Land Health Assessment for the Colorado Canyons National Conservation Area

The Colorado Canyons National Conservation Area (CCNCA) is located about 7 miles west of Grand Junction, Colorado. The CCNCA includes rolling saltbush-covered hills, pinyon-junpier and sagebrush-covered mesas, a 24-mile corridor along the Colorado River through Horsethief and Ruby Canyons, and over 70,000 acres of sheer-sided, red-rock canyons, natural arches, caves and alcoves. The 75,550-acre Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness comprises the heart of the CCNCA, with another 5,200 acres stretching into Utah. The CCNCA was given a high priority for land health assessment, a valuable tool in developing the CCNCA Resource Management Plan (RMP)

Comprehensive plan update : summarized work plan

13 pp. Published July 19, 2008. Captured February 10, 2009.The work program provides detail on how the City expects to complete this work. While the work program specifies multiple products for each task, the project can be distilled into several key products: economic opportunities analysis that provides the factual basis for 20- and 50-year employment land needs, articulates the city's economic development vision, and complies with Goal 9 and OAR 660-009; a housing needs analysis that provides the factual basis for 20- and 50-year housing land needs and complies with Goal 10 and OAR 660-008; an analysis of land use efficiency measures along with an analysis of alternatives that evaluates the suitability of different areas for inclusion in the Junction City UGB or urban reserves; a set of findings that support the City's preferred alternatives, including comprehensive plan and code amendments. [From the document

Quantum Transport Characteristics of Lateral pn-Junction of Single Layer TiS3

Using density functional theory and nonequilibrium Greens functions-based methods we investigated the electronic and transport properties of monolayer TiS3 pn-junction. We constructed a lateral pn-junction in monolayer TiS3 by using Li and F adatoms. An applied bias voltage caused significant variability in the electronic and transport properties of the TiS3 pn-junction. In addition, spin dependent current-voltage characteristics of the constructed TiS3 pn-junction were analyzed. Important device characteristics were found such as negative differential resistance and rectifying diode behaviors for spin-polarized currents in the TiS3 pn-junction. These prominent conduction properties of TiS3 pn-junction offer remarkable opportunities for the design of nanoelectronic devices based on a recently synthesized single-layered material

Josephson current in a superconductor -- ferromagnet -- superconductor junction with in-plane ferromagnetic domains

We study a diffusive superconductor--ferromagnet--superconductor (SFS) junction with in-plane ferromagnetic domains. Close to the superconducting transition temperature, we describe the proximity effect in the junction with the linearized Usadel equations. We find that properties of such a junction depend on the size of the domains relative to the magnetic coherence length. In the case of large domains, the junction exhibits transitions to the $\pi$ state, similarly to a single-domain SFS junction. In the case of small domains, the magnetization effectively averages out, and the junction is always in the zero state, similarly to a superconductor--normal metal--superconductor (SNS) junction. In both those regimes, the influence of domain walls may be approximately described as an effective spin-flip scattering. We also study the inhomogeneous distribution of the local current density in the junction. Close to the 0--$\pi$ transitions, the directions of the critical current may be opposite in the vicinity of the domain wall and in the middle of the domains.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Mtss1 promotes cell-cell junction assembly and stability through the small GTPase Rac1

Cell-cell junctions are an integral part of epithelia and are often disrupted in cancer cells during epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which is a main driver of metastatic spread. We show here that Metastasis suppressor-1 (Mtss1; Missing in Metastasis, MIM), a member of the IMD-family of proteins, inhibits cell-cell junction disassembly in wound healing or HGF-induced scatter assays by enhancing cell-cell junction strength. Mtss1 not only makes cells more resistant to cell-cell junction disassembly, but also accelerates the kinetics of adherens junction assembly. Mtss1 drives enhanced junction formation specifically by elevating Rac-GTP. Lastly, we show that Mtss1 depletion reduces recruitment of F-actin at cell-cell junctions. We thus propose that Mtss1 promotes Rac1 activation and actin recruitment driving junction maintenance. We suggest that the observed loss of Mtss1 in cancers may compromise junction stability and thus promote EMT and metastasis

Ex-situ Tunnel Junction Process Technique Characterized by Coulomb Blockade Thermometry

We investigate a wafer scale tunnel junction fabrication method, where a plasma etched via through a dielectric layer covering bottom Al electrode defines the tunnel junction area. The ex-situ tunnel barrier is formed by oxidation of the bottom electrode in the junction area. Room temperature resistance mapping over a 150 mm wafer give local deviation values of the tunnel junction resistance that fall below 7.5 % with an average of 1.3 %. The deviation is further investigated by sub-1 K measurements of a device, which has one tunnel junction connected to four arrays consisting of N junctions (N = 41, junction diameter 700 nm). The differential conductance is measured in single-junction and array Coulomb blockade thermometer operation modes. By fitting the experimental data to the theoretical models we found an upper limit for the local tunnel junction resistance deviation of ~5 % for the array of 2N+1 junctions. This value is of the same order as the minimum detectable deviation defined by the accuracy of our experimental setup