Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

On Measuring Progress In Animal Welfare, James A. Serpell

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

Improvements in the welfare of animals arise from two primary sources: Changes in public attitudes and beliefs regarding what constitutes acceptable treatment of animals, and mandatory changes in behavior toward animals imposed by governments and regulatory authorities. During the last 30-40 years, public and political support for improvements in animal welfare has increased dramatically in many countries. Funding from both governmental and non-governmental sources continues to grow, and the relatively new field of animal welfare science has emerged and expanded to support and inform these efforts. Many experts in the field recognize, however, that there is still a distinct gap …

Relationship Web: Trailblazing, Analytics And Computing For Human Experience, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

This panel presentation was give at the 27th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER 2008), Barcelona, Spain, October 20-23, 2008.

Dynamics Of Apomyoglobin In The Α-To-Β Transition And Of Partially Unfolded Aggregated Protein, E. Fabiani, A. M. Stadler, D. Madern, M. M. Koza, M. Tehei, M. Hirai, G. Zaccai

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

Changes of molecular dynamics in the α-to-β transition associated with amyloid fibril formation were explored on apo-myoglobin (ApoMb) as a model system. Circular dichroism, neutron and X-ray scattering experiments were performed as a function of temperature on the protein, at different solvent conditions. A significant change in molecular dynamics was observed at the α-to-β transition at about 55 ˚C, indicating a more resilient high temperature β structure phase. A similar effect at approximately the same temperature was observed in holo-myoglobin, associated with partial unfolding and protein aggregation. A study in a wide temperature range between 20 K and 360 K …

Visual Attention And Its Relation To Knowledge States In Chimpanzees, Pan Troglodytes, Megan J. Bulloch, Sarah T. Boysen, Ellen E. Furlong

Sentience Collection

Primates rely on visual attention to gather knowledge about their environment. The ability to recognize such knowledge-acquisition activity in another may demonstrate one aspect of Theory of Mind. Using a series of experiments in which chimpanzees were presented with a choice between an experimenter whose visual attention was available and another whose vision was occluded, we asked whether chimpanzees understood the relationship between visual attention and knowledge states. The animals showed sophisticated understanding of attention from the first presentation of each task. Under more complex experimental conditions, the subjects had more difficulty with species-typical processing of attentional cues and those …

When To Be A Dear Enemy: Flexible Acoustic Relationships Of Neighbouring Skylarks, Alauda Arvensis, Elodie Briefer, Fanny Rybak, Thierry Aubin

Ethology Collection

Numerous territorial species are less aggressive towards neighbours than strangers. This tolerance towards neighbouring conspecifics, termed the ‘dear enemy’ effect, seems to be a flexible feature of the relationship between neighbours, and has been shown to disappear in some species after experimental or natural modifications of the context. However, the maintenance over time of this singular relationship has been poorly studied. In this study, we followed the change of dear enemy relationships during the breeding season in a territorial songbird with a complex song, the skylark. We examined in the field the response of territory owners to playbacks of neighbour …

Multidimensional Self-Efficacy And Affect In Wheelchair Basketball Players, Jeffrey J. Martin

Kinesiology, Health and Sport Studies

In the current study, variables grounded in social cognitive theory with athletes with disabilities were examined. Performance, training, resiliency, and thought control self-efficacy, and positive (PA) and negative (NA) affect were examined with wheelchair basketball athletes (N = 79). Consistent with social cognitive theory, weak to strong significant relationships among the four types of self-efficacy (rs = .22–.78) and among self-efficacy and affect (rs = -.40–.29) were found. Basketball players who were efficacious in their ability to overcome training barriers were also confident in their basketball skills and efficacious in their ability to overcome ruminating distressing thoughts …

Planting Prosperity And Harvesting Health: Trade-Offs And Sustainability In The Oregon-Washington Regional Food System, Sheila A. Martin, Tia Henderson, Meg Merrick, Elizabeth Mylott, Kelly Haines, Colin Price, Amy Koski, Rebecca Dann

Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies Publications

This assessment reveals food system sustainability trends in Oregon and Washington, focusing specifically on the producers in both states and the consumers in the Portland- Vancouver region. We began the assessment by asking a group of food system stakeholders from Oregon and Washington to define broadly supported goals for a sustainable food system. They also helped us identify the data necessary to understand trends in the food system. This information can be used in the future to establish benchmarks and to assess future progress toward food system sustainability goals. Framed by stakeholder concerns, this report will assist program and policy …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 50 Number 2, Fall 2008, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

10 - MEET MOUNTAIN By Lisa Taggart. A Q&A with SCU women's basketball coach Jennifer Mountain.

12 - KATRINA AT THREE By Pat Semansky '06. A New Orleans photo essay.

16 - THE MEDDLING PRIEST FROM OZ By Emily Elrod '05. An interview with Australian Jesuit John Brennan, S.J.-lauded as a "national treasure" and an "ethical burr."

18 - 20/20 VISION By Robert M. Senkewicz. How has the presidency of Paul Locatelli, S.J., transformed the University-as a place-and as an idea?

28 - GO WITH YOUR HEART By Francisco Jimenez. An exclusive excerpt from his new memoir, Reaching Out.

32 …

Iowa Academy Of Science: The New Bulletin, V04n3, Autumn 2008, Iowa Academy Of Science

New Bulletin

Inside This Issue:

--Message from the Executive Director

--A Message from your President

--Comments from the IAS Leadership

--2008-2009 IAS Section Chairs

--One Donation To Help Two Great Causes

--Iowa Junior Academy of Science Celebrating 75 Years of Service

--You are invited to Wiki with IJAS

--Dr. Jay Labov to Speak at IAS Annual Meeting

--Recognizing Great Science

--2008 Iowa Academy of Science Speakers Series Visitor Center, Saylorville Reservoir

--Recognizing Great Science Teaching

Spatial Analyses And Repletion Of Gargathy Coastal Lagoon, Loreto Herraiz Gomez

OES Theses and Dissertations

Coastal lagoons and bays vary in shape and size in response to antecedent topography, geologic processes and sea level rise. Variations in shape and environmental conditions of coastal basins are believed to influence the distribution of benthic sub-environments and the exchange of water with the ocean and other adjacent coastal systems. Gargathy Inlet and its coastal lagoon vary spatially from the inlet, where the greatest depths are observed, to the mainland, dominated by shallow intertidal areas, colonized by marsh. Hypsographic and hydro-hypsographic analyses of Gargathy's coastal lagoon were the primary techniques applied to understand the relative distribution of the benthic …

Maternal Photoperiodic History Affects Offspring Development In Syrian Hamsters, Annaliese K. Beery, Matthew J. Paul, Irving Zucker

Neuroscience: Faculty Publications

During the first 7 weeks of postnatal life, short day lengths inhibit the onset of puberty in many photoperiodic rodents, but not in Syrian hamsters. In this species, timing of puberty and fecundity are independent of the early postnatal photoperiod. Gestational day length affects postnatal reproductive development in several rodents; its role in Syrian hamsters has not been assessed. We tested the hypothesis that cumulative effects of pre- and postnatal short day lengths would restrain gonadal development in male Syrian hamsters. Males with prenatal short day exposure were generated by dams transferred to short day lengths 6 weeks, 3 weeks, …

Adapting Ranking Functions To User Preference, Keke Chen, Ya Zhang, Zhaohui Zheng, Hongyuan Zha, Gordon Sun

Kno.e.sis Publications

Learning to rank has become a popular method for web search ranking. Traditionally, expert-judged examples are the major training resource for machine learned web ranking, which is expensive to get for training a satisfactory ranking function. The demands for generating specific web search ranking functions tailored for different domains, such as ranking functions for different regions, have aggravated this problem. Recently, a few methods have been proposed to extract training examples from user clickthrough log. Due to the low cost of getting user preference data, it is attractive to combine these examples in training ranking functions. However, because of the …

