Life Sciences Commons^™

Demonstration: Real-Time Semantic Analysis Of Sensor Streams, Harshal Patni, Cory Andrew Henson, Michael Cooney, Amit P. Sheth, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan

Kno.e.sis Publications

The emergence of dynamic information sources – including sensor networks – has led to large streams of real-time data on the Web. Research studies suggest, these dynamic networks have created more data in the last three years than in the entire history of civilization, and this trend will only increase in the coming years [1]. With this coming data explosion, real-time analytics software must either adapt or die [2]. This paper focuses on the task of integrating and analyzing multiple heterogeneous streams of sensor data with the goal of creating meaningful abstractions, or features. These features are then temporally aggregated …

Demonstration: Secure - Semantics Empowered Rescue Environment, Pratikkumar Desai, Cory Andrew Henson, Pramod Anantharam, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

This paper demonstrates a Semantic Web enabled system for collecting and processing sensor data within a rescue environment. The real-time system collects heterogeneous raw sensor data from rescue robots through a wireless sensor network. The raw sensor data is converted to RDF using the Semantic Sensor Network (SSN) ontology and further processed to generate abstractions used for event detection in emergency scenarios.

Dietary Shiitake Mushroom (Lentinus Edodes) Prevents Fat Deposition And Lowers Triglyceride In Rats Fed A High-Fat Diet, D Handayani, J-Z Chen, Barbara J. Meyer, Xu-Feng Huang

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

High-fat diet (HFD) induces obesity. This study examined the effects of Shiitake mushroom on the prevention of alterations of plasma lipid profiles, fat deposition, energy efficiency, and body fat index induced by HFD. Rats were given a low, medium, and high (7, 20, 60 g/kg = LD-M, MD-M, HD-M) Shiitake mushroom powder in their high-fat (50% in kcal) diets for 6 weeks. The results showed that the rats on the HD-M diet had the lowest body weight gain compared to MD-M and LD-M groups (P < 0.05). The total fat deposition was significantly lower (-35%, P < 0.05) in rats fed an HD-M diet than that of HFD group. Interestingly, plasma triacylglycerol (TAG) level was significantly lower (-55%, P < 0.05) in rats on HD-M than HFD. This study also revealed the existence of negative correlations between the amount of Shiitake mushroom supplementation and body weight gain, plasma TAG, and total fat masses.

Looking At Zoos, Irus Braverman

Journal Articles

Looking at zoos from the perspective of zoo personnel, this article explores the importance of vision in the zoo’s presentation of its animals as well as the major technologies that the zoo uses to intensify such animal visions. On the one end of the spectrum, zoogeography and immersion design are used at the zoo exhibit to enable zoogoers to see animals in their naturalistic settings. On the opposite end of the spectrum, animals are caged and cared for in the highly artificial settings of the zoo’s holding area, with little or no exposure to the public gaze. In between these …

Potential Impacts Of The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill On Large Pelagic Fishes, Sarah Frias-Torres, Charles R. Bostater

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Biogeographical analyses provide insights on how the Deepwater Horizon oil spill impacted large pelagic fishes. We georeferenced historical ichthyoplankton surveys and published literature to map the spawning and larval areas of bluefin tuna, swordfish, blue marlin and whale shark sightings in the Gulf of Mexico with daily satellite-derived images detecting surface oil. The oil spill covered critical areas used by large pelagic fishes. Surface oil was detected in 100% of the northernmost whale shark sightings, in 32.8 % of the bluefin tuna spawning area and 38 % of the blue marlin larval area. No surface oil was detected in the …

Effects Of Climate Change On Spring Ecosystem Hydroecology As A Guide To Developing Alternative Water Policies, Scott Mensing, Saxon E. Sharpe, Scott Bassett, Don Sada, Jim Thomas

Climate Change Seminar Series (NNE)

Hydroecology: the interface of ecological systems and water which combines the scientific disciplines of hydrology and ecology

Goal: evaluate the hydrologic and climate history using pollen, loss on ignition, total inorganic carbon, and invertebrates from spring sediments in Spring Valley, Eastern Nevada and Snake Valley, Western Utah

Duncan Hines, An Annotated Bibliography, Jessica Holland

Undergraduate Research Award

No abstract provided.

