Digital Commons Network^™

Growth, Mortality, And Life-History Scaling Across Species, Eric L. Charnov, Wenyun Zuo

Biology Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Soil Nutrient Distributions In Chihuahuan Desert Grasslands And Shrublands At The Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico (1989), Anne Cross

Sevilleta LTER Program Data

Vegetation throughout the southwestern United States has changed from perennial grassland to woody shrubland over the past century. Previous studies on the development of 'islands of fertility' focused primarily on only the most limiting, plant-essential element, soil nitrogen (N). The research presented here addressed the question of whether other plant-essential elements, namely phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), showed similar concentration gradients under the desert shrub Larrea tridentata (creosotebush). It also examined whether the spatial distribution of N, P, and K differed from that of essential, but non-limiting nutrients, namely calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and sulfur (S), and non-essential elements, namely …

New Adventures Of The Old Bureau: Modern-Day Reclamation Statutes And Congress Unfinished Environmental Business, Reed D. Benson

Law of the Rio Chama

Congress established the reclamation program in 1902, and the hundreds of federal water projects built in the twentieth century helped shape the West. Today, the Bureau of Reclamation plays an enormously important role in managing these projects. But with no new big dams to build, the Bureau has been forced to revise its mission to address today's water management challenges, such as stretching finite water supplies and restoring aquatic ecosystems. Through both site-specific enactments and programmatic statutes, Congress in recent years has given the Bureau new authority and direction to address these modern challenges. But Congress has left a significant …

Average Adult Size In Female Lizards, Eric Charnov, Robin Warne

Biology Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Body Size Is The History Of Life: Growth Confronting Landscapes Of Death, Eric Charnov

Biology Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Human Hunting Mortality Threshold Rules For Extinction In Mammals (And Fish), Eric Charnov, Wenyun Zuo

Biology Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Can They Do That To Me?! Does The 8th Amendment Protection Children’S Best Interests?, Maryam Ahranjani

Faculty Scholarship

Children are our nation’s most valuable resource and also arguably our most vulnerable population. Recent decisions by the Supreme Court, including Roper v. Simmons (2005), Graham v. Florida (2010), and J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2011) indicate its willingness to consider the special characteristics of children in determining their rights; but, by and large, the Court’s analysis does not hinge on the best interests of the child. Can They Do That to Me?! Does the Eighth Amendment Protect Children’s Best Interests? explores case law in the public school and juvenile justice system arenas and concludes that a child-centered approach to punishment …

New Mexico’S Major Reservoirs: An Overview, Susan Kelly, Diego Urbina

Water Matters!

This paper describes the salient facts about the major water storage reservoirs in New Mexico. For each reservoir, we address the purposes of water storage allowed by law, storage capacity, the responsible operating agency, and some key operational issues. This is by necessity a vast simplification of the topic.Books, articles, research reports, operation manuals, and other materials on these topics run into the hundreds. Millions of dollars have been spent on technical studies and computer models to understand,and sometimes alter, the operations of various dams and reservoirs.

Showdown At Catron: Cows, Wolves, And The Ecology Of Public Lands Policies, Raymond B. Wrabley Jr.

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Can Havruta Style Learning Be A Best Practice In Law School?, Barbara P. Blumenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

Havruta is a traditional Jewish method that seems compatible with legal education because of its focus on process, and so adaptable to law school training in legal reasoning, and because it is based upon dispute and resolution, another aspect that corresponds with the study of law. A unique form of collaborative student centered learning involving pairs of students, this article considers the application of Havruta to the law school setting and whether it should be incorporated into the law school curriculum.

