Digital Commons Network^™

Polymorphisms Within A Polymorphism: Snps In And Around A Polymorphic Alu Insertion In Intron 44 Of The Human Dystrophin Gene, Alan D. Lovell, Vania Yotova, Fengxia Xiao, Mark A. Batzer, Damian Labuda

Faculty Publications

A polymorphic Yb-type Alu insertion on Xp21.3 shows a genotypic gradient across worldwide populations. We used single strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP), denaturing high-pressure liquid chromatography (DHPLC), and sequencing to characterize the level of polymorphism within this region. Two novel polymorphic sites were found within the Alu insertion itself, and a further seven novel polymorphic sites in the 2-kb flanking region. Our results showed that while DHPLC was more sensitive than SSCP, the limitations of DHPLC included the lack of ability to distinguish between multiple alleles or safely identify mutations on a polymorphic background. We believe that this is the first …

The Distance And Interstellar Sight Line To Gx 339-4, R. I. Hynes, D. Steeghs, J. Casares, P. A. Charles, K. O'Brien

Faculty Publications

The distance to the black hole binary GX 339-4 remains a topic of debate. We examine high-resolution optical spectra of the Na D lines resolving the velocity structure along the line of sight. We find this to be complex, with at least nine components, mostly blueshifted, spanning a velocity range of nearly 200 km s-1. The presence of components with a large blueshift rules out a nearby location and requires that the binary be located at or beyond the tangent point, implying a lower limit to the distance of ∼6 kpc. The presence of a significant redshifted component at +30 …

Night Journey To Vicksburg, Julie Pfeiffer

Civil War Book Review

Coming of age

Becoming a man in the midst of slavery

Rural Low-Income Families Speak: Living In Rural Louisiana (Research Information Sheet # 109), Frances C. Lawrence, Ann A. Berry, Vicky Tiller, Jennifer J. Burczyk-Brown

LSU AgCenter Research Information Sheets

After the passage of federal welfare reform legislation in 1996, faculty from land-grant universities organized to conduct a study of the legislation’s impact on rural families. The project began in 1998 and runs through 2008. The intent was to provide policymakers and program directors with up-to-date information about the ability of rural, low-income families to be economically self sufficient. The objectives of this project are included in this publication.

Cichlid Biogeography: Comment And Review, Prosanta Chakrabarty

Faculty Publications

Phylogenetic analyses dealing with disjunct distributions (distributions that require marine dispersal or vicariant events) are reviewed for the Cichlidae. The most corroborated relationship between clades across a Gondwanan disjunction is the sister relationship between Indian and Malagasy cichlids. The minimum age of the Cichlidae as implied by the fossil record is at odds with the timing of the Cretaceous break of the Indian-Madagascar landmass. All well sampled phylogenies for this group fit a pattern reflecting Gondwanan break-up. Grounds for strictly dispersalist hypotheses are not well founded for any cichlid disjunct distribution, leaving vicariance alternatives as the only explanation.

Hopf Algebras Of Dimension Pq, Siu Hung Ng

Faculty Publications

Let H be a non-semisimple Hopf algebra with antipode S of dimension pq over an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0 where p ≤ q are odd primes. We prove that Tr(S2p) = p2d where d ≡ pq (mod 4). As a consequence, if p, q are twin primes, then any Hopf algebra of dimension pq is semisimple. © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Long-Term Study Of The Seismic Environment At Ligo, E. J. Daw, J. A. Giaime, D. Lormand, M. Lubinski, J. Zweizig

Faculty Publications

The LIGO experiment aims to detect and study gravitational waves using ground-based laser interferometry. A critical factor to the performance of the interferometers, and a major consideration in the design of possible future upgrades, is isolation of the interferometer optics from seismic noise. We present the results of a detailed programme of measurements of the seismic environment surrounding the LIGO interferometers. We describe the experimental configuration used to collect the data, which were acquired over a 613 day period. The measurements focused on the frequency range 0.1-10 Hz, in which the secondary microseismic peak and noise due to human activity …

Properties And Performance Of The Prototype Instrument For The Pierre Auger Observatory, J. Abraham, M. Aglietta, I. C. Aguirre, M. Albrow, D. Allard, I. Allekotte, P. Allison, J. Alvarez Muñiz, M. G. Do Amaral, M. Ambrosio, L. Anchordoqui, R. Andrews, M. Anguiano, J. C. Dos Anjos, C. Aramo, S. Argiro, K. Arisaka, J. C. Arteaga, S. Atulugama, M. Ave, G. Avila, R. Baggio, X. Bai, A. F. Barbosa, H. M.J. Barbosa, D. Barnhill, S. L.C. Barroso, P. Bauleo, J. Beatty, T. Beau, K. H. Becker, J. A. Bellido, P. Bello

