1,174 research outputs found
Online Court Records: Balancing Judicial Accountability and Privacy in an Age of Electronic Information
This Article examines the traditional balance courts have reached between the disclosure of information generated by the judicial process and the need at times to limit the disclosure of that information. The Article then examines how this traditional balance is upset when judicial information is placed online. The Article argues that as courts adapt to a world of electronic information, new rules and practices must be established to maintain the policies underlying the traditional balance. While there must continue to be a presumption of openness, courts must limit the disclosure of judicial information when it threatens the effective administration of justice and when necessary in order to protect the safety and privacy of individuals participating in the judicial process
Collaborative Cloud Computing Framework for Health Data with Open Source Technologies
The proliferation of sensor technologies and advancements in data collection
methods have enabled the accumulation of very large amounts of data.
Increasingly, these datasets are considered for scientific research. However,
the design of the system architecture to achieve high performance in terms of
parallelization, query processing time, aggregation of heterogeneous data types
(e.g., time series, images, structured data, among others), and difficulty in
reproducing scientific research remain a major challenge. This is specifically
true for health sciences research, where the systems must be i) easy to use
with the flexibility to manipulate data at the most granular level, ii)
agnostic of programming language kernel, iii) scalable, and iv) compliant with
the HIPAA privacy law. In this paper, we review the existing literature for
such big data systems for scientific research in health sciences and identify
the gaps of the current system landscape. We propose a novel architecture for
software-hardware-data ecosystem using open source technologies such as Apache
Hadoop, Kubernetes and JupyterHub in a distributed environment. We also
evaluate the system using a large clinical data set of 69M patients.Comment: This paper is accepted in ACM-BCB 202
The Transit Light Curve Project. IX. Evidence for a Smaller Radius of the Exoplanet XO-3b
We present photometry of 13 transits of XO-3b, a massive transiting planet on
an eccentric orbit. Previous data led to two inconsistent estimates of the
planetary radius. Our data strongly favor the smaller radius, with increased
precision: R_p = 1.217 +/- 0.073 R_Jup. A conflict remains between the mean
stellar density determined from the light curve, and the stellar surface
gravity determined from the shapes of spectral lines. We argue the light curve
should take precedence, and revise the system parameters accordingly. The
planetary radius is about 1 sigma larger than the theoretical radius for a
hydrogen-helium planet of the given mass and insolation. To help in planning
future observations, we provide refined transit and occultation ephemerides.Comment: To appear in ApJ [22 pages
The Transit Light Curve Project. VII. The Not-So-Bloated Exoplanet HAT-P-1b
We present photometry of the G0 star HAT-P-1 during six transits of its
close-in giant planet, and we refine the estimates of the system parameters.
Relative to Jupiter's properties, HAT-P-1b is 1.20 +/- 0.05 times larger and
its surface gravity is 2.7 +/- 0.2 times weaker. Although it remains the case
that HAT-P-1b is among the least dense of the known sample of transiting
exoplanets, its properties are in accord with previously published models of
strongly irradiated, coreless, solar-composition giant planets. The times of
the transits have a typical accuracy of 1 min and do not depart significantly
from a constant period.Comment: To appear in AJ [19pg, 3 figures]. New co-author added. Minor
revisions to match published versio
KH 15D: Gradual Occultation of a Pre-Main-Sequence Binary
We propose that the extraordinary ``winking star'' KH 15D is an eccentric
pre-main-sequence binary that is gradually being occulted by an opaque screen.
