203435 research outputs found
Sort by
Joker: Folie à Deux
No full texthttps://researchrepository.wvu.edu/structuralist_db/3963/thumbnail.jp
The Fallacies Behind The Excise Tax On Excessive Charity Compensation
Get PDFThis Article examines the fundamental flaws in Section 4960 of the Internal Revenue Code, which imposes an excise tax on nonprofit executive compensation exceeding $1 million. The provision, enacted as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, rests on three problematic fallacies. First, Congress incorrectly assumed that an excise tax on nonprofits would function equivalently to the elimination of a tax deduction for excessive compensation in the for-profit sector under Section 162(m). Second, lawmakers failed to recognize that nonprofits respond differently to tax incentives than for-profit entities due to their distinct governance structures and sensitivity to public opinion about overhead costs. Third, and most significantly, Section 4960 was never truly intended to regulate excessive compensation, but rather serves to reinforce harmful narratives about nonprofit wages while raising revenue from an already disfavored sector. The Article argues that Section 4960\u27s mechanical approach ignores the complex realities of nonprofit compensation and governance while potentially damaging organizational capacity. Rather than relying on bright-line excise taxes, meaningful reform requires addressing underlying issues. This Article concludes that Section 4960 represents a misguided attempt to regulate nonprofit compensation that may ultimately harm the charitable sector it purports to protect
Cerebellar Feedback Effects on Responses to Conspecific Signals of Different Frequencies in the Electrosensory System
No full textSensory systems in animals have evolved to translate physical stimuli into neural representations that, in turn, guide behavior. Feedback is critical in these processes, allowing organisms to filter redundant information and respond effectively to relevant stimuli. In humans, for example, the cerebellar flocculus provides feedback to the vestibulo-ocular reflex to stabilize eye movements during body rotation. In bats, the feedback during echolocation helps prioritize essential signals from the environment. In weakly electric fish, cerebellar feedback helps filter out redundant low-frequency modulations caused by conspecifics, enabling them to detect prey and other relevant signals. However, the influence of cerebellar feedback on high-frequency sensory signals in more realistic, behaviorally relevant contexts still needs to be better understood. This research aims to fill this gap by investigating the role of feedback in processing high-frequency, spatially localized envelope modulations in the electrosensory system of weakly electric fish. By examining the effects of cerebellar feedback on the encoding of conspecific signals, we aim to deepen our understanding of how feedback mechanisms influence sensory processing across different sensory modalities. We found that although not on a per-cycle basis, feedback does cancel high-frequency envelope signals as well as low frequencies. This feedback is driven by a previous cycle of the envelope- but we wanted to narrow down further how many cycles previous to the one of interest it took to drive the feedback. We found that for low frequencies, it takes one stimulus cycle to drive the feedback, whereas higher frequencies took longer and more cycles for the feedback to be active. Finally, we determined how feedback changes for spatial discrimination. Specifically, if the entire duration of the stimulus had a higher discrimination error or if only the first 200 milliseconds was higher. We found that the discrimination errors between feedback intact versus blocked were significantly different for the entire duration of the stimulus, whereas the discrimination errors were similar for the first 200 milliseconds of the stimulus
Enhancing Robotic Exploration through Semantically-Guided Sampling Strategies
Get PDFFrom space and deep-sea exploration to disaster response and environmental monitoring, autonomous robots are essential for advancing science, improving safety, and addressing critical challenges. This dissertation introduces a novel open-source strategy for autonomous robotic exploration: the Semantically-Guided Exploration (SGE) framework. Designed for ground vehicles, SGE integrates semantic understanding into the autonomous exploration process, improving decision-making in complex environments. Specifically, the proposed sampling-based approach uses the information from the semantic segmentation of RGB images and depth images to guide the robot\u27s selection of exploration goals. This method enables the robot to steer away from potential dangers such as large rocks and water, while prioritizing a specific type of terrain or objective, such as staying on trails, making exploration safer and more flexible. Additionally, an exploration manager framework is proposed to process these waypoints. It optimizes viewpoint selection via a Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) formulation in a receding-horizon manner, ensuring robots make intelligent, context-driven decisions while navigating uncertain terrains. Furthermore, a new learning-based direct sampling method is presented, which aims to mimic human-like exploration behaviors, by teaching robots to select waypoints from human-provided examples directly from raw data inputs. The methods are extensively evaluated in both in simulation and in real-world settings, including the university campus, indoor corridors, and underground mining environments. Experimental results validate the framework\u27s effectiveness, demonstrating that SGE provides significant advantages increasing flexibility and safety, while maintaining competitive performance with state-of-the-art exploration techniques in benchmarked tests evaluating volumetric data and exploration distance. Overall, the SGE framework enhanced environmental understanding and decision-making capabilities, enabling autonomous robots to operate effectively in less constrained and more challenging environments