Unm's Science And Technology Corporation: The Impact Of Start-Up Companies, Michael O'Donnell

BBER Publications

The UNM Science and Technology Corporation (STC) asked the Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) to conduct a study of the economic impact on the economy of New Mexico of start-up companies using STC technologies; BBER conducted a similar analysis in 2004. This analysis updates the 2004 study and emphasizes the impact of high-tech start-up companies that have had a relationship with STC from 2004 to the present. STC is a nonprofit corporation formed for the purposes of protecting, commercializing, and transferring faculty inventions and university patents. At the time of this study, the STC was actively servicing 16 …

2010-12-16 Unm News Minute, University Of New Mexico Communication And Marketing Department

UNM News Minute 2010

No abstract provided.

An Adaptive Coverage Control Algorithm For Deployment Of Nonholonomic Mobile Sensors, Chaouki T. Abdallah, Jose Marcio Luna, Rafael Fierro, John Wood

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We show the Lyapunov stability and convergence of an adaptive and decentralized coverage control for a team of mobile sensors. This new approach assumes nonholonomic sensors rather than the usual holonomic sensors found in the literature. The kinematics of the unicycle model and a nonlinear control law in polar coordinates are used in order to prove the stability of the controller applied over a team of mobile sensors. The convergence and feasibility of the coverage control algorithm are verified through simulations in Matlab. Furthermore, some experiments are carried out using a team of four Pioneer 3-AT robots sensing a piecewise …

December 9, 2010 Finance & Facilities (F&F) Committee Meeting, Evp For Administration

Finance and Facilities Committee

Documents related to the December 9, 2010 Board of Regents' Finance and Facilities Committee Meeting. (Agenda, Minutes, eBook, Notice)

Crow Water Rights Settlement Act Of 2010, United States 111th Congress

Native American Water Rights Settlement Project

Federal Legislation: Title IV: Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement - Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement of 2010 in the Claims Resolution Act of 2010 (PL111-291| 124 Stat 3097). The Act ratifies, authorizes, and confirms the water rights 1999 Compact between the Crow Tribe and MT. The DOI Secretary shall promptly execute the Compact and comply with applicable environmental acts and regulations. The Act provides for: 1) the Tribe to a) rehabilitate and improve the Crow Irrigation Project; and b) Reclamation to construct the municipal, rural, and industrial water system; 2) creates a Project Management Committee made up of the Tribe, …

Gpsa Council Meeting, 12/4/2010, Graduate And Professional Student Association

GPSA Meeting Agendas and Minutes

No abstract provided.

Role Of Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-1 Alpha In Neural Stem/Progenitor Cell Function Following Hypoxia, Kate M. Harms Candelario

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Stroke can be caused by focal ischemia due to cerebral artery occlusion or by global ischemia that occurs when global blood supply to the brain is interrupted. The acute phase of ischemic brain injury is followed by a more prolonged period of revascularization and repair that can last for several months. One hallmark of this repair phase includes an endogenous neural stem/progenitor cell (NSPC) regenerative response that occurs concomitant with angiogenesis. Several studies suggest that the cytogenic response is beneficial for recovery following stroke, however, more studies need to be done to determine whether the beneficial effects are due to …

Biogeography Of Alien Vertebrates In The Galapagos Islands: Patterns, Processes, And Conservation Implications, Reese Brand Phillips

Biology ETDs

Alien species are one of the principal threats to global biodiversity. Insular ecosystems have proven exceptionally susceptible to invasion by aliens and vulnerable to their negative effects. Some of the most destructive alien species are vertebrates, in part due to their having been introduced to islands worldwide. Rodents (Rattus spp. and Mus musculus) are among the most widespread and devastating invasive species for insular flora and fauna. In this research I investigate the biogeographic patterns and processes of alien vertebrates in the Galapagos Islands, focusing on the mechanisms that influence their dispersal and colonization within the archipelago. In the first …

Nf-Κb Translocation In Response To Different Lps Chemotypes In Murine Macrophages, Elizabeth L. Carles

