Bill Dirksen – Cornell Campus Visit

[Excerpt] On March 24, 2015, Bill Dirksen joined ten students from Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations for a lunch and career chat. An alumnus of the school’s graduate program (1985), Dirksen came to Cornell after graduating from the University of Notre Dame with an economics degree. He currently serves as Vice President for Labor Affairs for Ford Motor Company. He is a key negotiator for the firm, and has been responsible for both internal and external labor relations and human resources. He has also worked in a number of Ford business units and locations, including a stint in Australia and one with Ford Credit

An Efficient Rigorous Approach for Identifying Statistically Significant Frequent Itemsets

As advances in technology allow for the collection, storage, and analysis of vast amounts of data, the task of screening and assessing the significance of discovered patterns is becoming a major challenge in data mining applications. In this work, we address significance in the context of frequent itemset mining. Specifically, we develop a novel methodology to identify a meaningful support threshold s* for a dataset, such that the number of itemsets with support at least s* represents a substantial deviation from what would be expected in a random dataset with the same number of transactions and the same individual item frequencies. These itemsets can then be flagged as statistically significant with a small false discovery rate. We present extensive experimental results to substantiate the effectiveness of our methodology.Comment: A preliminary version of this work was presented in ACM PODS 2009. 20 pages, 0 figure

TBBL: A Tree-Based Bidding Language for Iterative Combinatorial Exchanges

We present a novel tree-based logical bidding language, TBBL, for preference elicitation in combinatorial exchanges (CEs). TBBL provides new expressiveness for two-sided markets with agents that are both buying and selling goods. Moreover, the rich semantics of TBBL allow the language to capture new structure, making it exponentially more concise than OR* and LGB for preferences that are realistic in important domains for CEs. With simple extensions TBBL can subsume these earlier languages. TBBL can also explicitly represent partial information about valuations. The language is designed such that the structure in TBBL bids can be concisely captured directly in mixed-integer programs for the allocation problem. We illustrate TBBL through examples drawn from domains to which it can be (and is being) applied, and motivate further extensions we are currently pursuing.Engineering and Applied Science

Energy and Storage Reduction in Data Intensive Wireless Sensor Network Applications

Recording large data sets in current wireless sensor networks is difficult if not impossible, as sensor network nodes feature extremely limited capabilities. Meager amounts of memory limit storage and slow network transmission rates limit data transfer. Even if enough data is recorded, network lifetime may be brief due to energy consumption. In this paper, we discuss using Bloom filters to reduce the memory and network transmission requirements for sending or storing large amounts of data. Using our approach, we can gather more information from our wireless sensor network and simultaneously extend the network lifetime.Engineering and Applied Science

Making data a first class scientific output : data citation and publication by NERC's Environmental Data Centres

The NERC Science Information Strategy Data Citation and Publication project aims to develop and formalise a method for formally citing and publishing the datasets stored in its environmental data centres. It is believed that this will act as an incentive for scientists, who often invest a great deal of effort in creating datasets, to submit their data to a suitable data repository where it can properly be archived and curated. Data citation and publication will also provide a mechanism for data producers to receive credit for their work, thereby encouraging them to share their data more freely

Pineapple Lectin AcmJRL Binds SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein in a Carbohydrate-Dependent Fashion

The highly glycosylated spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 is essential for infection and constitutes a prime target for antiviral agents and vaccines. The pineapple-derived jacalin-related lectin AcmJRL is present in the medication bromelain in significant quantities and has previously been described to bind mannosides. Here, we performed a large ligand screening of AcmJRL by glycan array analysis, quantified the interaction with carbohydrates and validated high-mannose glycans as preferred ligands. Because the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was previously reported to carry a high proportion of high-mannose N-glycans, we tested the binding of AcmJRL to the recombinantly produced extraviral domain of spike protein. We could demonstrate that AcmJRL binds the spike protein with a low-micromolar KD in a carbohydrate-dependent fashion

Loop Corrections in Higher Dimensions via Deconstruction

We calculate the one-loop corrections to the Kaluza-Klein gauge boson excitations in the deconstructed version of the 5D QED. Deconstruction provides a renormalizable UV completion of the 5D theory that enables to control the cut-off dependence of 5D theories and study a possible influence of UV physics on IR observables. In particular we calculate the cut-off-dependent non-leading corrections that may be phenomenologically relevant for collider physics. We also discuss the structure of the operators that are relevant for the quantum corrections to the gauge boson masses in 5D and in deconstruction.Comment: LaTeX, 13 pages, 1 figure. v2: Refs added and typos corrected in Eqs. (26)-(27

Bostonia

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

Analysis of Proposed Hotel and Conference Center in Downtown Fredrick, MD

Final project for BUMO758K: Management Consulting (Fall 2014). Robert H. Smith School of Business. University of Maryland, College Park.The City of Frederick has joined with PALS and the University of Maryland Smith School of Business to assess a proposed hotel and conference center planned for downtown Frederick. They are particularly interested in assessing the demand for the meeting space planned, and better understanding the likely economic impacts of businesses and nonprofit organizations making use of the conference center. An analysis of the trade show and events industry was conducted to provide additional background as the City and its private partners continue to develop their plans and goals for the project. Two conference centers in similar cities were analyzed to assess likely economic impacts and best practices for marketing strategies. Finally, the regional competitive landscape for conferences and private event venues was analyzed, and opportunities for business development were identified.The City of Frederic