Faculty Publications

Construction of the first stage of the Pierre Auger Observatory has begun. The aim of the Observatory is to collect unprecedented information about cosmic rays above 1018 eV. The first phase of the project, the construction and operation of a prototype system, known as the engineering array, has now been completed. It has allowed all of the sub-systems that will be used in the full instrument to be tested under field conditions. In this paper, the properties and performance of these sub-systems are described and their success illustrated with descriptions of some of the events recorded thus far. © 2003 …

The Social Interaction Skills Of A Child With Autism, April R. Gonzalez

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Impossibility Of C∞ Variation Or Formal Power Series Variation In Solutions To Hilbert's 17th Problem, Charles N. Delzell

Faculty Publications

No matter how a positive semidefinite polynomial f ∈ ℝ[X1,...,Xn] is represented (according to E. Artin's 1926 solution to Hilbert's 17th problem) in the form f = ∑ piri2 (with 0 ≤ Pi ∈ ℝ and ri ∈ ℝ(X1,..., Xn), the pi and the coefficients of the ri cannot be chosen to depend in a C∞ (i.e., infinitely differentiable) manner upon the coefficients of f (unless deg f ≤, 2); formal powers series variation is also impossible. This answers a question we had raised in 1990 [Contemp. Math., vol. 155, Amer. Math. Soc., 1994, pp. 107-117], where we had already …

Simple Entanglement Measure For Multipartite Pure States, Feng Pan, Dan Liu, Guoying Lu, J. P. Draayer

Faculty Publications

A simple entanglement measure for multipartite pure states is formulated based on the partial entropy of a series of reduced density matrices. Use of the proposed new measure to distinguish disentangled, partially entangled, and maximally entangled multipartite pure states is illustrated. © 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

Conformational Subspace In Simulation Of Early-Stage Protein Folding, Wiktor Jurkowski, Michał Brylinski, Leszek Konieczny, Zdzisław Wiíniowski, Irena Roterman

Faculty Publications

A probability calculus was used to simulate the early stages of protein folding in ab initio structure prediction. The probabilities of particular φ and ψ angles for each of 20 amino acids as they occur in crystal forms of proteins were used to calculate the amount of information necessary for the occurrence of given φ and ψ angles to be predicted. It was found that the amount of information needed to predict φ and ψ angles with 5° precision is much higher than the amount of information actually carried by individual amino acids in the polypeptide chain. To handle this …

Electronic Transport In Eub6, G. A. Wigger, R. Monnier, H. R. Ott, D. P. Young, Z. Fisk

Faculty Publications

EuB6 is a magnetic semiconductor in which defects introduce charge carriers into the conduction band with the Fermi energy varying with temperature and magnetic field and which orders ferromagnetically via two consecutive phase transitions at 15.5 and 12.5 K, respectively. We present a consistent analysis of the temperature- and magnetic-field dependences of the electrical resistivity and of the Hall effect of a single-crystalline sample at temperatures between 22.5 and 300 K, as well as between 2 and 8 K, avoiding the critical transition region. The covered magnetic-field range was between 0 and 5.5 T. The negative magnetoresistance is well reproduced …

Faculty Senate Resolution 04-07, Louisiana State University And Agricultural & Mechanical College

LSU Faculty Senate Publications

Faculty Senate Resolution on a bylaws amendment establishing the educational policy committee, adopted on March 18, 2004.

Faculty Senate Resolution 04-09, Louisiana State University And Agricultural & Mechanical College

LSU Faculty Senate Publications

Faculty Senate Resolution on a bylaws amendment concerning general provisions for Senate committees, adopted on March 18, 2004.

