Digital Commons Network^™

Incremental Bar Admission: Lessons From The Medical Profession, Jayne W. Barnard, Mark Greenspan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sex Plus Age Discrimination: Protecting Older Women Workers, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

There is little doubt that sexism and ageism still exist. To remedy these "isms," there are laws to protect both women and older workers from discrimination in the workplace, namely Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), which prohibits sex discrimination as well as discrimination based on many other protected categories, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), which prohibits age discrimination. Despite these protections, an older woman cannot bring a claim based on the fact that she feels she was discriminated against because she is an older woman. In other words, her …

Insurance, Terrorism, And 9/11, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Faculty Publications

The question of whether 9/11 has changed the insurance world cannot be answered simply. In some respects, nothing is different, but it is difficult to be sanguine about this assessment. Terrorism is less predictable in terms of magnitude and frequency of loss, and this raises doubts about the capacity of the industry with respect to future events. Until the uncertainty with respect to the terrorism risk abates and markets stabilize, problems of cost and availability will persist. This, of course, has been true in other insurance sectors in the past, and temporary dislocations do not necessarily justify government intervention. If, …

Sharing Indigenous Knowledge: To Share Or Not To Share? That Is The Question, Christine Hagar

Faculty Publications

The Internet and digital technology create new possibilities for the development of cultures,communities and knowledge. Over the last twenty years there has been a great increase in interest inindigenous knowledge from a variety of groups, including academia, development agencies and thecorporate world. Within this diverse range of interests, there have been initiatives to facilitate a globalnetwork to exchange indigenous knowledge by development agencies such as the World Bank's'Indigneous Knowledge for Development Program' and UNESCO's 'Best Practices of IndigenousKnowledge' database. The development agencies appear to be mainly concerned with systematizingindigenous knowledge and looking at the notion of indigenous knowledge as forming …

Judging Distance Across Texture Discontinuities, Cary S. Feria, M. L. Braunstein, G. J. Andersen

Faculty Publications

Sinai et al (1998 Nature 395 497 - 500) showed that less distance is perceived along a ground surface that spans two differently textured regions than along a surface that is uniformly textured. We examined the effect of texture continuity on judged distance using computer-generated displays of simulated surfaces in five experiments. Discontinuities were produced by using different textures, the same texture reversed in contrast, or the same texture shifted horizontally. The simulated surface was either a ground plane or a frontoparallel plane. For all textures and both orientations, less distance was judged in the discontinuous conditions than in continuous …

Some Loans Are More Equal Than Others: Third-Party Originations And Defaults In The Subprime Mortgage Industry, William P. Alexander, Scott D. Grimshaw, Grant R. Mcqueen, Barrett A. Slade

Faculty Publications

We show how agency problems between lenders (principals) and third-party originators (TPO; agents) imply that TPO-originated loans are more likely to default than similar retail-originated loans. The nature of the agency problem is that TPOs are compensated for writing loans, but are not completely held accountable for the subsequent performance of those loans. Using a hazard model with jointly estimated competing risks and unobserved heterogeneity, we find empirical support for the TPO/default prediction using individual fixedrate subprime loans with first liens secured by residential real estate originated between January 1, 1996, and December 31, 1998. We find that apparently equal …

Accounting For Science: The Independence Of Public Research In The New Subterranean Administrative Law,, Donald Thomas Hornstein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Night Thoughts: Reflections On The Debate Concerning Same-Sex Marriage, John V. Orth

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Parenting Skills And Social-Communicative Competence In Childhood, Craig H. Hart, Lloyd D. Newell, Susanne Frost Olsen

Faculty Publications

The ways that children implement social and communication skills in peer-group interaction provide the foundation for successful later life adjustment (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998). Research findings suggest that a host of variables are involved (Hart, Olsen, Robinson, & Mandleco, 1997). These include family processes involving marital and sibling relationships, parenting (e.g., Dunn, 2002; Hart, Nelson, et al., 2000; Stafford & Bayer, 1993), biologically based genetic and temperament factors (e.g., Pike, 2002; Plomin & Rutter, 1998; Sanson, Hemphill, & Smart, 2002), and extrafamilial influences, including the peer group, schools, media, and culture (e.g., Hart, Yang, Nelson, Jin, & Nelson, 1998; …

