Digital Commons Network^™

Noninvasive Transcranial Focal Stimulation Via Tripolar Concentric Ring Electrodes Lessens Behavioral Seizure Activity Of Recurrent Pentylenetetrazole Administrations In Rats, Oleksandr Makeyev, Hiram Luna-Munguía, Gabriela Rogel-Salazar, Xiang Liu, Walter G. Besio

Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

Epilepsy affects approximately 1% of the world population. Antiepileptic drugs are ineffective in approximately 30% of patients and have side effects. We have been developing a noninvasive transcranial focal electrical stimulation with our novel tripolar concentric ring electrodes as an alternative/complementary therapy for seizure control. In this study we demonstrate the effect of focal stimulation on behavioral seizure activity induced by two successive pentylenetetrazole administrations in rats. Seizure onset latency, time of the first behavioral change, duration of seizure, and maximal seizure severity score were studied and compared for focal stimulation treated (n = 9) and control groups (n = …

A Folded Neural Network Autoencoder For Dimensionality Reduction, Jing Wang, Haibo He, Danil V. Prokhorov

Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

Dimensionality reduction has been a long-standing research topic in academia and industry for two major reasons. First, in almost every domain, ranging from biology, social science, economics, to military data processing applications, the increasingly large volume of data is challenging the existing computing capability and raising the computing cost. Second, the notion of "intrinsic structure" allows us to remove some redundant dimensions from high-dimensional observations and reduce it into low-dimensional features without significant information loss. Autoencoder, as a powerful tool for dimensionality reduction has been intensively applied in image reconstruction, missing data recovery and classification. In this paper, we propose …

Ambient Habitat Noise And Vibration At The Georgia Aquarium, P. M. Scheifele, M. T. Johnson, L. Kretschmer, J. G. Clark, D. Kemper, Gopu R. Potty

Ocean Engineering Faculty Publications

Underwater and in-air noise evaluations were completed in performance pool systems at Georgia Aquarium under normal operating conditions and with performance sound tracks playing. Ambient sound pressure levels at in-pool locations, with corresponding vibration measures from life support system (LSS) pumps, were measured in operating configurations, from shut down to full operation. Results indicate noise levels in the low frequency ranges below 100 Hz were the highest produced by the LSS relative to species hearing thresholds. The LSS had an acoustic impact of about 10 dB at frequencies up to 700 Hz, with a 20 dB re 1 μPa impact …

Cultural Sites As Platforms For Environmental Characterization Of Marine Landscapes, Michael Lee Brennan

Open Access Dissertations

Our ability to understand and interpret archaeological data collected from the excavation of an archaeological site is constrained by our capacity to investigate it. This is often limited by our understanding of the surrounding environment and the modern landscape. This dissertation is composed of three separate studies, each of which examines the environmental and oceanographic contexts of archaeological sites using geophysical and geochemical analyses. The focus of these case studies is to initiate the process of determining the oceanographic and geological histories of the modern sites. Viewing sites from their abandonment to the present day provides an understanding of the …

Impacts Of Marine Invasive Species On Subtidal And Intertidal Food Web Dynamics, Nicole Rohr

Open Access Dissertations

Invasive species can have a variety of impacts on food web structure and interspecific interactions. They can impact recruitment rates of associated marine species, influence behavior of potential prey items, and alter predator-prey relationships. This research is designed to assess 1) the relationship between the recruitment of Lacuna vincta and two species of algal epiphytes, the native Ceramium virgatum and the invasive Neosiphonia harveyi, in the shallow subtidal zone; 2) the spatial and temporal distribution of the invasive Hemigrapsus sanguineus in the intertidal zone of cobble beaches; and 3) the top-down effects and predator-prey interactions of H. sanguineus.

Through manipulative …

Management Of Thyroid Dysfunction During Pregnancy And Postpartum: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline, Leslie De Groot, Marcos Abalovich, Erik K. Alexander, Nobuyuki Amino, Linda Barbour, Rhoda H. Cobin, Creswell J. Eastman, John H. Lazarus, Dominique Luton, Susan J. Mandel, Jorge Mestman, Joanne Rovet, Scott Sullivan

Cell and Molecular Biology Faculty Publications

Objective: The aim was to update the guidelines for the management of thyroid dysfunction during pregnancy and postpartum published previously in 2007. A summary of changes between the 2007 and 2012 version is identified in the Supplemental Data (published on The Endocrine Society's Journals Online web site at http://jcem.endojournals.org).

