The range scheduling aid

The Air Force Space Command schedules telemetry, tracking and control activities across the Air Force Satellite Control network. The Range Scheduling Aid (RSA) is a rapid prototype combining a user-friendly, portable, graphical interface with a sophisticated object-oriented database. The RSA has been a rapid prototyping effort whose purpose is to elucidate and define suitable technology for enhancing the performance of the range schedulers. Designing a system to assist schedulers in their task and using their current techniques as well as enhancements enabled by an electronic environment, has created a continuously developing model that will serve as a standard for future range scheduling systems. The RSA system is easy to use, easily ported between platforms, fast, and provides a set of tools for the scheduler that substantially increases his productivity

A comment on BCC crystalization in higher dimensions

The result that near the melting point three-dimensional crystals have an octahedronic structure is generalized to higher flat non compact dimensions

Economia verde e sustentabilidade

(Primeiro Parágrafo do Artigo)A idéia de economia verde surgiu recentemente e ganha projeção cada vez mais acentuada por meio da conferência conhecida como Rio+20. Para entendê-la um pouco melhor, precisamos buscar a gênese do conceito, que se encontra na idéia de deenvolvimento econômico sustentável, também conhecido como desenvolvimento sustentável

Why Do CEO's Reciprocally Sit On Each Other's Boards?

The reciprocal interlocking of chief executive officers (CEOs) is a non-trivial phenomenon of the composition of boards of directors and of corporate governance: among large companies in 1991, about one company in seven is part of a relationship whereby the CEO of one company sits on a second company's board and the second company's CEO sits on the first company's board. We are aware of no previous efforts to explain these reciprocal relationships. We hypothesize that reciprocal CEO interlocks are (a) more likely when a board has more outside directorships, (b) less likely when a CEO has more of his total annual compensation paid in the form of stock options, (c) less likely when a company's board is more active and holds more meetings, (d) less likely when a CEO has a larger ownership share of his company, and (e) more likely when there are more CEOs from other companies as outside directors on a CEO's board. Using a sizable sample of large companies in 1991, we employ simple probit and step probit models to test these hypotheses, with the use of control variables that encompass other company, board, and CEO characteristics. These multivariate analyses support our first three conjectures but do not support the remaining two. Since there is considerable academic and policy debate concerning board composition and the effectiveness of interlocking directorships in general, investigations focusing on reciprocal CEO interlocks, which link the highest ranked executives of two different firms, represent a significant contribution to the knowledge base in this field

Cellular internalization of alpha-synuclein aggregates by cell surface heparan sulfate depends on aggregate conformation and cell type.

Amyloid aggregates found in the brain of patients with neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, are thought to spread to increasingly larger areas of the brain through a prion-like seeding mechanism. Not much is known about which cell surface receptors may be involved in the cell-to-cell transfer, but proteoglycans are of interest due to their well-known propensity to interact with amyloid aggregates. In this study, we investigated the involvement of plasma membrane-bound heparan and chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans in cellular uptake of aggregates consisting of α-synuclein, a protein forming amyloid aggregates in Parkinson's disease. We show, using a pH-sensitive probe, that internalization of α-synuclein amyloid fibrils in neuroblastoma cells is dependent on heparan sulfate, whereas internalization of smaller non-amyloid oligomers is not. We also show that α-synuclein fibril uptake in an oligodendrocyte-like cell line is equally dependent on heparan sulfate, while astrocyte- and microglia-like cell lines have other means to internalize the fibrils. In addition, we analyzed the interaction between the α-synuclein amyloid fibrils and heparan sulfate and show that overall sulfation of the heparan sulfate chains is more important than sulfation at particular sites along the chains

The Initial Value Problem For Maximally Non-Local Actions

We study the initial value problem for actions which contain non-trivial functions of integrals of local functions of the dynamical variable. In contrast to many other non-local actions, the classical solution set of these systems is at most discretely enlarged, and may even be restricted, with respect to that of a local theory. We show that the solutions are those of a local theory whose (spacetime constant) parameters vary with the initial value data according to algebraic equations. The various roots of these algebraic equations can be plausibly interpreted in quantum mechanics as different components of a multi-component wave function. It is also possible that the consistency of these algebraic equations imposes constraints upon the initial value data which appear miraculous from the context of a local theory.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX 2 epsilo