Moving Arts Leadership Forward: A Changing Landscape

Since 2009, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation's Performing Arts Program has been making grants to help emerging arts leaders develop satisfying and successful careers through the Next Generation Arts Leadership Initiative. The first phase of that work, which ended in 2015, was funded in partnership with the James Irvine Foundation. It focused on training and retaining emerging arts leaders -- defined as eighteen to thirty-five-year-olds with ten years or less of arts experience -- in anticipation of a widely predicted wave of retirements. The Initiative made grants totaling $1.9 million to five leadership networks across California, and to statewide regranting programs, managed by the Center for Cultural Innovation to support professional development for individuals and innovative organizational practices. While an assessment conducted in 2011 showed that the Initiative was successful in achieving its early goals of building infrastructure and opportunities for younger arts leaders, the Performing Arts Program and our partners continued to grapple with a few persistent questions: what were we preparing up-and-coming leaders to do? To what degree did we aim to sustain the field as it exists or spur its transformation? Were we adequately preparing leaders for the challenges to come? To help answer these questions, in late 2014 we commissioned Michael Courville of Open Mind Consulting to reassess the arts leadership landscape in California and explore opportunities for future investments in arts leadership.The research was conducted in collaboration with a cross-section of local, regional, and national arts leaders, and with the Initiative's partners. It reveals that the arts landscape is in a state of flux and that there is a timely opportunity to reimagine how the nonprofit arts field defines and practices leadership

Controversies concerning thymus-derived regulatory T cells: fundamental issues and a new perspective

Thymus-derived regulatory T cells (Tregs) are considered to be a distinct T-cell lineage that is genetically programmed and specialised for immunosuppression. This perspective is based on the key evidence that CD25(+) Tregs emigrate to neonatal spleen a few days later than other T cells and that thymectomy of 3-day-old mice depletes Tregs only, causing autoimmune diseases. Although widely believed, the evidence has never been reproduced as originally reported, and some studies indicate that Tregs exist in neonates. Thus we examine the consequences of the controversial evidence, revisit the fundamental issues of Tregs and thereby reveal the overlooked relationship of T-cell activation and Foxp3-mediated control of the T-cell system. Here we provide a new model of Tregs and Foxp3, a feedback control perspective, which views Tregs as a component of the system that controls T-cell activation, rather than as a distinct genetically programmed lineage. This perspective provides new insights into the roles of self-reactivity, T cell–antigen-presenting cell interaction and T-cell activation in Foxp3-mediated immune regulation

Fragmentation paths in dynamical models

We undertake a quantitative comparison of multi-fragmentation reactions, as modeled by two different approaches: the Antisymmetrized Molecular Dynamics (AMD) and the momentum-dependent stochastic mean-field (SMF) model. Fragment observables and pre-equilibrium (nucleon and light cluster) emission are analyzed, in connection to the underlying compression-expansion dynamics in each model. Considering reactions between neutron-rich systems, observables related to the isotopic properties of emitted particles and fragments are also discussed, as a function of the parametrization employed for the isovector part of the nuclear interaction. We find that the reaction path, particularly the mechanism of fragmentation, is different in the two models and reflects on some properties of the reaction products, including their isospin content. This should be taken into account in the study of the density dependence of the symmetry energy from such collisions.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Differential Input from the Amygdaloid Body to the Ventromedial Hypothalamic Nucleus in the Rat

Differential amygdaloid afferents to anterior dorsal, anterior ventral, posterior dorsal and posterior ventral subdivisions of the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMH) were studied by means of retrograde transport of horseradish peroxidase (HRP). Injections of tracer confined to the VMH subdivisions mentioned, and enhancement of tracer uptake and transport were achieved by iontophoretic delivery of an HRP solution containing poly-L-α-ornithine. It was shown that the medial, central, basolateral, basomedial, lateroposterior and intercalated nuclei of the amygdala constitute afferent input sources to the ventromedial nucleus in a topographic pattern related to the various subdivisions of the VMH. This topographically organized amygdala-VMH projection is discussed against the background of the functional role that both amygdala and VMH play in the control of feeding, apart from various other autonomous functions that both brain centers are known to be concerned with.