African Elephants Change Gaits When Walking Downhill, Robert H.I. Dale, Robert Warren, Brock Ward, Eric Noble

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Abstract from the International Elephant and Rhino Conservation and Research Symposium, Rotterdam, NL, October 10-14, 2011.

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 3: Two Early Publications, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 4: Contributions To The Garden, 1875-1912, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Deep Roots Of Vietnamese Tea: Culture, Production And Prospects For Development, Robert Wenner

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Vietnam is at a critical stage in its development. If policy is properly managed the country’s future is incredibly bright as the middle class grows and standards of living continue to rise throughout the country. Agriculture will play a key role in future development as nearly 70 percent of the population participates directly in agricultural work. Each crop that is produced and exported in Vietnam will play a different and integral part in development as the face of agriculture changes with Vietnam’s increased global presence. This research looks specifically at tea production in Vietnam through the lens of agricultural development. …

Afro-Derived Amazonian Populations: Inferring Continental Ancestry And Population Substructure, Luana Gomes Lopes Maciel, Elzemar Martins Ribeiro-Rodrigues, Ney Pereira Cameiro Dos Santos, Ândrea K. C. Ribeiro Dos Santos, João Farias Guerreiro, Sidney Emanuel Batista Dos Santos

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

A panel of Ancestry Informative Markers (AIMs) was used to identify population substructure and estimate individual and overall interethnic admixture in 294 individuals from seven African-derived communities of the Brazilian Amazon. A panel of 48 biallelic markers, representing the insertion (IN) or the deletion (DEL) of small DNA fragments, was employed for this purpose. Overall interethnic admixture estimates showed high miscegenation with other ethnic groups in all populations (between 46% and 64%). The proportion of ancestral genes varied significantly among individuals of the sample: the contribution of African genes varied between 12% and 75%; of European genes between 10% and …

Sempush: Privacy-Aware And Scalable Broadcasting For Semantic Microblogging, Pavan Kapanipathi, Julia Anaya, Alexandre Passant

Kno.e.sis Publications

Users of traditional microblogging platforms such as Twitter face drawbacks in terms of (1) Privacy of status updates as a followee - reaching undesired people (2) Information overload as a follower - receiving uninteresting microposts from followees. In this paper we demonstrate distributed and user-controlled dissemination of microposts using SMOB (semantic microblogging framework) and Semantic Hub (privacy-aware implementation of PuSH3 protocol) . The approach leverages users' Social Graph to dynamically create group of followers who are eligible to receive micropost. The restrictions to create the groups are provided by the followee based on the hastags in the micropost. Both SMOB …

A Domain Specific Language For Enterprise Grade Cloud-Mobile Hybrid Applications, Ajith H. Ranabahu, E. Michael Maximilien, Amit P. Sheth, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan

Kno.e.sis Publications

Cloud computing has changed the technology landscape by offering flexible and economical computing resources to the masses. However, vendor lock-in makes the migration of applications and data across clouds an expensive proposition. The lock-in is especially serious when considering the new technology trend of combining cloud with mobile devices.

In this paper, we present a domain specific language (DSL) that is purposely created for generating hybrid applications spanning across mobile devices as well as computing clouds. We propose a model-driven development process that makes use of a DSL to provide sufficient programming abstractions over both cloud and mobile features. We …

Semantic Annotation And Search For Resources In The Next Generation Web With Sa-Rest, Ajith H. Ranabahu, Amit P. Sheth, Maryam Panahiazar, Sanjaya Wijeratne

Kno.e.sis Publications

SA-REST, the W3C member submission, can be used for supporting a wide variety of Plain Old Semantic HTML (POSH) annotation capabilities on any type of Web resource. Kino framework and tools provide support of capabilities to realize SA-RESTs promised value. These tools include (a) a browser-plugin to support annotation of a Web resource (including services) with respect to an ontology, domain model or vocabulary, (b) an annotation aware indexing engine and (c) faceted search and selection of the Web resources. At one end of the spectrum, we present Kino^E (aka Kino for Enterprise) which uses NCBO formal ontologies and …

Personalized Filtering Of The Twitter Stream, Pavan Kapanipathi, Fabrizio Orlandi, Amit P. Sheth, Alexandre Passant