Biology ETDs

Nuclear Factor κB (NF-κB) proteins make up a large family of eukaryotic transcription factors that regulate many important cellular functions, including cell signaling, cell growth, development, cell death by apoptosis, and immune and inflammatory responses, and has been shown to be involved in multiple human diseases. NF-κB proteins are subject to careful regulation in the cell, and are regulated at multiple levels. A family of inhibitory proteins exist (called IκB proteins) which bind to NF-κB and cause it to be localized in the cytoplasm. There are multiple signal transduction pathways that can lead to the activation of NF-κB. These signal …

The Spatial Ecology Of Galapagos Tortoises And New Mexico's Reptiles, Jacek Tomasz Giermakowski

Biology ETDs

The analysis of spatial processes and spatial heterogeneity is an important part of ecology because distribution of organisms in space partly defines ecology as a discipline. In addition, advances in analysis of DNA, geographical computing and the availability of vast amounts of environmental data obtained by satellites provide new opportunities for studying ecology at different spatial and phylogenetic scales. My research takes advantage of information gathered by satellites and adds modeling and data collected on the distribution of different reptiles to examine processes at various spatial and temporal scales. In Chapter 1 I describe how juvenile Galapagos tortoises change their …

The Isotopic Composition Of Light-Enhanced Dark Respiration (Ledr) In C3 And C4 Plants, Susan Christy Mirabal

Biology ETDs

Light-enhanced dark respiration (LEDR) has been studied in C3 plants as a method to elucidate the careful balance between photosynthesis and respiration yet little is known about the metabolic properties by which it occurs in C4 plants. Using a tunable diode laser gas exchange system, we analyzed transient isotopic shifts in leaf-respired CO2 associated with LEDR at 10Hz frequency from Populus deltoides (C3), Amaranthus hypochondriacus (C4 NAD-ME), and Zea mays (C4 NADP-ME). The results suggest that:

(1) Post-photosynthetic fractionations are different between C3 and C4 (and within C4) plants, where A. hypochondriacus exhibited an unexpected LEDR response (Fig. 3, Table …

Regulation Of Cyclin E Stability In Xenopus Laevis Embryos, Yekaterina Brandt-(Webb)

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Cyclin-Cdk complexes positively regulate cell cycle progression. Cyclins are regulatory subunits that bind to and activate cyclin-dependent kinases or Cdks. Cyclin E associates with Cdk2 to mediate G1/S phase transition of the cell cycle. Cyclin E is overexpressed in breast, lung, skin, gastrointestinal, cervical, and ovarian cancers. Its overexpression correlates with poor patient prognosis and is involved in the etiology of breast cancer. We have been studying how this protein is downregulated during development in order to determine if these mechanisms are disrupted during tumorigenesis, leading to its overexpression. Using Xenopus laevis embryos as a model, we have shown previously …

An Impaired 20s Proteasome Contributes To The Accumulation Of Oxidized Proteins In Multiple Sclerosis And Its Animal Model, Jianzheng Zheng

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Carbonylated (oxidized) proteins are known to accumulate in the brain of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and in the spinal cord of rats with acute experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Yet, our knowledge regarding mechanism(s) underlying the build-up of protein carbonyls in these inflammatory demyelinating disorders is quite limited. The objectives of this dissertation were (1) to measure the changes in protein carbonylation during disease progression, and to identify the target cells and modified proteins in the cerebellum of EAE animals, prepared by active immunization of C57/BL6 mice with MOG35-55 peptide, (2) to determine if the accumulation of carbonylated proteins in …

Twenty-Eight Years Of The Us-Lter Program: Experience, Results, And Research Questions, James R. Gosz, Robert B. Waide, John J. Magnuson

Long Term Ecological Research Network

The U.S. Long Term Ecological Research program (hereafter US-LTER) concentrates on ecological processes that play out at the time scales spanning decades to centuries. This focuses US-LTER research between the most common time scales for ecological studies (1-3 years; Tilman 1989; Figure 1) and the much longer temporal fact of disciplines such as paleoecology. The importance of the decade-to-century time scale is particularly evident in light of the rapid changes in ecological forcing functions that are occurring at a broad range of spatial scales (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007). Long-term data sets from programs such …

