Digital Commons Network^™

Dragon Age: Origins - Maps & Benchmark Problems, Nathan R. Sturtevant, Bioware Corp

Moving AI Lab: 2D Maps and Benchmark Problems

Maps extracted from Dragon Age: Origins with help and explicit permission from BioWare Corp. for use and distribution as benchmark problems.

Contains 156 maps and benchmark problem sets.

The University Imperative To Distribute Faculty Research, David Shulenburger

Videos

No abstract provided.

Genome 10k: A Proposal To Obtain Whole-Genome Sequence For 10000 Vertebrate Species, David Haussler, Stephen J. O'Brien, Oliver A. Ryder, F. Keith Barker, Michele Clamp, Andrew J. Crawford, Robert Hanner, Olivier Hanotte, Warren E. Johnson, Jimmy A. Mcguire, Webb Miller, Robert W. Murphy, William J. Murphy, Frederick H. Sheldon, Barry Sinervo, Byrappa Venkatesh, Edward O. Wiley, Fred W. Allendorf, George Amato, C. Scott Baker, Aaron Bauer, Albano Beja-Pereira, Eldredge Bermingham, Giacomo Bernardi, Cibele R. Bonvicino, Sydney Brenner, Terry Burke, Joel Cracraft, Mark Diekhans

Biology Faculty Articles

The human genome project has been recently complemented by whole-genome assessment sequence of 32 mammals and 24 nonmammalian vertebrate species suitable for comparative genomic analyses. Here we anticipate a precipitous drop in costs and increase in sequencing efficiency, with concomitant development of improved annotation technology and, therefore, propose to create a collection of tissue and DNA specimens for 10000 vertebrate species specifically designated for whole-genome sequencing in the very near future. For this purpose, we, the Genome 10K Community of Scientists (G10KCOS), will assemble and allocate a biospecimen collection of some 16203 representative vertebrate species spanning evolutionary diversity across living …

Integration Of Edible Beans (Phaseolus Vulgaris L.) Into The Push-Pull Technology Developed For Stemborer And Striga Control In Maize-Based Cropping Systems, Zeyaur R. Khan, Charles A.O. Midega, Japhether M. Wanyama, David M. Amudavi, Ahmed Hassanali, Jimmy Pittchar, John A. Pickett

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Smallholder farming systems in eastern Africa are characterized by cereal/edible legume intercrops in fields severely constrained by parasitic weed, Striga hermonthica, cereal stemborers and declining soil fertility. The push-pull technology concurrently addresses these constraints. It involves intercropping maize with stemborer repellent fodder legume, Desmodium spp. (push), with an attractant crop, Napier grass, Pennisetum purpureum (pull), planted around this intercrop, thus making it difficult to interplant edible legumes. We assessed farmers' practice and perceptions on intercropping and willingness to integrate beans in their push-pull plots from a sample of 300 farmers in six districts in western Kenya. All the respondents traditionally …

Fungal Entomopathogens: New Insights On Their Ecology, Fernando E. Vega, Mark S. Goettel, Meredith Blackwell, David Chandler, Mark A. Jackson, Siegfried Keller, Masanori Koike, Nguya K. Maniania, Arnulfo Monzón, Bonnie H. Ownley, Judith K. Pell, Drauzio E.N. Rangel, Helen E. Roy

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

An important mechanism for insect pest control should be the use of fungal entomopathogens. Even though these organisms have been studied for more than 100 y, their effective use in the field remains elusive. Recently, however, it has been discovered that many of these entomopathogenic fungi play additional roles in nature. They are endophytes, antagonists of plant pathogens, associates with the rhizosphere, and possibly even plant growth promoting agents. These findings indicate that the ecological role of these fungi in the environment is not fully understood and limits our ability to employ them successfully for pest management. In this paper, …

Proximity To A Forest Leads To Higher Honey Yield: Another Reason To Conserve, Susan O. Sande, Robin M. Crewe, Suresh K. Raina, Susan W. Nicolson, Ian Gordon

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Although tropical forest conservation is a top priority for human and environmental health, deforestation persists, mainly because of food and economic needs. No community will totally give up economic activities for the sake of ecological integrity, unless it is given alternative economic activities from which to draw its livelihood. Beekeeping in the forest buffer zone instead of traditional destructive honey-harvesting from forest trees is one such option at Arabuko Sokoke Forest (ASF) in Kenya. ASF is a dry coastal forest which is home to endangered and threatened fauna and is a hotspot considered a priority for conservation. In order to …

Feasibility Report On Proposed Independent Living Facility In Kaufman, Texas, Institute Of Urban Studies, Kaufman Neighborhood Development Organization (Kndo)

Institute of Urban Studies Publications - Archive

No abstract provided.

