Dear Mr. President

A letter expressing warm regards on the eve of the ambassador's departure

Iterative learning control with wavelet filtering

Abstract only

A Quest for Justice in Cuzco, Peru:Race and Evidence in the Case of Mercedes Ccorimanya Lavilla

The life of Mercedes Ccorimanya Lavilla renders a telling portrait of the pursuit of justice in Cuzco, Peru, revealing how courts of law can be key sites in the production and negotiation of racial and gender taxonomies. Mercedes (who was gang-raped as a young woman) illustrates the near-heroic efforts necessary to mount and pursue rape charges in Peruvian courts, where rape victims largely manage the construction of evidence in lieu of the state. In the following article, I reconstruct the social circumstances and legal institutional setting surrounding the rape trial of Mercedes Ccorimanya Lavilla through the use of historical and ethnographic materials. In arguing that race mutually defines women's sexuality in rural Peru, I show how (in order to achieve a conviction) Mercedes had to develop a strategy in which she instrumentally employed the languages of race to distance herself from her own indigeneity, as well as that of her alleged attackers

Whole transcriptome sequencing of the aging rat brain reveals dynamic RNA changes in the dark matter of the genome

Brain aging frequently underlies cognitive decline and is a major risk factor for neurodegenerative conditions. The exact molecular mechanisms underlying brain aging, however, remain unknown. Whole transcriptome sequencing provides unparalleled depth and sensitivity in gene expression profiling. It also allows non-coding RNA and splice variant detection/comparison across phenotypes. Using RNA-seq to sequence the cerebral cortex transcriptome in 6-, 12- and 28-month-old rats, age-related changes were studied. Protein-coding genes related to MHC II presentation and serotonin biosynthesis were differentially expressed (DE) in aging. Relative to protein-coding genes, more non-coding genes were DE over the three age-groups. RNA-seq quantifies not only levels of whole genes but also of their individual transcripts. Over the three age-groups, 136 transcripts were DE, 37 of which were so-called dark matter transcripts that do not map to known exons. Fourteen of these transcripts were identified as novel putative long non-coding RNAs. Evidence of isoform switching and changes in usage were found. Promoter and coding sequence usage were also altered, hinting of possible changes to mitochondrial transport within neurons. Therefore, in addition to changes in the expression of protein-coding genes, changes in transcript expression, isoform usage, and non-coding RNAs occur with age. This study demonstrates dynamic changes in RNA with age at various genomic levels, which may reflect changes in regulation of transcriptional networks and provides non-coding RNA gene candidates for further studies. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11357-012-9410-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Understanding Supply Chain Complexity with Performance Measurement

Abstract: Despite the great number of complex systems existing in the real world, complexity is currently a poorly explored topic. In organizational settings, managers regularly apply to complex contexts classical approaches developed for simple systems, just because they do not know how to take into account companies' internal and external complexity. Nevertheless, before developing new managerial models, a deep knowledge about drivers and effects of complexity is needed. After defining the characteristics making supply chains complex systems, this paper discusses performance measurement as a methodology to analyze the effects of complexity on supply chain behavior. The results of a survey highlight that manufacturing companies usually evaluate isolated aspects of their supply chains, without considering the relationships between different performance indicators or dimensions. This work suggests System Dynamics as a valuable approach to understand the cause and effect connections among metrics and system elements affecting their values, thus clarifying the structure leading to a complex behavior. This research is the first step of a larger project aimed at providing companies with innovative tools to understand and manage supply chain complexit

A-to-I RNA editing does not change with age in the healthy male rat brain

RNA editing is a post-transcriptional process, which results in base substitution modifications to RNA. It is an important process in generating protein diversity through amino acid substitution and the modulation of splicing events. Previous studies have suggested a link between gene-specific reductions in adenosine to inosine RNA editing and aging in the human brain. Here we demonstrate that changes in RNA editing observed in humans with age are not observed during aging in healthy rats. Furthermore, we identify a conserved editing site in rats, in Cog3. We propose that either age-related changes in RNA editing are specific to primates or humans, or that they are the manifestation of disease pathology. Since rodents are often used as model organisms for studying aging, these findings demonstrate the importance of understanding species-specific differences in RNA biology during aging. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10522-013-9433-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

What do we expect from an ombudsman? Narratives of everyday engagement with the informal justice system in Germany and the UK

This paper looks at expectations people have of informal justice mechanisms through a rich empirical dataset of 2775 recent ombudsman users in Germany and the United Kingdom. In a cross-cultural comparison the ombudsman, as a model of justice is explored. Not much is known about people’s expectations towards the ombudsman model; this paper starts to fill the gap. Four roles became apparent as cross-cultural narratives in the dataset; people who interact with ombudsmen expect them to be interpreters, advocates, allies and instruments. The identified roles are largely common to both countries, but in some aspects they show national specificities. These national specificities are seen mainly in the use of language; in Germany it is more legalistic in comparison to the UK. I argue that this might be related to what has been described as the general legal culture of each country and the institutional set-up

Ariadne’s Thread - memory, interconnection and the poetic in contemporary art

This Dissertation explores the metaphor of Ariadne’s thread in terms of interconnection, when an element from the everyday is used as a locus linking broader concepts of time and space. Such experiences and associations are reflected in the work of Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Doris Salcedo, Lucio Fontana, Richard Tuttle, Mona Hatoum, Simone Mangos, Anya Gallaccio and Yoshihiro Suda. In relation to my own work, the metaphor of interconnecting thread allows a sense of freedom and journey of discovery. My studio and related research are closely aligned in developing my understanding of interconnection, through my studio process of making and continuing experiences of looking at and interpreting others artists’ work

Surface Screening Charge and Effective Charge

The charge on an atom at a metallic surface in an electric field is defined as the field-derivative of the force on the atom, and this is consistent with definitions of effective charge and screening charge. This charge can be found from the shift in the potential outside the surface when the atoms are moved. This is used to study forces and screening on surface atoms of Ag(001) c$(2\times 2)$ -- Xe as a function of external field. It is found that at low positive (outward) fields, the Xe with a negative effective charge of -0.093 $|{e}|$ is pushed into the surface. At a field of 2.3 V \AA$^{-1}$ the charge changes sign, and for fields greater than 4.1 V \AA$^{-1}$ the Xe experiences an outward force. Field desorption and the Eigler switch are discussed in terms of these results.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, RevTex (accepted by PRL