Kno.e.sis Publications

With the rapid growth in users on social networks, there is a corresponding increase in user-generated content, in turn resulting in information overload. On Twitter, for example, users tend to receive uninterested information due to their non-overlapping interests from the people whom they follow. In this paper we present a Semantic Web approach to filter public tweets matching interests from personalized user profiles. Our approach includes automatic generation of multi-domain and personalized user profiles, filtering Twitter stream based on the generated profiles and delivering them in real-time. Given that users interests and personalization needs change with time, we also discuss …

Presence Of The Dingo (Canis Lupus Dingo) On Risk Sensitive Foraging Of Small Mammals In Forest Ecosystems, Amanda Lu

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Trophic regulation of mesopredators through top order predators can have profound effects on ecosystem community and diversity. In the absence of top predators, invasive mesopredators exert strong selective pressures on native prey and can alter prey foraging behavior. When foraging in the presence of predators, prey must weigh predation risk against food gain. To examine the indirect impacts of dingo baiting on risk sensitive foraging in forests, we measured differences in giving up densities (GUDs) and surveyed local populations of mesopredators and mammals. We hypothesized that in baited areas, mesopredators would be more abundant and prey would perceive greater predation …

Serotonin, Motivation, And Playfulness In The Juvenile Rat, Stephen M. Siviy, Loren M. Deron, Chelsea R. Kasten

Psychology Faculty Publications

The effects of the selective 5HT1A agonist 8-OH-DPAT were assessed on the play behavior of juvenile rats. When both rats of the test pair were comparably motivated to play, the only significant effect of 8-OH-DPAT was for play to be reduced at higher doses. When there was a baseline asymmetry in playful solicitation due to a differential motivation to play and only one rat of the pair was treated, low doses of 8-OH-DPAT resulted in a collapse of asymmetry in playful solicitations. It did not matter whether the rat that was treated initially accounted for more nape contacts or fewer …

In Search Of The Neurobiological Substrates For Social Playfulness In Mammalian Brains, Stephen M. Siviy, Jaak Panksepp

Psychology Faculty Publications

Play behavior is a fundamental and intrinsic neurobehavioral process in the mammalian brain. Using rough-and-tumble play in the juvenile rat as a model system to study mammalian playfulness, some of the relevant neurobiological substrates for this behavior have been identified, and in this review this progress. A primary-process executive circuit for play in the rat that includes thalamic intralaminar nuclei, frontal cortex and striatum can be gleaned from these data. Other neural areas that may interact with this putative circuit include amygdala, ventral hypothalamus, periaqueductal gray (PAG), and deep tectum, as well as ascending dopamine systems which participate in all …

Great Plains Research, Volume 21, Number 2, Fall 2011 (Complete Issue)

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

NATURAL SCIENCES

New Records of Carrion Beetles in Nebraska Reveal Increased Presence of the American Burying Beetle, Nicrophorus americanus Olivier (Coleoptera: Silphidae) • Jessica Jurzenski, Daniel G. Snethen, Mathew L. Brust, and W. Wyatt Hoback . . 131

Surveillance of Selected Diseases in Free-Ranging Elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni) in Nebraska, 1995-2009 • Michael A. Cover, Scott E. Hygnstrom, Scott R. Groepper, David W. Oates, Kit M. Hams, and Kurt C. VerCauteren . . 145

Historical Biogeography of Nebraska Pronghorns (Antifocapra americana) • Justin D. Hoffman, Hugh H. Genoways, and Rachel R. Jones . 153

Native and European Haplotypes of Phragmites …

“ Gimme Samoa That!”: The Changing Diet In Samoa, Dana Melby

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

With globalization and Samoa’s entrance into the global economy imported and processed foods, which are high in fat, sugar, and sodium, are increasingly available for consumption. Diet transition, the change in diet from one high in local and traditional foods to one high in imported processed foods, began in Samoa post-World War II, however, the rate of diet change has increased rapidly in the past three decades. The change in diet has led to increased prevalence of obesity, other risk factors, and non-communicable diseases. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) include cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, and cancer. This study looks at what factors …

Historical Sketch Of Slovak Haban (Hutterite) Population Based On Autosomal Str Analysis, Matúš Soták, E. Petrejčíková, D. Siváková, Krzysztof Rębała, A. Bôžiková, J. Bernasovská, J. Čarnogurská, I. Boroňová, S. Mačeková, L. Homol'ová, A. Sovičová, D. Gabriková, L. Rusínová, I. Bernasovský