The Ecosystem Of Partnerships: A Case Study Of A Long-Term University-Community Partnership, Gary Daynes, Scott L. Howell, Nathan K. Lindsay

Faculty Publications

This article presents a case study describing a robust fortyeight- year partnership between the Boy Scouts of America, Brigham Young University, Utah Valley State College, and others in an annual merit badge Powwow1 for Boy Scouts. Service-learning occurs as five hundred university students and faculty prepare for and teach merit badge classes to five thousand Boy Scouts as part of this Powwow. The article presents the history and operation of the Powwow, describes benefits to participants, and identifies some of the factors that contribute to the enduring nature of the partnership. The case study suggests that partnerships are similar to …

Monitoring Environmental Stress In Forest Trees Using Biochemical And Physiological Markers, Rakesh Minocha, Subhash C. Minocha, Stephanie Long

Faculty Publications

Our objective was to determine the usefulness of polyamines, particularly putrescine, and amino acids such as arginine, as foliar indicators of abiotic stress in visually asymptomatic trees. An evaluation of apparently healthy trees is essential in developing risk assessment and stress remediation strategies for forest trees prior to the onset of obvious decline. Previous research by our group established a positive correlation between putrescine in red spruce foliage and A1:Ca ratios in the forest soil. A positive correlation was also observed between foliar putrescine and nitrogen deposition in the soil in pine, maple, and oak at Harvard Forest, MA. Preliminary …

Effects Of Weather On Autumn Hawk Movements At Fort Morgan, Alabama, Stefan Woltmann, David Cimprich

Faculty Publications

Migrating hawks were observed at Fort Morgan, Alabama during autumn 1995-1998. The three most abundant migrants were Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus), Broad-winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus) and American Kestrel (Falco sparverius). The three species accounted for 84% of all observations. Most individuals (> 80%) were seen heading west. Compared with days with east and south winds, days with north winds were associated with significantly higher passage rates for all species, and passage rates of Broadwinged Hawks were significantly higher on days when both a cold front and north winds occurred than on days with north winds only. …

Factors Affecting Ammonium Uptake In Streams - An Inter-Biome Perspective, Jackson R. Webster, Patrick J. Mulholland, Jennifer L. Tanks, H. Maurice Valett, Walter K. Dodds, Bruce J. Peterson, William B. Bowden, Clifford N. Dahm, Stuart Findlay, Stanley V. Gregory, Nancy B. Grimm, Stephen K. Hamilton, Sherri L. Johnson, Eugenia Marti, William H. Mcdowell, Judy L. Meyer, Donna D. Morrall, Steven A. Thomas, Wilfred M. Wollheim

Faculty Publications

The Lotic Intersite Nitrogen experiment (LINX) was a coordinated study of the relationships between North American biomes and factors governing ammonium uptake in streams. Our objective was to relate inter-biome variability of ammonium uptake to physical, chemical and biological processes. 2. Data were collected from 11 streams ranging from arctic to tropical and from desert to rainforest. Measurements at each site included physical, hydraulic and chemical characteristics, biological parameters, whole-stream metabolism and ammonium uptake. Ammonium uptake was measured by injection of '5~-ammonium and downstream measurements of 15N-ammonium concentration. 3. We found no general, statistically significant relationships that explained the variability …

Sea Surface Salinity Measurements In The Historical Database, Frederick M. Bingham, Stephan D. Howden, Chester J. Koblinsky

Faculty Publications

We have examined historical distributions of sea surface salinity (SSS) observations in a data set consisting of a combination of the World Ocean Database 1998 (WOD98) and a thermosalinograph and bucket salinity database collected from volunteer observing ships. It is well known that SSS in much of the world's ocean is measured infrequently or not at all. We find that 27% of one-degree squares in the world ocean (open and coastal, excluding the Arctic Ocean) had no observations of SSS in the historical database, and 70% had 10 or fewer. Systematic sampling of SSS (more than 10,000 observations per year …

