Promoting Entrepreneurship through a Community Learning Model – Case Study: Green Businesses

This article presents a community learning model formulated by Engineers Without Borders Colombia with the aim of providing communities with tools to create sustainable productive solutions which have relevancy for members and for potential customers. The goal of this formulation is to promote learning processes that are guided by decisions made by community members to propose sustainable and replicable initiatives. The model applicability is evidenced through a case study devoted to strengthening community-led green businesses in the Guavio Province, Colombia by collecting lessons and conclusions. Ultimately, this collection will prove useful in replicating the learning model in other similar rural communities.

     

The gene encoding ganglioside-induced differentiation-associated protein 1 is mutated in axonal Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 4A disease.

We identified three distinct mutations and six mutant alleles in GDAP1 in three families with axonal Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) neuropathy and vocal cord paresis, which were previously linked to the CMT4A locus on chromosome 8q21.1. These results establish the molecular etiology of CMT4A (MIM 214400) and suggest that it may be associated with both axonal and demyelinating phenotypes.     

Gravity modes as a way to distinguish between hydrogen- and helium-burning red giant stars

Red giants are evolved stars that have exhausted the supply of hydrogen in their cores and instead burn hydrogen in a surrounding shell. Once a red giant is sufficiently evolved, the helium in the core also undergoes fusion. Outstanding issues in our understanding of red giants include uncertainties in the amount of mass lost at the surface before helium ignition and the amount of internal mixing from rotation and other processes. Progress is hampered by our inability to distinguish between red giants burning helium in the core and those still only burning hydrogen in a shell. Asteroseismology offers a way forward, being a powerful tool for probing the internal structures of stars using their natural oscillation frequencies. Here we report observations of gravity-mode period spacings in red giants that permit a distinction between evolutionary stages to be made. We use high-precision photometry obtained by the Kepler spacecraft over more than a year to measure oscillations in several hundred red giants. We find many stars whose dipole modes show sequences with approximately regular period spacings. These stars fall into two clear groups, allowing us to distinguish unambiguously between hydrogen-shell-burning stars (period spacing mostly ～ 50 seconds) and those that are also burning helium (period spacing ～ 100 to 300 seconds).     

Hormonal control of Sertoli cell metabolism regulates spermatogenesis

Hormonal regulation is essential to spermatogenesis. Sertoli cells (SCs) have functions that reach far beyond the physical support of germ cells, as they are responsible for creating the adequate ionic and metabolic environment for germ cell development. Thus, much attention has been given to the metabolic functioning of SCs. During spermatogenesis, germ cells are provided with suitable metabolic substrates, in a set of events mediated by SCs. Multiple signaling cascades regulate SC function and several of these signaling pathways are hormone-dependent and cell-specific. Within the seminiferous tubules, only SCs possess receptors for some hormones rendering them major targets for the hormonal signaling that regulates spermatogenesis. Although the mechanisms by which SCs fulfill their own and germ cells metabolic needs are mostly studied in vitro, SC metabolism is unquestionably a regulation point for germ cell development and the hormonal control of these processes is required for a normal spermatogenesis.     

基于行人运动模型的人群疏散三维仿真

以人群运动过程中人与人和人与建筑之间的相互作用为出发点,探讨了行人群集行为疏散模型及三维仿真问题.建立了一种基于人员行为细节的微观离散仿真模型,采用蒙皮动画和有限状态机技术实现对人物行为和人物模型细节状态的控制,可以实现人群疏散过程的动态三维可视化仿真.     

低渗透双重介质垂直裂缝井产能分析

针对低渗透双重介质地层进行水力压裂后形成的有限导流垂直裂缝,结合沃伦-鲁特模型,利用质量守恒和椭圆流法建立了低渗透双重介质油藏椭圆流数学模型,并应用拉普拉斯变换,求得了低渗透双重介质有限导流垂直裂缝井无因次产量表达式。运用Stefest数值反演,绘制了无因次产量随时间变化的双对数特征曲线图,对影响低渗透双重介质油藏有限导流垂直裂缝井井底压力动态的诸多影响因素进行了分析。分析结果表明,随着生产时间推移,启动压力梯度对产能影响越来越显著。     

Adaptive subwavelength control of nano-optical fields

Adaptive shaping of the phase and amplitude of femtosecond laser pulses has been developed into an efficient tool for the directed manipulation of interference phenomena, thus providing coherent control over various quantum-mechanical systems. Temporal resolution in the femtosecond or even attosecond range has been demonstrated, but spatial resolution is limited by diffraction to approximately half the wavelength of the light field (that is, several hundred nanometres). Theory has indicated that the spatial limitation to coherent control can be overcome with the illumination of nanostructures: the spatial near-field distribution was shown to depend on the linear chirp of an irradiating laser pulse. An extension of this idea to adaptive control, combining multiparameter pulse shaping with a learning algorithm, demonstrated the generation of user-specified optical near-field distributions in an optimal and flexible fashion. Shaping of the polarization of the laser pulse provides a particularly efficient and versatile nano-optical manipulation method. Here we demonstrate the feasibility of this concept experimentally, by tailoring the optical near field in the vicinity of silver nanostructures through adaptive polarization shaping of femtosecond laser pulses and then probing the lateral field distribution by two-photon photoemission electron microscopy. In this combination of adaptive control and nano-optics, we achieve subwavelength dynamic localization of electromagnetic intensity on the nanometre scale and thus overcome the spatial restrictions of conventional optics. This experimental realization of theoretical suggestions opens a number of perspectives in coherent control, nano-optics, nonlinear spectroscopy, and other research fields in which optical investigations are carried out with spatial or temporal resolution.     

A(p)函数类上的积分算子

设ｐ为正整数,Ａ（ｐ）表示单位圆盘内形如ｆ（ｚ）＝ｚｐ＋∑∞ｋ＝ｐ＋１ａｋｚｋ的解析函数全体,对给定的复常数λ≠－ｐ,及ｆ（ｚ）∈Ａ（ｐ）,用Ｊλｆ（ｚ）＝ｐ＋λｚλ∫ｚ０ｆ（ｔ）ｔλ－１ｄｔ定义算子Ｊλ,本文讨论了Ａ（ｐ）函数类上的积分算子Ｊλ,得到了在一定条件下Ｊλｆ（ｚ）∈Ｒ（ｐ）ｎ（α     

Banach空间中的广义p正常算子

本文是在文献[4]基础上利用广义半内积空间的理论引入Banach空间上的广义p正常算子T=A+iB,AB-BA=0,其中A,B是广义p自共轭算子;同时还引入广义p正常算子的对偶算子T~*=A-iB及广义p酉算子,并就这些算子的有关谱进行了讨论。