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

According to the Hutterite chronicles, the Habans arrived from Austrian Tyrol, Switzerland and northernmost Italy and stayed in four regions of Slovakia (Sobotište, Vel'ké, Leváre, Moravský, Svätý, Ján, Trenčín). There are some communities in western Slovakia, which retained their Haban cultural identity and still identify themselves as descendents of the Hutterite population with their own specific customs. Slovak Habans are typical founder population with significant social isolation for which high degree of inbreeding is typical. Present study investigated STR polymorphisms as a powerful genetic tool for population genetic studies. The aim was to perform a comparative, population genetic study based …

Human Alu Insertion Polymorphisms In North African Populations, Lotfi Cherni, Sabeh Frigi, Hajer Ennafaa, Nabil Mtiraoui, Touhami Mahjoub, Amel Benammar-Elgaaied

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

Several features make Alu insertions a powerful tool used in population genetic studies: the polymorphic nature of many Alu insertions, the stability of an Alu insertion event and, furthermore, the ancestral state of an Alu insertion is known to be the absence of the Alu element at a particular locus and the presence of an Alu insertion at the site that forward mutational change. This study analyses seven Alu insertion polymorphisms in a sample of 297 individuals from the autochthonous population of Tunisia (Thala, Smar, Zarzis and Bou Salem) and Libya with the aim of studying their genetic structure with …

The Influence Of Family Structure On Women’S Role In Agriculture In Two Distinct Societies Of Southwest China, Audrey Boochever

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

A popular idiom in China is nángēngnǚzhì: men plow, women weave. This ubiquitous saying reflects traditional gender roles in agriculture throughout Chinese history, how men traditionally were in charge of the land, while women took care of tasks within the home, such as making clothes for the family. The cloth used to weave usually came from cotton.[1] In this regard, both men and women have always had roles to play in agriculture in China, but from different facets.

While recognizing that women and men have played different roles in Chinese agriculture, my field study examines the role of …

Reconstructing The Farm: Life Stories Of Dutch Female Farmers, Marisa Turesky

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

My research asks: what are the lived experiences of female farmers within the hegemonic construction of the Dutch farmer and how have their roles shifted through time? Popular culture has implanted stereotypes that most female farmers are uneducated, low-class individuals but the six women whom I interviewed present life stories that complicate this. How did these women come into their roles as farmers? Once they became such entrepreneurs, what were their challenges in a potentially male-dominated profession? While there has been extensive research on rural women’s historical roles in farming, I analyze the personal experiences of a small sample of …

Establishing Lower Developmental Thresholds For A Common Blowfly: For Use In Estimating Elapsed Time Since Death Using Entomologyical Methods, Gail S. Anderson, Jodie-A. Warren

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Forensic entomology is a science used to estimate a post-mortem interval (PMI). Larvae develop at predictable rates and the time interval for this development can be used to estimate the PMI. Environmental temperatures are not constant and fluctuate with the photoperiod. In early and late insect seasons, temperatures can drop to below threshold temperatures where development essentially ceases. Threshold temperatures differ for different species and should be determined by raising insects at the extremely low temperatures. The lower threshold temperature for Protophormia terraenovae for egg hatch is 10.3°C ; for first instar larvae to molt to second instar larvae it …

Library Impact Statement For Mls 496 Global Health, Michael Cerbo

Library Impact Statements

Library Impact Statement in response to new course proposal for MLS 496 Global Health. New course was supported with no need for additional resources.

Library Impact Statement For Mls 572 Vaccines And Biologics, Michael Cerbo

Library Impact Statements

Library Impact Statement in response to new course proposal for MLS 572 Vaccines and Biologics. New course was supported with no need for additional resources.

Library Impact Statement For Mls 573 Molecular Biology Methods, Michael Cerbo

Library Impact Statements

Library Impact Statement in response to new course proposal for MLS 573 Molecular Biology Methods. New course was supported with no need for additional resources.

Library Impact Statement For Mls 575 Business Of Biotechnology, Michael Cerbo

Library Impact Statements

Library Impact Statement in response to new course proposal for MLS 575 Business of Biotechnology. New course was supported with no need for additional resources.