The Economic Benefits of Immigrant Authorization in California

The USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) estimates that California would eventually benefit from Latino immigrant legalization by $16 billion annually. This would work towards fixing our budget crisis and restoring our safety net programs cut by the state last August. During this period of economic struggle and budget woes, California has a lot to gain from a national legalization policy. The report entitled "The Economic Benefits of Immigrant Authorization in California" measures the benefits that would accrue to the state and the nation if the currently unauthorized Latino workforce in California were legalized. CSII researchers used a conservative economic model that accounts for the wage "penalty" incurred by the undocumented, assumes a very slow increase in English skills and educational levels, and does not account for gains from future migration. Despite this conservative modeling, the report finds that significant immediate and long-term benefits would accrue not only to affected workers, but to the state and nation overall

Categorization of Food Value via Crayfish Aggression

In numerous species, social interactions play a key role in deciding the allocation of resources. Aggression is a tactic that crayfish utilize to become dominant, which allows them to acquire higher quality resources. Many studies of aggression and agonistic interactions have used crayfish because they are known to be innately aggressive and are quick to become involved in agonistic interactions that may escalate into fighting. The primary objective of this study is to elucidate the relationship between differing food resources and their effect on aggression of crayfish. It is hypothesized that increased desirability for the food resource will induce more aggressive interactions to obtain it. Trials were conducted with two different crayfish species - Orconectes propinquus and Orconectes rusticus - in collaboration with Saginaw Valley State University. Only male crayfish were used for the trials. They were exposed to six different food sources and allowed to interact to observe their behaviors. Crayfish interactions were analyzed using an ethogram to grade intensity levels. It appeared the crayfish valued Fluker’s® turtle diet and Meijer® farm raised tilapia in comparison to the other resources provided based on the average duration spent in contact with the food bag and average duration spent at higher intensity levels. This may be due to the increased crude protein and fat in these foods when compared to the other resources. These two species appear to value more protein and fat and will interact at higher intensity levels during agonistic interactions to obtain them

Synthesis and Characterization of K and Eu Binary Phosphides.

The synthesis, structural characterization, and optical properties of the binary Zintl phases of α-EuP₃, β-EuP₃, EuP₂, and α-K₄P₆ are reported in this study. These crystal structures demonstrate the versatility of P fragments with dimensionality varying from 0D (P₆ rings in α-K₄P₆) to 1D chains (EuP₂) to 2D layers (both EuP₃). EuP₂ is isostructural to previously reported SrP₂ and BaP₂ compounds. The thermal stabilities of the EuP₂ and both EuP₃ phases were determined using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), with melting temperatures of 1086 K for the diphosphide and 1143 K for the triphosphides. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy indicated that EuP₂ is an indirect semiconductor with a direct bandgap of 1.12(5) eV and a smaller indirect one, less than 1 eV. Both EuP₃ compounds had bandgaps smaller than 1 eV

NeuroTracker Cognitive Function and its Relationship to GPA in College Students

Abstract Introduction: The NeuroTracker system is a training tool used to enhance one’s cognitive abilities. It has been previously tested to improve athletic performance and core cognitive abilities in a variety of populations, but it has yet to be used as a cognitive test to examine its ability to distinguish academic ability in college students. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between a student’s grade point average (GPA), major, minutes exercised, and visual tracking speed utilizing the NeuroTracker System. Methods: Forty-five students volunteered for the study (20 male and 25 female, 20.2±1.09years, ht=170.44±9.48cm, wt=70.98±15.66kg) and were tested with the NeuroTracker system to obtain a baseline visual tracking speed. Each participant performed 1 session of 20, 8-second trials where they had to track 4 of 8 balls in a 3-dimensional queue. If they succeeded, the speed would increase, and if they failed, the speed would decrease. Their final score was calculated by averaging variable trial successes and failures dependent on performance throughout the session. Results: There was no correlation found between tracking speed and GPA, major, and minutes exercised. Moderate correlations were found between age and tracking speed (r=0.378; p=0.011), sex and tracking speed (r=-0.448; p=0.002). Discussion: The results suggests that there was no correlation between GPA, college major, minutes exercised, and cognitive tracking speed, but older students did better and men had faster tracking scores. Additional testing is warranted to determine if cognitive tracking speed is related to athletic ability and academic success

Marine Buoy Detection Using Circular Hough Transform

A low cost method for buoy detection in maritime settings is presented using inexpensive digital cameras. In this method, the circular Hough transform is applied to an edge image to circular objects in the image. The center of these circles will signify the locations of each buoy. The known color information of the buoys is also used to enhance the performance by removing false detections. The algorithm is compared to an approach that locates buoys purely on color information. In order to validate the method, we test the approach synthetically and also with real images captured from a small surface vessel. This approach is unique in that it combines the use of shape and color information for buoy detection. It is found that by using both color and shape, the buoy detection is improved from using either feature independently

Integrative genomic mining for enzyme function to enable engineering of a non-natural biosynthetic pathway.