Extreme Free Energy Stabilization Of Taq Dna Polymerase, Allyn J. Schoeffler, Allison M. Joubert, Fenggang Peng, Farheen Khan, Chin Chi Liu, Vince J. Licata

Faculty Publications

We have examined the chemical denaturations of the Klentaq and Klenow large-fragment domains of the Type 1 DNA polymerases from Thermus aquaticus (Klentaq) and Escherichia coli (Klenow) under identical solution conditions in order to directly compare the stabilization energetics of the two proteins. The high temperature stability of Taq DNA polymerase is common knowledge, and is the basis of its use in the polymerase chain reaction. This study, however, is aimed at understanding the thermodynamic basis for this high-temperature stability. Chemical denaturations with guanidine hydrochloride report a folding free energy (ΔG) for Klentaq that is over 20 kcal/mol more favorable …

The Moving Appeal: Mr. Mcclanahan, Mrs. Dill, And The Civil War's Great Newspaper Run, Susan Thompson

Civil War Book Review

Battlefield publisher:

The South's fair and balanced news

Compiler-Directed Scratch Pad Memory Optimization For Embedded Multiprocessors, Mahmut Kandemir, Ismail Kadayif, Alok Choudhary, J. Ramanujam, Ibrahim Kolcu

Faculty Publications

This paper presents a compiler strategy to optimize data accesses in regular array-intensive applications running on embedded multiprocessor environments. Specifically, we propose an optimization algorithm that targets at reducing extra off-chip memory accesses caused by interprocessor communication. This is achieved by increasing the application-wide reuse of data that resides in scratch-pad memories of processors. Our results obtained using four array-intensive image processing applications indicate that exploiting interprocessor data sharing can reduce energy-delay product significantly on a four-processor embedded system.

Studies Of The Role Of The Drosophila Scs And Scs′ Insulators In Defining Boundaries Of A Chromosome Puff, Emily J. Kuhn, Craig M. Hart, Pamela K. Geyer

Faculty Publications

Insulators are DNA elements that establish independent transcriptional domains within eukaryotic genomes. The Drosophila scs and scs′ insulators localize near the borders of a structural domain in the polytene chromosomes, known as a puff, produced by transcription of the 87A heat shock protein (hsp) genes. It has been suggested that scs and scs′ are boundary elements that delimit this decondensed chromatin domain, reflecting the mechanism by which these sequences act to constrain regulatory interactions. This model was tested using transposons that carried a yellow gene to assess enhancer blocking and an hsp70-lacZ gene to examine the structure of a heat …

Detector Description And Performance For The First Coincidence Observations Between Ligo And Geo, B. Abbott, R. Abbott, R. Adhikari, A. Ageev, B. Allen, R. Amin, S. B. Anderson, W. G. Anderson, M. Araya, H. Armandula, F. Asiri, P. Aufmuth, C. Aulbert, S. Babak, R. Balasubramanian, S. Ballmer, B. C. Barish, D. Barker, C. Barker-Patton, M. Barnes, B. Barr, M. A. Barton, K. Bayer, R. Beausoleil, K. Belczynski, R. Bennett, S. J. Berukoff, J. Betzwieser, B. Bhawal, I. A. Bilenko, G. Billingsley, E. Black, K. Blackburn

Faculty Publications

For 17 days in August and September 2002, the LIGO and GEO interferometer gravitational wave detectors were operated in coincidence to produce their first data for scientific analysis. Although the detectors were still far from their design sensitivity levels, the data can be used to place better upper limits on the flux of gravitational waves incident on the earth than previous direct measurements. This paper describes the instruments and the data in some detail, as a companion to analysis papers based on the first data. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Toxicity And Behavioral Effects Of Nootkatone, 1,10-Dihydronootkatone, And Tetrahydronootkatone To The Formosan Subterranean Termite (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae), Sanaa A. Ibrahim, Gregg Henderson, Betty C.R. Zhu, Huixin Fei, Roger A. Laine

Faculty Publications

Toxicity and behavioral effects of nootkatone and two of its derivatives, 1,10-dihydronootkatone and tetrahydronootkatone, to Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki were investigated on workers from two different colonies by using topical application assays, repellency assays, and sand barrier assays. The acute toxicity of the nootkatones on workers from both colonies increased as the saturation of the molecule increased, but the difference was significant for only one colony. The results of the repellency assays showed a similar trend of efficiency; the threshold concentration for significant repellency was four-fold higher in nootkatone treatments (50 ppm) than in the reduced derivatives 1,10-dihydronootkatone or tetrahydronootkatone (12.5 …

School Of Renewable Natural Resources Newsletter, Winter 2004, Louisiana State University And Agricultural & Mechanical College

Research Matters & RNR Newsletters

The annual newsletter from the School of Renewable Natural Resources was a publication which aimed to update and entertain interested readers with the news and research from RNR faculty, students and staff.