Introduction Of The 305Arg→305Ser Mutation In The Large Extrinsic Loop E Of The Cp43 Protein Of Synechocystis Sp. Pcc 6803 Leads To The Loss Of Cytochrome C550 Binding To Photosystem Ii, Terry M. Bricker, Andrew Young, Laurie K. Frankel, Cindy Putnam-Evans

Faculty Publications

CP43, a component of Photosystem II (PSII) in higher plants, algae and cyanobacteria, is encoded by the psbC gene. Previous work demonstrated that alteration of an arginine residue occurring at position 305 to serine produced a strain (R305S) with altered PSII characteristics including lower oxygen-evolving activity, fewer assembled reaction centers, higher sensitivity to photoinactivation, etc. [Biochemistry 38 (1999) 1582]. Additionally, it was determined that the mutant exhibited an enhanced stability of its S2 state. Recently, we observed a significant chloride effect under chloride-limiting conditions. The mutant essentially lost the ability to grow photoautotrophically, assembled fewer fully functional PSII reaction centers …

Rotational Lift: Something Different Or More Of The Same?, Jeffrey A. Walker Phd

Faculty Publications

This paper addresses the question, do the rotational forces in the hovering fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster reflect something different (the Magnus effect) or more of the same (circulatory-and-attached-vortex force)? The results of an unsteady blade-element model using empirically derived force coefficients from translating (root-oscillating) wings are compared with recent results derived from both the measured forces on a dynamically scaled Drosophila wing and the computational fluid dynamic (CFD)-modeled forces on a virtual Drosophila wing. The behavior of the forces in all three models during wing rotation supports the hypothesis that rotational lift is not a novel aerodynamic mechanism but is …

Phylogeny Of Acridocarpus-Brachylophon (Malpighiaceae): Implications For Tertiary Tropical Floras And Afroasian Biogeography, Charles C. Davis, Charles D. Bell, Peter W. Fritsch, Sarah Mathews

Faculty Publications

A major tenet of African Tertiary biogeography posits that lowland rainforest dominated much of Africa in the late Cretaceous and was replaced by xeric vegetation as a response to continental uplift and consequent widespread aridification beginning in the late Paleogene. The aridification of Africa is thought to have been a major factor in the extinction of many African humid-tropical lineages, and in the present-day disparity of species diversity between Africa and other tropical regions. This primarily geologically based model can be tested with independent phylogenetic evidence from widespread African plant groups containing both humid- and xeric-adapted species. We estimated the …

Urinary Excretion Of Dithiocarbamates And Selfreported Cruciferous Vegetable Intake: Application Of The ‘Method Of Triads’ To A Foodspecific Biomarker, Jay H. Fowke, James R. Hébert, Jed W. Fahey

Faculty Publications

Objective: Greater intake of Cruciferous vegetables (e.g. broccoli) may prevent cancer at several sites. Urinary excretion of isothiocyanate conjugates (dithiocarbamates, DTC) provides a specific biomarker of Cruciferous vegetable consumption suitable for epidemiological investigations. However, no gold-standard referent is available for evaluating urinary DTC levels as an estimator of Cruciferous vegetable consumption. We compared urinary DTC levels to intake as measured by two selfreported dietary assessment techniques. Design: Cruciferous vegetable consumption was measured before and after a behavioural dietary intervention using multiple 24-hour recalls (24HR), a foodcounting questionnaire (VFQ) and urinary DTC excretion levels. Analysis included a structural equation approach (Method …

Interrelationships Among Landscapes, Ndvi, And Stream Water Quality In The Us Central Plains, Jerry A. Griffith, Edward A. Martinko, Jerry L. Whistler, Kevin P. Price

