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Exploring the Role of Chlamydia trachomatis as a Co-Factor in HPV-Driven Cervical Cancer
No full textWater from the Rock: Scarcity, Efficiency, and Policy Change in Sonoran Desert Agriculture
No full textDespite declining flows in the Colorado River, agricultural producers have continued the cultivation of water-intensive crops. This study examines the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District (WMIDD) in Arizona, a senior water district often noted as one of the most efficient and productive agricultural centers in the United States. Drawing on the microeconomic assumption that efficient resource use is driven by users’ perceived scarcity, we seek to identify when and how water scarcity has spurred the adoption of efficient practices in a district with seemingly secure usage rights. To do so, we present a novel empirical methodology, using the USDA’s Crop Sequence Boundary dataset and remote-sensed data to estimate annual crop water requirement at the level of individual farms. This analysis shows that farmers do not presently use water under conditions of perceived scarcity, with little significant response during our study period in relation to ecological factors which impact water use efficiency. We follow the empirical analysis with a historical review of 70+ years of use decisions, documenting the institutional structures influencing the district’s water management. We find that, while growers in the WMIDD are not making cropping decisions based on water availability in the present-day, historic scarcity has driven a system of high-efficiency use. While this efficiency persists, the retention of senior water rights by the district has shielded farmers from the region’s aridification, suggesting that policy interventions aimed at improving water efficiency must focus on inducing individually felt scarcity among growers
MamT, a conserved protein in magnetotactic bacteria (MTB), is critical for the effective utilization of iron for growth and maturation of magnetic crystals in magnetosomes and directs the localization of Mms6
No full textMamT may be important for carrying out redox chemistry and regulating the Fe2+/Fe3+ ratio inside the magnetosome membrane (Jones et al., 2015; Uebe and Schuler 2016). However, its more central role is to allow cells to effectively utilize iron in the growth and maturation of the magnetic crystals in magnetosomes. Therefore, MamT must be involved in directing iron to the magnetosome membrane, which suggests that MamT may also play a role in the localization of Mms6, the protein that assembles Fe3+ and Fe2+ into crystals, to the magnetosome membrane
A Survey of Community Detection: Algorithms, Applications, and Beyond!
No full textThe community detection problem is a common graph problem that
involves detecting clusters of nodes in a graph that maximize some
measure of quality Q. To gain insight into the problem as a whole,
we studied three community detection algorithms with different approaches to finding communities: the Girvan-Newman algorithm,
the Louvain method algorithm, and the Basic Variable Neighbor-
hood Search algorithm. We ran these algorithms on synthetically
generated graphs and graphs constructed from actual data from a
variety of disciplines and compared their performance on a suite of
metrics. We find that for our graphs that represent real-world data,
there is no universally optimal community detection algorithm, as
differences in graph structure and size and the varying definitions
of real-world communities across applications significantly impact
performance, leading no one algorithm to perform consistently the
best across all of the metrics we collected
Drift
No full textInspired by the poetry of Walt Whitman and the surrealist film movement, drift depicts a gloomy figure conducting a strange ritual on the lakeshore
The World\u27s Fastest Camera: Attosecond Laser Pulses
No full textThe rise of attosecond (10-18 s) long laser pulses in the early 2000\u27s has given experimentalists the time resolution needed to observe electrons at the timescale they move around an atom at. Experiments using attosecond pulses have deepened our understanding of intramolecular and intra-atomic electron dynamics. To synthesize an attosecond pulse, laser light must travel through a series of pulse-shaping stages that generate a pulsed output, amplify the pulse energy, and shorten the pulse duration. This paper provides an overview of the process of generating attosecond pulses starting from the basics of laser operation to mode-locking and finally high-harmonic generation. Along the way, ideas from optics, atomic physics, electrodynamics, and classical mechanics are developed to provide the necessary background for understanding the processes at play
The Psychology of the Polls: How Social Forces Shape Voting Behaviors
No full textThe purpose of this review is to explore the literature surrounding voting behavior and the psychological and social forces that lie behind it. In the United States there are elections yearly for a number of offices, all of which influence the future of policy and civic operation. Authors have found that there are two levels of elaboration according to the Elaboration Likelihood Model–low and high–that voters apply to making decisions about who to vote for. These levels of elaboration can have an impact on political sophistication and, further, have an impact on the amount of effort a voter is willing to put into their vote choice often leading to the use of heuristics–by nearly all studied voters. While much research has explored heuristic use, gaps remain in understanding how digital misinformation and personalized news feeds affect voter cognition. Social influence also has a significant role in voter behavior, impacting voter behavior by applying social pressures and employing social norms as forces to increase voter turnout. Ultimately, understanding the driving forces behind voter behavior can help campaigners, social media experts, and voters effectively be mobilized and increase overall participation in elections to have a more balanced voter population that is reflective of the different–or similar–political views and desires
A Surfeit of Stressors: The Effects of Ocean Acidification, Hypoxic Waters, and Increasing Ocean Temperatures on Metacarcinus magister
No full textAristotle\u27s Nicomachean Ethics and the Journey to Self-Knowledge
No full textAristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics begins with a puzzling description of its proper audience. Asserting that any inquiry must begin from what one knows, Aristotle claims that one “needs to have been beautifully brought up by means of habits” in order to sufficiently listen to discourse on “things that are beautiful and just, and generally about things that pertain to political matters” (1095b 6). In other words, those who have not already established an upstanding character by possessing a foundational habituation to justice, beauty, and politics are unfit for this inquiry into the good life. Yet Aristotle paradoxically warns that if “something is so, and if this is sufficiently evident, there is no additional need for the reason why,” suggesting that those who are well-habituated also do not need to engage with the Ethics, as they should feel no need to question why they should be decent (1095b 7). The disparity between Aristotle’s explicit dismissal of self-inquiry at the book’s opening and the implicit invitation to self-reflection embedded in his method is revolutionary. Far from discouraging introspection, the Ethics subtly guides readers toward self-knowledge by revealing its necessity within the political and moral dimensions of human life. By embedding these lessons within the Ethics, Aristotle achieves something groundbreaking: he draws readers into the journey of self-knowledge not by instruction, but through the very process of engaging with 4 his arguments, thereby aligning the method of the book with its deeper, unstated purpose. While it may appear to be a methodical guide to virtue, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is a journey—an inquiry into the good life that mirrors the very process of philosophical self-discovery