Barriers And Opportunities For Recruitment For Nonintervention Studies On Hiv Risk: Perspectives Of Street Drug Users, Matthew Oransky, Celia B. Fisher, Meena Mahadevan, Merrill Singer

Department of Nutrition and Food Studies Scholarship and Creative Works

This study used focus-group discussions in response to a video vignette to examine attitudes toward recruitment for nonintervention research involving HIV testing. Participants were 100 ethnically diverse, economically disadvantaged urban drug users, who were recruited from New York City and Hartford, Connecticut in the spring and summer of 2006. Content analyses revealed themes including (1) fears of stigma and legal trouble balanced by trustworthiness of the recruiter; (2) fears of learning one's HIV status balanced by prospects for health benefits, and (3) the right to receive fair monetary compensation balanced by risks of coercion during periods of cravings. Limitations and …

A Heteroskedastic Error Covariance Matrix Estimator Using A First-Order Conditional Autoregressive Markov Simulation For Deriving Asympotical Efficient Estimates From Ecological Sampled Anopheles Arabiensis Aquatic Habitat Covariates, Benjamin G. Jacob, Daniel A. Griffith, Ephantus J. Muturi, Erick X. Caamano, John I. Githure, Robert J. Novak

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Background. Autoregressive regression coefficients for Anopheles arabiensis aquatic habitat models are usually assessed using global error techniques and are reported as error covariance matrices. A global statistic, however, will summarize error estimates from multiple habitat locations. This makes it difficult to identify where there are clusters of An. arabiensis aquatic habitats of acceptable prediction. It is therefore useful to conduct some form of spatial error analysis to detect clusters of An. arabiensis aquatic habitats based on uncertainty residuals from individual sampled habitats. In this research, a method of error estimation for spatial simulation models was demonstrated using autocorrelation indices and …

Public Policy, Gender, Marriage, And Self-Rated Health, Sean Clouston, Amélie Quesnel-Vallée

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

Married people live longer than those who remain single both in Canada and the USA, with men showing the most gain from marriage. The benefit to marriage has been exlpicated in four different ways: marital benefits, with protective benefits going mostly to men; negative selection, with sicker individuals seeking healthcare from their spouses in a health-poor policy environment; clean-up for marriage, whereby mostly male risky behaviors are left behind prior to marriage; and positive selection, suggesting instead that the marital selection process is tied to health indicators evident in social circumstances. The importance of social policy to these realms is …

Increases In Nuclear P65 Activation In Dystrophic Skeletal Muscle Are Secondary To Increases In The Cellular Expression Of P65 And Are Not Solely Produced By Increases In Iκb-Α Kinase Activity, Rajvir Singh, Gregory Millman, Eric Turin, Lucasz Polisiakeiwicz, Brian Lee, Francesca Gatti, Jonas Berge, Emily Smith, John Rutter, Chris Sumski, W. Tyler Winders, Abbas Samadi, C. George Carlson

All KCOM Faculty Publications

Dystrophin-deficient muscle exhibits substantial increases in nuclear NF-κB activation. To examine potential mechanisms for this enhanced activation, the present study employs conventional Western blot techniques to provide the first determination of the relative expression of NF-κB signaling molecules in adult nondystrophic and dystrophic (mdx) skeletal muscle. The results indicate that dystrophic muscle is characterized by increases in the whole cell expression of IκB-α, p65, p50, RelB, p100, p52, IKK, and TRAF-3. The proportion of phosphorylated IκB-α, p65, NIK, and IKKβ, and the level of cytosolic IκB-α, were also increased in the mdx diaphragm. Proteasomal inhibition using MG-132 increased the proportion …

Statistics Canada National Population Health Surveys (Nphs), Amir Erfani

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

Amir Erfani is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nipissing University in Ontario, with a PhD. in Sociology from the University of Western Ontario. His research is in the areas of social, family, and health demography, studying reproductive health, health inequality over the life course, family transformation and childbearing behavior in developed and developing countries. Amir has recently studied induced abortion, contraceptive behavior, and low fertility in Iran; socioeconomic status and health over the life course in Canada and the U.S.; and familial orientations and childbearing behavior and non-marital births of Canadians.