Performance and physiological impacts of branched-chain amino acid and tryptophan ratio variations in turkey starter diets utilizing concentrated corn proteins
Get PDFIn Chapter 2, a study was designed to evaluate the effects of varying dietary branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) ratio in corn and soybean meal-based turkey starter diets. The BCAA leucine, isoleucine, and valine are considered indispensable amino acids needed for energy and stimulation of muscle protein synthesis via the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway. Imbalanced BCAA ratios can lead to antagonism and degradation of limiting BCAA, particularly in diets with excess leucine. Concentrated corn proteins contain high levels of leucine and can alter BCAA requirements; however, crystalline BCAA may be added to correct these ratios. This study aimed to determine the effects of varying dietary BCAA ratio using corn gluten meal (CG), L-isoleucine, and L-valine on performance, mTOR activation, and apparent ileal AA digestibility (AIAAD) in commercial turkey hens from 0-21days of age. A 38.4% corn and 49.8% soybean meal diet served as the Control, and CG was serially increased to create an uncorrected low- and high-leucine diet. The high-leucine diet was then used to create partially or fully corrected diets by inclusion of L-isoleucine and/or L-valine. In uncorrected high-leucine treatments, feed intake, bird weight, and live weight gain decreased (P \u3c 0.05), and feed conversion ratio (FCR) increased relative to the Control at day 14 (P \u3c 0.05). Performance equivalent to the Control was induced by adding both L-isoleucine and L-valine at day 14 (P \u3e 0.05), and FCR decreased relative to the Control at day 21 (P \u3c 0.05). Relative mTOR activation numerically increased in high-leucine diets compared to the Control (P = 0.13). BCAA digestibility was maximized in high-leucine diets with additional L-isoleucine and L-valine (P \u3c 0.05). These results demonstrate that diets containing excess leucine from concentrated corn proteins can decrease poult hen performance, but concomitant additions of crystalline isoleucine and valine may restore performance. In production settings, nutritionists should assess the costs associated with BCAA supplementation at practical levels versus corn and soybean meal-based diets.
In Chapter 3, a follow-up study was designed to investigate the influence of dietary branched chain amino acid (BCAA) and tryptophan ratio in turkeys. Larger inclusions of concentrated corn proteins in corn and soybean meal-based diets can increase leucine levels above requirement, leading to potential deficiency of limiting isoleucine and valine. Excess leucine may also inhibit tryptophan absorption and transport, influencing serotonin synthesis. Hence, high-leucine diets corrected with supplementary isoleucine, valine, and tryptophan could prevent performance reductions associated with imbalanced BCAA and tryptophan ratios. This study evaluated the effects of varying dietary BCAA and tryptophan ratios using corn gluten meal (CG), L-isoleucine, L-valine, and L-tryptophan on performance, plasma serotonin concentration, immune organ weight, and tibia mineralization in commercial turkey hens from 0-28 days of age. A 34.8% corn and 54.0% soybean meal diet served as the Control. An uncorrected high-leucine diet was formulated with a high inclusion of CG and the subsequent high-leucine diets contained partial or total correction with L-isoleucine, L-valine, and L-tryptophan. Diets were fed to 15 replicate cages of 6 poults using a randomized complete block design. Uncorrected high-Leu diets (1.6 Leu:Lys) reduced feed intake (FI), body weight (BW), and live weight gain (LWG) relative to the Control at day 14 (
Nickel-Catalyzed Regioselective Three-Component Coupling of Phenyl Vinyl Sulfones with Alkynes
Get PDFBenzene rings are some of the most prevalent motifs found in small molecule drugs with only a few dominant substitution patterns, 1-, 1,2-, 1,4-, and 1,2,4-. Nucleophilic aromatic substitution and electrophilic aromatic substitution are traditional methods for the synthesis of substituted benzenes and are robust and commonly used by chemical manufacturers, which explains in part the observed distribution of substitution patterns. Current methods to access substituted benzenes comprise of transition-metal-catalyzed C-H activation, transition-metal-catalyzed cross-coupling, and aryne chemistry. In general, the present methods require directing/leaving groups in specific positions to proceed, which inherently puts a limitation on substrate scope. Transition-metal-catalyzed [2+2+2] alkyne cyclotrimerization is a versatile, general, and economic method for the synthesis of substituted benzenes in a single step, however, regioselectivity and diversity of substituents remain an issue. Alkyne surrogates have unique electronic and steric properties that offer opportunities in addressing these issues. Vinyl sulfone, a recognized alkyne surrogate, was explored in intermolecular [2+2+2] cyclotrimerization with alkynes for the synthesis of multi-substituted benzenes.