Isospin fractionation and isoscaling in dynamical nuclear collisions

Isoscaling is found to hold for fragment yields in the antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD) simulations for collisions of calcium isotopes at 35 MeV/nucleon. This suggests the applicability of statistical considerations to the dynamical fragment emission. The observed linear relationship between the isoscaling parameters and the isospin asymmetry of fragments supports the above suggestion. The slope of this linear function yields information about the symmetry energy in low density region where multifragmentation occurs.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Regulatory T cells in melanoma revisited by a computational clustering of FOXP3+ T cell subpopulations

CD4+ T cells that express the transcription factor FOXP3 (FOXP3+ T cells) are commonly regarded as immunosuppressive regulatory T cells (Treg). FOXP3+ T cells are reported to be increased in tumour-bearing patients or animals, and considered to suppress anti-tumour immunity, but the evidence is often contradictory. In addition, accumulating evidence indicates that FOXP3 is induced by antigenic stimulation, and that some non-Treg FOXP3+ T cells, especially memory-phenotype FOXP3low cells, produce proinflammatory cytokines. Accordingly, the subclassification of FOXP3+ T cells is fundamental for revealing the significance of FOXP3+ T cells in tumour immunity, but the arbitrariness and complexity of manual gating have complicated the issue. Here we report a computational method to automatically identify and classify FOXP3+ T cells into subsets using clustering algorithms. By analysing flow cytometric data of melanoma patients, the proposed method showed that the FOXP3+ subpopulation that had relatively high FOXP3, CD45RO, and CD25 expressions was increased in melanoma patients, whereas manual gating did not produce significant results on the FOXP3+ subpopulations. Interestingly, the computationally-identified FOXP3+ subpopulation included not only classical FOXP3high Treg but also memory-phenotype FOXP3low cells by manual gating. Furthermore, the proposed method successfully analysed an independent dataset, showing that the same FOXP3+ subpopulation was increased in melanoma patients, validating the method. Collectively, the proposed method successfully captured an important feature of melanoma without relying on the existing criteria of FOXP3+ T cells, revealing a hidden association between the T cell profile and melanoma, and providing new insights into FOXP3+ T cells and Treg

Experiment of static and dynamic characteristics of spiral grooved seals

The leakages and the dynamic characteristics of six types of spiral grooved seals are experimentally investigated. The effect of the helix angle of the seal is investigated mainly under the condition of the same nominal clearances, land and groove lengths, and groove depths. The dynamic characteristics are measured for various parameters such as preswirl velocity, pressure difference between inlet and outlet of the seal, whirling amplitude, whirling speed, and rotating speed of the rotor. The results are also compared with leakage increases with the increase of the helix angle, but as the rotating speed increases, the leakages of the larger helix angle seals quickly drop. The leakage of the smooth-stator (SS)/smooth-grooved rotor (SGR) seal drops faster than that of the spiral-grooved stator (SGS)/smooth-rotor (SR) seal. It is found that a circumferential flow can be produced by the flow along the helix angle direction, and this circumferential flow acts as a negative swirl. For the present helix angle range, there is an optimum helix angle with which the seal has a comparatively positive effect on the rotor stability. Compared with the SGS/SR seals, the SS/SGR seal has a worse effect on the rotor stability

Using single quantum states as spin filters to study spin polarization in ferromagnets

By measuring electron tunneling between a ferromagnet and individual energy levels in an aluminum quantum dot, we show how spin-resolved quantum states can be used as filters to determine spin-dependent tunneling rates. We also observe magnetic-field-dependent shifts in the magnet's electrochemical potential relative to the dot's energy levels. The shifts vary between samples and are generally smaller than expected from the magnet's spin-polarized density of states. We suggest that they are affected by field-dependent charge redistribution at the magnetic interface.Comment: 4 pages, 1 color figur

Dynamics of an Acoustic Polaron in One-Dimensional Electron-Lattice System

The dynamical behavior of an acoustic polaron in typical non-degenerate conjugated polymer, polydiacetylene, is numerically studied by using Su-Schrieffer-Heeger's model for the one dimensional electron-lattice system. It is confirmed that the velocity of a polaron accelerated by a constant electric field shows a saturation to a velocity close to the sound velocity of the system, and that the width of a moving polaron decreases as a monotonic function of the velocity tending to zero at the saturation velocity. The effective mass of a polaron is estimated to be about one hundred times as heavy as the bare electron mass. Furthermore the linear mode analysis in the presence of a polaron is carried out, leading to the conclusion that there is only one localized mode, i.e. the translational mode. This is confirmed also from the phase shift of extended modes. There is no localized mode corresponding to the amplitude mode in the case of the soliton in polyacetylene. Nevertheless the width of a moving polaron shows small oscillations in time. This is found to be related to the lowest odd symmetry extended mode and to be due to the finite size effect.Comment: 12 pages, latex, 9 figures (postscript figures abailble on request to [email protected]) to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. vol.65 (1996) No.

Geometry and Conductance of Al Wires Suspended between Semi-Infinite Crystalline Electrodes

We present a first-principles study of a coherent relationship between the optimized geometry and conductance of a three-aluminum-atom wire during its elongation process. Our simulation employs the most definite model including semi-infinite crystalline electrodes using the overbridging boundary-matching method [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 67}, 195315 (2003)] extended to incorporate nonlocal pseudopotentials. The results that the conductance of the wire is $\sim$ 1 G$_0$ and the conductance trace as a function of electrode spacing shows a convex downward curve before breaking are in agreement with experimental data.Comment: 5 pages and 3 figure