Evidence: This evidence-based guideline was developed according to the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force, grading items level A, B, C, D, or I, on the basis of the strength of evidence and magnitude of net benefit (benefits minus harms) as well as the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and …

An Adaptive Framework For Selecting Environmental Monitoring Protocols To Support Ocean Renewable Energy Development, Emily J. Shumchenia, Sarah L. Smith, Jennifer Mccann, Michelle Carnevale, Grover Fugate, Robert D. Kenney, John W. King, Peter W. C. Paton, Malia Schwartz, Malcolm Spaulding, Kritopher J. Winiarski

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Offshore renewable energy developments (OREDs) are projected to become common in the United States over the next two decades. There are both a need and an opportunity to guide efforts to identify and track impacts to the marine ecosystem resulting from these installations. A monitoring framework and standardized protocols that can be applied to multiple types of ORED would streamline scientific study, management, and permitting at these sites. We propose an adaptive and reactive framework based on indicators of the likely changes to the marine ecosystem due to ORED. We developed decision trees to identify suites of impacts at two …

Repeated Polyploidization Of Gossypium Genomes And The Evolution Of Spinnable Cotton Fibres, Andrew H. Paterson, Alison W. Roberts, Et Al

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Polyploidy often confers emergent properties, such as the higher fibre productivity and quality of tetraploid cottons than diploid cottons bred for the same environments¹. Here we show that an abrupt five- to sixfold ploidy increase approximately 60 million years (Myr) ago, and allopolyploidy reuniting divergent Gossypium genomes approximately 1–2 Myr ago², conferred about 30–36-fold duplication of ancestral angiosperm (flowering plant) genes in elite cottons (Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense), genetic complexity equalled only by Brassica³ among sequenced angiosperms. Nascent fibre evolution, before allopolyploidy, is elucidated by comparison of spinnable-fibred Gossypium herbaceum A and …

Shelf‐Basin Exchange Times Of Arctic Surface Waters Estimated From 228Th/228Ra Disequilibrium, M. Rutgers Van Der Loeff, P. Cai, I. Stimac, D. Bauch, C. Hanfland, T. Roeske, S. Bradley Moran

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

The transpolar drift is strongly enriched in ²²⁸Ra accumulated on the wide Arctic shelves with subsequent rapid offshore transport. We present new data of Polarstern expeditions to the central Arctic and to the Kara and Laptev seas. Because ²²⁶Ra activities in Pacific waters are 30% higher than in Atlantic waters, we correct ²²⁶Ra for the Pacific admixture when normalizing ²²⁸Ra with ²²⁶Ra. The use of ²²⁸Ra decay as age marker critically depends on the constancy in space and time of the source activity, a condition that has not yet adequately been tested. While ^{228 …}

Spatial And Temporal Patterns In Nutrient Standing Stock And Mass-Balance In Response To Load Reductions In A Temperate Estuary, Jason Seth Krumholz

Open Access Dissertations

The addition of excess organic matter into a system, commonly referred to as eutrophication (Nixon, 1995), is a widespread problem in estuaries throughout much of the world. To combat this trend, many management agencies are imposing regulations limiting the amount of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) which can be discharged into coastal waters through wastewater treatment and agriculture. In 2005, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) enacted legislation mandating that wastewater treatment facilities (WWTF) discharging their effluent into Narragansett Bay and its tributaries reduce the concentration of nitrogen in their effluent. This legislation will reduce wastewater nitrogen loading to …

Relationships Between Gender, Socioeconomic Status, Math Attitudes, And Math Achievement: An International Investigation, Sunny R. Duerr

Open Access Dissertations

Investigations into the factors related to math achievement have traditionally been studied within individual countries, despite the existence of large international data sets available for analysis. This dissertation investigated the relationships among gender, socioeconomic status, math attitudes, and math achievement based on information from 50 participating countries in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

Countries were grouped into clusters using hierarchical cluster analysis. Six cluster solutions were investigated based on average mathematics scores, average science scores, and average math attitude. The clusters were then validated on a separate sample using discriminant function analysis. The validation process utilized …

Age-Structured Multispecies Model Of The Georges Bank Fish Community, Kiersten Lynn Curti

Open Access Dissertations

Georges Bank has exhibited marked changes in ecosystem structure over the last half century. The community once dominated by groundfish and other finfish is now primarily composed of pelagic and elasmobranch species. Community dynamics are profoundly influenced by species interactions such as predation. The focus of this dissertation is to estimate the trophic interactions among fish species on Georges Bank. These species interactions are estimated by developing a multispecies, statistical catch-atage model of the Georges Bank fish community that explicitly quantifies the mortality due to predation.