Canadian Health Measures Survey, Colleen Bolger

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

Colleen Bolger is an analyst at Statistics Canada who has worked on developing data products and services for researchers for over 20 years. Currently working on the first data releases for the Canadian Health Measures Survey that integrates physical measurements and scientific data into population health information sources, she has worked on the development of the National Population Health Survey, integrated socio-economic journals such as Perspectives on Labour and Income and provided remote data services to international scholars for OECD publications. As a former senior scientific and economic editor at Statistics Canada, she guided many research papers and population studies …

Health Data In Ontario, Susan Bondy

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

No abstract provided.

Press Statement On Outcome Of Special Examination Of 14 Banks, Central Bank Of Nigeria (Cbn)

Documents

CBN decision on healthy and unhealthy banks, removal of board members and management, and commitment of NGN200 billion

Images October 2009, David C. Gorski

Multimedia Services: Images

This month, on Images! We’ll go green with a new Automotive Technology class… COD’s Automotive Service Technology program ratchets up the efforts to go green – offering a course on hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles. Driven by industry demand, Hybrid Technology continues the college’s tradition of preparing students to enter or continue in the workforce with cutting edge skills. Through a combination of hands-on learning and lecture, students will gain the marketable experience to keep their careers in high gear. … find out why College of DuPage is a value of a lifetime… College of DuPage is a frontier of …

Construction Of The Compact Real Form Of $G_2$ Via The Octonions, Joseph F. Pleso

Miscellaneous (presentations, translations, interviews, etc)

No abstract provided.

Becoming A Mere Appendix: The Rehabilitated Masculinity Of Sherlock Holmes., Thomas Bragg

Faculty Peer-Reviewed Publications

No abstract provided.

Stress And Obesity: The Role Of The Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis In Metabolic Disease, Mousumi Bose, Blanca Oliván, Blandine Laferrère

Department of Nutrition and Food Studies Scholarship and Creative Works

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Chronic stress, combined with positive energy balance, may be a contributor to the increased risk for obesity, especially upper body obesity, and other metabolic diseases. This association may be mediated by alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In this review, we summarize the major research that has been conducted on the role of the HPA axis in obesity and metabolic disease. RECENT FINDINGS: Dysregulation in the HPA axis has been associated with upper body obesity, but data are inconsistent, possibly due to methodological differences across studies. In addition to systemic effects, changes in local cortisol metabolism in …

What Factors Predict Outcome At Relapse After Previous Esophagectomy And Adjuvant Therapy In High-Risk Esophageal Cancer?, Edward Yu, Patricia Tai, Richard Malthaner, Larry Stitt, George Rodrigues, Rashid Dar, Brian Yaremko, Jawaid Younus, Michael Sanatani, Mark Vincent, Brian Dingle, Dalilah Fortin, Richard Inculet

Oncology Presentations

Management of patients who have disease relapse after completion of surgery and adjuvant chemo-radiation (CRT) is controversial.

Some oncologists would advocate intensive therapeutic intervention due to promising experience on treatment for recurrence disease while others would recommend palliative support due to the concerns for poor patient outcome post disease recurrence.

In Addition, it is not clear if patient outcome is improved post adjuvant CRT when patients at risk have resection margin involvement and if time interval to recurrence can affect patient survival post relapse.

The present study was conducted to determine what factors will affect patient outcome at relapse after …

Scared Sick? Predator-Pathogen Facilitation Enhances The Exploitation Of A Shared Resource, Ricardo A. Ramirez, W E. Snyder

Biology Faculty Publications

Resource use generally increases with greater consumer diversity, an effect often attributed to resource partitioning. Pathogens and predators are two classes of consumer that exhibit differences in ecologically important traits (e.g., size, resource acquisition strategy, foraging location) that could lead to complementary effects on shared prey/hosts. To examine this possibility, we manipulated diversity among a community of predators and pathogens that together attack an herbivorous beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata, and measured resulting effects on herbivore suppression and resulting plant damage. We found that herbivore mortality increased, and plant damage decreased, when more natural enemy species were present. However, closer examination revealed …

Effect Of Self-Determination Theory-Based Strategies For Staging Recreation Encounters On Intrinsic Motivation Of Youth Residential Campers, Mark F. Roark, Gary D. Ellis

Kinesiology and Health Science Faculty Publications

Parents and caregivers generally believe that the camp experiences they purchase for their children will not only yield transient pleasure and lasting memories of fun encounters, but significant developmental outcomes as well. Camp professionals serving over 11 million youths each year embrace such outcomes and commonly advance mission statements that point to the development of friendship skills, self-confidence, competence, self-reliance, independence, citizenship, and many other developmental outcomes. Empirical evidence of how these outcomes might be facilitated through specific recreation leadership strategies (e.g., activity staging) is lacking. The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) would suggest that youth leaders (e.g., camp counselors, recreation activity …