An Ontology-Driven Semantic Mash-Up Of Gene And Biological Pathway Information: Application To The Domain Of Nicotine Dependence, Satya S. Sahoo, Olivier Bodenreider, Joni L. Rutter, Karen J. Skinner, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Objectives: This paper illustrates how Semantic Web technologies (especially RDF, OWL, and SPARQL) can support information integration and make it easy to create semantic mashups (semantically integrated resources). In the context of understanding the genetic basis of nicotine dependence, we integrate gene and pathway information and show how three complex biological queries can be answered by the integrated knowledge base.

Methods: We use an ontology-driven approach to integrate two gene resources (Entrez Gene and HomoloGene) and three pathway resources (KEGG, Reactome and BioCyc), for five organisms, including humans. We created the Entrez Knowledge Model (EKoM), an information model in OWL …

Improving Beekeeping On Unguja Island, Larken Root

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this study was to investigate the current practices and methods for improvement of beekeeping on Unguja Island in Zanzibar. Beekeeping has been occurring for many years in Unguja but has retained traditional techniques with little improvement. Improvement can occur in the form of introduction of modern equipment, formation of beekeeping organizations, advancing and diversifying products, and gaining governmental support. Beekeeping is worthy of expansion because of its potential to increase rural income in a sustainable way as well as support conservation of forest areas. The study found that there has so far been little improvement of income …

Description Logic Reasoning With Decision Diagrams: Compiling Shiq To Disjunctive Datalog, Sebastian Rudolph

Kno.e.sis Publications

We propose a novel method for reasoning in the description logic SHIQ. After a satisfiability preserving transformation from SHIQ to the description logic ALCIb, the obtained ALCIb Tbox T is converted into an ordered binary decision diagram (OBDD) which represents a canonical model for T. This OBDD is turned into a disjunctive datalog program that can be used for Abox reasoning. The algorithm is worst-case optimal w.r.t. data complexity, and admits easy extensions with DL-safe rules and ground conjunctive queries.

Towards The Identification Of Lampreys (Lampetra Spp.) In Archaeological Contexts, Ross E. Smith, Virginia L. Butler

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Lampreys were and continue to be an important resource for Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest. Lampreys possess several skeletal structures that are regularly identified in marine mammal and bird stomach contents and fecal samples, suggesting that lamprey elements may preserve in archaeological contexts. However, their remains have not been identified in archaeological faunal samples in the Pacific Northwest. This may be due to the lack of an adequate "search image" for lamprey remains among faunal analysts and limited use of line screen sampling. Descriptions and photographs of lamprey remains that are most likely to survive in archaeological contexts are …

Stress-Induced Attenuation Of Acoustic Startle In Low-Saccharin-Consuming Rats., Clinton Chapman, Nancy Dess, Mitzi Gonzales, Cameryn Garrett

Clinton D Chapman

Exposure to stress can lead to either increased stress vulnerability or enhanced resiliency. Laboratory rats are a key tool in the exploration of basic biobehavioral processes underlying individual differences in the effect of stress on subsequent stressors' impact. The Occidental low (LoS) and high (HiS) saccharin-consuming rats, which differ in emotional reactivity, are useful in this effort. In the present study, footshock affected acoustic startle amplitude 4 h later among LoS but not HiS rats. Surprisingly, shock attenuated startle rather than sensitizing it, a finding not previously reported for male rats exposed to shock. Attenuation was blocked by administering the …

Modelling Tempering Behaviour Of Dark Chocolates From Varying Particle Size Distribution And Fat Content Using Response Surface Methodology, Emmanuel Ohene Afoakwa, Alistair Paterson, Mark Fowler, Joselio Vieira