Faculty Publications

During late spring through summer of 1994 and 1995, 290 randomly selected stream sites in Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri were sampled once for several parameters including conductivity, turbidity, total phosphorus, nitrate-nitrite nitrogen, the index of biotic integrity, and a habitat index. Based on landscape data from watersheds that were delineated for each sampling location, interrelationships were examined between these water quality parameters and land use/land cover, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and vegetation phenological metrics derived from the NDVI. Statistically significant relationships were found between NDVI values and the derived metrics with the stream condition parameters (r values to …

Bergmann's Rule In Ectotherms: A Test Using Freshwater Fishes, Mark C. Belk, Derek D. Houston

Faculty Publications

Understanding patterns of variation in body size within and among species is a central question in evolutionary ecology (Schlichting and Pigliucci 1998). The most well known pattern of variation in body size is Bergmann's rule (Bergmann 1847; Mayr 1956). The intraspecific version of Bergmann's rule holds that within endothermic species, body size increases with increasing latitude (or decreasing temperature; Blackburn et al. 1999; Ashton et al. 2000). In general, mammals conform to this rule (Ashton et al. 2000).

Nonadditive Genetic Effects In Animal Behavior, Lisa M. Meffert, Sara K. Hicks, Jennifer L. Regan

Faculty Publications

Heritabilities, commonly used to predict evolutionary potential, are notoriously low for behaviors. Apart from strong contributions of environmental variance in reducing heritabilities, the additive genetic components can be very low, especially when they are camouflaged by nonadditive genetic effects. We first report the heritabilities of courtship traits in founder‐flush and control populations of the housefly (Musca domestica L.). We estimated the heritability of each male and female display through the regression of the courtships involving daughters and sons (with randomly selected mates) onto the “midparental” courtship values of their parents. Overall, the average heritability was significantly higher for the …

Using A Computer Simulation To Teach Science Process Skills To College Biology And Elementary Majors, Aimée T. Lee, Rosalina V. Hairston, Rachel Thames, Tonya Lawrence, Sherry S. Herron

Faculty Publications

The Lateblight computer simulation (Arneson and Ticknor, 1990) has been implemented in the general biology laboratory and the science methods course for elementary teachers to reinforce the processes of science and to allow the students to engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate the methods of building concepts in science. The students develop testable hypotheses and then use the program to run experiments and collect data. In addition, they research relevant background information and subsequently present their results in a poster during class.

A Circumpolar Perspective On Fluvial Sediment Flux To The Arctic Ocean, Robert M. Holmes, James W. Mcclelland, Bruce J. Peterson

Faculty Publications

Quantification of sediment fluxes from rivers is fundamental to understanding land‐ocean linkages in the Arctic. Numerous publications have focused on this subject over the past century, yet assessments of temporal trends are scarce and consensus on contemporary fluxes is lacking. Published estimates vary widely, but often provide little accessory information needed to interpret the differences. We present a pan‐arctic synthesis of sediment flux from 19 arctic rivers, primarily focusing on contributions from the eight largest ones. For this synthesis, historical records and recent unpublished data were compiled from Russian, Canadian, and United States sources. Evaluation of these data revealed no …

Infection Outcome And Cytokine Gene Expression In Brugia Pahangi-Infected Gerbils (Meriones Unguiculatus) Sensitized With Brucella Abortus, Sharon R. Chirgwin, Philip H. Elzer, Sharon U. Coleman, Jena M. Nowling, Sue D. Hagius, Matthew D. Edmonds, Thomas R. Klei

Faculty Publications

Filarial infections have been associated with the development of a strongly polarized Th2 host immune response and a severe impairment of mitogen-driven proliferation and type 1 cytokine production in mice and humans. The role of this polarization in the development of the broad spectra of clinical manifestations of lymphatic filariasis is still unknown. Recently, data gathered from humans as well as from immunocompromised mouse models suggest that filariasis elicits a complex host immune response involving both Th1 and Th2 components. However, responses of a similar nature have not been reported in immunologically intact permissive models of Brugia infection. Brucella abortus-killed …

Strong Founder Effect In Drosophila Pseudoobscura Colonizing New Zealand From North America, J. Reiland, S. Hodge, Mohamed A.F. Noor