Odorants That Induce Hygienic Behavior In Honeybees: Identification Of Volatile Compounds In Chalkbrood-Infected Honeybee Larvae, Jodi A.I. Swanson, Baldwyn Torto, Stephen A. Kells, Karen A. Mesce, James H. Tumlinson, Marla Spivak

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Social insects that live in large colonies are vulnerable to disease transmission due to relatively high genetic relatedness among individuals and high rates of contact within and across generations. While individual insects rely on innate immune responses, groups of individuals also have evolved social immunity. Hygienic behavior, in which individual honeybees detect chemical stimuli from diseased larvae and subsequently remove the diseased brood from the nest, is one type of social immunity that reduces pathogen transmission. Three volatile compounds, collected from larvae infected with the fungal pathogen Ascosphaera apis and detected by adult honey bees, were identified by coupled gas …

Burning Questions: Participant Contributed Questions Discussion

Institutional Repositories: Disseminating, Promoting, and Preserving Scholarship

This open discussion will involve all conference participants and will be generated from questions submitted at registration.

Moderated by Marilyn Billings, Scholarly Communication & Special Initiatives Librarian, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

Institutional Repository Platforms, Jean-Gabriel Bankier, Kenning Arlitsch, Jessica Branco Colati, Sue Kunda

Institutional Repositories: Disseminating, Promoting, and Preserving Scholarship

J.G. Bankier will be speaking on Digital Commons, a hosted platform by The Berkeley Electronic Press. Kenning Arlitsch will be speaking on CONTENTdm, a platform by OCLC. Jessica Colati will be speaking about Fedora. Sue Kunda will be speaking about dSpace.

Assessment Of Climate Change Impacts On Water Resources Of The Upper Blue Nile River Basin, Ethiopia, U. Kim, Jagath J. Kaluarachchi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Climate change affects water resources availability of international river basins that are vulnerable to runoff variability of upstream countries especially with increasing water demands. The upper Blue Nile River Basin is a good example because its downstream countries, Sudan and Egypt, depend solely on Nile waters for their economic development. In this study, the impacts of climate change on both hydrology and water resources operations were analyzed using the outcomes of six different general circulation models (GCMs) for the 2050s. The outcomes of these six GCMs were weighted to provide average future changes. Hydrologic sensitivity, flow statistics, a drought index, …

Environmental Policy, Spatial Spillovers And The Emergence Of Economic Agglomerations, Anastasios Xepapadeas, Efthymia Kyriakopoulou

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Working Papers

We explain the spatial concentration of economic activity, in a model of economic geography, when the cost of environmental policy - which is increasing in the concentration of emissions - and an immobile production factor act as centrifugal forces, while positive knowledge spillovers and iceberg transportation costs act as centripetal forces. We study the agglomeration effects caused by trade-offs between centripetal and centrifugal forces. The above effects govern firms’ location decisions and as a result, they define the distribution of economic activity across space. We derive the rational expectations equilibrium and the social optimum, compare the outcomes and characterize the …

Influences And Mental Processes Involved In Generating Creative Products: Their Implications For Landscape Architects, Theunis Willem Devilliers

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Creativity is the ability to bring something new into existence consciously with `something new' being a product resulting from a process initiated by a person (Barron, 1988.) It may be an idea, an artwork of acknowledged greatness, a scientific discovery, the solution to a problem, leadership abilities, or theories and products that are unique and novel (Barron, 1988.)Influences involved in generating creative products include the social and historical milieu in which creativity is carried out, a culturally defined domain, the creative person's personality, cognitive factors, and motivational characteristics. The topic of creativity is appropriate for landscape architecture because creative products …

An Examination Of The Role For Landscape Architects In The No Child Left Inside Movement, Wade Miller

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

The disconnection, or lack of interaction and experience, between children and nature has been coined Nature Deficit Disorder and popularized by Louv (Louv 2005, pp. 139-140). Current research and writing regarding the child and nature disconnect has spawned the No Child Left Inside movement. This movement is an initiative being adopted by cities, states, federal agencies and other organizations committed to reconnecting children with nature by providing a wide range of opportunities to experience nature directly, while building the next generation of environmentally conscious citizens.This research examines how landscape architecture is viewed by those associated with Children and Nature Network …

Le Corbusier And The Daughter Of Light: Color And Architecture Of The 1920s, Gayla Jett Shannon

School of Architecture Theses - Archive

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier, used color in his architecture to modulate form and volume. This research evaluates the possible rationales for the application of color in his architecture of the Purist phase, the 1920s, and compares it to the Munsell system of color notation in two case studies; Maison La Roche and Villa Savoye.