This model accounts for the periodicity, depth, duration, and rate of growth of
the modern eclipses; the historical light curve from photographic plates; and
the existing radial velocity measurements. It also explains the re-brightening
events that were previously observed during eclipses, and the subsequent
disappearance of these events. We predict the future evolution of the system
and its full radial velocity curve. Given the small velocity of the occulting
screen relative to the center of mass of the binary, the screen is probably
associated with the binary, and may be the edge of a precessing circumbinary
disk.Comment: ApJ Letters, in press [11 pp., 5 figs]. Revision is shorter and
incorporates suggestions from the referee and other colleague
Current-carrying cosmic string loops 3D simulation: towards a reduction of the vorton excess problem
The dynamical evolution of superconducting cosmic string loops with specific
equations of state describing timelike and spacelike currents is studied
numerically. This analysis extends previous work in two directions: first it
shows results coming from a fully three dimensional simulation (as opposed to
the two dimensional case already studied), and it now includes fermionic as
well as bosonic currents. We confirm that in the case of bosonic currents,
shocks are formed in the magnetic regime and kinks in the electric regime. For
a loop endowed with a fermionic current with zero-mode carriers, we show that
only kinks form along the string worldsheet, therefore making these loops
slightly more stable against charge carrier radiation, the likely outcome of
either shocks or kinks. All these combined effects tend to reduce the number
density of stable loops and contribute to ease the vorton excess problem. As a
bonus, these effects also may provide new ways of producing high energy cosmic
rays.Comment: 11 pages, RevTeX 4 format, 8 figures, submitted to PR
Iron is a ligand of SecA-like metal-binding domains in vivo
Funding: JEL thanks the Royal Society for a University Research Fellowship and the Wellcome Trust for the Q-band EPR spectrometer (099149/Z/12/Z).The ATPase SecA is an essential component of the bacterial Sec machinery, which transports proteins across the cytoplasmic membrane. Most SecA proteins contain a long C-terminal tail (CTT). In Escherichia coli, the CTT contains a structurally flexible linker domain and a small metal-binding domain (MBD). The MBD coordinates zinc via a conserved cysteine-containing motif and binds to SecB and ribosomes. In this study, we screened a high-density transposon library for mutants that affect the susceptibility of E. coli to sodium azide, which inhibits SecA-mediated translocation. Results from sequencing this library suggested that mutations removing the CTT make E. coli less susceptible to sodium azide at subinhibitory concentrations. Copurification experiments suggested that the MBD binds to iron and that azide disrupts iron binding. Azide also disrupted binding of SecA to membranes. Two other E. coli proteins that contain SecA-like MBDs, YecA and YchJ, also copurified with iron, and NMR spectroscopy experiments indicated that YecA binds iron via its MBD. Competition experiments and equilibrium binding measurements indicated that the SecA MBD binds preferentially to iron and that a conserved serine is required for this specificity. Finally, structural modelling suggested a plausible model for the octahedral coordination of iron. Taken together, our results suggest that SecA-like MBDs likely bind to iron in vivo.PostprintPeer reviewe
Crystallization and X-ray diffraction analysis of the C-terminal domain of the flax rust effector protein AvrM
The flax rust effector AvrM is a secreted protein of unknown fold that is recognized by the M resistance protein in flax. In order to investigate the structural basis of the AvrMM interaction and possible virulence-associated functions of AvrM, the C-terminal domains of two different AvrM variants (AvrM-A and avrM) were crystallized. Crystals of native AvrM-A were obtained using pentaerythritol ethoxylate (15/4 EO/OH) as a precipitant and diffracted X-rays to 2.9 angstrom resolution. Selenomethionine-derivative crystals of similar quality were obtained using PEG 1500 as a precipitant. Both the native and selenomethionine-labelled AvrM-A crystals had symmetry of space group C2221 with eight molecules in the asymmetric unit. Crystals of avrM had symmetry of space group P212121 and diffracted X-rays to 2.7 angstrom resolution. Initial AvrM-A phases were calculated using the single-wavelength anomalous dispersion (SAD) method and a partial model was built. Phases for avrM were obtained by molecular replacement using the partial AvrM-A model
Three red suns in the sky: A transiting, terrestrial planet in a triple M-dwarf system at 6.9 pc
We present the discovery from Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) data of LTT 1445Ab. At a distance of 6.9 pc, it is the second nearest transiting exoplanet system found to date, and the closest one known for which the primary is an M dwarf. The host stellar system consists of three mid-to-late M dwarfs in a hierarchical configuration, which are blended in one TESS pixel. We use MEarth data and results from the Science Processing Operations Center data validation report to determine that the planet transits the primary star in the system. The planet has a radius of , an orbital period of days, and an equilibrium temperature of K. With radial velocities from the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, we place a 3σ upper mass limit of 8.4 on the planet. LTT 1445Ab provides one of the best opportunities to date for the spectroscopic study of the atmosphere of a terrestrial world. We also present a detailed characterization of the host stellar system. We use high-resolution spectroscopy and imaging to rule out the presence of any other close stellar or brown dwarf companions. Nineteen years of photometric monitoring of A and BC indicate a moderate amount of variability, in agreement with that observed in the TESS light-curve data. We derive a preliminary astrometric orbit for the BC pair that reveals an edge-on and eccentric configuration. The presence of a transiting planet in this system hints that the entire system may be co-planar, implying that the system may have formed from the early fragmentation of an individual protostellar core.Accepted manuscrip
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