sets of reals that are recognizable by Muller automata in two bases that do not share the same set of prime factors are exactly those definable in the first order additive theory of real and integer numbers. These sets are thus also recognizable by weak deterministic automata. This result leads to a precise characterization of the sets of real numbers that are recognizable in multiple bases, and provides a theoretical justification to the use of weak automata as symbolic representations of sets.Comment: 17 page

Radio-Frequency Spectroscopy

Contains reports on three research projects