The ability to biosynthetically produce chemicals beyond what is commonly found in Nature requires the discovery of novel enzyme function. Here we utilize two approaches to discover enzymes that enable specific production of longer-chain (C5-C8) alcohols from sugar. The first approach combines bioinformatics and molecular modelling to mine sequence databases, resulting in a diverse panel of enzymes capable of catalysing the targeted reaction. The median catalytic efficiency of the computationally selected enzymes is 75-fold greater than a panel of naively selected homologues. This integrative genomic mining approach establishes a unique avenue for enzyme function discovery in the rapidly expanding sequence databases. The second approach uses computational enzyme design to reprogramme specificity. Both approaches result in enzymes with >100-fold increase in specificity for the targeted reaction. When enzymes from either approach are integrated in vivo, longer-chain alcohol production increases over 10-fold and represents >95% of the total alcohol products

Vascular Response to Sildenafil Citrate in Aging and Age-Related Macular Degeneration.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) - the leading cause of vision loss in the elderly - share many risks factors as atherosclerosis, which exhibits loss of vascular compliance resulting from aging and oxidative stress. Here, we attempt to explore choroidal and retinal vascular compliance in patients with AMD by evaluating dynamic vascular changes using live ocular imaging following treatment with oral sildenafil citrate, a phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitor and potent vasodilator. Enhanced-depth imaging optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT) and OCT angiography (OCT-A) were performed on 46 eyes of 23 subjects, including 15 patients with non-exudative AMD in one eye and exudative AMD in the fellow eye, and 8 age-matched control subjects. Choroidal thickness, choroidal vascularity, and retinal vessel density were measured across the central macula at 1 and 3 hours after a 100 mg oral dose of sildenafil citrate. Baseline choroidal thickness was 172.1 ± 60.0 μm in non-exudative AMD eyes, 196.4 ± 89.8 μm in exudative AMD eyes, and 207.4 ± 77.7 μm in control eyes, with no difference between the 3 groups (P = 0.116). After sildenafil, choroidal thickness increased by 6.0% to 9.0% at 1 and 3 hours in all groups (P = 0.001-0.014). Eyes from older subjects were associated with choroidal thinning at baseline (P = 0.005) and showed less choroidal expansion at 1 hour and 3 hours after sildenafil (P = 0.001) regardless of AMD status (P = 0.666). The choroidal thickening appeared to be primarily attributed to expansion of the stroma rather than luminal component. Retinal vascular density remained unchanged after sildenafil in all 3 groups (P = 0.281-0.587). Together, our studies suggest that vascular response of the choroid to sildenafil decreases with age, but is not affected by the presence of non-exudative or exudative AMD, providing insight into changes in vessel compliance in aging and AMD

Incorporation of polymorphic spacers to inhibit sintering of SrO/SrCO3 for thermochemical energy storage

Global energy needs are continuously increasing while fossil fuels remain an uncertain resource. With a growing population and demand for energy, alternative energy sources are being pursued to power the future. Fossil fuels are an unsustainable resource that brings along problems of climate change and atmospheric pollution. Concentrated solar power (CSP) is a promising method of converting solar energy into electricity while avoiding carbon emissions. Thermal energy storage (TES) in conjunction with CSP can increase efficiency in power generation and allow for generation beyond on-sun hours. One method of TES is thermochemical energy storage (TCES), which has potential for higher energy density. TCES is based storing energy chemical via reversible reactions. During peak sun hours, the endothermic reaction stores the thermal energy; thus, the reaction can be reversed to produce heat for off-peak sun hours. One reaction that exhibits high energy densities is the reversible carbonation/ decomposition of SrO/SrCO₃, which occurs around 1200 °C. The reaction is nontoxic and avoids the use of catalysts. The high reaction temperature leads to a higher Carnot efficiency for power generation, and could enable combined-cycle power production Over many cycles, the material becomes less reactive due to sintering. Sintering inhibitors were looked at to determine if sintering could be hindered. Calcium sulfate and strontium phosphate were tested due to their inert nature and polymorphic properties. Key Words: Concentrated Solar Power, Thermal Energy System, Sintering, Sustainability, Thermochemica

Extraction of active, contaminant degrading enzymes from soil

Soil microorganisms play critical roles in the degradation of micro-and nano-pollutants, and the corresponding proteins and enzymes play roles in pollutant recognition, transportation, and degradation. Our ability to study these pathways from soil samples is often complicated by the complex processes involved in extracting proteins from soil matrices. This study aimed to develop a new protein soil extraction protocol that yielded active, intracellular enzymes from the perchlorate degradation pathway, particularly perchlorate reductase. An indirect method, which focused on first separating the cells from the soil matrix, followed by cell lysis and enzyme extraction, was evaluated. The optimized indirect method achieved a final extraction efficiency of the active enzyme and total protein of 15.7 % and 3.3 %, respectively. The final step of separating enzymes from residual soil components resulted in the highest activity and protein losses of 67.7 % ± 14.8 % and 91.8 % ± 1.8 %, respectively. Five buffers, each at different concentrations (0.01 M, 0.05 M, and 0.1 M), were tested to enhance enzyme extraction efficiency. The best extractant requires careful consideration between the highest activity and the quality of the recovered enzymes. Coextraction of humic substances could be minimized by using 0.1 M as compared to 0.01 M and 0.05 M of sodium pyrophosphate; however, this resulted in less recovered activity compared to lower extractant concentrations

TagPaint: Covalent labelling of genetically encoded protein tags for DNA-PAINT imaging

Recently, DNA-PAINT single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) has shown great promise for quantitative imaging; however, labelling strategies thus far have relied on multivalent and affinity-based approaches. Here, the covalent labelling of expressed protein tags (SNAP tag and Halo tag) with single DNA-docking strands and application of SMLM via DNA-PAINT is demonstrated. tagPAINT is then used for T-cell receptor signalling proteins at the immune synapse as a proof of principle