The determinants of contractual choice for private involvement in infrastructure projects in the United States

Reliance on private partners to help provide infrastructure investment and service delivery is increasing in the United States. Numerous studies have examined the determinants of the degree of private participation in infrastructure projects as governed by contract type. We depart from this simple public/private dichotomy by examining a rich set of contractual arrangements. We utilize both municipal and state-level data on 472 projects of various types completed between 1985 and 2008. Our estimates indicate that infrastructure characteristics, particularly those that reflect stand alone versus network characteristics, are key factors influencing the extent of private participation. Fiscal variables, such as a jurisdiction’s relative debt level, and basic controls, such as population and locality of government, increase the degree of private participation, while a greater tax burden reduces private participation.

Fischbesatz: Komplex und emotional

In fast allen Schweizer Gewässern werden von Fischern und Natur- schützern Besatzmassnahmen mit verschiedenen Fischarten durchge- führt. Es gibt allerdings viele offene Fragen, die die Forschung nur zu- sammen mit der Praxis beantworten kann.

Verbal emotional memory in a case with left amygdala damage.

The amygdala nuclei appear to be critically implicated in emotional memory. However, in most studies, encoding and consolidation processes cannot be analyzed separately. We thus studied the verbal emotional memory in a young woman with a ganglioglioma of the left amygdala and analyzed its impact (1) on each step of the memory process (encoding, retrieval, and recognition) (2) on short- and long-term consolidation (1-hour and 1-week delay) and (3) on processing of valence (positive and negative items compared to neutral words). Results showed emotional encoding impairments and, after encoding was controlled for, emotional long-term consolidation. Finally, although the negative words were not acknowledged as emotionally arousing by the patient, these words were specifically poorly encoded, recalled, and consolidated. Our data suggest that separate cerebral networks support the processing of emotional versus neutral stimuli.

Extracellular Subunit Interactions Control Transitions between Functional States of Acid-sensing Ion Channel 1a.

Acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) are neuronal, voltage-independent Na(+) channels that are transiently activated by extracellular acidification. They are involved in pain sensation, the expression of fear, and in neurodegeneration after ischemic stroke. Our study investigates the role of extracellular subunit interactions in ASIC1a function. We identified two regions involved in critical intersubunit interactions. First, formation of an engineered disulfide bond between the palm and thumb domains leads to partial channel closure. Second, linking Glu-235 of a finger loop to either one of two different residues of the knuckle of a neighboring subunit opens the channel at physiological pH or disrupts its activity. This suggests that one finger-knuckle disulfide bond (E235C/K393C) sets the channel in an open state, whereas the other (E235C/Y389C) switches the channel to a non-conducting state. Voltage-clamp fluorometry experiments indicate that both the finger loop and the knuckle move away from the β-ball residue Trp-233 during acidification and subsequent desensitization. Together, these observations reveal that ASIC1a opening is accompanied by a distance increase between adjacent thumb and palm domains as well as a movement of Glu-235 relative to the knuckle helix. Our study identifies subunit interactions in the extracellular loop and shows that dynamic changes of these interactions are critical for normal ASIC function.

Feature selection for automatic analysis of emotional response based on nonlinear speech modeling suitable for diagnosis of Alzheimer׳s disease

Alzheimer׳s disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia among the elderly. This work is part of a larger study that aims to identify novel technologies and biomarkers or features for the early detection of AD and its degree of severity. The diagnosis is made by analyzing several biomarkers and conducting a variety of tests (although only a post-mortem examination of the patients’ brain tissue is considered to provide definitive confirmation). Non-invasive intelligent diagnosis techniques would be a very valuable diagnostic aid. This paper concerns the Automatic Analysis of Emotional Response (AAER) in spontaneous speech based on classical and new emotional speech features: Emotional Temperature (ET) and fractal dimension (FD). This is a pre-clinical study aiming to validate tests and biomarkers for future diagnostic use. The method has the great advantage of being non-invasive, low cost, and without any side effects. The AAER shows very promising results for the definition of features useful in the early diagnosis of AD.

Disjoint nonclassical hydrocarbons have very unstable lowest-lying singlet states: a PM3 study

Earlier workers have suggested that disjoint hydrocarbons have nearly-degenerate lowest-lying singlet and triplet states while non-disjoint (or joint) hydrocarbons should be ground-state triplets. PM3 results for an appropriate selection of alternant hydrocarbons are inconsistent with that generalization: disjoint, nonclassical, alternant hydrocarbons show the strongest predilection for triplet ground states.

Theory of surface noise under Coulomb correlations between carriers and surface states

We present a theory of the surface noise in a nonhomogeneous conductive channel adjacent to an insulating layer. The theory is based on the Langevin approach which accounts for the microscopic sources of fluctuations originated from trapping¿detrapping processes at the interface and intrachannel electron scattering. The general formulas for the fluctuations of the electron concentration, electric field as well as the current-noise spectral density have been derived. We show that due to the self-consistent electrostatic interaction, the current noise originating from different regions of the conductive channel appears to be spatially correlated on the length scale correspondent to the Debye screening length in the channel. The expression for the Hooge parameter for 1/f noise, modified by the presence of Coulomb interactions, has been derived

Minimum-uncertaity states and pseudoclassical dynamics. II

The set of initial conditions for which the pseudoclassical evolution algorithm (and minimality conservation) is verified for Hamiltonians of degrees N (N>2) is explicitly determined through a class of restrictions for the corresponding classical trajectories, and it is proved to be at most denumerable. Thus these algorithms are verified if and only if the system is quadratic except for a set of measure zero. The possibility of time-dependent a-equivalence classes is studied and its physical interpretation is presented. The implied equivalence of the pseudoclassical and Ehrenfest algorithms and their relationship with minimality conservation is discussed in detail. Also, the explicit derivation of the general unitary operator which linearly transforms minimum-uncertainty states leads to the derivation, among others, of operators with a general geometrical interpretation in phase space, such as rotations (parity, Fourier).

A Markov chain analysis of emotional exchange in voice-to-voice communication: Testing for the mimicry hypothesis of emotional contagion

Mimicry is a central plank of the emotional contagion theory; however, it was only tested with facial and postural emotional stimuli. This study explores the existence of mimicry in voice-to-voice communication by analyzing 8,747 sequences of emotional displays between customers and employees in a call-center context. We listened live to 967 telephone inter-actions, registered the sequences of emotional displays, and analyzed them with a Markov chain. We also explored other propositions of emotional contagion theory that were yet to be tested in vocal contexts. Results supported that mimicry is significantly present at all levels. Our findings fill an important gap in the emotional contagion theory; have practical implications regarding voice-to-voice interactions; and open doors for future vocal mimicry research.

Emergency Management and Wildland-Urban Interface Fires in the United States of America

FEMA's mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a Nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.