Manuscript I: A submodel was developed for three important fish species on Georges Bank: …

Transport And Partitioning Of Organochlorine Pollutants In The Open Oceans, Lin Zhang

Open Access Dissertations

Remote open oceans were traditionally considered as sinks of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as industrial chemicals (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). In the context of reduced primary emissions as well as global warming, previous polluted reservoirs such as soil, large water bodies, and glaciers may act as secondary sources returning these POPs back to the atmosphere and ocean. It was also hypothesized that biogeochemical activities associated with phytoplankton in the water column would lead to the coupling of air-plankton systems to draw down the lipophilic POPs from the overlying atmosphere, similar to the biological pump taking up CO_{2 …}

New Director Of Lgbtq Center Named, Brianna Resto

The Good 5 Cent Cigar Articles

Article announcing the naming of a new LGBTQ Center director, Annie Russel

The University Of Rhode Island Graduate Dual Degree Program With The Technical University Of Braunschweig – Its Added Value, Synergies, And Gains For Engineering Students, Sigrid Berka

Online Journal for Global Engineering Education

This paper takes a closer look at the learning outcomes and synergies for participants of a dual degree master program between the University of Rhode island and the Technical University of Braunschweig. It focuses on an area of international graduate level education and collaboration that has not been very well researched so far: the impact of study abroad experience on graduate engineering students. Are there any technical skills or additional research methods gained by students involved in graduate level dual degree programs? To what extent does such a research intense program have an impact on broadening research perspectives and opportunities …

Curricular Affairs Committee Minutes December 19, 2011, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Committee Reports and Appendices

No abstract provided.

Acrl New England Scholarly Communication Special Interest Group Workshop: Open Access And Scholarly Societies: A Panel Discussion About The Opportunities And Challenges, Andrée J. Rathemacher

Technical Services Faculty Publications

This report covers a workshop held by the Scholarly Communications Interest Group of the Association of College and Research Libraries New England Chapter (ACRL/NEC), an independent chapter of ACRL. The workshop, titled "Open Access and Scholarly Societies: A Panel Discussion About the Opportunities and Challenges," took place on November 18, 2011, at the Hoagland-Pincus Conference Center in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.

Dynamics Of A Two-Dimensional System Of Rational Difference Equations Of Leslie-Gower Type, S. Kalabušić, M. R.S. Kulenović, E. Pilav

Mathematics Faculty Publications

We investigate global dynamics of the following systems of difference equations (Equestion Presented) where the parameters α 1, β 1, A 1, γ 2, A 2, B 2 are positive numbers, and the initial conditions x 0 and y 0 are arbitrary nonnegative numbers. We show that this system has rich dynamics which depends on the region of parametric space. We show that the basins of attractions of different locally asymptotically stable equilibrium points or non-hyperbolic equilibrium points are separated by the global stable manifolds of either saddle points or non-hyperbolic equilibrium points. We give examples of a globally attractive …

Concept Tests For A New Wire Flying Vehicle Designed To Achieve High Horizontal Resolution Profiling In Deep Water, Chris Roman, Dave Hebert

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Efficiently profiling the water column to achieve both high vertical and horizontal resolution from a moving vessel in deep water is difficult. Current solutions, such as CTD tow-yos, moving vessel profilers, and undulating tow bodies, are limited by ship speed or water depth. As a consequence, it is difficult to obtain oceanographic sections with sufficient resolution to identify many relevant scales over the deeper sections of the water column. This paper presents a new concept for a profiling vehicle that slides up and down a towed wire in a controlled manner using the lift created by wing foils. The wings …

Exploring The Effects Of Hypoxia On Sulfate Reducing Anaerobes, Annaliese K. Jones

Senior Honors Projects

Exploring the Effects of Hypoxia on Sulfate Reducing Anaerobes

Annaliese K. Jones

Sponsor: Bethany Jenkins, Cell and Molecular Biology

As a student about to graduate with a degree in Biological Sciences, I find myself faced with the need to find my own independent research interests and scientific voice. As a result of my interests in the fields of both microbiology and ecology, I am drawn to questions surrounding the role and behavior of microorganisms in the environment. With climate change being an issue capturing the attention of a large portion of the scientific community, I have chosen to focus my …

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (11/29/2011), University Of Rhode Island

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (Student Newspaper Archives)

This is a digitized, downloadable version of the University of Rhode Island school newspaper.

