Competing Explanations of U.S. Defense Industry Consolidation in the 1990s and Their Policy Implications

Was the consolidation of defense industry in the 1990s driven by U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) directives, or was it driven instead by the same forces that drove consolidation in many other sectors of the U.S. economy in the 1990s? To better understand the roles of DOD policy and economy-wide forces in shaping the U.S. defense industry, we test for structural breaks in defense industry and spending data and compare our findings to those relating to other sectors and the general economy. We identify structural breaks in the defense-related data in the early 1980s and throughout the 1990s, roughly consistent with changes in the U.S. economy, including broader merger trends. Overall, our results are more consistent with the view that economy-wide factors drove defense industry consolidation, largely independent of the DOD policy changes that occurred early in the 1990s.

Characteristics of Working Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Recipients in Maine, according to the 2011 American Community Survey

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a federal program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). SNAP is designed to provide assistance in purchasing food to low income households in the United States. In Maine, individual benefits are administered by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. Formerly (and still colloquially) known as the Food Stamp program, SNAP makes a dollar-value benefit, based on income, household size, household expenses, and a host of other factors, available to households via a debit or Electronic Benefit Card for the purchase of unprepared food from grocery and convenience stores, among other retail establishments. An estimated 46,542,005 of households in the US received SNAP benefits in January 2014 ( SNAP Current Participation - Persons ), with $274.98 being the median household benefit in FY2013 ( SNAP Average Monthly Benefits per Households , 2014). Between 2008 and 2009, there was a 19.8% increase nationally in the number of households that received SNAP (Loveless, 2010), and since then SNAP reliance has remained high as the job market has remained soft (Stone et al, 2013). Despite this, the program is increasingly under scrutiny from the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives that hopes to narrow the programs’ scope, even as more families rely on it as part of the overall household budget

U.S.-Turkey Strategic Dialogue

"The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) hosted a Track II dialogue on weapons of mass destruction and regional security in Istanbul from October 31 to November 2, 2012. This event was supported and executed by the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) of the Center on Contemporary Conflict. PASCC is sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The participants included four main presenters from both Turkey and U.S. who specialize in security, global proliferation, disarmament, and weapons of mass destruction policy. Also present were observers from the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DTRA, the U.S. Department of State, United States Institute of Peace, the U.S. Embassy in Ankara and the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul. The dialogue was structured like an academic seminar with multiple sessions during which each panelist had the opportunity to deliver 20 minutes of prepared remarks. Each session provided a period for open discussion among all the participants. At the end of the three--†day event, there was a 'Ways Forward' session involving all participants in a frank review of all topics that had been addressed as well as consideration of points for further discussion."2012 019Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Phytoplankton Community and Algal Toxicity at a Recurring Bloom in Sullivan Bay, Kabetogama Lake, Minnesota, USA

Kabetogama Lake in Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota, USA suffers from recurring late summer algal blooms that often contain toxin-producing cyanobacteria. Previous research identified the toxin microcystin in blooms, but we wanted to better understand how the algal and cyanobacterial community changed throughout an open water season and how changes in community structure were related to toxin production. Therefore, we sampled one recurring bloom location throughout the entire open water season. The uniqueness of this study is the absence of urban and agricultural nutrient sources, the remote location, and the collection of samples before any visible blooms were present. Through quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), we discovered that toxin-forming cyanobacteria were present before visible blooms and toxins not previously detected in this region (anatoxin-a and saxitoxin) were present, indicating that sampling for additional toxins and sampling earlier in the season may be necessary to assess ecosystems and human health risk

CVI manufacturing routes of non-oxide CMCs

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An exploration of the extent and nature of reconceptualisation of pain following pain neurophysiology education: a qualitative study of experiences of people with chronic musculoskeletal pain

AbstractThe mitochondrial permeability transition is an inner mitochondrial membrane event involving the opening of the permeability transition pore concomitant with a sudden efflux of matrix solutes and breakdown of membrane potential. The mitochondrial FoF1 ATP synthase has been proposed as the molecular identity of the permeability transition pore. The likeliness of potential pore-forming sites in the mitochondrial FoF1 ATP synthase is discussed and a new model, the death finger model, is described. In this model, movement of a p-side density that connects the lipid-plug of the c-ring with the distal membrane bending Fo domain allows reversible opening of the c-ring and structural cross-talk with OSCP and the catalytic (αβ)3 hexamer. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled ‘EBEC 2016: 19th European Bioenergetics Conference, Riva del Garda, Italy, July 2–6, 2016’, edited by Prof. Paolo Bernardi

Designing core-shell 3D photonic crystal lattices for negative refraction

We use a plane wave expansion method to define parameters for the fabrication of 3-dimensional (3D) core-shell photonic crystals (PhCs) with lattice geometries that are capable of all-angle negative refraction (AANR) in the midinfrared centered around 8.0 μm. We discuss the dependence of the AANR frequency range on the volume fraction of solid within the lattice and on the ratio of the low index core material to the high index shell material. Following the constraints set by simulations, we fabricate two types of nanolattice PhCs: (1) polymer core-germanium shell and (2) amorphous carbon core-germanium shell to enable experimental observation of 3D negative refraction and related dispersion phenomena at infrared and eventually optical frequencies