Professor Emmanuel Ohene Afoakwa

Central Composite Rotatable Design (CCRD) for K=2 was used to study the combined effects of multi-stage heat exchangers for Stages 1 (14–30 °C) and 2 (12–28 °C) coolant temperatures at constant Stage 3 coolant and holding temperatures during tempering of dark chocolates using laboratory-scale mini-temperer. Quantitative data on chocolate temper index (slope) were obtained for products with varying particle size distribution (PSD) (D90 of 18, 25, 35 and 50 μm) and fat (30% and 35%) content. Regression models generated using stepwise regression analyses were used to plot response surface curves, to study the tempering behaviour of products. The results showed …

A Darwinist View Of The Living Constitution, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

The metaphor of a “living" Constitution imports terms from biology into law and, in the process, relies on biology for its meaning. A proper understanding of biology is therefore central to understanding living constitutionalism. Yet despite its rampant use by both opponents and proponents of living constitutionalism, and despite the current fervent debate over whether biology can be useful to the law, no one has evaluated the metaphor from a biological perspective.

This Essay begins that inquiry in an interdisciplinary study of law, science, and philology. The Essay first evaluates the metaphor as it is currently used and concludes that …

Sorghum & Pearl Millet In Zambia: Production Guide, [2006], Kimberley Christiansen

INTSORMIL Scientific Publications

U.S. government publication about sorghum and pearl millet production and sales in Zambia.

Segmenting Brain Tumors Using Pseudo-Conditional Random Fields, Chi-Hoon Lee, Shaojun Wang, Albert Murtha, Matthew R.G. Brown, Russell Greiner

Kno.e.sis Publications

Locating Brain tumor segmentation within MR (magnetic resonance) images is integral to the treatment of brain cancer. This segmentation task requires classifying each voxel as either tumor or non-tumor, based on a description of that voxel. Unfortunately, standard classifiers, such as Logistic Regression (LR) and Support Vector Machines (SVM), typically have limited accuracy as they treat voxels as independent and identically distributed (iid). Approaches based on random fields, which are able to incorporate spatial constraints, have recently been applied to brain tumor segmentation with notable performance improvement over iid classifiers. However, previous random field systems involved computationally intractable …

A Faceted Classification Based Approach To Search And Rank Web Apis, Karthik Gomadam, Ajith Harshana Ranabahu, Meenakshi Nagarajan, Amit P. Sheth, Kunal Verma

Kno.e.sis Publications

Web application hybrids, popularly known as mashups, are created by integrating services on the Web using their APIs. Support for finding an API is currently provided by generic search engines or domain specific solutions such as Google and ProgrammableWeb. Shortcomings of both these solutions in terms of and reliance on user tags make the task of identifying an API challenging. Since these APIs are described in HTML documents, it is essential to look beyond the boundaries of current approaches to Web service discovery that rely on formal descriptions. In this work, we present a faceted approach to searching and ranking …

Spawning Salmon Disrupt Trophic Coupling Between Wolves And Ungulate Prey In Coastal British Columbia, Chris T. Darimont, Paul C. Paquet, Thomas E. Reimchen

Nonindigenous Pests and Biological Invasions Collection

Background: As a cross-boundary resource subsidy, spawning salmon can strongly affect consumer and ecosystem ecology. Here we examine whether this marine resource can influence a terrestrial wolf-deer (Canis lupus-Odocoileus hemionus) predator-prey system in coastal British Columbia, Canada. Data on resource availability and resource use among eight wolf groups for three seasons over four years allow us to evaluate competing hypotheses that describe salmon as either an alternate resource, consumed in areas where deer are scarce, or as a targeted resource, consumed as a positive function of its availability. Faecal (n = 2203 wolf scats) and isotopic analyses (n = 60 …

M Protein Mediated Plasminogen Binding Is Essential For The Virulence Of An Invasive Streptococcus Pyogenes Isolate, Martina L. Sanderson-Smith, K. Dinkla, J. N. Cole, Amanda J. Cork, P. G. Maamary, Jason D. Mcarthur, G. S. Chhatwal, Mark J. Walker