"We're Parents Too!" Changes In Father Involvement In Domestic Labor Among Urban Middle Class Dual-Worker Couples, Ruth Burgett Jolie

Anthropology ETDs

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate fathers involvement in domestic labor among middle class, dual-worker families in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I argue that men's participation in domestic labor is affected by their parental identities. Three things influence parental identity: (1) demographics, including socioeconomic position, age, race/ethnicity, (2) religiosity, meaning ones adherence to religious values and participation in a formal religious institution (Wilcox 2002:781), and (3) parental ideology, denoting the belief structure surrounding what a parent ought to do. Demography and religiosity are themselves mediated by parental ideology, and in turn also further shape, parental ideology. Parental ideology directly …

Epigenetic Regulation Of Neuronal Maturation: The Effect Of Mecp2 And Micrornas On The Maturation Of Hippocampal Neurons, Richard D. Smrt

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Dendrites and the dendritic spines of neurons play key roles in the connectivity of the brain and have been recognized as the locus of long-term synaptic plasticity, which is correlated with learning and memory. The development of dendrites and spines in the mammalian central nervous system is a complex process that requires specific molecular events over a period of time. It has been shown that specific molecules are needed not only at the spines point of contact, but also at a distance, providing signals that initiate a cascade of events leading to synapse formation. The specific molecules that act to …

Structure Of Narratives: Applying Propp's Folktale Morphology To Entertainment-Education Films, Divya Sreenivas

Communication ETDs

This study examines narrative strategies through which feature films accomplish the dual role of entertainment-education to shape social reality surrounding health issues. More specifically, exploring films' narrative structures and characterization, this study illuminates how a coherent HIV/AIDS narrative is woven into cinematic artifacts laden with specific cultural values, beliefs and practices. The entertainment-education literature has rarely undertaken a study of films to demonstrate their entertainment-education potential. Moreover, by taking a structuralist perspective and utilizing narrative theories this study uncovers underlying elements that cut across narratives. According to Fisher (1987), the proponent of narrative theory, narratives are moral constructs with values …

Jewish Landscapes Rooted, Embedded, Enshrined, And Transcendent: Metaphor As Communicated In Jewish Museums In New York, Jerusalem, And San Francisco, Judith Stauber

Communication ETDs

As public places, museums negotiate authenticity and re-presentation, fact and ideology, memory and the present confronting a basic question for museums directors, curators, and visitors alike: what is the truth here? In this dissertation, the content and form of four Jewish museums are examined rhetorically: The Jewish Museum, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, both in New York City; the Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem; and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Four metaphors--rootedness, embeddedness, enshrinement, and transcendence--capture the ways each of these museums conceptualizes and presents Jewish culture.

Three Algorithms For Causal Learning, Roshan Ram Rammohan

Computer Science ETDs

The field of causal learning has grown in the past decade, establishing itself as a major focus in artificial intelligence research. Traditionally, approaches to causal learning are split into two areas. One area involves the learning of structures from observational data alone and the second, involves the methodologies of conducting and learning from experiments. In this dissertation, I investigate three different aspects of causal learning, all of which are based on the causal Bayesian network framework. Constraint based structure search algorithms that learn partially directed acyclic graphs as causal models from observational data rely on the faithfulness assumption, which is …

Simulating The Evolution Of Recruitment Behavior In Foraging Ants, Kenneth Letendre

Computer Science ETDs

Spatial heterogeneity in the distribution of food is an important determinant of species' optimal foraging strategies, and of the dynamics of populations and communities. In order to explore the interaction of food heterogeneity and colony size in their effects on the behavior of foraging ant colonies, we built agent-based models of the foraging and recruitment behavior of harvester ants of the genus Pogonomyrmex. We optimized the behavior of these models using genetic algorithms over a variety of food distributions and colony sizes, and validated their behavior by comparison with data collected on harvester ants foraging for seeds in the field. …