Faculty Publications

The North American native species Drosophila pseudoobscura was first identified in New Zealand in the last few decades. Here, we have studied the genetic consequences of its spread across the Pacific Ocean. Using 10 microsatellites that are highly variable in North American populations, we found that the New Zealand population has substantially fewer alleles, a much lower average heterozygosity, and significantly different allele frequencies at these loci. We have discussed the relative sensitivity of these parameters for detecting the founding event. X-linked loci were more strongly differentiated between continents than autosomal loci, as reflected by larger changes in allele frequencies …

Associations Between Cardiorespiratory Fitness And C-Reactive Protein In Men, Timothy S. Church, Carolyn E. Barlow, Conrad P. Earnest, James B. Kampert, Elisa L. Priest, Steven N. Blair

Faculty Publications

Objective - This study examined the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and C-reactive protein (CRP), with adjustment for weight and within weight categories.

Methods and Results - We calculated median and adjusted geometric mean CRP levels, percentages of individuals with an elevated CRP (≥2.00 mg/L), and odds ratios of elevated CRP across 5 levels of cardiorespiratory fitness for 722 men. CRP values were adjusted for age, body mass index, vitamin use, statin medication use, aspirin use, the presence of inflammatory disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, and smoking habit. We found an inverse association of CRP across fitness levels (P for …

Histone Methyltransferase Activity Of A Drosophila Polycomb Group Repressor Complex, Jürg Müller, Craig M. Hart, Nicole J. Francis, Marcus L. Vargas, Aditya Sengupta, Brigitte Wild, Ellen L. Miller, Michael B. O'Connor, Robert E. Kingston, Jeffrey A. Simon

Faculty Publications

Polycomb group (PcG) proteins maintain transcriptional repression during development, likely by creating repressive chromatin states. The Extra Sex Combs (ESC) and Enhancer of Zeste [E(Z)] proteins are partners in an essential PcG complex, but its full composition and biochemical activities are not known. A SET domain in E(Z) suggests this complex might methylate histones. We purified an ESC-E(Z) complex from Drosophila embryos and found four major subunits: ESC, E(Z), NURF-55, and the PcG repressor, SU(Z)12. A recombinant complex reconstituted from these four subunits methylates lysine-27 of histone H3. Mutations in the E(Z) SET domain disrupt methyltransferase activity in vitro and …

Rf Rendez-Blue: Reducing Power And Inquiry Costs In Bluetooth-Enabled Mobile Systems, Eric S. Hall, Charles D. Knutson, David K. Vawdrey

Faculty Publications

In resource-limited mobile computing devices, Bluetooth wireless technology imposes a weighty burden due to inefficient power utilization and a sluggish device discovery process. Buttressing Bluetooth with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology by performing an operation we call “Rendez-Blue” alleviates these limitations. In the Rendez-Blue process, an RFID signal is used as a cue to “wake-up” a sleeping Bluetooth radio. This ensures that the Bluetooth radio is active only when needed, significantly reducing power consumption. In addition, RFID is used to communicate Bluetooth device information, allowing the user to bypass the traditional 10.24-second discovery process.

Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Ralph Costa

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Fluid Dynamics Of Flapping Aquatic Flight In The Bird Wrasse: Three-Dimensional Unsteady Computations With Fin Deformation, Ravi Ramamurti, William C. Sandberg, Rainald Lӧhner, Jeffrey A. Walker Phd, Mark W. Westneat

Faculty Publications

Many fishes that swim with the paired pectoral fins use fin-stroke parameters that produce thrust force from lift in a mechanism of underwater flight. These locomotor mechanisms are of interest to behavioral biologists, biomechanics researchers and engineers. In the. present study, we performed the first three-dimensional unsteady computations of fish swimming with oscillating and deforming fins. The objective of these computations was to investigate the fluid dynamics of force production associated with the flapping aquatic flight of the bird wrasse Gomphosus varius. For this computational work, we used the geometry of the wrasse and its pectoral fin, and previously measured …