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

The human protease plasmin plays a crucial role in the capacity of the group A streptococcus (Streptococus pyogenes; GAS) to initiate invasive disease. The GAS strain NS88.2 was isolated from a case of bacteremia from the Northern Territory of Australia, a region with high rates of GAS invasive disease. Mutagenesis of the NS88.2 plasminogen binding M protein Prp was undertaken to examine the contribution of plasminogen binding and cell surface plasmin acquisition to virulence. The isogenic mutant NS88.2prp was engineered whereby four amino acid residues critical for plasminogen binding were converted to alanine codons in the GAS genome sequence. The …

An Assessment Of The Role Of Chimpanzees In Aids Vaccine Research, Jarrod Bailey

Laboratory Experiments Collection

Prior to Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV)-infected macaques becoming the ‘model of choice’ in the 1990s, chimpanzees were widely used in AIDS vaccine research and testing. Faced with the continued failure to develop an effective human vaccine, some scientists are calling for a return to their widespread use. To assess the past and potential future contribution of chimpanzees to AIDS vaccine development, databases and published literature were systematically searched to compare the results of AIDS vaccine trials in chimpanzees with those of human clinical trials, and to determine whether the chimpanzee trials were predictive of the human response. Protective and/or therapeutic …

Semantics Enhanced Services: Meteor-S, Sawsdl And Sa-Rest, Amit P. Sheth, Karthik Gomadam, Ajith Harshana Ranabahu

Kno.e.sis Publications

Services Research Lab at the Knoesis center and the LSDIS lab at University of Georgia have played a significant role in advancing the state of research in the areas of workflow management, semantic Web services and service oriented computing. Starting with the METEOR workflow management system in the 90's, researchers have addressed key issues in the area of semantic Web services and more recently, in the domain of RESTful services and Web 2.0. In this article, we present a brief discussion on the various contributions of METEOR-S including SAWSDL, publication and discovery of semantic Web services, data mediation, dynamic configuration …

Effects Of Pre-Pubertal Social Experiences On The Responsiveness Of Juvenile Rats To Predator Odors, Stephen M. Siviy

Psychology Faculty Publications

The extent to which social variables may modulate the fear associated with a predator cue was assessed in juvenile rats. Cat odor reduced play to a comparable extent in both socially housed and isolate-housed rats, although socially housed rats exhibited more risk assessment during extinction. Rats that had played previously in the context used for assessing fear hid slightly less when exposed to cat odor than those rats that had not played previously in the testing context. However, no other differences were found between these two groups suggesting that prior social experience with the testing context has minimal effects on …

Flavor Formation And Character In Cocoa And Chocolate: A Critical Review, Emmanuel Ohene Afoakwa, Alistaiar Paterson, Mark Fowler, Angela Ryan

Professor Emmanuel Ohene Afoakwa

Chocolate characters not only originate in flavor precursors present in cocoa beans, but are generated during post-harvest treatments and transformed into desirable odor notes in the manufacturing processes. Complex biochemical modifications of bean constituents are further altered by thermal reactions in roasting and conching and in alkalization. However the extent to which the inherent bean constituents from the cocoa genotype, environmental factors, post-harvest treatment and processing technologies influence chocolate flavor formation and relationships with final flavor quality, has not been clear. With increasing speciality niche products in chocolate confectionery, greater understanding of factors contributing to variations in flavor character would …

Challenges Of Creating A Knowledge-Based Society: Education & Research For India & Gujarat, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

Understanding Animal Welfare, David Fraser

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

In debates about the welfare of animals, different people have tended to emphasize different concerns. Some emphasize the basic health and functioning of animals, especially freedom from disease and injury. Others emphasize the "affective states" of animals – states like pain, distress and pleasure that are experienced as positive or negative. Others emphasize the ability of animals to live reasonably natural lives by carrying out natural behaviour and having natural elements in their environment. These concerns constitute different criteria that people use to assess animal welfare. The criteria overlap substantially but are sufficiently independent that the single- minded pursuit of …