Los Orígenes Ecológicos Y Las Consecuencias De La Ganadería En La Nueva España Durante El Siglo Xvi, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Louisiana Agriculture Winter, 2004, Lsu Agcenter

Louisiana Agriculture

No abstract provided.

Louisiana Survey 2004, Lsu Reilly Center For Media & Public Affairs

Reilly Center Louisiana Surveys

The second iteration of the Louisiana Survey, the 2004 Louisiana Survey found:

• cautious optimism among residents concerning the future of the state
• concern about the economy and jobs growth
• healthcare quality and access
• spending priorities and the arts paradox
• perceptions of waste
• dealing with the deficit by taxing gambling
• property taxes and homestead exemption

Measurement And Control Of The Frequency Chirp Rate Of High-Order Harmonic Pulses, J. Mauritsson, P. Johnsson, R. López-Martens, K. Varjú, W. Kornelis, J. Biegert, U. Keller, M. B. Gaarde, K. J. Schafer, A. L'Huillier

Faculty Publications

The chirp rate of harmonics 13 to 23 in argon was measured by cross correlation with a 12 femtosecond probe pulse. The negative chirp was directly measured under low ionization conditions due to the atomic dipole phase. It was showed that the additional chirp on the pump pulse was transferred to the qth harmonic as q times the fundamental chirp. The attosecond pulse trains synthesized from these harmonics had a pulse spacing that increased linearly with time.

High-Latitude Tertiary Migrations Of An Exclusively Tropical Clade: Evidence From Malpighiaceae, Charles C. Davis, Peter W. Fritsch, Charles D. Bell, Sarah Mathews

Faculty Publications

Explanations of tropical intercontinental disjunctions involving South America and Africa typically invoke vicariance of western Gondwanan biotas or long-distance dispersal. However, many plant groups originated and diversified well after the last direct connection between Africa and South America (ca. 105 million years before the present [mybp]), and it is unlikely that long-distance dispersal accounts for the distribution of all of these. A less commonly invoked explanation, the boreotropics hypothesis, indicates that some tropical disjunctions arose during the Tertiary via high-latitude land connections when northern forests supported tropical vegetation. Malpighiaceae are widely distributed across Africa and South America and have been …

Response Of A Gall-Forming Guild (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) To Stressed And Vigorous Prairie Roses, Mark A. Williams, James T. Cronin

Faculty Publications

Two general hypotheses that describe the relationship between plant quality and host-plant preference of insect herbivores are the plant-stress and plant-vigor hypotheses. We examined the response of a gall-forming guild of insect herbivores associated with prairie rose, Rosa arkansana Porter (Rosaceae), to experimental manipulations of plant stress (addition of NaCl) and vigor (addition of nitrogen; NH4NO3). The most common members of the gall-forming guild on roses are Diplolepis ignota Osten Sacken, D. nodulosa Beutenmüller, and D. rosaefolii Cockerell (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae). The repeated application of nitrogen throughout the growing season to prairie plots resulted in significantly higher plant nitrogen levels and …

Improving Low-Temperature Performance Of Infrared Thin-Film Interference Filters Utilizing The Intrinsic Properties Of Iv-Vi Narrow-Gap Semiconductors, B. Li, S. Y. Zhang, J. C. Jiang, B. Fan, F. S. Zhang

Faculty Publications

Pb1-xGexTe is a pseudobinary alloy of IV-VI narrow-gap semiconductor, of which maximum refractive index corresponds to the ferroelectric phase transition. Since the temperature coefficient of refractive index can be tunable from negative to positive by changing the Ge composition, it is possible to utilize the intrinsic property in the fabrication of infrared thin-film interference filters. In this letter, we report a narrow-bandpass filter, in which Pb0.94Ge0.06Te was substituted for PbTe. It found that the low-temperature stability of the filter is obviously improved: in the temperature range of 80-300K, the shift of center wavelength with temperature is reduced from 0.48nm.K-1 to …

Excluding Any Graph As A Minor Allows A Low Tree-Width 2-Coloring, Matt Devos, Guoli Ding, Bogdan Oporowski, Daniel P. Sanders, Bruce Reed, Paul Seymour, Dirk Vertigan

Faculty Publications

This article proves the conjecture of Thomas that, for every graph G, there is an integer k such that every graph with no minor isomorphic to G has a 2-coloring of either its vertices or its edges where each color induces a graph of tree-width at most k. Some generalizations are also proved. © 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.