Phenyl vinyl sulfone (PVS) was used as an intermolecular coupling partner with terminal aromatic alkynes in a three-component coupling (3CC) under nickel-catalysis for the synthesis of substituted benzenes. It was shown that exclusive regioselectivity for the meta-terphenyl product could be accessed in a single step in moderate to good yields. Investigation of the mechanism revealed that the regioselectivity was controlled through an oxidatively cyclized nickelacyclopentene intermediate between the PVS and alkyne. It was found that PVS not only participated in the 3CC, but also acted as a sulfinic acid scavenger producing 1,2- bis(phenylsulfonyl)ethane as a byproduct.
After development of a new Xantphos-nickel ligand-catalyst system the 3CC was expanded to include internal alkynes, namely phenylpropynes and alkyl-phenyl-propiolates. After optimization of the reaction conditions, it was found that benzonitrile as an additive aided in product formation, with no observed participation of the nitrile moiety. The underrepresented 1,2,3,4-substituted benzene products were synthesized in moderate to good yields as a mixture of synthetically useful polymer precursors, diphenyl-substituted phthalates, isophthalates, and terephthalates, with selectivity towards the isophthalate isomer. Unfortunately, unprotected alcohols, tertiary amines and amides were not tolerated.
The newly developed nickel pre-catalyst also showed that trans-substituted vinyl sulfones could be tolerated in the 3CC with both terminal and internal alkynes, leading to tri- and penta-substituted benzenes. New opportunities in transition-metal-catalyzed benzannulation chemistry have been unlocked through 3CC involving PVS, which led to the synthesis of underrepresented substitution patterns such as 1,3-, 1,2,3,4-, and 1,2,3,4,5- in a single step with moderate to good yields
Cell-type-specific effects of synaptic zinc in mouse auditory cortex
Get PDFSynaptic zinc signaling modulates synaptic activity and is present in specific populations of cortical neurons, suggesting that synaptic zinc contributes to the diversity of intracortical synaptic microcircuits and their auditory tuning properties. Stimulus-specific adaptation is a hallmark of sensory processing in which a repeated stimulus results in diminished successive neuronal responses, but a deviant stimulus will still elicit robust responses from the same neurons. Recent work has established that synaptically released zinc is an endogenous mechanism that shapes neuronal responses to sounds in the auditory cortex. Here, to understand the role of zinc signaling in the auditory cortex and the impact it has on auditory neuronal tuning properties as well as to understand the contributions of synaptic zinc to deviance detection of specific neurons, we performed in vivo wide field and 2-photon calcium imaging of multiple classes of intratelencephalic (IT) neurons and extratelencephalic (ET) neurons in layer 5 of the mouse auditory cortex. We found that changes in synaptic zinc can widen or sharpen the sound-frequency tuning bandwidth of IT neurons but only widen the tuning bandwidth of ET neurons. These results provide evidence for synapse- and cell-type-specific actions of synaptic zinc in the cortex. We also find that IT neurons in both layer 2/3 and 5 as well as corticocollicular ET neurons in layer 5 all demonstrate deviance detection, however, we find a specific enhancement of deviance detection in corticocollicular neurons that arises from ZnT3-dependent synaptic zinc in layer 2/3 IT neurons. Genetic deletion of ZnT3 from layer 2/3 IT neurons removes the enhancing effects of synaptic zinc on corticocollicular neuron deviance detection resulting in poorer acuity of detecting deviant sounds by behaving mice