How To Get In The First Pile

Pressures facing junior faculty during a tenure track job search are high and can come from a multitude of areas. It follows that professionals in this position would try to reduce uncertainty associated with securing a new employment contract. The authors offer their observations below on how to increase an applicants chance to succeed in an initial screening processwhat is we refer to as making the first pileand the interviews that follow

STATE MANDATES: Before and after the University of Illinois Scientific Surveys Act of 2008

This paper is for those who are interested in understanding the relevant provisions of directory statutes3 that created, transformed, and financially sustained PRI and the Scientific Surveys. The state directives are an expression of legislative intent that empower the Surveys to do research, service, and engagement, and over many decades these directives have consistently focused on natural and cultural resources with emphasis on the associated societal impacts on people, the environment, and economic development.Ope

Influence of the Available Surface Area and Cell Elasticity on Bacterial Adhesion Forces on Highly Ordered Silicon Nanopillars

[Image: see text] Initial bacterial adhesion to solid surfaces is influenced by a multitude of different factors, e.g., roughness and stiffness, topography on the micro- and nanolevel, as well as chemical composition and wettability. Understanding the specific influences and possible interactive effects of all of these factors individually could lead to guidance on bacterial adhesion and prevention of unfavorable consequences like medically relevant biofilm formation. On this way, the aim of the present study was to identify the specific influence of the available surface area on the adhesion of clinically relevant bacterial strains with different membrane properties: Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus and Gram-negative Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans. As model surfaces, silicon nanopillar specimens with different spacings were fabricated using electron beam lithography and cryo-based reactive ion etching techniques. Characterization by scanning electron microscopy and contact angle measurement revealed almost defect-free highly ordered nanotopographies only varying in the available surface area. Bacterial adhesion forces to these specimens were quantified by means of single-cell force spectroscopy exploiting an atomic force microscope connected to a microfluidic setup (FluidFM). The nanotopographical features reduced bacterial adhesion strength by reducing the available surface area. In addition, the strain-specific interaction in detail depended on the bacterial cell’s elasticity and deformability as well. Analyzed by confocal laser scanning microscopy, the obtained results on bacterial adhesion forces could be linked to the subsequent biofilm formation on the different topographies. By combining two cutting-edge technologies, it could be demonstrated that the overall bacterial adhesion strength is influenced by both the simple physical interaction with the underlying nanotopography and its available surface area as well as the deformability of the cell

Coctaca: agricultural dynamics under inka dominion

La existencia en Coctaca de grandes áreas agrícolas prehispánicas cautivó tempranamente la atención de los arqueólogos, siendo considerada como uno de los principales referentes de la agricultura nativa. Los nuevos estudios indican que, con el establecimiento de los inkas en la región, tuvo lugar en Coctaca una dinámica de neta intensificación de la producción agrícola en la que se readecuaron espacios de cultivo prexistentes y se crearon otros nuevos, en un área aproximada de 450 ha. Se resalta particularmente en las características del sistema agrícola el aprovechamiento pormenorizado de los recursos hídricos y la mitigación de las limitantes ambientales. Más allá de la agricultura, la colosal inversión volcada en este desarrollo productivo hace de Coctaca una de las mayores y más evidentes manifestaciones del poder del Estado inkaico en esta parte de los Andes.The existence of large pre-Hispanic agricultural areas in Coctaca early captured the attention of archaeologists, being considered one of the main references of native agriculture. New studies indicate that, with the establishment of the Inkas in the region, a dynamic of net intensification of agricultural production took place in Coctaca, in which pre-existing cultivation areas were readapted and new ones were created, on an area of approximately 450 ha. In this agricultural system, the detailed use of water resources and the mitigation of environmental constraints are particularly noteworthy. Regardless of agriculture, the colossal investment in this productive development turns Coctaca into one of the greatest and most evident manifestations of the power of the Inka State in this part of the Andes.Sociedad Argentina de Antropologí

An Introductory Guide to the Mahomet Aquifer and Natural Gas Storage in East-Central Illinois

This introductory guide was developedby the NGWG in coordination with colleagues across PRI to provide basic information about the Mahomet aquifer and natural gas storage in east-central Illinois. PRI is available to the task force as a technical resourceand can draw on the expertise of PRIscientists and programs to help the task force meet its goals. PRI can also help identify additional data, reports, activities, or assessments that may be relevant to the task force. Requests for reports, presentations, and interactions are welcomed and can be prioritized based on needs of the task force and PRI.Ope

The Importance of Human FcγRI in Mediating Protection to Malaria

The success of passive immunization suggests that antibody-based therapies will be effective at controlling malaria. We describe the development of fully human antibodies specific for Plasmodium falciparum by antibody repertoire cloning from phage display libraries generated from immune Gambian adults. Although these novel reagents bind with strong affinity to malaria parasites, it remains unclear if in vitro assays are predictive of functional immunity in humans, due to the lack of suitable animal models permissive for P. falciparum. A potentially useful solution described herein allows the antimalarial efficacy of human antibodies to be determined using rodent malaria parasites transgenic for P. falciparum antigens in mice also transgenic for human Fc-receptors. These human IgG1s cured animals of an otherwise lethal malaria infection, and protection was crucially dependent on human FcγRI. This important finding documents the capacity of FcγRI to mediate potent antimalaria immunity and supports the development of FcγRI-directed therapy for human malaria

State preparation of a fluxonium qubit with feedback from a custom FPGA-based platform

We developed a versatile integrated control and readout instrument for experiments with superconducting quantum bits (qubits), based on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) platform. Using this platform, we perform measurement-based, closed-loop feedback operations with $428 \, \mathrm{ns}$ platform latency. The feedback capability is instrumental in realizing active reset initialization of the qubit into the ground state in a time much shorter than its energy relaxation time $T_1$. We show experimental results demonstrating reset of a fluxonium qubit with $99.4\,\%$ fidelity, using a readout-and-drive pulse sequence approximately $1.5 \, \mathrm{\mu s}$ long. Compared to passive ground state initialization through thermalization, with the time constant given by $T_1 = ~ 80 \, \mathrm{\mu s}$, the use of the FPGA-based platform allows us to improve both the fidelity and the time of the qubit initialization by an order of magnitude.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures. The following article has been submitted to the AIP Conference Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Quantum Technologies (ICQT-2019

Quantum Nondemolition Dispersive Readout of a Superconducting Artificial Atom Using Large Photon Numbers

Reading out the state of superconducting artificial atoms typically relies on dispersive coupling to a readout resonator. For a given system noise temperature, increasing the circulating photon number $\overline{n}$ in the resonator enables a shorter measurement time and is therefore expected to reduce readout errors caused by spontaneous atom transitions. However, increasing $\overline{n}$ is generally observed to also monotonously increase these transition rates. Here we present a fluxonium artificial atom in which, despite the fact that the measured transition rates show nonmonotonous fluctuations within a factor of 6, for photon numbers up to $\overline{n}$≈200, the signal-to-noise ratio continuously improves with increasing $\overline{n}$. Even without the use of a parametric amplifier, at $\overline{n}$=74, we achieve fidelities of 99% and 93% for feedback-assisted ground and excited state preparations, respectively. At higher $\overline{n}$, leakage outside the qubit computational space can no longer be neglected and it limits the fidelity of quantum state preparation