Association Between Regulator Of G Protein Signaling 9–2 And Body Weight, Jeffrey L. Waugh, Celver, Meenakshi Sharma, Robert L. Dufresne, Dimitra Terzi, S. Craig Risch, William G. Fairbrother, Rachael L. Neve, John P. Kane, Mary J. Malloy, Clive R. Pullinger, Harvest F. Gu, Christos Tsatsanis, Steven P. Hamilton, Stephen J. Gold, Venetia Zachariou, Abraham Kovoor

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Regulator of G protein signaling 9–2 (RGS9–2) is a protein that is highly enriched in the striatum, a brain region that mediates motivation, movement and reward responses. We identified a naturally occurring 5 nucleotide deletion polymorphism in the human RGS9 gene and found that the mean body mass index (BMI) of individuals with the deletion was significantly higher than those without. A splicing reporter minigene assay demonstrated that the deletion had the potential to significantly decrease the levels of correctly spliced RGS9 gene product. We measured the weights of rats after virally transduced overexpression of RGS9–2 or the structurally related …

Curricular Affairs Committee Minutes November 21, 2011, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Committee Reports and Appendices

No abstract provided.

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (11/2/2011), University Of Rhode Island

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (Student Newspaper Archives)

This is a digitized, downloadable version of the University of Rhode Island school newspaper.

Characterization Of Putative Iron Responsive Genes As Species-Specific Indicators Of Iron Stress In Thalassiosiroid Diatoms, Bethany D. Jenkins, Leann P. Whitney, Jeremy J. Lins, Margaret P. Hughes, Mark L. Wells, P. Dreux Chappell

Cell and Molecular Biology Faculty Publications

Iron (Fe) availability restricts diatom growth and primary production in large areas of the oceans. It is a challenge to assess the bulk Fe nutritional health of natural diatom populations, since species can differ in their physiological and molecular responses to Fe limitation. We assayed expression of selected genes in diatoms from the Thalassiosira genus to assess their potential utility as species-specific molecular markers to indicate Fe status in natural diatom assemblages. In this study, we compared the expression of the photosynthetic genes encoding ferredoxin (a Fe-requiring protein) and flavodoxin (a Fe-free protein) in culture experiments with Fe replete and …

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (11/1/2011), University Of Rhode Island

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (Student Newspaper Archives)

This is a digitized, downloadable version of the University of Rhode Island school newspaper.

Mapping Shallow Coastal Ecosystems: A Case Study Of A Rhode Island Lagoon, Mark Stolt, Michael Bradley, Jim Turenne, Maggie Payne, Eric Scherer, Giancarlo Cicchetti, Emily Shumchenia, Marisa Guarinello, John W. King, Jon Boothroyd, Bryan Oakley, Carol Thornber, Pete August

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

In order to effectively study, manage, conserve, and sustain shallow-subtidal ecosystems, a spatial inventory of the basic resources and habitats is essential. Because of the complexities of shallow-subtidal substrates, benthic communities, geology, geomorphology, and water column attributes, few standard protocols are fully articulated and tested that describe the mapping and inventory processes and accompanying interpretations. In this paper, we describe a systematic approach to map Rhode Island’s shallow-subtidal coastal lagoon ecosystems, by using, integrating, and reconciling multiple data sets to identify the geology, soils, biological communities, and environments that, collectively, define each shallow-subtidal habitat. We constructed maps for these lagoons …

Curricular Affairs Committee Minutes October 24, 2011, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Committee Reports and Appendices

No abstract provided.

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (10/21/2011), University Of Rhode Island

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (Student Newspaper Archives)

This is a digitized, downloadable version of the University of Rhode Island school newspaper.

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (10/20/2011), University Of Rhode Island

The Good 5 Cent Cigar (Student Newspaper Archives)

This is a digitized, downloadable version of the University of Rhode Island school newspaper.